Observing

Tonight we had, 'PM Preschool'. Both kids were invited to participate. The preschool held an event this evening to highlight the program. Let me tell you this, our son was happy to be going to preschool twice in one day and our daughter was BEYOND ECSTATIC to actually be going to preschool.

Are you going to stay in the room with me Mommy?

No, not if you don't want me to.

Good. I want to stay and play aaaalllll day.

And play is exactly what she did. I was able to peek in on her to see how she was interacting and engaging in the different activities. And the differences in our kid's personalities was so obvious being an observer. My son was bouncing around with his little buddy playing cars, blocks, magnets, having snack, cars again. Talking, laughing and being very social. Our daughter would choose a station and really spend time exploring everything about it. She talked quietly with the teacher and the other kids at her table. She was very calm and never appeared rushed. Reserved but definitely not shy. And totally and completely ready for preschool. She came home with twenty pieces of painted artwork. And that is not an exaggeration.

Tonight's blip is of a good friend of mine. We met through our boys at the school. They are best little preschool buds. As I was clicking photos of the kids, I snapped one of her. "Oh my gosh, you're not taking one of me are you?" "Yep, just did.....blip it up!!!" She laughed. I obviously played around with photoshop again this evening. Pushing the boundaries of 'normal photography' a bit. But hence the blip name. This is exactly why I wanted the word ABSTRACT in my blip identity. This whole thing is a learning process and the nice thing about blip is that you can post something out of the box one day and then start fresh the next day. This one is not too out of the box, I just experimented a bit with a patterned layer.

And thank you so much to everyone who viewed and commented on yesterday's blip. I used Photoshop cs5 and lightroom to achieve the effect. In photoshop, I uploaded two photos and placed them side by side. One photo was spray from the hose taken with my flash and the other photo was of my son on the skateboard holding the umbrella. When I took those two photos, I didn't know at the time that I would be combining the two. Once in photoshop, I used a lasso tool and I cut out the image of my son on the skateboard with the umbrella. I then moved it right over to the water spray photograph and set it on top where I wanted it. It looked a bit choppy so I used the blur tool to soften the edges. In lightroom, I worked on the lighting and added some contrast. I pulled down the color except for the orange/red umbrella. This might be totally confusing to read but it really isn't very hard. The whole cs5 program is pretty overwhelming but I am trying to experiment with a couple of the tools every know and then so that I can get a better grasp on it. But I loved the support and the comments. Each one made me smile. I told my husband last night, I get a real surge of positive energy when I post a photo that just makes me feel creative and expressive. And to see such positive feedback has really been a treat for me. So thank you! Thanks for your consistency in following my journal. I have definitely slowed down on my commenting due to busy schedules but I get around to my favorite journals when I get the chance and always walk away feeling a bit more inspired.