Art & Everything Else

Film Festival Fridays: Codehunters

2012-03-02T09:03:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday everyone! So the last two films I posted were the mellow, artsy type. This one has more action/adventure to it, although the animation style is still super fun. It's called Codehunters by Ben Hibon who, according to Wikipedia, has worked an a few video games as well as help direct the short film The Tale of the Three Brothers from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1.

There, how that for an epic start to your weekend!

sincerely,

2012 wall: February Update

2012-02-28T09:37:00.000-08:00

Hello! The end of the month always seems to come sooner than I anticipate. Here are some photos of my 2012 wall.

This is my first letter from Moumbassire, the Compassion International child Jon and I are sponsoring. I was so happy to finally hear from him; it helped make the whole experience feel more "real".

sincerely,

February Sketches

2012-02-27T08:48:00.000-08:00

Hello world! It's Monday yet again. I've been super much slacking in the art posting department over the past weekish. So, here are some sketches from February.

This one was fun, because I used the eraser to create the white lines and some of the smudging.

What's this!! A color sketch!! shocking!!

Some scribble doodles I did, just for variety.

This one was based on a memory of a location we drive by fairly often. It's part of an intersection that leads off into a cornfield and stops.

Light bulb Burglar Penguin!!!!!!! ^_^

I used the eraser technique on this one too, as well as a bit of smudging with my finger.

A drawing of a sculpture of a fold of cloth.

Because I like toast!! ^_^

A few random designs.

sincerely,

Film Festival Fridays......er......Saturday: The Third and the Seventh

2012-02-25T18:27:00.000-08:00

Happy belated Friday! Yes, I know I didn't post a video yesterday. I apologize and to atone for my laziness, I offer you this short film. It's titled The Third and the Seventh by Alex Roman and you will probably either think its the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, or you'll be bored out of you mind. There, you've been properly warned.

As you might guess, I happen to think this film is gorgeous. It's comprised entirely of computer generated scenery. No action, not dialogue, just scenery. That's why it could be considered boring. However, the scenery is so, so, so lovely and so incredibly therapeutic when you're brain dead and just want to stare at pretty stuff. The other impressive thing about this film is that everything on it was entirely created on a computer. That, in and of itself, makes it worthy to be watched.

sincerely,

Film Festival Fridays: Hammock: Breathturn

2012-02-17T14:34:00.000-08:00

It's Friday once again and I have a new short film to share with you. This one is called Hammock: Breathturn and I must confess, I don't really know much about who made it.

Part of what I love about this film are the paper cranes. Paper cranes have had special significance for me ever since my senior year of college. In preparation for my senior show, I wanted to doing a performance art piece that would encompass the whole student body. So, I ended up sending each student a paper crane through the campus mail. This ment folding 3,000+ paper cranes, which was a huge undertaking, but I did mange to achieve it, with plenty of help from family and friends. The project was, I believe, successful, although I'm not sure how many people "got" it or if it had any lasting impact. However, that is kind of the nature of performance art.

You'd think that after folding a bajillion paper cranes by hand that I would be sick of them, but surprisingly enough, I'm not. In fact, I hung some from my kitchen ceiling to add a bit of color. Also, I very much want to recreate the scene were the boy hangs all the cranes in the ally way. So beautiful.

sincerely,

These are a few of my favorite things

2012-02-16T11:07:00.000-08:00

I mentioned last night that I've been in a bit of a funk lately. (The talk with God went well, btw.) However, there have been a lot of good things that have been happening. This post is devoted to the "favorite things" in my life life at the moment. That may seem narcissistic, but sometimes making your life look pretty can improve your perspective on the world. I generally feel more ready to face the day if I'm wearing something I really like. This is along the same lines, only on a more "lifestyle" scale.

So, here are a few of my favorite things.

Valentine's day dinner: homemade sushi!!!! (we also had fancy cheese the next day, but I didn't take a picture of that.)

What I wore a few days ago. Like I said, confidence in your outfit can improve your outlook on life.

Skirt/dress: probably about $20 from a store at a mall called Strawberry

Blouse: snitched from my mom. (Half of my awesome clothes, especially the stuff considered "vintage" used to be my mom's.)

Hair ribbon: Bed, Bath and Beyond. I got a gift from there and loved the pretty purple ribbon they used. It's an excellent hair accessory.

Decorative Bobby pins: present (probably from the drug store.)

Shoes: Minnetonka moccasins. These were a tad pricey, (at least for me) but soooo worth it in the end.

The studio: Ok, so here's a part of my life that isn't too pretty. The studio is always messy and I'm always picking it up. It's become a part of my routine, but oddly enough, it's also something I've grown fond of.

Hearts: Confession time, I'm not really a "heart" person. However, I really liked how these turned out. I used leftover paper I'd covered in charcoal and wrote on it with a white pencil. I think they look super cute!

Sea inspired chocolate: These were prettier than they tasted, so I took pictures instead of eating them. (Don't worry, I got plenty of chocolate for Valentine's day.)

Reading books: I've been on a read roll; I finished 4 books in less than two weeks! (My secret is reading lots of children's books, which are generally shorter.) Here are their titles; Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu; The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl (different from the movie, but both are highly amusing); The Gawgon and the Boy by Lloyd Alexander and A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. A Monster Calls was my favorite of the batch. It was defiantly a heavy, dark story, but I really admired the way it used fantastical elements to face real world problems like death and loss. That is a quality I want to incorporate into my own writing.

Orchids: Orchids amuse me; they're such peculiar looking plants.

Pitch and Purge: I've been cleaning and getting rid of stuff lately. Due to my pack-ratting nature, this is sometimes hard to do, but it always feels good to get rid of stuff that was just sitting around, taking up space. I also organized my jewelry so I'll be able to see what pieces match with what. I pinned crocheted snowflakes to the wall to act as earring holders. The system has worked well thus far.

Speaking of earrings, here is my current favorite pair. I got them at the thrift store for $2. Aren't they so quirky?

And here are my current favorite pair of shoes. These moccasins are totally the best ever. They fit with either socks or bare feet and never get uncomfortable. They are everything shoes are supposed to be.

Collaborative Projects: As I've mentioned, I haven't got a whole lot of things I would consider my "work" going. However, I have been spending a good deal of time working with my closest friends on a collaborative writing/adventure project that will probably end up resembling a pen and paper RPG and the script of a tv show. It's been so much fun to share creative ideas, develop characters and story lines and figure out how to actually write. We're only in the beginning stages, but this is already turning into a project of epic proportions.

That's my life, or at least some of my favorite things in it. ^_^

sincerely,

Sad day.

2012-02-15T20:06:00.000-08:00

I have some rather depressing news. Relish, the restaurant I hung my work in, closed down. Oddly enough, I'm taking the more "laugh at the ironic, Murphy's law like qualities of this situation" rather than allowing it to plunge me despair. At least, that's what I think I'm doing.

