(Some of What) I Learned in November 2015

Every month Emily P. Freeman hosts a what we learned in (name of month just passed) linkup. November just ended; two days ago on Sunday, we started the Church's New Liturgical Year of Grace!




1. Forever I've enjoyed drawing and photographing houses and other buildings. I love those lines, angles, trajectories, and curves!!! Simply looking around almost anywhere in Current City is a visual architectural treat. After starting the photo gallery of the houses in this neighborhood that I mentioned as part of my September learning, I learned I only liked the ones that included some foliage, greenery, shrubbery, or desert plant life. These four houses are a small sample.

2. Closely related to (1.) They talk about the "golden hour" for photography; I found the sun about an hour before sundown glowed golden over the houses and even more golden through the camera viewfinder, so I'll take my next group around the same time in the afternoon.



3. A couple Sundays ago I had my first keyboard gig in Current City; it was the first anywhere in a long while. No surprise that I loved the audience and the compliments, even though it was more background music than a concert. I took some pics of the venue with its lines, angles, trajectories ...and plants.

4. It felt indescribably wonderful to be able to invite people to Thanksgiving Dinner at Church In West LA for the first time in almost forever. That's something I kind of already knew, but it's still on my list of learnings because I wasn't quite sure how fabulous it would feel.

5. As my some of what I learned header design demonstrates, I'm still living a big loud noisy enthusiastic "yes" to Current City. BTW, the skyline is a free photoshop brush that comes bundled with several other continental USA cities: NYC (3), Miami, LA, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Atlanta, San Diego, Boston.

6. My current crazy living situation is fun, exciting, energizing, and revitalizing. Long ago someone told me I loved "the thrill of the chase," and told me God would order my life with that in mind. For too long everything was so bleak, dreary, depressing, and off-putting, there was no chase, little activity of any kind. But with new, resurrected life a-stirring, it's getting fun. Exciting may happen soon!


7. The cyan layer in a printed photograph or page really does fade, seriously it does! I've made at least two or three dozen versions of my analog pic of Mount Olympus Utah, and this time I took the cyan report to heart, also added a summery exposure, and got the best results yet. For similar reasons I got excellent outcomes on several scans of brighter city day camp pics from City of History; I've included one from a hike because the people aren't exactly recognizable. It was a long time ago, but still—I think you know what I'm saying!


8. There's nothing like an autumn afternoon sundog over the Pacific along with Agave americana – century plants –, palm trees, and other characteristically southern California natural features.

9. For now I have plenty enough of elegant, hand-drawn script fonts—Butterscotch, La Veronique, Faith and Glory, Bombshell Pro, are a few of the latest best. None of those was free of charge, but if you love typography, you might visit Creative Market's weekly freebies. Almost every week they include a free typeface.