Happy Halloween!

And now for the scariest Halloween greeting of all:

 Sorry about that.  It seemed like a good idea at the time...

But now for our cuties.

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pu pu pu pumpkin drawing

For the last couple weeks, we were drawing this pumpkin/ fall/ awesome still life in drawing class!

Yikes, sorry for the really blurry picture- sometimes my little camera is not my friend when I don't use the flash... It's also not a perfect representation of how it looked to me in person from sitting at my desk, and things moved a little from day to day from being moved around the room- like the sticks....

But you get the idea!  This is actually how I cropped the objects for my drawing- there was also a mask and a mannequin and a little figure running from other angles.  So fun.  But I just couldn't get enough of the pumpkins, and that mirror!  How cool is it?

Our assignment was to use black and white charcoal and/ or white pastel on a grey tone paper, to start with a medium value.  I loved it!  We also had to use at least 3 of 4 charcoal techniques- smudging, hatching, cross hatching, and stippling.  My strategy was to get all the basic values in for the shapes and shadows, then smudge it all, and finally go in with the other 3 techniques to give texture and more pops of value everywhere. 

I'm really happy with the result!

Here's a side by side for my mom :)

Can you see all the techniques I used?  What do you think?

Happy Tuesday!  We'll be passing out candy to all the little monsters and princesses tonight over here.  How about you?


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Anthony, My Love

You guys, I love the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  LOVE!  LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!

I still remember the day we first met.  It was Christmas break of my junior year of high school, and I happened to see a music video.  We were at my grandma and grandpa's house, and they had cable, which we did not.  And I was enthralled.  I fell in love right there and never looked back. 

Since that time, I've fallen hard and we are now inseparable for life.  Well, me and Anthony are.  He's my real one true love.  No worries that he turns 50 next week.  Happy birthday, my love.

But back to what's going on: WE'RE GOING TO SEE THEM IN CONCERT TONIGHT!!  I may die of love.  If I never come back, you'll know why.

So I went around the house yesterday documenting all the RHCP stuff we have.  I knew we had a lot, but even I didn't remember I had collected this much over the last decade or so.  Whoa, I just said decade.  Yes, it's been over a decade since I was in high school.  Scary.  

1. Concert shirts

 2. A love collage I made from their article in Rolling Stone

3.  Our RHCP cd collection- yep there are some duplicates from before we were married

4.  Book collection

5.  Magazines they've been featured in

 6.  Anthony's book Scar Tissue on cd- read by Rider Strong from Boy Meets World of all people

7.  DVDs

8.  A record I bought in Paris that we framed

9.  A wall hanging Andy bought me as a gift when we were in college

10.  Finally, here's where my design career began. Yes, my wonderful Anthony inspired me to design this shirt that I wore to their concert in 2007.  

Anthony, I can't wait to see you tonight.  Remember that one time you proclaimed you felt great kinetic energy coming from the left side of the stage?  Yes, that was me at Lollapalooza in 2006, and it was my love energy that you felt.  Yep. Me and you forever.  It's okay, my husband understands.


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Digital self portraits

So one of my classes right now is Digital Imagery, where we learn all about Photoshop.  I've done some things in Photoshop with photos, but this was my first project where we worked exclusively with the paintbrush tools.  It was challenging, but really fun, and I got to explore my style a little bit.  We had to paint our own self portrait, using a photo and sampling the colors from it to paint ourselves in a new layer.  The final digital portrait is completely painted, with no part of the original photo showing through.

Here was my first one, which I didn't really love.  But it was really good practice with different brush tools and shapes, blending the colors, and using lots of layers and effects to get the smooth look to the skin and trying to get the hair right.  It took forever!

Do you recognize it?  (Looks like I forgot the earrings... oh, and the slight bags under the eyes...)

Here was my second one, which is the one I turned in.  I LOVED this style so much more!  It was made with bigger blocks of color, blended just lightly with the smudge tool.  I was going for an impressionistic look, and I am so happy with how it turned out.  (The colors look off because I printed it and then photographed it... the colors are much better in person.)

And here's the original photo.

How do you think they turned out? 

I am just so happy with all the things I'm learning!  I'm so thankful every day for this opportunity I have to be back in school and to be creative daily.  It feels amazing.  I have so many new goals and dreams for my future I think I could just explode!  In a good way.


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everyone deserves a treat now and then... or every night

See how I bought the special 1/2 the fat ice cream just so that I could absolutely douse it with hot fudge and marshmallow topping?  Yep, I'm tricky like that. 


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One of those weeks

You guys, last week was one of those weeks.  You know, the kind where nothing is really wrong, nothing horrible happens, but it just feels like something is off.  You know?  Like you wonder if you have a weird aura surrounding you, or like you need to go to a yoga class or a chiropractor or something?  Just little weird things happening one after another, added to just a busy school week.  Here's a few things that I remembered to write down...

1.  I spent time packing a lunch for myself, then put it in the freezer for a shot of cold before I left.  Then I forgot to bring it, of course.

2.  When I went to the campus Subway, they weren't taking credit or debit cards, and I didn't have cash.

3.  I had to buy black foam board to mount my final brochure design, and it ain't cheap ($5 a pop), but I measured and cut it for just one page, instead of both pages together, so I had to buy another board, measure and cut it again.  I was left with a bunch of small pieces that may or may not be able to be used.  Lame.

4.  On Tuesday, it was 4:00 pm before I realized I had my underwear on inside out.  Weird.

5.  On Wednesday, this was how much of my 2D Design project I had completed.  We had to mix paint to color match the correlating square from the actual picture we chose, to create an enlarged, pixelated version of the picture.  There were 768 squares and at this point I was averaging 30 squares an hour.  Oh and it was due Friday.  Total nightmare.

6.  I walked to and from my car in the rain at least 4 times this week.

7.  On Wednesday morning, I decided to treat myself to Starbucks and get rid of this bad aura surrounding me.  It wasn't until I had pulled forward and looked in my mirror to see the person behind me rolling down her window that I realized I didn't order!  Then I was stuck in the line with no way out and had to embarrassingly drive right by the window and get back in line.

8.  I had to spend 13 hours painting on Wednesday and Thursday to finish my project on time.  It was down to the line, for sure.

I'm sure more weird things happened, but I forgot to write everything down.  It was just one of those weeks. 

BUT, everything turned out fine.  I finished my projects, had a great weekend with Andy, and said to myself after each little thing happened "If this is the worst thing to happen to me, then I am a very, very lucky lady." 


Anyone else have a weird week?  


 


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Silly Halloween Fabric

Hi everyone and happy Friday!

I'm so excited to share my newest fabric design with you!  I created it for this week's Spoonflower contest with the theme creepy crawlies.

I started with the spiders as the creepy crawlies and added some other fun and goofy looking Halloween creatures.  I don't like the scary Halloween stuff!  Goofy and silly with googly eyes for me, please.

I love the way it turned out!  The design worked so well with a half drop repeat also.  Here's a screen shot from my Spoonflower shop.

There are so many fun designs in the contest this week; you can go here to check them out and vote for your favorites!

I'm off to spend time with my family!  They are driving 6 hours to visit me, and I have to say that I am one lucky lady!  

What are you up to this weekend?  Hope it's a good one!





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