2012 wall: February Update

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,

me

February Sketches

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,

me

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

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,

me

Film Festival Fridays: Hammock: Breathturn

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,

me

These are a few of my favorite things

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,

me

Sad day.

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

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,

me

Relish

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,

me

My remedy for bad days

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,

me

The last of my old skecthbook

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,

me