After reading Dee’s blog (Pattern and Outrage) I followed her link to The Paris Collage Collective. One picture caught my eye. It wasn’t for this week, but I’m not sure what week it was. I had planned to stitch, but I ended up digitally collaging instead.

Apparently my dislike of freeways isn’t only about not liking to drive.

The first image is just variations of the original, I ran the original through several G’MIC filters, picked five, and put one, colorized red as the background and the other four in the corners. The original is in the center in front of the man and I used a mode (soft light, I think) to make his head show through.

The second is the original with the roads selected and filled with trees (poured as a pattern). Then I selected the bare dirt and cement and poured in 58 flowers and leaves (also as a pattern). Vehicles, streetlights, guardrails, and anything else my color picker didn’t see as black, gray, brown or tan are still there. I added children, birds and butterflies, trying to give them a little substance while keeping them about 60% transparent by using Illuminate to 2D shape and drop shadows. Hopefully, the Joni Mitchell quote makes it all clear.

I added a frame, because frames just seem to make everything look better. More cohesive, I think.

These are in my Digital Art Journal listed in the right sidebar. (Clicking the pics above will take you to the journal and clicking those pics will enlarge the images more.)(June 14, 2023 if the links don’t work when I add new content to the journal.)

Except for the last paragraph, I wrote this all after midnight last night. Remarkably, I was too tired at 2:30 to continue. A month ago I would have been up until 5 or sunrise, but I’ve been trying to be more of a day person. I am convinced my inner clock is more than 24 hours! Since I was at Sleep Medicine for my annual visit and to adjust my c-pap pressure on my new machine, I asked the doctor about that. He said melatonin should help, but sometimes less works better than more. I should take a quarter pill half an hour before I want to sleep and see how that works. Coincidentally, I just read an article about someone in Norway (I think) who successfully treats apnea with lifestyle change. Since I neither drink nor smoke and I eat 95% healthfully, that leaves exercise. So there’s another incentive to get moving more. In any case, I do plan to keep working at getting up in the morning rather than noon or later, and getting to bed earlier so I still get enough sleep. It’s one of those things that’s easier said than done, however.

After my son nagging me all weekend (gently from 1970 miles away) I spent Monday writing out a dream that seemed like it might be a good story intro. I still like it, but really have no idea what the story would be. I’d also like to get another dream written down that actually is a complete short story. Evidently my creativity is cycling back ’round to writing.

However, today I will aim again to doing some stitching. I have dot’s, baskets, weaving and log cabins on my mind. I also have plenty of UFOs, some of which might work with what’s on my mind.

. . . And then, there’s also housework, house projects and yardening to do.

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I really need to figure out tags and categories better!