Whisked Away…

My original pen and ink drawing, photographed and brought into Adobe Photoshop to do the coloring and graphic treatments.

My original pen and ink drawing, photographed and brought into Adobe Photoshop to do the coloring and graphic treatments.

Inspiration.  Where does it come from?  Who knows!  But then there it is.  Maybe one can pinpoint the time or the thing that sparked it but it’s still such a mystery to me.  Why ask why really because you know what, it simply feels so good.  I love being inspired.  It’s a lifelong pleasure.

Funny, I was thinking about my dad a few days ago and how he’d say he falls in love everyday.  True, I’d seen it happen time and time again.  Someone would walk by and he was entranced, “in love”.  It may sound kinda weird but I know that feeling too, I’ve experienced it.  Maybe you have too, have you?  Seeing someone or something so unimaginably exquisite that you simply want to stare and wander in a room full of dreamy imaginings that can’t even be expressed or defined in words.  It always moves me to create.  And it moved my dad that way too.  He was a wonderful and prolific writer and photographer who taught  me so much.

So as I continued to think about being “in love” I know it’s really about being inspired.  A feeling that comes over you, me, whoever and we lose our breath for a fraction of a second and we ponder that thing, which has whisked us away to some invisible place where creativity and possibility lives.  The dreaminess breathes and expands and if we have the time and the tenacity we can use the tools at hand to wander to a new place that never previously existed where art in some magical form is created.

Waxing on I go.  🙂

So, today I found myself on Facebook and someone had posted a one line drawing, something I adore and started doing in High School so long ago.  Whiz Bang!  I was off, searching my computer for one of my own drawings probably done several years ago and immediately went to work in Photoshop— cropping, colorizing, adding texture, gradients, color combinations— until I could finally stop, call it complete, and look at it as a viewer, no longer inside the thing— but now outside looking at it.  It only took a few minutes.  Sometimes what makes the difference is allowing yourself to be inspired and to take action.  Bake a cake, put a braid in your hair, play the guitar, draw a picture, arrange flowers, write prose, allow the muse…

That was fun!  Yes, whisked away.

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About charr

Charr Crail is a Northern California photographer and artist with an avid passion for creating unique digital imagery. Charr, a full-time freelance photographer, spans the divide between photojournalism and extraordinary art via photography and can trace back her evolution as an photographer/artist from three dominant sources. Her father made his living as a newspaper photographer and as soon as he could, was taking young Charr, then four, on assignments to capture a lifetime of experiences and images. He instilled a sense of adventure and curiosity in her as they would often meander down unknown country roads of the South – just to see and capture what was out there. Soon after, Charr would develop her eye for photography and journalism as “the river that runs through everything she does”. Charr’s mother blessed her daughter with the ability to appreciate art in its various mediums. Further, her mother was able to pass along the joy, satisfaction and excitement one can experience in actively creating something beautiful. It’s no surprise, then, that Charr would become a photojournalist and later a photo editor spanning two decades working for Northern California publications including The Sacramento Bee. Often, her assignments would include community events with a “close to home” theme woven into every image and story she captured. Her photojournalistic experience has therefore been nuanced through everything she produces. She’s also drawn to the wonder of color and the beauty that can be found in the composure of a face and the make-up of the human bodyscape. Charr has won countless awards for masterful pieces including; the Professional Photographers of America LOAN Collection for two consecutive years, WPPI Grand Award and her work has been featured in the Di Rosa Museum in California’s beautiful Napa Wine Region and is also part of the permanent collection. Separately, she instructs digital photography workshops that teach students how to blow out the creativity of their photography in simple methods using programs like Adobe Photoshop and how to market using mobile devices-- Visual Content Creation using Mobile Devices.. Charr lives in Sacramento with her husband Chris and kitties Leeloo and Sadie.

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