To tell you the truth, I'm in a bit of a funk. Have been for the past week or so, even before finding out about Relish. Part of it is the "between projects" phase I'm in. There have been a few things here and there, but nothing to really throw my whole artistic self into. That's also the problem with all the current ideas I could be doing; nothing is really sparking any strong interests or inspirations. I think one thing looks good, then I get bored with it two seconds later.

It's like I'm on a path that has broken off into lots of little paths and wondering "Where should I go next?"

Not to sound like a cliched Christian, but what I really need to do is take a break from this whole issue and have a chat with God. Just a kind of "here's where I am and how I'm feeling" talk that I don't remember to do often enough. I'm not sure if it will help or make me feel better, but it's a good thing to do none the less.

That's all for the moment. Sleep well!

sincerely,
me

Film Festival Fridays: Doki and Nabi

2012-02-10T10:14:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday everyone!!! Now that I've figured out how to post videos on my blog (it took me waaaaay too long, I know), I've been thinking it would be fun to share some of my favorite short internet films! Sound fun? Good! Please note, I didn't make any of these movies; I just found them and wanted to share.

To kick off this (hopefully) weekly event; I have one of my all time short film series: There She Is!! It originally debuted on SamBakZu, a South Korean website. This one has everything; love, racism, a whimsical art style, humor, drama, cats with scarves; the works. I will warn you, the story gets a bit sad during part 4 and I always end up crying. Don't worry though, the ending is happy. Enjoy!

sincerely,

Relish

2012-02-09T15:58:00.000-08:00

Well, today was the fateful day. I took my 10 pieces of art to the local restaurant Relish. The following pictures aren't the most amazing ever and I had to borrow someone else's smart phone to take them 'cause my camera died. (lame) Never the less, my work is on the walls.

If you're ever in the Allentown area, you should totally go check Relish out. http://eatrelish.net (And I'm not just saying that because I have art there.) The food is sooooo good! The crabby portabella is one of my personal favorites. They also have a lot of gluten free and vegan options. I give them five stars!

sincerely,

My remedy for bad days

2012-02-08T20:51:00.000-08:00

Today was one of those days; the kind were it's really, really hard to fight against all the negative thoughts in your head telling you how much you fail at life, or how things will never get better. You know the kind of days I'm talking about. Well, after slugging it out with the mean part of your brain all day, there's only one thing left to do; watch videos of cute/funny animals on YouTube. Here are some of my personal favorites.

Enjoy! ^_^

sincerely,

The last of my old skecthbook

2012-02-06T11:46:00.000-08:00

I finished off the last pages of my sketchbook the other day and wanted to show you some of my favorites.

This one happened almost entirely by accident. I didn't like what I was doodling, so I just started scribbling lines over my page; drawings and all. It was so therapeutic that I keep going until Jon told me not to use up all the lead in my pencil. It's definitely not something normally considered "artistic", but for some odd reason, I liked how it turned out.

This is another slightly odd sketch. I looked down at a book with a man on the cover that happened to be upside down and decided to do a semi-blind contour drawing of what I was looking at.

This is a light hanging in front of a row of windows in a church.

This one might be a wee bit difficult to follow, but it's a quick gesture/texturing sketch of a landscape I was looking at.

Two lawn ornament angels. I've noticed myself incorporating a lot of lawn sculpture subject matter into my work as of late.

Another rough landscape of houses. I've been trying my hand at doing some architecture and landscaping recently, two things I used to find boring and avoid.

As the note says, it's a still life of things I had on hand in my purse.

Another church sketch. Modern, protestant churches always seem to have a clean, geometric look.

Ok, this sketch merits an explanation. I went out to take subject matter pictures and when I came back, it occurred to me that I probably looked like some weird, hobo girl. So, I came up with an entire character based on my horrible outfit, all the way down to the hub cap I found while I was out and carried back home. (I figure it's my equivalent to Captain America's shield.)

The darkened faces started out kind of as a reflection of the silhouettes I was seeing and ended up turning into an unique way to represent mass. I'm quite pleased with the blind contour drawing as well.

Because I like foxes and cupcakes!!!! ^_^

sincerely,

Crayon painting = melted happiness

2012-02-02T07:48:00.000-08:00

Got something a bit funtastic for today. Are you excited? You should be. Feast your eyes upon this creation of joy inducing, color overload!!!!

I don't know about you, but for me, seeing all the colors of the spectrum together invokes irrepressible happiness. It's either the artistic part of me, or the part that never grew up. Or maybe both. ^_^

Anyway, this is the project I did in art class this week and I'm thrilled with how it turned out. It was fairly simple, although it does require some patience. Basically, you hot glue some crayons to a canvas, (use Crayola, they work the best) and blast them with a hair dryer set to Hot on High. I first saw the idea when someone posted this link on facebook.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1zQ541/megduerksen.typepad.com/whatever/2011/08/you-knew-i-was-going-to-make-one.html

Of course, when this lady did it, her crayons dripped in nice, neat lines. Mine got blown all over the place by the hair dryer, but that's ok. Life is messy sometimes.

sincerely,

2012 wall: January update

2012-02-01T08:21:00.000-08:00

Remember the 2012 wall I mentioned starting at the beginning of this month? Well, here's how it's grown!

These targets are from my Christmas/New Years vacations when I shot a .22 rifle at my uncle's. Not to sound arrogant, but I'm pretty pleased with how well I did. In the event of a Zombie Apocalypse, just get me on a roof, give me plenty of ammo and find some way to slow the zombies down a little and I'll be good.

A few details. Kind of ended up with a bird theme.

A mini collage I threw together in a few minutes and ended up really liking.

Thus far, I'm really liking this system. It gives me a place stick reminders, ideas, memories and random stuff that's been sitting on my studio floor. The hands on element has been really fun as well. I shall continue to keep you posted on it's further development.

sincerely,
me

Watercolor tree

2012-01-31T07:32:00.000-08:00

So, you've sort of already seen this picture, but here's a better version.

"Winter Tree"

I was a bit apprehensive about tackling this kind of subject matter. Normally, all the meticulousness detail and ambiguous color gradients of the tree would keep me from trying something like this, but I loved the image so much that I decided to give it a shot.

Guess it just goes to show that the risk is worth the final product. One of my goals in art is not to stick to the things I'm comfortable with, but to push myself to try new and challenging ideas. It's also nice to be able to see that your abilities have grown and improved. Knowing that something which used to give me trouble isn't so hard anymore is very rewarding.

Well, I must be getting off. I have a few things to take care of, then I'm going out to lunch with my mother-in-law. I might even go get some shoes that I've been wanting. ^_^

sincerely,

All done!

2012-01-30T19:13:00.000-08:00

I know this is breaking the unspoken rule that you can only write one blog post per day, but I just wanted to let you know that I finished the coating process without any calamities. Considering the problems I've had with this stuff in the past (if you recall, I mentioned it back in October), I'm very thankful everything turned out so well. I'm one step closer to actually get them on the restaurant walls.

sincerely,
me

Good News!!!

