Raindrops on Pine Needles

Raindrops on Pine Needles
Originally uploaded by randubnick.

It was warmer than usual today, in the forties, and the rain was dissolving what was left of the snow. When I have a busy day like today, it often seems unlikely that I will have a chance to make art. But as I was coming back from an errand, I noticed the raindrops on the pine needles. They looked like blown glass! So I took some quick pictures with my phonecam. Later I opened the images in my computer. The best image was this one, but there was a problem: in the background some dead leaves were caught in the branches, and although I liked the burnt orange color, those leaves distracted attention from the pine needles and wreaked havoc with the composition. So I opened the image in Painter IX and used some digital chalk, very light and transparent, to make the color more neutral. Then I cropped the image and adjusted the contrast a bit to try to bring out the beauty of the raindrops and the pineneedles. None of this took very long. But it is a good reminder that just when I think I can't find time to make art, it finds me!