Barns, barns, barns!

Here are more photos taken with my iPhone and edited on my ipad, for the most part.  It seems there are so many barns that are in a state do disrepair. Sadly, it is a sign of the times. In their place are usually square structures made of aluminum. Pretty soon all the old beautiful barns will be gone.

Barns and Churches

I'm continuing with the Rural America theme, barns and churches mostly. The images were taken with either DLSR or the native iPhone camera. All the edits and paintings were done on the ipad.

Rural America

The following are images from my recent road trip through North Dakoa, and my recent back road travels through Minnesota. All images were taken with an iPhone or my DSLR, uploaded to my ipad, and processed using many apps.

Paintings of Taylor's Falls, MN

My favorite time of year--NOW! 

Day Trip Down To Winona

The Hubs and I decided to take a day trip last Friday to take in some more fall color and just enjoy the day.  We ran across a curious thing.  It was like a little community of floating houses on the Mississippi River at Winona, called Latch Island.  You can tell that there's been a drought.  Many of the little houses had rain barrels, but they appeared to be empty.  We aren't sure if these are just weekend cabins, or if people stay year round~if so I think it could be really cold.  Anyway, I thought it was strange enough to take some images.

Taylor's Falls, Autumn 2012

I've had a chance to spend a little time painting from some of the images I took last week at Taylors Falls.  It's so beautiful this time of year, and I hope to get down to the Lake Pepin area next weekend, if the wind doesn't blow all the leaves off the trees.

Week 4, Open Studio at Digital Art Academy

This is the 4th and final painting for class at Digital Art Academy.  All painted in Photoshop CS6 with the Art History Brush. Original image taken this past week at Taylors Falls, MN, where we have beautiful fall colors right now!

Week 3, Open Studio at Digital Art Academy

Week 3 at Digital Art Academy taught me how to record my brush strokes in Corel Painter, and how to play them back.  Very fun class.

Have a great day!

Minnehaha Falls

Believe it or not, we have our very own Falls here in Minneapolis.  Here's a few pics from our recent hike from the Falls to the Mississippi and the Lock and Dam.

Boating on the St. Croix River

Here it is half of August gone and I've not posted.  It seems that if I have no pictures to post, I don't bother to blog at all. Probably because I don't have anything to say, but, oh well.

Last weekend we went boating on the St. Croix River--our first time ever. Unlike the Mississippi, the St. Croix is very clean and doesn't seem to have suffered from the same drought conditions that the Mississippi has.  Not sure why, it's just so.  The boats on the St. Croix are yacht like and house boat size.  They park on the along the little islands where their inhabitants play all day.  Here are some photos.  I wanted to try out the oil filter on the new upgrade, Photoshop CS6.  In addition, I used Topaz Simplify and Topaz Adjust.

Paddle Boats getting ready to tour the river.

Big boats!

Wish I lived there!

Bayfield, Wisconsin Fishing Boat

Time to get back to watercolors.  This is a fishing boat we saw in Bayfield, Wisconsin. A sweet little coastal town right on Lake Superior.  You can take the ferry over to Madeleine Island, which is where all the rich people go--similar to the Hamptons.  Anyway, here's the result.

Have a wonderful, peaceful evening.

Waterfalls of the Upper Peninsula

This is the last batch of processed images from our trip.