2012-01-30T06:38:00.000-08:00

Guess what?! I made it into that religious art show I entered a few weeks ago!!! Super excited! Now all I have to worry about it not ruining the piece when I coat it with that toxic smelling, preservative stuff. No pressure. ;-)

As far as that goes, I'm ready to tackle round two today. If all goes well and no terrible misfortunes befall me, everything could be done this evening!!! I'll keep you posted on my progress.

sincerely,

The results of 2-3 months of work

2012-01-28T19:59:00.000-08:00

Hello!
Today, I decided to lay out most of the art pieces I've been working on for the past 2-3 months. Here they are.

I have to confess, I wish I had more to show for my efforts. But still, it's a decent bit of work. Most of it I made to hang in a local restaurant. You've already seen most of this stuff, except for the watercolor up in the top right-hand corner, which I finished yesterday. I really should have taken a picture of it today, but that just didn't happen.

Because it was so nice and non Januaryish today, I started the process of coating my collages with the toxic smelling stuff that keeps them from fading. So far, everything has gone very well; no chalky residue has dared to ruin my pieces yet!

Again, sorry for not updating sooner. This week has been kind of turbulent; but here I am, on the other side and still in one piece. I was able to get rid of some emotional baggage I've been carting around for awhile, which was a huge relief. It's kind of amazing how long we can carry old burdens we don't have to bear.

Anyway, my brain has stopped working, so I should really end this post and get ready for bed. Good night!

sincerely,
me

Sisters!

2012-01-27T21:14:00.000-08:00

Hello world! Sorry I've been away. I really did mean to post before this, but life got in the way, as usual. The following portraits are of my sisters and part of the reason it took me so long to post was the fact that I messed up the one below and had to start over. (Yeah, that was a sad day.) But I triumphed in the end and I'm really happy with how everything turned out. So, without further ramblings, here are my sisters.

The initial sketch,

And the final! This is my sister Christina. She's the youngest of the three of us. Part of me still can't believe that she's nearly all grown up already. Admittedly, I chose a kind of tricky picture to work from; but I think the painting turned out well. She kind of looks like a fairy tale character to me.

And here is Hannah, the middle sibling. The picture I worked from was taken a few years ago when she was extremely allergic to a lot of things, including airborne mold. In order to go out in public, she had to wear a surgical mask to keep from breathing in the mold. She's doing a lot better with her allergies now and only occasionally has to wear the mask. I really like this picture because it is a tribute to all the challenges Hannah has overcome.

I know I'm biased, but I think I have some of the most gorgeous siblings ever!

Sincerely,

2012-01-19T08:40:00.000-08:00

Hello! Got a watercolor to share with you today. With this one, I decided to skip the pen work I usually add for the supremely sophisticated reason that I didn't have my pens at the time! I'm happy with it though. I used to rely on the pen lines to add structure and definition to the colors, but it's seems that they aren't as essential as they used to be.

Neighborhood Wolf

And of course, I forgot to sign it again! I have a terrible time remembering to sign my work. It was never something that was stressed at my art school, so it hasn't become habit yet. Don't worry, I'll add the signature later.

Yesterday, I went on another book buying spree. My score: 23 books and a blank journal. The price: $24 with tax. Needless to say, it was a library sale. ^_^ I got soooooo many good books; The Whipping Boy, A Wrinkle in Time, White Fang, Heidi, Around the World in Eighty days, A Cricket in Times Square, A Year Down Yonder, King of the Wind, The Family Under the Bridge, From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh and several others. I'm planning on going back for a second round on Saturday. You can never have too many books, right? Just a house that's too small. ;-)

sincerely,

Blue and Orange

2012-01-17T08:45:00.000-08:00

New collage!!! I finished this one awhile ago, but I didn't like the way the threads looked when I glued them down. So I flipped the grey piece of paper over and recreated the effect, this time using a different gluing method. And then I ended up changing the composition slightly. But it's done now and ready to be varnished, whenever I get around to that stage.

The colors in this piece make me so happy! ^_^ I know they have the potential to completely kill your eyes when you look at them, but hopefully I successfully avoided that problem.

January is about half way over and so far, its been a pretty good month. I still haven't lost my "New Year's Resolution" spirit yet and I think I've don't a decent job of keeping busy. Hopefully I can keep this up as the months roll on. My 2012 Wall is still in use and I have plenty of projects in the works. I'm even trying to figure out some methods for keeping my studio cleaner! (I'll let you know how that goes. )

Oh, and I got a new toy! Jon gave me a netbook for Christmas, although it didn't come till last week, and I've really enjoyed using it thus far. Unfortunately, we haven't figured out how to make it talk to the desktop, so I can't use it for everything yet, but that's ok. I bought the old computer game Myst and it's sequel Riven for Jon and I to play together. They're point and click style puzzle games with an extremely interesting story line. Myst has been really cool so far, although we get stuck pretty often and end up wandering around till the computer freezes and we have to stop. But still, it's been good so far.

Well, that's it for the moment. I've gotten better about posting more often, so you should be hearing from me soon!

sincerely,

When you're strange; faces come out in the rain/shower curtians

2012-01-14T14:20:00.000-08:00

Hello. I have something slightly different in store for today. This is our shower curtain.

Lovely, isn't it? (I happen to have a fondness for silhouetted trees.) Anyway, as you can hopefully tell from the picture, this tree has lots of little branches that converge to make all kinds of odd patterns. After looking at these patterns everyday for days and days and days, you start to see things. Lines here and there start to looking like faces and forms. Does this kind of thing happen to anyone else?

Well, after looking at all these faces in our shower curtain for nearly a year, I decided it might be fun (and probably extremely weird) to do some sketches of the stuff I saw and share them with you all. So here we go.

So, do these things actually make sense to people, or am I just crazy? (Maybe I don't want the question answered! ^_^) Well, at least you got your weirdness quota in for the day!

Note: The title of this post is a line from the song "People are Strange" by the Doors. The first time I heard this song was by watching this super cool video. http://vimeo.com/3267562 You should totally go check it out if you want to see more cool/weird stuff.

sincerely,

Art piece for Faith through the Arts festival.

2012-01-13T08:51:00.000-08:00

Hello to you all on this freezy cold January day! As some of you may know, I've been working on a piece of art to submit to the Faith through the Arts festival, a local religious arts event. The theme for the show was "Radiant Light" and you would not believe how hard it was for me to come up with an idea! I tossed around several concepts and even made a few artistic attempts before coming up with something I was actually pleased with. And here it is.

I'm calling it "Shadow and Flame", which hopefully isn't too cheesy of a title. When I showed it to Jon, he said the piece was "risky"; but art is supposed to be risky, right? I hope so. Well, I turned in my registration form and an image of the piece this morning. Now the only thing left to do is wait and see. I should find out Feb 6th.

sincerely,

Meet Moumbassire!

2012-01-11T12:34:00.000-08:00

Exciting news!! My Compassion child's information came it the mail yesterday!!

