I found this buttercup buried in the grass on my grandfather's Christmas tree farm, off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Fancy Gap, Virginia, the same place as Appalachian Green and How the Grass Grows

Frodo and his friends are leaving the Shire secretly by going west into the Old Forest, instead of north to the road. The Forest is reached through a break in the Hedge used to keep the unfriendly trees out of the Shire …

“It had walls of brick at the sides, which rose steadily, until suddenly they arched over and formed a tunnel that dived deep under the Hedge and came out in the hollow on the other side.

“It was dark and damp. At the far end it was closed by a gate of thick-set iron bars. On the far side was a faint path leading up on to the floor of the Forest; but it vanished as soon as it brought them under the trees.”
— The Lord of the Rings, Book I, Chapter 6

A closer look at the field seen in Appalachian Green.

I took this photograph at my grandfather's Christmas tree farm, off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Fancy Gap, Virginia. It had been a rainy, foggy day, and the sky was still grey, so I replaced it with a Vue-generated one. Here's the original shot for the curious.

Some single-petal red roses that my dad grows.

One of my earlist landscapes made in Vue. I originally made this picture for Mother's Day. It's the kind of solitary, quiet place I would love to relax. This has sometimes been mistaken for a fall picture in spite of the flowers and green grass, but it's supposed to be a Japanese maple, which has red or burgundy leaves in the spring.

I made three seasonal variations of this scene,
Clear Autumn Day
Winter's Chill

For this piece I took the same ZaoS fractal I had embossed for Rubies & Gold and laid it over a green Apophysis fractal design. The result was a calmer image that reminded me of the light patterns - caustics - under rippling water. The pearl seemed an appropriate addition.

This was probably my last picture created with Terragen 3D landscape generation software, before I moved on to using Vue instead. That old version of Terragen was pretty limited as 3D software goes, but it was a good start to digital landscapes, and I think this is a good picture to end on. I was experimenting with sunsets. The original render was much more red and quite hazy, but if I adjusted the colors too much I lost the green of the grass. Hopefully this hits a happy medium!

“Her clothing is silk and purple.…”
- Proverbs 31:22

This picture is from the XaoS fractal zooming program. It has several sets of fractals that the user can zoom in on at any point, as well as change the color scheme.

“Eastward the Barrow-downs rose, ridge behind ridge, and vanished out of eyesight. The sun, a pale and watery yellow, was gleaming through the mist. Even as they looked out towards the setting sun, it sank before their eyes into a white sea, and a cold grey shadow sprang up in the East.”
- The Lord of the Rings, Book I, Chapter 8

I created this with Terragen 3D landscape generation software.