Easter Monday @ National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden

Yesterday (Easter Monday) the National Mall and the museums that make this city so marvelous were jam-packed with tourists viewing everything from aircraft to live insects to whisper-weight vintage silk gowns once worn by first ladies.

The National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden provides a welcome oasis of calm and is a great place to stop and rest inbetween visiting other museums on or near the National Mall.

The sculpture garden is an oasis of calm (Photos by Karen Carstens)

One of several entrances to this marvelous magical garden that enchants young and old alike.

Even the iron gates of the garden are like works of art.

The fountains and pool at the center of the garden invite people to relax and while away a few minutes - or hours - in reverie. La Reve. Der Traum. Il Sogno. Something we all long for.

These diagonal lighting effects were captured unintentionally, but I kind of like them.

The sculptures on view inside the garden never cease to fascinate - revisiting the garden is like rediscovering them every time. (Each sculpture is followed by its description stone - these little plaques are discreetly yet visibly placed near each work of art.)

This rabbit (Thinker on a Rock, 1997) could have many connotations - Rodin's famous "Thinker" of course springs to mind, as does Alice in Wonderland and even Giacometti (the Paris-based sculptor from the Italian Swiss Alps - he had several brothers who were also artists and designers). But it also reminds me of that outlandish "Donny Darko" film in which a juvenile yet deeply disturbed Jake Gyllenhall was haunted by that evil rabbit which represented death/the grim reaper (?) It's a Mad World!

Could this be a stair- um "chairway" to heaven?

This playful and quirky "Cheval Rouge(" (Red Horse) by Calder makes me think - only because of its title - of the Blue Rider Expressionist movement that was centered around Munich in 1911/12. When Franz Marc painted his famous "Blue Horse," people were shocked. Today it is a modern masterpiece.

Easter Variations - The Edge of Reason (Second Act)

As I spent more and more time toying with Photoshop after meeting a deadline at work last week, I accidentally came across what seemed like a "magic" function that just so happened to turned an image of pussywillow branches festooned with decorated Easter eggs into ONE SINGLE MONGO-HUGE EGG (ok, egg-shaped thingamajig).

Easter decorations at the Neue Galerie New York (Photos by Karen Carstens)

Easter decoartions at the Neue Galerie New York (original, unadulterated, image).

The same image, now encased in "plastic wrap" (Photoshop).

"plastic wrap" - liquified (by moi, using Photoshop function "Liquify")

"plastic wrap" - liquified - egg (using Photoshop functions "Polar Coordinates" + "Liquify")

Et voila - POLAR COORDINATES seemed to somehow flip around my original image into an egg-like shape with weird, inverted, mirror images. Coincidence? Perhaps. It was interested that I stumbled upon this Photoshop function just a few days before Easter! By using other functions, notably "clouds" and "swirl" - as well as by changing the "hue" of these images - I came up with a new "series" of colorful Easter eggs.

I also created some decidedly darker, more psychedlic-looking versions in this egg series, also all based on the "polar coordinates" effect available in my version of Photoshop (which the long-suffering graphic designer at my not exactly ultra-innovative workplace, at least in terms of IT/multimedia capabilities, calls "Photoshop Light.")

I repeat, please nobody tell me to get a life. I find this kind of thing fun, and view it as part of my current Spring Awakening style Gen X multimedia learning curve - minus any desire to wade into deep water until I can go no further, that is ... Go ahead and laugh out loud at me, all you "digital native" Millenials. At least I can confidently claim that I cannot check Facebook for up to four - yep, FOUR - days and still be OK. (Although I did that recently - over the Easter weekend - and missed a dinner invite from a friend I had not seen in ages - darn! Note to self: Never ignore Facebook again for more than four days!!!)

Easter Variations - The Edge of Reason (First Act)

Imagine just how endless the possibilities are to get creative with Photoshop. Here are a few more Eastertime "variations" that border on the psychedelic. The world of photography will never be the same for you once you let the good times roll with Photoshop!

Easter decorations at the Neue Galerie New York (Photo taken with an iPod by Karen Carstens)

The same image, now overlaid/altered using "cross hatch" in Photoshop.

"paint daubs"

The same image, after altering the hue and saturation with Photoshop.

"texturizer"

The same image, transformed via the "photocopy" function in Photoshop.

I really like this final "photocopy" image. The "texturizer" version is also weirdly appealing to me because it reminds me of images in picture books from my childhood. (For some reason it conjures up images in my mind of almost garishly colored books featuring puppets on adventures that I found mesmerizing as a kid which were printed sometime in the 1960s or 70s.)

Easter Variations - Flower Power (Part Deux)

More fun with Photoshop!

Flower arrangement at the Neue Galerie New York (Photo taken with an iPod by Karen Carstens)

The same image, now with "angled strokes" - yep, I was trying it on in oh so many ways with Photoshop!

The same image, now in "crosshatch" - you can really see this effect in the lower lefthand corner of the image.

The same image, now super-saturated and in "paint daubs" - does this look like a painting, or what?

(Please nobody tell me that I seriously need to get a life - playing around on Photoshop is like free therapy for me ... and it helps me avoid DC rush hour madness when I do some after-hours blogging on me trusty ole work PC station ... Someday I will, however, venture outdoors again, especially now that at least some of the tourists who were here in DC to see the cherry blossoms/descend upon the National Mall during their own Easter mini-break weekends have hopefully GONE HOME. As much as I think it's great that people visit and truly treasure DC as our nation's capital sometimes I really just want them all to LEAVE ... I say this after engaging in the fatal error of driving towards the National Mall on Easter Monday to attempt to park and meet someone at a major museum for a multimedia story I was working on - NEVER AGAIN! GAH!)

Easter Variations - Flower Power

Here are some variations on the same theme I would like to share with you courtesy of Photoshop. I was playing around with some Easter-themed images last week on Photoshop (or the non-deluxe version thereof I also use during my "day job"), before the Easter Bunny was due to visit everybody, but am only getting around to posting these pics now as a way of saying "Happy (belated) Easter!"

Flowers at the Neue Galerie New York (Photo taken with an iPod by Karen Carstens)

The same image, converted via Photoshop to a basic black-and-white shot.

The same image, transformed yet again via Photshop's "colored pencil" function.

The same image, this time in "film grain" (my personal favorite in this particular series).