I am not a fine artist, but if I was, I would paint in watercolor.  It's dreamy, and imperfect, and all about composition.  As I was mindlessly scrolling through my Instagram feed over morning coffee, I saw that Anne from the blog Flax and Twine, had posted this amazing still life watercolor picture using the Waterlogue app.  You can take an ordinary photograph and run it through watercolor filters, to render your image as though it were hand painted. I kind of had to try it for myself.  These are all pictures you've seen on my blog over the last year, totally transformed. I'm so curious to see how they print, because they are too pretty to live in a phone. Of course, the real thing is so much better, and if you can afford it, investing in the work of true artists is the best way to go for everyone, and boy do I have a list of artists I'd love to commission, but for a cheap thrill this is a beautiful new way to manipulate ordinary digital photos... 

I take thousands of pictures a year, but save for a few self- portrait head shots meant for facebook, you're pretty hard pressed to find a picture of me. I'm fine with this, because I am one of those people who dreads looking at a full body picture of myself. I immediately scan to my mid section, and then up to the area above my mid-section, and then to my big hair. Being "voluptuous" is a source of frustration for me, so I'm happy to be on the other side of the camera.  The problem is that there are no pictures of our family, together. This makes people like my elderly grandmother very sad, and I don't like to make my grandmother sad.  Today we put on our very best Gap clothes, set the timer, and said cheese (about 100 times).  There was no clear winner, except for the totally unacceptable picture above, so I chose this one:

My favorite places to take photographs are playgrounds, parks, pools and beaches.  I love muted color backdrops and when my kids are running around playing I get their most natural expressions...this is what I want to remember about them.  I like to frame my pictures in such a way that they are the subject, but not necessarily the focus and I take most of my pictures with Instagram, because my phone is so portable, and because they are square which I find most pleasing. I save the images without a filter, so that i can edit them later to get them right. I've even been known to take high resolution photographs with my Canon and then put them through Instagram to keep the mood consistent, and avoid the time spent editing. Here are some of my faves...