September • Colors of the Month

Focus on Earth Tones

“Brown is the color of hearth and home — of dried herbs and stone-ground bread and freshly baked cookies. It represents all of the nurturing, life-sustaining, down-to-earth qualities of terra firma, the very shade of earth itself. Just as in the sturdy oak, brown represents roots, a steady, stable source of security, comfort, and normalcy. It is the color of fertile soil and plowed earth, buckskin and rawhide, weathered redwood, bison and mustang, frontier land — rugged and outdoorsy. It is pine cone and bracken, chipmunk and acorn, beaver and doe. Brown is considered a classic shade of solid substance.”

- Leatrice Eiseman, “Brown: Earthy and Real,” Colors For Your Every Mood

Week 36 - Composition: Symmetry in Portrait

Noted fashion photographer, Patrick Demarchelier once said, “The dog is the perfect portrait subject. He doesn't pose. He isn't aware of the camera.” I couldn’t disagree more! Piper is constantly posing for my camera and this week’s challenge of symmetry in portrait photography is nearly impossible for the pup with the perpetual head tilt!

August 2019 in Pictures

“Ripe summer's queen in the hey-day of the year with robes that gleam with sunny sheen, sweet August doth appear." - R. Combe Miller

Week 34 - Storytelling: Color Without Color

“Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” - Claude Monet

I posted too late this week and others had the same ideas I did — sunflowers, butterflies, and carnival rides — typical August images. So instead, here’s my colorless ode to Monet’s waterlilies. #dogwoodweek34 #dogwood52 #2019dogwood52 #waterlilies #monetmoment

Stone Bank Sunflowers

“A sunflower field is like a sky with a thousand suns.” ― Corina Abdulahm-Negura

Links I Love • August 2019

“Education is a continual process, it's like a bicycle... If you don't pedal you don't go forward. “ - George Weah

• Books, Movies, Television:

  • Revisiting the Love Story of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in Their Own Words - I should reread this.

  • Early Sketches From ‘The Little Prince’ Found in Swiss Collection

  • 7 Lessons I Learned from Gilmore Girls - The Lorelais have much albeit quirky wisdom.

  • Everything We Know So Far About the Downton Abbey Movie (Premiering September 20th)

  • Everything We Know So Far About Season 3 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Premiering December 6th!)

  • This Tiny Traveling Bookstore Wanders the French Countryside

  • Libraries are Fighting to Preserve Your Right to Borrow eBooks

• The Hemingway obsession continues:

  • The Day Hemingway Liberated the Ritz Bar in Paris

  • Ernest Hemingway’s ‘A Moveable Feast’ in the Works as TV Series From Village Roadshow

  • The Extraordinary Life of Martha Gellhorn, the Woman Ernest Hemingway Tried to Erase

• Travel:

  • Do the French Take Too Much Vacation? - Ummm, no.

  • 5 Places to Experience the 1920s in Paris

  • Take A Virtual Walking Tour Inside Paris’s Covered Passageways

  • The 4 Classic Shopping Experiences You Can’t Miss In Paris

  • Paris’ First Floating Art Museum Just Opened — and It’s Completely Free

  • Paris' Overcrowded Louvre to Make Reservations Compulsory

  • A Trip Through France with Monet’s Masterpieces

  • Lavender Harvest in the South of France - So beautiful. If only, I could smell it!

  • Time Traveling at the TWA Hotel - This is so cool!

• Something a little different:

  • On Being a Good Aunt - I love being Auntie!

  • Americans Try to Guess French Hand Gestures - So funny!

  • This French Bistro Tile Collection at Anthropologie is so cute - I especially like the berry baket.