flower art Friday 4 May

LeAnne has set up a new weekly challenge – Flower art Friday This is my contribution for the challenge wild fennel seedheads silhouetted against the sunset and treated with the glowing edges filter

Photo Art Friday April 27

This week we can, as usual, post any image we feel qualifies as photo art OR post an image that, as part of the editing to make it into a piece of art, uses one of Bonnie’s textures. I have used her Ornate Linen texture blended in hard light at 44% opacity. I have used [...]

progressive challenge – sunflowers

The Yahoo group ArtTechniquesDigital challenge this week was a progressive challenge where we had to start with an image of sunflowers, add an image containing lines, combine it in an interesting way using blend modes, filters or brushes. Then add an overlay of an aged texture and blend suitably. Then add another sunflower image – [...]

Photo art Friday – meaningful words

Photo Art Friday’s challenge for 13 April is to post any piece of photo art that strikes your fancy OR to share a piece of photo art that somehow features a quotation that you hold dear – a quotation that has proved meaningful or significant in your life. If you like, you can share in [...]

Luang Prabang – introduction

Luang Prabang is encircled by mountains and set 700m above sea level at the confluence of the Nam Khan and Mekong Rivers. It now welcomes visitors with a degree of sophistication that was probably un-dreamed of, in terms of the quality of accommodation and restaurants that is now available, when it first opened up to [...]

Luang Prabang – wat vat is that

A short guide to temple (vat  or wat) architecture:  The uposatha (Lao sim; ordination hall) is always the most important structure in any Buddhist wat. The high-peaked roofs are layered to represent several levels (usually three, five, seven or occasionally nine), which correspond to the various Buddhist doctrines. The edges of the roofs almost always [...]

Luang Prabang – a couple more wats

The next day I visited Wat Mai Suwannaphumaham or simply Wat Mai, which is the biggest Budhhist temple in Luang Prabang. The name Wat Mai Suwannaphumaham means The New Monastery of the Golden Land. Its most notable feature is its wonderful gilded facade detail main doors in the gilded facade more stencilwork Buddha figures in [...]

Friday Photo Art – path

For the challenge for 30 March-1 April over at  Photo Art Friday we have the option  of showcasing any piece of photo art, OR a piece featuring our interpretation of a path or a road. This time I have chosen to showcase a photo straight out of the camera. It was taken in the lovely wooded [...]

the white temple at Chiang Rai

We took a car up to Chiang Rai to visit the amazing white temple of Wat Rong Khun designed and built by the Thai artist Ajarn Chalermchai Kositpipat, Thailand’s answer to Gaudi, whose aim is to promote and celebrate Buddhist art and thereby to collect sufficient funds to complete the building. Surprisingly, entrance to this [...]

a walk round Chiang Mai

Late one afternoon, when it was much cooler, we set off on foot to visit a number of wats that I wanted to photograph. We started at Wat Chedi Luang. Although the front of the grounds houses new, ornately decorated temple buildings, Wat Chiedi Man is home to the ruins of a 600-year-old temple that [...]