Discoveries

'Circles within circles,wheels within wheels and wave and waft and time and tide and still we wait and comb and look and seek and the treasure beneath our feet sparkles as we reach to touch the stars.'

This was the beautiful comment on yesterday's post from totalfeckineejit.

It led me to discover THE CHARNEL ROSE by Conrad Aiken (which I think it is from-but if it isn't, it is still beautiful and it still led me there!) I am sometimes at a loss for words when trying to say how much I like something-using the same old words from my tired old brain. This leads me to avoiding book reviews-and poetry reviews-I leave them to the good reviewers. However, I will say that this is such beautiful poetry-it is magical, sensual, full of colours, mystical and just amazing, and I had never heard of it! So thank you TFE for leading me there!



Snippets...

'Against an orange twilight sky

The street lamp gleams like clearer fire,

The cold wind spills the huddling leaves,

And cold bells, in the sombre spire,

Shake the wind with a savage sound...

The street lamp gleams like a golden eye.'

'The full moon showered her silver down

Across the sea sands white and brown.

Silver leaves of poplar tree

Shivered in shadow by the sea.'

The visual imagery in the poem is so vivid, and makes me wish I could paint it all.


My next discovery was on Today's Gold. I visited Lyndy on my party travels-which I am still conducting! I love these sparkly bats!

Discovery three-that there are apparently otters living in every county in England-except Kent! How dare those pesky otters reject the home of my fathers-and mothers? What is wrong with Kent, otters? Why have you rejected it?

I am sure they are there really-they are just too clever to be discovered those kentish otters!

The last discovery for tonight is an exciting photoshop one. I am sure I am not the first to find it, but as I did so myself I have no qualms in sharing! It is how to turn a negative back into a photo.

Ages ago, I bought some old glass negatives on Ebay-I think they are French. There were a number in the set-I wanted the one of the dolls house, the one of a cycling man for my Dad, and the one of a boy with a clarinet as a present. The others were good too.

I took pictures of them on my light box ages ago-before the discovery of the magic of PS. I found them and was having a play, when all of a sudden, the indistinct picture of two women in the woods suddenly became real looking. When I did the one of the boy on the bike I was stunned!

Here is the process.

I always say Photoshop-but really it is photoshop elements which has slight differences.

1. Open picture.

2.Duplicate layer. (either ctrl j or right click-duplicate layer)

3. Either drag on top of the picture a pale coloured texture, (which you have first opened!) or click on the little half black/half white circle (adjustment layers) and choose 'solid colour'. Choose white with the colour picker. Then click on the drop down menu at the top where it says 'normal', and choose 'exclusion'. Difference also works but exclusion is better. You will then have a positive where before there was a negative! I will show you all of them soon, but for now it is bedtime-so just the bike man!