His name is Moumbassire Zabre. (I have no idea how to actually pronounce that.) He lives in Burkina Faso, which is an African country near Togo and Mali. He's seven years old, lives with his parents and two siblings and likes to play soccer, marbles and hide-and-seek.

This probably sounds a bit cliched, but it is really kind of cool that Jon and I are now an important part of this boy's life; even though we'll probably never meet him this side of heaven. I'm looking forward to getting to know him a little better and seeing how he grows.

sincerely,

Outfit post

2012-01-06T19:04:00.000-08:00

I know I don't do this normally, but I really, really liked the outfit I was wearing today, so I decided to take a few pictures and share them with you.

The angle is a little weird here, but I wanted to show off the details of my pants. They're sooo cool!!

What'd ya think? It has a kind of "wood elf meets hippie" feel, which is a look I tend to gravitate to in my clothing choices. Fashion is something I greatly enjoy, although only in hobby form. At one point, I'd considered actually making this a fashion blog, but part of me still feels a little weird about posting photos of myself on the internet. (Guess it's kind of like the old Japanese superstition that photographs steal a persons soul.)

However, in the spirit of facing my fears, I'm putting my face out in cyberspace. Who knows, maybe I'll do a few more outfit blog entries from time to time.

sincerely,
me

Fall '11 sketches

2012-01-05T16:53:00.000-08:00

Here are my sketches from this fall.

This one is based off of the ceiling of one of a church that my friends go to.

A few quick gesture drawings of my friend's pets.

A punk fox kid I did randomly

A quick collection of images and shapes inspired by a movie (Spirited Away) I was watching at the time.

More drawings of pets

Another composite style drawing of landscape elements

A composite drawing based on the motions of our pastor while he was preaching a sermon. (Don't worry, I was totally paying attention while I drew this. :-))

The backs of people's heads while sitting in church. (I promise I'm not a creepy stalker.)

We were playing through Mario Galaxy. ^_^

Little doodles

A few random, drawings; I'm still working on a stylized/cartooning look.

Quick study of two men repairing a room as seen from my studio window.

A cartoon style drawing of an outfit I was wearing.

For this one, I just made a bunch of scribble shapes and turned them into little things.

More people studies

I might end up doing more with this one.

So there you have it. I was hoping to finish my sketchbook by the end of December, but I still have a little ways to go.

sincerely,
me

Thus begins the New Year

2012-01-03T17:58:00.000-08:00

Hooray for another year! Did everyone have a good Christmas? Mine is a little difficult to summarize in one word. My Grandpa had a minor heart attack when we were visiting and Jon, Grandma and I ended up going to the hospital at 1:30 in the morning! It was a stressful and exhausting experience, but thankfully it didn't last too long. Grandpa's doing fine now; the doctors let him go back home a day or two before New Year's. Other than that, it was a lovely vacation! Jon and I traveled all over the place; visiting various family members and enjoying holiday cheer! We read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (which, by the way, is a hilarious story that I highly recommend. It might get added to my list of Christmas traditions), ate lots of unhealthy food, played the super fun game Telestrations, watched a few episodes of the Twilight Zone, saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie (which was quite good), played video games and hung out with lots of fun peoples. However, as much as I liked all the festivities, I'm definitely happy to get things back to normalcy.

To get this brand new set of months off to a good start, I decided to try something a little more elaborate than just a list of goals. So, I created the 2012 wall.

I started with a clear section of wall space in my studio. (Well, as clear as I could get it anyway.)

Then I added all the project ideas and goals I've brainstormed so far. I also threw in the months of the year so that I can keep track of when I got certain things done.

My plan for this wall is multifaceted. I want it to be a space to store and access all the ideas that go careening around in my head. Once I've had the chance to do some of those ideas, I'll be able to track the progress I've made and the goals I've accomplished. I'm also hoping it turns into a scrapbook of 2012; a collection and documentation of all the things that happened this year.

I also started an "ideas" jar. Anything that doesn't fit or hasn't made it to the wall yet can go in here till I get a chance to sort it.

I have a feeling I'm going to need a bigger jar though. This one seems too small already!

So there you have it, my wall sized planner, calender and to do list! I'll be posting pictures of its development and expansion over the months. One of my other goals for this year is to blog more often. Not so sure how that endeavor will turn out, but I'll give it my best shot!

sincerely,
me

A Merry Christmas to All!!

2011-12-23T14:07:00.000-08:00

Well, the long-anticipated and stressed-over time of the month is upon us. We'll be traveling quite a bit between Christmas and New Years, so I wanted to write a blog post of seasonal cheer before the madness starts. Sadly, I have no pictures of art to post, due to holiday preparations and such. Since my last post, I have managed do some of the things on my Christmas checklist. Jon and I have been busy watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas, making batches of Christmas cookies and playing Skyrim and Skyward Sword. (Ok, so the last two aren't actually Christmas-related, but still, a good bit of festiveness going on.) It took me up till this point to get all my presents and most of my projects in order, but I think I should be set to kick back and spend time with my family. I really do love this time of year; its a good chance to be thankful for the things you have, the people you love and, of course, to remember that God was born as a tiny human so that He could eventual save us all.

In writing news, I did manage to finish a second draft of my story. It still needs lots of work, but I promised my mom she could read it over Christmas break, so hopefully it's a little more presentable now. I'm looking forward to having another test-reader; up to this point it's just been Jon and my friend Lauren. I'll be curious to see what Mom thinks of what I have so far.

And so, I bring this post to a close: A wondrous Holiday season to you all, whatever you happen to be celebrating, and may the New Year bring you much joy and contentment.

My lethargic Christmas Spirit

2011-12-13T12:52:00.000-08:00

I finally managed to post on a sunny day!!! Here is my newly finished creation.

I'm calling it "What are you look'n at?"

As far as the rest of my life, I'm getting by. I made Christmas ninjas earlier this month! (The one that looks black is really green, I just have a bad camera.) I think they turned out super cute!! ^_^

Other than that though, I've been procrastinating on my usual Christmas rituals. For some reason, I haven't really been in the mood. Here are some of the things I still need to do:

1. Read A Christmas Carol. I try and read A Christmas Carol every year in December. There are a billion movie versions of this story, but nothing beats the original. Dickens' descriptions of London at Christmas time are always so much fun to read. If you've never actually read this book, I highly recommend you give it a try. It's a bit hard to follow, but well worth the effort in the end.

2. Watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas (The animated one, just for clarification). This is probably my favorite Christmas movie ever; I have to make sure I watch this at least once, or it won't feel like Christmas. While I out grew most of the other kid's Christmas movies, I'll never be too old for the Grinch. I'll probably still be watching this when I'm 82.

3. Make Christmas cookies. My mom didn't make cookies too often when I was growing up, but she always had a few recipes she'd make at Christmas time. My favorites are Spritz, a butter almond cookie with a cinnamon red hot in the middle; Jolly Jelly Thumbprints, another butter cookie with jelly in the center and Gingerbread cookies. She also had this family recipe called Von Sprecken Specials (named after my great-grandma), which are a spice cookie with bits of orange zest in them.

