I fell in love with these Thalia daffodils a few weeks ago. So I played around with the images in Photoshop a little.
Playing with Thalia daffodils
Category: Art
Garden art, PhotoShopped images, etc.
Updates and reruns
Some updates to recent posts …
Cornell Chronicle article on Durand Van Doran’s botanically inspired gate/sculpture outside the building where I work. More pix at my original post.
Another Cornell Chronicle article about Turfwork! student project. My original post on this project.
One more version of my May bloom day scan. Lori over at Gardener of Good and Evil taught me a new PhotoShop trick that drives this scan from antique to something much closer to the actual colors of the flowers. (Long story short: Duplicate layer, multiply. Though with this one I chose hard light which is even closer to the real McCoy.)
Minns Garden gate by Durand Van Doren
To get to my car after work, there are four ways out of the building where I work that are six of one, half dozen of the other. I usually take the conservatory route for the glimpse of the plants there. But I think I’ll be taking the west exit more often now so I can see the new gate installed today at the west entrance to Minn’s garden:
To appreciate this gate, you’ve got to move in close (more detail shots below):
The gate was designed by Landscape Architecture student Hannah Carlson, and created by artist/blacksmith Durand Van Doren. (See also his Ithaca Art Trail site.) Here’s Durand all spiffed up for today’s dedication.
I barely recognized him from the day I spent with him with my buddies Scott and Marc two years ago, where I learned quickly just how easy an artist like Durand makes it look. (I did manage to make some S-hooks to hang pots.) I borrowed this image from Marc’s website. Go check out his bowls. They make great gifts.
The gate features a dozen garden plants rendered in iron. (Click on images for larger views.) They are actually much blacker than they appear here. I adjusted the images to provide more detail.
What really makes these great is the inclusion of the roots below ground level.
And a few more close-ups:
New and improved May bloom day scan
Some folks have commented that they like the old-timey effect of my bloom day scans. That’s not intentional, I assure you. It’s due to using a crummy hand-me-down scanner and not having good imaging software on my home machine.
I took yesterday’s scan to work with me today and adjusted it with PhotoShop to try to get the colors closer to what the flowers actually looked like.
This is an improvement, but the bleeding heart still isn’t near as vibrant as it is in real life.
May Bloom Day scan
This month’s installment. It’s getting to be a little much for a single platenful.
Update [5/15/2008]: See new and improved version above.
