Australia Day(s)

Yesterday was Australia Day. It was a perfect summer day, cool in the shade, very warm in the sun and we had a lovely cool evening where you could sit around outside in comfort.
I knew it was going to get warm so took Penny out early to Yarra Bend Park for our daily perambulation (we don't use the 'w' word, she knows that and gets keen to go before we are quite ready for a walk).
I took my trusty camera with me in case there were some interesting sights. The sun was shining through the leaves and I took a lot of photos with some thought of coming up with a design for our local tapestry weaving group's theme of Colour.
I am also considering making a small tapestry based on the theme Light and Shade (it is for an online group) and so was influenced by my recent thinking on that topic.

As I rarely draw or paint, I played around with a few of them in Photoshop to see if I could abstract them a bit, to make them easier to weave.  I just used the filters and came up with some that were more abstract.  It is great fun going through the filters, you get so many variations it is hard to keep track of what might be useful and what is just fun to do. I'll have to have a more serious look later and decide if I think I might actually be able to weave any of them.

I'm not sure why this filter option exists, I've never found a use for it, but it is a very different interpretation of the image.  I suppose, if I do this, it won't have to be green, I can make it any colour I like.  I love playing with the Hue and Saturation thingy too. 

I noticed that I was getting a lot of green and gold - very appropriate for Australia Day. I know we have the red, white and blue flag but so do a whole lot of other countries, so Australia's colours are usually green and gold.

Today is the Australia Day holiday, seeing Australia Day fell on a Sunday this year. As it is going to be hotter today, and is already windy, we took Penny out early again, back to Yarra Bend Park. It is quite close to the city, so we were surprised to see a kangaroo hopping around. Unfortunately, it is a dog-friendy park where dogs are off-lead and we did see one dog chase the kangaroo. We didn't see where the kangaroo ended up and were worried it had gone onto the freeway but then we met someone who had seen it (assuming there was only one) on the other side of the freeway and we hope it got into the bushy area beside the river where dogs do not go.

We go to this park because Penny can swim in the river, today there was also someone in a boat!

And you do get good shadows in the early part of the day. I'm not sure if I will ever get a good design out of this sort of image but it is enjoyable to take the photos and to be there seeing them.