JPiX Jewish Photo Blogger Carnival 2014

Welcome to JPiX, the Jewish Photo Blogger Carnival, winter 2014 edition. Hope you will enjoy the tour of Jewish-inspired photos from around the world. Today we are visiting Israel, Crimea, California and Highland Park, New Jersey. Featured are a funeral and a wedding; sushi and bread; snow, sunsets and koi. I like to start with Batya, because if it weren’t for her, this carnival would not exist. If you like an image, please visit the post and leave a comment for the photographer. Comments welcome on this post as well, of course.

Batya
jerusalem window by Batya sukkah by Batya shiloh gathering by Batya

Leah
wedding by Leah chanukah by leah jude star by Leah

Lorri
sea floor by Lorri kiddush cup by Lorri Lorri countryside

Devo
bread devo-koi  devo-pigeons

Mason
sushi candles by Mason Resnick playing Jewish Quarter by Mason Resnick erev shabbat by Mason Resnick

Sharon
Chanukah in Jerusalem by Sharon windmill by sharon knesset in snow

Toby
toby-efrat-snow-150px toby-sun-150px sunset toby

Cosmic X
sukkot by Cosmic X funeral Rav Ovadiah Yosef by Cosmic X snow

Leora
chanukah one night by Leora lightrail in sepia Jerusalem by Leora jerusalem building Leora

If you want to submit to a future edition of JPiX Jewish Photo Blogger Carnival, the form is on the JPiX page. The next edition will probably be in June or July 2014. If anyone would like to volunteer to host (a brave proposition because you need to be good with a photo editor), you can let me know by comment or by the JPiX form.

You can see past JPiX:

Review with Female Cardinal

female cardinal
This female cardinal in my backyard was the first photograph I took in 2014. Note she is duller than her brightly colored male mate – she has one streak of red feathers to display. What was your first 2014 photograph?

On My Blog

house on N 5th avenue illustration cardinal says: Are you pointing at me?line art of house tall north 7th
male cardinal basks in the sun umbrella tufted titmouse on roof with snow
one night one candle Chanukah nest in burning bush hawthorn berries in Highland Park, New Jersey
Peace and Friendship Garden Gingko at 317 Denison - arguably oldest species of trees on Earth yellow flowers Rutgers Gardens

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve done a review. I was considering doing a 2013 review, but perhaps that will have to wait until right before 2015. Come back on Sunday, and I will have up a new edition of JPiX. I also have a post of an umbrellas watercolor that I plan to show next week. I’m almost finished with another house illustration. I’ve been collecting illustrations of #trees on Pinterest – let me know if you find some good ones. I’m also in search of good illustrations for blog Subscribe buttons or links.

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

House Illustrations and Illustrator Notes

house on N 5th avenue illustration
I am continuing my work on house illustrations. Last week I showed you a sketch I had done of a Highland Park house. Above is my Illustrator version of an illustration of this home. I originally made all the windows black, and then I decided to switch the windows above to a blue gradient, so it looks like a sky reflection. The illustration is made of a collection of shapes placed in many layers in Illustrator.

One of the features of a good flat design illustration is eliminating details and only depicting what is most important to view. This process of what to include and what to leave out is not an easy one.

tall house North 7th
My long term plan is to depict at least three homes in this manner. Here is another house illustration – I sketched the above drawing by hand using pencil and then a ink pen (then I scanned it into the computer). If you know Highland Park, I welcome you to walk around and look at the homes to see if you can find these. But I won’t identify them directly.

I also plan to do some flat design bushes and trees as elements in between the homes. The lamppost in the top illustration makes a fine detail for this purpose as well. I’ve been collecting various illustrations in Pinterest so I can refer to those illustrations for ideas.

line art of house tall north 7th
This morning I was playing around with the Live Trace tool in Illustrator, and I created the above line art drawing from the original sketch.

This process of creating a suburban street scene with houses and trees is taking longer than I anticipated.

Houses, Roofs, Illustrations

House on North Fifth
The last time I started working on houses, roofs, and illustrated street scenes I got as far as this roof with second floor and then that was it for quite a while. I’m now tackling the projects of depicting a few houses in a row in a flat design illustration. So far, I photographed a few houses, searched for old photographs I had taken and decided it was easier to take new ones, did one or two pen illustrations from my house photographs, and started an illustration of one house in Adobe Illustrator.

I also pinned a fair number of house illustrations to Pinterest. I noticed the successful illustrations follow less is more … a few accents in color can go a long way.

After I do a few houses, I plan to work on illustrated trees, bushes and other elements you might find in an old-fashioned borough like Highland Park. I’m hoping I can find a way to do clouds that don’t look like everyone else’s clouds. Stay tuned for more houses, roofs, illustrations and my artistic endeavors in those areas.

Umbrellas on Raritan Avenue

Umbrellas of Raritan Avenue, watercolor by Leora Wenger
Umbrellas of Raritan Avenue, watercolor by Leora Wenger, 2013

I have mixed feelings about my art work lately; it takes me a long time to do a painting, then I don’t care for my execution of the painting. But I am attracted to my original idea of Umbrellas on Raritan Avenue. So today in my art group I started a drawing for another painting, this time with a close up detail of the umbrellas:

umbrella drawing Raritan Avenue

My photos come out darker than the original, and despite playing a bit in Photoshop, it’s still too dark. But I like this composition. I won’t give up – maybe at some point I’ll say, yeah, that’s where I was aiming.

Here I am, posting rain imagery on a day that it snowed. Ah, well, snow is another subject to tackle.

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