4. Listen to Trans Siberian Orchestra. I actually have been doing this one. I have an entire Pandora radio station devoted to this group and other things like it. Occasionally I get some non-Christmas soundtrack stuff. Things like selections from Halo or Tron Legacy, but they're usually super epic sounding, so I don't mind.

5. Watch White Christmas. This is another favorite of mine. (I'm pretty sure all the Christmas movies I like were made at least 20 years before I was born.) It's not as well-known as It's a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th St, which are also good movies, but I still love it.

Add to that list all the Christmas present projects I need to finish, which is like, 6 or 7, and you can see I have a lot to get done before December 25th. In fact, I should probably get off the computer and start working on them right now!

sincerely,

It's finished!! (Sort of)

2011-12-06T10:49:00.000-08:00

As you might recall, I've mentioned a few times that I've been working on a story for the past few months. Well, I am pleased to announce that on Friday the 3rd of December, I finished the first draft. This is actually a bigger deal than you'd think because, as I've also probably mentioned, I've never gotten to the end of anything this big before. After giving myself a day or two to take a step back from what I'd written (which only kind of worked), I read it all the way through for the first time. Fortunately, my worst fears were not confirmed and I didn't absolutely hate everything I'd written, another problem that has plagued me for years. Reading through 28 pages was exhausting and there's plenty of work that needs to be done, but I fairly confident I'm off to a good start. Unfortunately, blogging about the writing process is not quite as interesting as looking at pictures, so I included a sketch that expresses my current state of mind.

I know, it's not a very good sketch. The sad thing is that I had a hard time getting even that to look acceptable. Anyhow, my art production has slowed way down do to this other preoccupation, but don't worry, I'll have some more stuff up soonish. (I hope.)

Seeing as how I'm starting to seriously pursue writing, I'm going to look into some ways to share some of the stuff I'm working on in this blog. I have a few other novel ideas I want to start on, plus the editing work I'm doing for this story and some other pieces of short prose. Who knows, I might even chuck in a bit of poetry for good measure, if I ever come up with anything good. Poetry is one area I'm interested in playing with, but know nothing about.

sincerely,

Collages and more rain

2011-11-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

Two collages I finished recently. Although you can't tell by the pictures, the second one is actually a lot smaller than the first.

Collage is on odd process; sometimes it takes forever to develop a good composition, and other times, all the pieces come together as soon as you put them down. These two are the latter, but I have this other collage that I've been at for days and I'm still not happy with it.

It's raining again. I always seem to post things on rainy days. My mood's a little better this time, although I still feel kinda lazy and dull. But Thanksgiving is coming soon and I look forward to yummy food and seeing family. This year we're having Thanksgiving with Jon's family and I'm making pies! (From scratch of course, I don't hold to this store bought pie and pie crust nonsense!)

Well, hope you all have a weekend full of thankfulness and good food!

sincerely,

Watercolor/collage portrait and mood music

2011-11-16T10:15:00.000-08:00

I finally finished the watercolor/collage portrait of Jon. It only took like forever! Here it is.

I'm pretty pleased with it. The colors look a little funny in some of the picture, but weather is rainy today, which makes the lighting kinda bad. I promise it looks better in real life.

Not gonna lie, I'm having kind of a moody day. Everything beautiful is extra beautiful and everything bad is extra disturbing. The grey skies aren't doing much to improve the situation. Funny how rainy days can be either peaceful and comforting, or depressing.

Currently, I'm choosing to deal with my emotions by giving them some good rainy day type music. Coldplay, which I'm listening to at the moment, is really good for this. My playlist also includes a bit of Enya, Josh Groban (mostly the songs he sings in different languages), a little Imogene Heap and this neat music project called PICTURE SHOP (which I highly recommend checking out if you like artsy, soundtrack style music) I learned long ago that oftentimes, it's better not to force yourself to feel happy when you're not. Usually, if you give yourself permission to be sad or moody if that's how your feeling, your emotions work themselves out on their own. This isn't a universal rule, of course, but it does work a lot of the time.

So go ahead, have a bad day if you need to! I give you permission!

sincerely,
me

10 Random things about me!

2011-11-11T11:59:00.000-08:00

Hello!

Thought it might be fun to share a few interesting facts about myself.

1. I am of the opinion that chop sticks are vastly superior to forks. Not only are they good for Chinese food and sushi, but also for things like pop corn, chips and taco salad!

2. I am a Christian, which basically means I have a relationship with God. It's no where near perfect, but that's ok. My faith, like the rest of my life, is a work in progress.

3. I didn't see the Lion King till I was 17. (I know, I had a deprived childhood.) Still cried when Mufasa died, if that counts for anything.

4. While I favor conservative/independent ideals, I believe the American government needs both the political right and left wing to maintain a healthy balance. I just wish it was easier for both side of exchange constructive ideas instead of insults.

5. I greatly dislike hot dogs, baloney and American cheese.

6. I was homeschooled for Kindergarten to 11th grade and then when to a Christian school for my senior year of high school.

7. In addition to being afraid of normal things, like spiders, I have a bizarre and distinct phobia of The Little Shop of Horrors. Intelligent, talking, man-eating plants give me the willies!!!

8. Whenever I start a new journal or sketchbook, I always leave the first page blank.

9. I put pickles on my tacos and didn't realize till college that pickles are not considered standard taco toppings. (Which is totally ridiculous, because pickles taste fabulous on tacos!)

10. When my husband proposed to me, he gave me a ring, a pine cone and a 175-page fantasy story he'd written himself.

So there you have it; a few unique facets of my life. Hope you found them interesting!

sincerely,
Me

New Watercolors

2011-11-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

I finally have some new art to show. Here are four small watercolors I've been working on.

Autumn Glory

Blackbird

The confrontation

The meeting

Since my recent posts have been all words and no pictures, I figure this one can be mostly pictures and few words.

sincerely,

October Snow

2011-10-29T14:51:00.000-07:00

The skies have given us a truly rare gift; snow in October! And not just a few flurries either. We're looking at an accumulation of 6-12 inches. Needless to say, I'm thrilled. I love snow regardless, but having it come so unexpectedly is extra fun. Jon and I declared it an official snow day this morning and celebrated with French toast, bacon and laziness!

Something about the properties and appearance of snow reminds me of poetry, so I spent part of the afternoon hunting down poems about snow on the internet. (I know, reading poetry off the web is pathetic, but staying indoor won out over going to the library.) Here are some of the ones I really liked.

