Inlet

Inlet Mixed media 8x16 on warped Raymar Art Panel

My intention today was to paint something. Instead, I decided to tackle two of my largest aggravations.
1. Photographing dark paintings with the least amount of washout.
2. Finding a streamlined way to import the photo to the computer, edit (including reducing size {Microsoft Office Picture Manager =MOPM} and applying a watermark { Picasa}), and post to the blog.

On the photography section, -/@%$#&*! (here I am, back to try writing this all again after a slight brush with my thumb erased my initial post) (haha) (keep smiling) my third attempt was to face the painting toward a dark corner, tilted back about 20 degrees (or up towards the meeting of wall and ceiling). This was to reduce the effect of the windows behind the painting. I also set my camera on the backlight mode. In editing on MOPM, I decreased brightness to -11. Definitely the best of my efforts.

On the second part, I have to admit that once again, I don't remember all the steps that I took. But it seemed like way too many.
I think I had trouble at first because on my computer the window for choosing the method of importing photos was not opening. Once that finally appeared (after 45 minutes of pressing buttons and talking to myself, as well as escaping to a game of freecell) I think I chose to import to windows. Then I think that offered an option to OPEN the image in MOPM, where I edited. Cropped, adjusted brightness, and resized (I like to do this for two reasons which may be totally misguided. Is it true that a smaller size loads faster? And is it true that a smaller size provides more protection against images being stolen?).
Okay, then for the just mentioned reasons, I like to overlay a watermark, but haven't figured out how to do that on MOPM, so I go to Picasa for that step. From there, I hit "BLOG THIS". It irks me to do so. I consider blog to be a noun, against all logic. I post to my blog. I have a blog. But putting a photo of a painting into a blog usually is called uploading. I would prefer uniformity. "UPLOAD THIS to BLOG" would suffice.

About the painting. I'm about to try to add an image. Cross your fingers.
Okay it worked. This is the oil underpainting from which I began. I disliked the intensity of the Pthalo turquoise and Alizarin Crimson. So I started playing with my new Sennelier oil pastels. My goal was to darken and neutralize as much as possible. I guess I could have taken it even further than the current "Inlet", seen at the top of this post. It is March, after all. .

Comments? Preferences? Counseling? All appreciated.
Thank you all so much for words of encouragement over the past months. Thank you, Susie Gregory, for the award. I am going to try to attend to its requirements this week. :)