A boredom shot ! sat in the garden, can't talk to the Mrs she's reading (previous shot) so this is what happens !!!

Nikolai is one of my very first characters when I first started creating them, Nikolai is a young boy that comes from a mixed race backround. He has lived in a moving circus all his life, among wild animals and evil witches, He comes from the dark forests of central europe, and his destiny is Paris.

Half a million views on this stream!!! I am speechless... so it's a good thing I am typing this. Even allowing for Flickr's current, more generous definition of what counts as a "view", this milestone floors me. I set my sights on making new pictures worthy of the next half million views.

Thank you for your continued visits to my stream and your comments and favorites. I pay attention to what Flickr-ites like.

Here is a snapshot of my 36 "most interesting" Flickr photos at this point in time. Each time I hit a major milestone, I save a current copy of this set to see what has changed since the last milestone.

1. Lucky Star is Closed for Business, 2. Yotsuba & Ramen, 3. Yotsuba & the Hallways, 4. Black Rock Shooter Finds Dead Master, 5. Do You Dig Graves?, 6. Hide and Go Seek, 7. Yotsuba & "The Scream", 8. Yotsuba & Obama, 9. Sakura Loves iPod, 10. Power Trio - Bass, Drums, and Guitar, 11. Rin Contemplates the Water, 12. Yotsuba & the Jet Pack, 13. "You've got some dust on the lens. Here, let me get that...", 14. Yotsuba & M&Ms, 15. Yotsuba & the Big Wheel, 16. Yotsuba & the Catch of the Day, 17. Mio Akiyama in the Spotlight, 18. Yotsuba Sketch, 19. "Let's Storm the Castle!", 20. Mana Can't Stop the Music, 21. Lucky Eva Twins, 22. Azusa Modeling Cat Ears, 23. Not a Walking Bass, 24. Yotsuba & the Rogue Bunnies, 25. Miku Hatsune Backed by Members of Ho-kago Tea Time, 26. Yotsuba & Christmas Lights, 27. Pocco & Her Chopper, 28. Welcome, 2014!, 29. Yotsuba's Scream on Exhibit in the Museum, 30. Ice Cream, I Scream, ..., 31. Through Time and Space, 32. Yotsuba Wakes Up, 33. Yotsuba & Cappuccino, 34. My "Yotsuba's Scream" on Exhibit in the Carpathian Castle, 35. Pocco and the Flowers, 36. Yotsuba & the Garden

2040x2914 Improved textures, SweetFX 1.4

4xMSAA + 4xSGSSAA

No HUD, custom FOV, timestop, freecam hack & Ini tweaks.

2012.

Have you contemplated your home star recently? Featured here, a Sun partially eclipsed on the top left by the Moon is also seen eclipsed by earthlings contemplating the eclipse below. The spectacular menagerie of silhouettes was taken in 2012 from the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area near Page, Arizona, USA, where park rangers and astronomers expounded on the unusual event to interested gatherers. Also faintly visible on the Sun's disk, just to the lower right of the dark Moon's disk, is a group of sunspots. Although a partial solar eclipse by the Moon is indeed a good chance to contemplate the Sun, a great chance -- and one that is significantly more rare -- will occur next week when the Sun undergoes a partial eclipse by the planet Mercury. via NASA ift.tt/26H6BBR

Abbey Gardens, Bury St. Edmunds

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 27.8.26.

Processed with Adobe Photoshop Elements 11, Photomatix, Dynamic Light, ShockMyPic, PhotoCopy for OS X

1.Where do tennis balls come from, trees perhaps, or the sea?

2.Why don't you ever see the quick-grey-fluffy tailed-monsters up trees even when the noisy-2-legged-big dogs shout "squirrel" to tell you they're up there?

3.How do the little-hoppy-long eared-scared animals disappear into the ground?

4.Who invented dog biscuits?

5.When will the next game of fetch will happen?

6.Will you EVER be allowed to chase those funny bleating-woolly-scared-animals?

7.How dangerous are baths?

8.How can cars run so fast when they've got no legs?

9. If you bounced high enough would be able to catch the giant-silver-frisbee-in the sky?

10. Can you train an old noisy-2-legged-big-dog new tricks?

*See the comment below for answers!! :)

Barney always contemplates the serious questions of life upside down, with his paws waving in the air :) He says it's a good way to clear your head and come at problems from a different perspective... so next time life seems overwhelming, try rolling over and waving your arms and legs around, according to my dog, it'll help (I'm not so sure)!!

A rainy spring morning in Melbourne and a lady looks down Bourke St mall from under her umbrella.

My first experiment with the (photoshopped version of the) Orton effect (which I learned about on Flickr).

Thanks to my friend Danielle for posing for me.

And thanks to JoesSistah for the great texture: www.flickr.com/photos/27805557@N08/3720198143/sizes/o/in/...

....La femme pensif.

Thanks for all views, comments and fave adds.

© All rights reserved.

Robin. West Midlands, England. 17 feb 2015.

Painter sketch, trying out my new wacom Intuos tablet. I might do an oil paint version of this in the future.

A bit of mysterious air when everyone seems to be in their bubble. Makes viewers wonder what each of their story is.

Danbo contemplates the meaning of life.

I used to hang actual candy canes on the tree, but the cats would pull them off and chew on the cellophane wrappers,(they weren't interested in the candy,it was the crackle and crunch of the cellophane that was the big attraction), so now I've replaced them with plastic ones.

They're still fun to knock off the tree and bat around the floor.

My grandson Dylan admiring some daffodils.

Just playing with my phone , sad really as I have lots to do .

Have you contemplated your home star recently? Featured here, a Sun partially eclipsed on the top left by the Moon is also seen eclipsed by earthlings contemplating the eclipse below. The spectacular menagerie of silhouettes was taken in 2012 from the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area near Page, Arizona, USA, where park rangers and astronomers expounded on the unusual event to interested gatherers. Also faintly visible on the Sun's disk, just to the lower right of the dark Moon's disk, is a group of sunspots. Although a partial solar eclipse by the Moon is indeed a good chance to contemplate the Sun, a great chance -- and one that is significantly more rare -- will occur next week when the Sun undergoes a partial eclipse by the planet Mercury. via NASA ift.tt/26H6BBR

And now it is off to visit my grandson! I am really enjoying Grandma Land!

Select photos from my Flickr stream are available for purchase as prints or personal download at [www.winterfirephotographicarts.com].

Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire.

I see so many people using Instagram these days, with so many (and I'm hesitant to say it) ... really bad pictures. So I finally installed the app tonight and played around with it. It definitely can be a cool tool, but I think it really takes some thought and effort into how the filters and effects benefit or improve the photo you're sharing, and in many cases, they don't. I scoured my pics for a bit until I put together this frame, which brings out the contrast of my black pup with the blue blanket, while blurring out the rest of the shot to give her an eye-catching sharpness. It's not really my type of thing, but this one did turn out pretty well.