Dust of Snow by Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Snow Geese by Mary Oliver

Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!
What a task
to ask
of anything, or anyone,
yet it is ours,
and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.
One fall day I heard
above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound
I did not know, and my look shot upward; it was
a flock of snow geese, winging it
faster than the ones we usually see,
and, being the color of snow, catching the sun
so they were, in part at least, golden. I
held my breath
as we do
sometimes
to stop time
when something wonderful
has touched us
as with a match,
which is lit, and bright,
but does not hurt
in the common way,
but delightfully,
as if delight
were the most serious thing
you ever felt.
The geese
flew on,
I have never seen them again.
Maybe I will, someday, somewhere.
Maybe I won't.
It doesn't matter.
What matters
is that, when I saw them,
I saw them
as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.

Snow Fort by Raymond A. Foss

It all starts
with the quality,
the density, the size
of the snow bank.
True now, true forty years ago;
it is the critical ingredient.
We piled it high, over successive storms,
waiting not so patiently
for the right time. The right mix
of wet and cold
Snowman snow.
Digging, with shovels, with hands
creating a dome, an inner sanctum
interconnected tunnels, in and out
meeting in the middle
all within the pile of snow.

I even wrote a few poems of my own, although I doubt they're good enough to post! Becoming is writer is another one of my life-long ambitions; as a child I loved making up stories and writing them down. In junior high, I spent months working on a high fantasy novel. It filled two are three notebooks and included a few pictures drawn by yours truly. Sadly, I gave up part way through and the story was never completed, which is actually what happens to 98% of the stuff I write. I can come up with ideas, but never have enough confidence in myself or the story to finish.

However, I'm working on changing that. I've started journaling; practicing my writing skills by recording observations, sights, thoughts and memories. I've also started writing one of the story ideas I've had in my head for awhile and, to prevent me from giving up part way, I've sending it to a friend of mine as I write it, for feedback and encouragement. So far, the system has worked really well, she's interested in whats going to happen next and I'm motivated to keep going. I'm actually pretty confident that I'll actually finish this one! We'll see how it goes I guess.

That's about all for now. Have a wonderful Saturday!

Rainy Day Library Sales

2011-10-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

It seems that some time has passed since my last post about the spectacular sushi making process. Well, to be honest, I've been avoiding posting due to some problems with my art. Here is the tragic tale: a few weeks ago, I coated the two kitchen collages and another collage with some stinky, toxic goo that was supposed to keep the magazine from fading in the sunlight. Unfortunately, the stuff ended up leaving a nasty, chalky residue on my pieces. Depressed and discouraged, I hid the pieces away for awhile, then tried coating them again in hopes that a second coat would make everything better. As you can probably guess, it didn't. The collages looked worse than before. I made some phone calls, talked to the manufacturer of the product and got some useful advice. Ulysses, the tech support guy told me to try coating my piece in glossy varnish, which should take care of the appearance issues. (There was a very scientific explication about chemical binders and their properties, but I'm not sure that my non-sciencey brain can properly retell it.) Anywho, I went out, got the varnish and applied it to the collages. As far as I can tell, the new stuff did manage to salvage my pieces, but not as much as I would like. However, I am hopeful that next time, if I coat my collages with varnish first, then with toxic preserving goo, all should be well.

There, now you know the whole woeful story. O, the suffering we artists must go through!

Ok, enough melodrama, on to more fun things; like library sales!!!!!!!!! Here's what I got:
An old, hardback copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare
A book of Irish myths and legends
A book of Grimm's Fairytales
A picture book of a Russian legend
A book about art in the Middle ages
A book about learning Japaneses through Manga
Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein
Oh the Places You'll Go, by Dr. Suess
A book about classic Disney films
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
A book of Calvin and Hobbies comics
Coraline, by Neil Gaimen
Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tiger Rising, both by Kate DiCamillo
The Foundation's Trilogy and The Foundation's Edge, both by Issac Asimov
The movie V for Vendetta
The movie Thumbelina
And The movie Where the Wild Things Are

Any guesses as to how much I spent? $27!! Nothing makes for a good day like getting lots of books for cheap! ^_^ The rest of the day I worked on some new watercolors. With that "art drama" behind me, I got re-motivated and made really great progress. They're not yet ready to be shown, but fear not. I shall be posting them soon.

So that's how I spent my rainy Thursday, painting and buying books. Life is good.

The Grand Adventure of Homemade sushi!

2011-10-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

While I love many kinds of foods, sushi is one that never fails to make me happy. It's a little bundle of deliciousness just waiting to be devoured! Jon and I go out for sushi fairly often, but we decided one day that it would be fun to try and make our own. Armed with supplies and the vast knowledge of the internet, we set out on the glorious quest to learn the ancient secrets of making sushi. Our first attempt was pretty good, but could definitely stand some improvements. Our second attempt was turned out much better and now, on our third go, we're practically experts! (Not really; we've just learned to be happy with less than perfection.) I decided it would be fun to share with you the process for making sushi.

It all begins with washing your sushi rice. Why do you have to use sushi rice and why do you have to wash it? Sushi rice is stickier than other kinds of rice and helps hold everything together. Washing it helps to remove the excess starch. The kind of rice I got claims that you don't have to wash it, but I chose not to take the risk. Put your sushi rice in a bowl (I used two cups) and cover it with water. The milky, cloudiness of the water is the starch coming out of the rice. It should look like this.

Empty out the starchy water and rinse again. And again. And again. The rinse, dump, repeat part takes forever, like 8-10 times. By the end of that your rice should look like this.

See? Much less cloudy! If you're feeling perfectionistic, you can keep rinsing it. I tend to shun those feelings and settle for good enough so I can move on with life.

Next, spread out your rice to dry. I'm not actually sure why you have to do this, but I've been too afraid the suffer the consequences of bad sushi to skip this step. Maybe someday I'll be bold and forego the drying. Anyway, the rice needs to dry out for an hour. Go read a book, play a video game, catch up on some tv shows or work on those craft projects you've been procrastinating on.

After the hour is up, cook your rice. Since I had 2 cups of rice, I used 2 and 1/2 cups of water. Bring your rice and water to a boil, then let it simmer for 25 min. Once its finished cooking, add your rice vinegar. The term sushi actually means "rice seasoned with vinegar" not, contrary to popular belief, raw fish. There are many types of cooked and vegetarian sushi. (Although the raw fish stuff is pretty tasty too!)

I used 1/4 cup for the 2 cups of cooked rice, but if you want it stronger, you can add a bit more.
Mix in your rice vinegar without breaking your rice grains too much. When you're done, you'll have a large bowl of super sticky, vinegar rice. Let the rice cool for about 10 min.

Now is a good time to get everything assembled in front of your work station so that it's in grabbing distance when the time comes. In addition to the rice, you'll need a sushi mat, plastic wrap, a bowl of water and nori, which are the sheets of seaweed sushi is usually wrapped in. The nori is actually extremely important in keeping everything contained and solidified. We didn't have nori the first time we made sushi and it was a lot harder to roll. So save your self some stress and make sure you've got the seaweed! Most of the supplies, including the sushi rice, can be acquired in the Asian section of your grocery store or at an Asian food store.

