Beautiful Baby

Here are River's first birthday pictures!  I much prefer taking pictures outside, with interesting scenery and much better light, but winter doesn't lend itself well to such photos so we opted for the inside  this time around. I went with white background instead of black (I have sheets of both colors) because I figured it would help with the lighting, which wasn't that bright.
After I started editing the pictures, we decided to try one with all the words just like we did for Eli's first birthday. It kind of looks like a magazine cover, but it's fun to be able to see at a glance all the fun things she's doing when she turns one.

I took a few horizontal pictures, just so we had'em. I like the one where she's checking out her new shoes, and the one on the top right with the smile. So cute.


















We got some good pictures, and River was pretty happy for most of them. It helped to have Daddy and Elora making her laugh, and a fun ornament to play with. I almost chose the bottom right picture here for our big one, it's so cute and you can see her teeth.

As I was editing, I tried several different effects on the pictures, like the shading around the edges as you see below, or different textures, etc.. But I decided I liked the plain white just fine. The bottom one here is the same picture as the one with the words. I posed her feet that way so they weren't sticking out awkwardly, they stayed that way for a few of the photos.



































 I got rid of a lot of pictures where she was making a whiny face, but I decided to keep at least one, because it is so funny. This is her fake crying face:























But truly, this is her real birthday face:

Happy birthday, River! Feel free to click on the pictures to see them bigger.

Cold winter days

Our new home is only about forty miles away from where we've lived the last five years, so the weather is pretty much the same. The difference is the landscape upon which that weather falls, and that makes a marked difference. The wind isn't as biting when buildings and shrubbery block the breeze, and snow falls very differently when it isn't blown away as soon as it lands.
Winter came late this year, with the first skiff of snow not coming until late November. Of course we all had to go out and check it out. River wasn't that impressed:

Eli, River, Elora with the first snowfall.

After that we had some occasional days of heavy cold fog, which made for some beautifully frosted trees! River liked that much better.






































And there were snowy days that created drifts that melted soon after they came. This made for some beautiful walking weather!

River and Elora see the sights

Jonah was there too!

Since then of course we've had some pretty impressive snow days, even missing school once or twice! The plow-guy is a friend of Joseph, and he made a big pile for everyone to play on at the edge of our yard.























When we lived at Takini we saw some beautiful winter frost on our windows and on the long grass that surrounded our little group of homes. That same frost has been here in our new town, but it takes on a whole new dimension with the trees. We've seen some really neat displays over the last month or so:



























































Winter is not my favorite season, but there are some wonderful things to see this season if you really look closely. Unless you live in Texas. Then winter sucks.

new town sunset

We've seen our share of spectacular sunsets over the last five years, which were made even more breathtaking by the fact that there were no power lines or trees to obscure the view. But being away from those elements is what makes them feel more magical when they are back in the scene once again. Since moving to town, we've seen some pretty awesome evening displays, and the trees only make them more exciting.

These first two are from our backyard in October:







































 Then we saw a pretty sunset while walking on our way home from the post office one evening in November:
























































And this December our backyard was just as pretty:

M family...again!

Also this year, I did portraits for the "M" family! This is the third year in a row that I've had the chance to draw these cousins, and it seemed to make the process that much easier because I didn't have to wonder at the exact color of their eyes or hair: I'd done it before! It was fun to see how they've grown over the last year! The background colors here are similar to the blues in the last post; for some reason the very lightest blues aren't picked up by my camera very well, and the brown of the paper shows through, so you can't see how smooth the color transitions really are.
First we have this cute brother and sister:





It was fun drawing this girl because it wasn't the typical smile. The photo for the above girl was taken in fairly low light, and her face was dark and a little blurry, but I attempted to draw it with more of a "blurry" style with few hard edges, and I think it turned out great! It was actually fun and kind of freeing.. It was similar to the way I drew this cat a few years ago:

 Then there were these three siblings, the youngest of which was a newborn when I drew her last year! I had some interesting challenges with these too. For the baby, the picture I was initially given had some kind of phone filter that made it all soft-edged; cool for a photo, but really hard to draw for a drawing. At the last minute her mom posted a new picture of her on facebook; it was crisp and in focus, but the top half of her head wasn't in the shot. So I used it for the face, then drew an imaginary version of the bow from the first photo, as it was hard to see what her headband was like in this new photo. It turned out pretty good! Also, she was in a car seat, and I had to make up how her shirt was, which is why there are no folds or anything fancy to be seen in the cloth. My photo is slightly more yellow than the real drawing. (all three have very similar colors, the photos were just taken under different lighting conditions.)






















As for the brother, the photo I worked from was black and white! Again, his first photo had a weird filter on it so I couldn't really see the shape of his nose or anything. So I took the black and white photo to draw the details, then loosely borrowed colors from the first photo. Not bad. I think he looks older in this photo than he is in real life, but I hope his family won't think so.

 Finally, the oldest sister turned out great. Her photo was taken in sunlight and was just right for drawing.

This time around, drawing these kids was a breeze!