Outdoors on Crowley's Ridge

Just a few quick shots of some of the flora and fauna at John and Maria's house

Cat portrait

It's very hard to get a good shot of a cat that's in focus. Darn things are skittish and tend to freak out from the flash.

Frozen Wasteland

Bitter Indiana cold often leads to bitter frost on everything.

Storm Damage in Indiana

We've had a series of storms come through the area in the last week, creating flash floods with their torrential downpours, and tree damage nearly everywhere. We've had no confirmed tornadoes in the area, but there have been more than one reported home with damage.
Here's a shot of a car on West Main Street in Crawfordsville, IN on Tuesday morning.

Floral study- spring 2010

A few of my more recent photos- all of these are untouched as of yet.
http://picasaweb.google.com/LShillings/FloralStudySpring2010

Specialist Bowman's tribute

One of the biggest flags I've seen was unfurled over the Main Street Intersection in Downtown Crawfordsville for the funeral procession of fallen soldier Specialist Brian Bowman today. He was the first military man or woman to be lost in combat in Montgomery County since 1969 during the Vietnam War. The turn out to honor his loss was outstanding. This was taken with my phone. I'll have more pics when I get the D60 unloaded.

Painting inspiraton

I've had a canvas sitting against the wall for about 3 weeks now, just waiting for me to decide what it wanted to be. At first I thought I would paint a barn in a field.. then I thought I would paint a really moody sky landscape. I couldn't bring myself to put the sketch on it for either of these things.... so the canvas sat, waiting.
I was out weeding the flower bed about a week ago, and I was so close to one of my echinacea flowers in full bloom that I was inpired to photograph its fabulous seed head, with it's intricate pattern. I started out with a close up of the one flower, then panned out to capture more of them in the background. I was happy with the image. Right then I decided that THIS was what needed to go on that canvas.... So, I did! I'm nearly done after just 2 days. Yesterday was background work and correction to my original sketch, today I've started laying in the flowers... I am happy with what's come out so far... I expect to finish tomorrow. I'll post pics of the finished piece. Meanwhile, here is the inspiration!

The canvas is quite large. 24"x48" so the foreground bloom will end up being quite huge. I plan on doing 2 smaller companion pieces that could be upclose features of different centers of the same species of flowers....
anyway, that's what I've been doing today.