You'll also need filling. (Hopefully you were prepping it while the rice was cooling. Usually, it's my husbands job to get the filling chopped up.) This time we used shrimp, carrot, avocado, mango and scrambled egg (although you can see the egg in this picture.) Try and get all your ingredients as thin as possible. (We found out that peeling the carrot works just as well as cutting it.)

Ok, now it's time to get rolling!! Start by placing a sheep of plastic wrap on top of your sushi mat.

Next, get your hands wet and scoop out a hand full of rice. Put the rice on the sushi mat and pat it into a square shape. Try to get it as even a thickness as you can. Most of my guesstimations end up with a 1/4 in layer of rice. It's also very important to keep dunking you hands in the bowl of water to keep the rice from sticking to your fingers.

Take out a piece of nori with dry hands, or have some nice, dry-handed person do it for you. Place the nori on your rice, shiny side facing up.

Slid one hand in between the plastic wrap and the sushi mat. Place the other on top of the nori and flip the whole thing over.

Once you've peeled the plastic wrap off, you're ready for the filling. Place all your nice, thin foods in line like so.

Now for the tricksy part: the actually rolling process. Unfortunately, these pictures turned out blurrier than I wanted, but hopefully you can get a reasonably good idea of what's going on. Lift one edge of your sushi mat and fold it so the edge of the nori comes over to the opposite edge of the line of ingredients.

Press it together with your hands to give it some shape, then carefully keep rolling till you reach the other end of the nori. Make sure not to roll your sushi mat into your sushi!

Press the roll, still wrapped in the sushi mat, so that it has additional shape and structure. You might want to turn the roll to a different side to ensure that you get it in a relatively rounded shape.

Take off the sushi mat and you should have something like this; a long sushi log.

The end is in sight! The last thing to do is cut your sushi into individual, bite sized pieces. Take a sharp serrated knife and douse it with water from your bowl.

With gentle but determined force, cut the sushi log with a sawing motion you reach the bottom. At the end you might have to add a few more slices to ensure that the nori is cut all the way through. The trickiest pieces are the ends, so you might want to start in the middle and work your way out.

And you're done!!!! Doesn't it look pretty? Any sushi that is not instantly devoured can be sorted in the fridge for later.

So that's the story of how sushi is made! Pretty cool, huh? It's kind of a time consuming process (not unlike writing this post) but well worth it in the end. Hopefully you've enjoyed watching everything come together. You might even feel empowered to try it yourself! (I mean, if we can do, I'm sure you can too.)

If you do try making your own sushi, I also recommend this site. http://www.diy-sushi-recipes.com/index.html Jon and I used it when we first started and found it super helpful. The author includes more detailed steps and instructions (some of which I skipped) as well as giving ideas for other kinds of sushi. He even talks about how to use raw fish in your sushi, which is something I'm way to scared to try at home.

Well, now that that enormous post is written, I think all have some sushi.

Happy Nomming!!!!

Kitchen collages and autumn leaves

2011-10-12T18:59:00.000-07:00

I finally finished that other kitchen collage and here it is.

Now I just need to figure out were in my kitchen these collages are going to live! :-)

If you recall from a previous post, I said I would add some of the other diy projects I've got under foot. One thing I've been dying to work with are pressed leaves. I love collecting and preserving autumn leaves, but I haven't had any use for them other than hiding them away in big books I never read. Where's the fun in that? So last week I made a leaf "painting" using a round piece of wood a friend gave me, (actually, the same super awesome friend who gave me the wine bottles), and some pressed leaves I'd collected. Here's how it turned out.

Basically, I played around till I had the leaves in a nice pattern and Mod Podged them to the wood, which was a bit tricky because leaves are not flat like paper. After that I coated the whole thing with lots more Mod Podge to seal and strengthen the leaves. I think it turned out very pretty. I'm planning on adding more leaves once I've rebuilt my collection. Note: If you try this, or any other project with Mod Podge, its a good idea to cover your surface with something protective before you start. I, being the hap-hazard individual that I am, did not follow this wise advice and dropped nearly the whole bottle of glue on my living room rug. Most of it cleaned up, but there's still a patch with a radically different texture from the rest of the carpet! So be nice to your floors and give them protective gear against your crafting madness!!!!

That's it for now, have a wondrous week!

10 yards in red

2011-10-08T19:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my mother-in-law and I spent the day hunting for fun stuff at various thrifty type establishments. I love going to thrift stores and the like; you usually find the best stuff there. This time I ended up with a soup pot, a pretty thumb ring and a pair of fabulous purple shoulder duster earrings (the jewelry was actually new, but it was still a good deal). My mother-in-law, who is super awesome, bought me three vests, two sweaters, a top and two journals; all for $30! However, I think I my favorite find of the day was at a fabric warehouse. I got a large armful of beautiful grey and burgundy fabrics, plus ten yard of a red jersey knit for $5!!!!! Here's what it looked like washed and drying on my neighbor's clothes line. I'm quite pleased with myself. ^_^

I was also able to finish one of the collages that had me stumped for a while. It's a pretty good example of my "style".

Getting the arrangement of the magazine pieces to a place where I'm happy with them is usually kind of tricky, but this one took forever to get just right. It has the usual "organic land masses" look, but I wanted it to have a painterly quality as well. The photo is a brightly colored house in our town, I took a few months ago. I have another one similar to this one that's almost done and I'm planning on hanging them both in my kitchen.

Well, I'm off to listen to my husband read The Hobbit out loud. Have a good night!

Use what you have!: a personal DIY challenge

2011-10-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

It's high time that I share another hobby of mine; DIY projects. I really enjoy making unique, crafty type things with rejected materials because, a) I like the creativity thinking behind it and b) I'm a ~~cheap skate~~ thrifty individual. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I love collecting all kinds of odd bits that usually get thrown out. However, the things I collect tend to pile up and languish away in dark corners, longing to be put to good use. So I have decided to stop procrastinating on those potential projects and start doing them. Here's one I've been working on over the past few days.

A friend of mine gave me a bunch of empty wine bottles and they've been sitting around my studio.

I covered them with newspaper and mod podge; which, by the way, are two of my favorite art/crafting supplies ever!!! I could probably have left them with just the newspaper, but I wanted something with more color.

Then I layered the bottles with tissue paper and more mod podge. Waited for the glue to dry and that's it. Super easy. Just be careful not to get glue dripped all over the carpet. (I had a few little mishaps.)

Tada!!! Looks pretty snazzy, huh? I've started making a couple more in different colors to put in my kitchen.

I'll check back in over the next few days with some more diy projects.
Till then! ^_^

2011-10-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

It seems that I managed to go the entire month of September without blogging. How did that happen, you ask? Well, as it happened, I only intended to skip the first week of September. Jon and I went to visit some college friends in Ohio and had a super fabulous time. We went to the Cincinnati Art museum, the Ohio Renaissance Festival and a little hippie town with lots of fun shops! We also spent plenty of time hanging out, playing games and eating food. It was wonderful to see everyone and I started missing them as soon as I got home. Shortly after arriving home, our computer decided it was sick of being alive and bit the dust. We decided that, rather than buy a brand new computer which we couldn't afford, we would buy the required parts and bring our old computer back from the dead. The parts took several days to arrive and when we finally got them in the computer, it still wouldn't work. Several things were tried and failed, then retried and failed again. Having run completely out of ideas, Jon took the computer to a small computer repair shop and the guy there got it to work. Thus concludes my woeful tale of computer troubles and the reason why my last post was August 29th.

