Want to have some fun with your iPad or iPhone? Starting next week, I'll be teaching a workshop at the Hill Center, on Capitol Hill, called "Apps for  Artists,"  featuring the amazing photographic and image manipulation  tools now available  for these devices. It's scheduled for Thursday  evenings, September 6, 13, 20  and 27 at 7:00 p.m. I hope some of you can attend.

Each  session will begin with a demonstration of some of  these remarkable tools, and  then you'll get to try them yourself. We'll be using the iPad for the demos  because that  platform has the most apps and options, but many of these tools  are  available now for droids and other tablet formats,  or will be soon. The  Hill Center has WiFi, so you can download apps on the spot.

These three images are included in the Online Silent Auction for the Art League in Alexandria, VA. To learn more about this event, go to The Art League.

"The online silent auction of faculty work, the third event in our “30-Something” Summer Series, is only a few days away! We’re thrilled to present such a wonderful collection of works by our generous and talented faculty. Participating in the auction is a fantastic opportunity to own a masterpiece by a member of our talented faculty while supporting The Art League’s build-out at the Madison Annex. All proceeds from the auction go to fund the build-out project."

 UPDATE: The auction is over, and was a big success. Many thanks to all who participated!

I entered these three images in the first-ever cellphone photography exhibition, “Phoneography,” at the Photoworks gallery in Glen Echo, MD, and I’m happy to report that all three were accepted.

It’s cherry season, so my Cherry Collection has been quite active, with new photographic arrivals and new finished pieces. The cherry on the right in the triptych is also a solo piece, a previous “Catch of the Day” titled “Cherry Goes Down a Wormhole,” although I’ve rotated and flipped it to make it work better in this sequence.

Camera: iPhone 4S, fussed with, corrected, and assembled in Photoshop
no filters or special effects.

This is the same photograph as the last post, altered a bit. It was a really satisfying picture originally, and I could have just left it alone, but where's the fun of that? I'm a painter, so I started fussing with it. I stretched it, resized it, added more on three sides, adjusted the colors and  levels and focus, took out a little rock, added several more, strengthened some areas, faded others out a bit, darkened some things and lightened some, worked a lot on the water and the stripes, made the front shape into more of a crawling reptile with faces on both ends, added other faces, highlights, and just had a jolly good time. Spent way too much time on it, but now I like it even more. Had it printed really big. Got to look at it for a long time, which is the part I like. Changed the name because of the creaturely aspect of the front shapes.

It's interesting how often there is an almost spontaneous evolution of images into something else. Some images have spawned whole family lines. Many more would like to.