Alright, enough talking! Onward to art!!!!!!! Here is a recent "experimental" self portrait.

Not going to lie, I love the way it turned out!!!!!! It's watercolor/collage hybrid. If you look closely at the pictures below, you can see little bits of torn magazine integrated into the picture.

This next one was also an experiment.

It's pretty different from my "typical" collage technique. I tried to go for something that felt more like an object and less like an image. I think they have a kind of topographical quality. (Sorry the photos have a bit of a glare. They were already framed when I photographed them and it would've been a huge pain to get them back out again.) I recently submitted these to a local art show, but sadly, they were not accepted. When my husband went to pick them up, the lady there told him that she loved the pieces themselves, but didn't like the frame. Go figure? I was a bit annoyed, but also pleased that my artwork hadn't been the offending factor.

Well, I've gone on long enough. Have wonderous beginning of October!

Full sketchbooks, hurricanes and birthdays

2011-08-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

These are the last three pages in the sketchbook I was working on. I actually worked all the way to the last page, which is unusual for me. Normally I have at least 20 some blank pages at the end that I never got around to filling. I wonder if anyone else does that. I also always leave the first page blank, like the first few pages of a book. I do that with my journals too. Anyway, on to pictures.......

Kinda morbid, I know, but it turned out nice. I'm usually pleased with the results of my depressed sketches. Plus, I usually feel better afterwords.

I guess this is the first "self portrait" I've posted. I was playing with a cartoon/caricatured style, which I want to develop some more. I look like I'm twelve or something, but that's actually kind of accurate to how I feel at times.

And here's one of my husband, Jon. He really does like his swords! :-)

Oh, and remember how I mentioned I was cleaning my studio? Well here's what it looked like before I started.

I really wish I could say it doesn't get this bad very often, but that wouldn't be very truthful. However, after a few days spent almost entirely cleaning the studio, it looked like this....

Tada!!!! Isn't it beautiful. You can see the floor and everything! ^_^ Grant you, it's not quite that clean at the moment, but let's not focus on that part.

In other news, my birthday was yesterday!!! I'm kind of ignoring the fact that I'm a whole year older now than I was before. I guess everyone does that at some point. My husband and I were going to go to the Philadelphia art museum to celebrate, but Hurricane Irene decided to come and visit instead. We ended up camping out at my husband's parent's house where we all had cupcakes and watched "Up," one of my favorite Pixar movies. The storm didn't really hit us too hard, fortunately. It took a few trees down and flooded some areas, but it was nowhere near as bad as some other places (for which I'm very thankful). Jon and I came home Sunday afternoon and finished the day out with our favorite parts of Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 (also on my list of best movies ever). It was a pleasant, laid-back birthday, which was fine by me. And what, you might ask, was my favorite present? Volumes 3-9 of the graphic novel series Bone!!!!!!!! They're my favorite graphic novels and I now own the complete set in color!!!! ^_^

Watercolor, mixed media, etc.

2011-08-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

Well, its been about a week since my last post, so I should probably put some more stuff up. Here are some studies/experiments with watercolor mostly.

This one is base on some eye shadow ads. I love painting eyes.

This project was inspired by a bunch of left over thread from some sewing projects. (Probably should have pitched the threads, but that's aside the point.) I wanted to see if I could do something more abstract and this is where I ended up. Not sure if this is an area I'll end up developing, but it was fun to play around with something different.

These are some sketches and studies of a creature called a pangolin in preparation for a larger project. I'll be posting about that little adventure soon.

Like I said, love painting eye make-up.

A few gesture drawing of our gerbils. I should really do some more of them sometime, but the little ladies are so fast that they're kind of tricky to draw.

Most of this stuff is a few months old, but I wanted to get it up here before I start adding new art. I have a few projects going and hopefully they'll be ready to show soon. I'm also in the process of clean/reorganizing my studio, so I'm trying not to work on too many things till that's finished.

Burning House

2011-08-16T14:17:00.000-07:00

Today I happened upon a very interesting photo essay/project that deals with people's answers to the question, "If your house caught on fire and you could only save a few things, what would they be?" I highly recommend taking a look at the project on The Anthropologist web site http://theanthropologist.net/#/TheBurningHouse . Its a very interesting insight into what kind of things people value and why.

This made me wonder if there's anything I would take, given the chance. I've always had a hard time with this query because I love stuff. I have a lot of it; I collect it frequently; and to some extent, I express myself in the things I own. It would be utterly impossible to save everything that I loved or that had sentimental value.

Then, of course, there's the fact that on the list of things to save, your life is the top priority. In the photo project, lots of people displayed the things they would rescue from the clutches of a blaze, but only one woman featured had actually lived through a fire. The 91 year old artist had a different perspective from the other participants; her experience had shown her that while losing things was hard, her life was the most valuable and important thing she owned.

Although I've never lived through a fire, there's one thing I'm fairly certain about; you can't look back. The only way I could deal with that kind of loss is to start over without trying to recreate my life and the things that I had. So, if you can't go back and the only thing worth saving is your life anyway, is there any point wondering what you might save?

I thought about this for awhile before coming to a conclusion. I realized that if I did choose to save anything, the question would become, is there anything worth carrying into the future? Are there any pieces of the past that I value enough to preserve? Is there anything on which I would want to build a new life?

Sketchbook pages 1

2011-08-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

Seeing how this is an art blog and all, its high time it had some art! So I'll start out with a few sketchbook pages!

My husband playing his guitar.

This is one of those "wow-this-turned-out awesome-totally-by-accident!" kind of sketches. I based it off of the outfit I was wearing that day. Maybe someday I can be this cool on purpose. :-)

Ya, I was having a rotten day when I drew these two. They turned out pretty nice though.

Generally, the stuff I draw that's made up isn't usually too good. That being said, I think this cow looks great for something I drew without any reference.

This one turned into a shading study. Just in case you can't read my sloppy cursive, I wrote "red shoes or angry yelling men".

Hello!

2011-08-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

First, a little bit about me; my name is Bethany and I live with my husband and our four gerbils. I'm a twenty something, although most of the time I feel a lot younger. I'm also an artist, which brings me to this blog.

I've never tried anything this ambitious, but I hope to use this blog as a virtual bulletin board for my artwork, a place where I can share my creations. My other interests will also probably end up here, which run to the thoughtful, the silly, the cute and the down-right nerdy things in life.

I tend to be a little on the scatter-brained side, so my postings will probably not be as frequent as they should be, but I will try and add something new a few times a week.

And now, onward and upwards!