woodland creature project PART TWO

All those little animals I made for Laura found their way into her 2011/2012 look book for her Pansy Maiden vegan bags! Look at those models making like Snow White! The Look Book is a stunner and I'm so glad to be part of it. I am also proud that my first bit of client work was for such a good company.

Take a peek at the rest of the collection here: http://www.pansymaiden.com/look-book/

Photo Credit- Lucie Wicker Photography

But wait! This story isn't over yet. My original paintings of deer, rabbits and chickadees are stuck floating on a white page. They served their purpose but I can't leave them like that. I will show you what I am up to with them soon in PART THREE (the satisfying conclusion to this saga).

My favorite color is turquoise.

I am unable to deny my favoritism for this fine hue any longer. Justin took a photo of me today while we were waiting for a taxi and it made me notice that I was covered in no less than five blue green accessories!

When we arrived home, I was greeted by a very pretty and unexpected package. I tore through the mailer and then delicately unwrapped the sparkling silver tissue to reveal a thrilling present! Tristan from Le Blahg made me a really perfect personalized notepad (embellished with a turquoise bunny!) as thanks for participating in The Bright Side Project. She is so sweet and that surprise greatly elevated my spirits after I'd spent the better part of the day missing trains, standing in the rain and visiting the doctor!

I am relieved that I have finished my unpleasant errands. Now I can enjoy the evening with a hot cup of my favorite Golden Yunnan tea (incidentally, I'll be boiling water for this tea in my beloved turquoise kettle) in my toasty home watching movies with Justin.

I'm back from my trip to Maine!

I had a really splendid time with my family even though it poured almost every day. The good news about all that damp weather was that the mushroom population was thriving! I spent my days crouched on soggy leaves photographing mushrooms, moss, lichen and caterpillars and taking breaks to pick blueberries and make muffins. In the evening, we sat around the fireplace and did quiet things like reading, drawing and playing chinese checkers. I'll post more later about the drawings I made while away but for now I hope you'll take a look at my "fungi on the forest floor" set on Flickr for loads more mushroom pictures.

Glamour Shots

I took advantage of the nice bright sunlight streaming into my apartment and styled some new listing images for a few prints that I have in my shop that have not been selling as well as I'd hoped. I think these designs are just as worthy as the others but the pictures I had of them were not so great. So, this will be a little experiment in how much the listing image affects the popularity of the prints. I hope my shop feels more inviting now that I've been photographing my art in scenes instead of just scanning.

Polaroid

Polaroid announced this week that it will cease production of it's iconic instant film.

Damn! I love using my Polaroid camera and I'm pretty bummed that film is going to be extremely hard to acquire after 2009. I am also sad for the 150 employees in Massachusetts who will lose their jobs because of this. I understand that it isn't profitable anymore due to digital photography... but it's so fun! Now I'm afraid I'll be even stingier with the film than I was before.

I'm also particularly sentimental about Polaroids. Justin and I got ours a few years ago during a stressful period in our relationship. We were both too busy with school and work and bunny health issues and our own health issues and our money situation was dismal. The result was that we were spending our limited time together running errands and complaining about our situation. We were both getting depressed so we decided to try and make an effort to do something fast, simple and nice every once in awhile with each other.

We decided to take portraits of each other with the Polaroid camera as a way to pause and pay attention to one another. When I look back on these pictures, I remember the exact way I felt and how hard that time was for me. The portraits became less moody and more fun as winter moved into spring and our life got itself sorted out. I think that the portraits we took of one another were instrumental in our emergence from a crappy mentality. We have them displayed in our living room and I use them as reminder to appreciate each other and to be optimistic when I'm feeling stressed.

The Polaroid set above was taken while each of us had a Vladmaster viewing experience. Actaeon At Home was the piece we were watching. I just bought another one last week for Justin's birthday.

Swans in a Snowstorm

There was a big snowstorm the night before last. It was the first significant snow of the year and it was a great one. The amount, consistency and timing was all just perfect and so I urged Justin to go out exploring in the fresh fall after he got out of work around midnight. Last christmas, Aunt Paula had given us matching pairs of snowpants so we decided to do some serious stomping around outside to get her money's worth out of them. We got our cameras ready and headed out to the pier where The Friendship is docked. We decided that despite the challenging trudging we'd go all the way to the end of the pier and sit by the lighthouse for awhile. Justin was nice enough to kick up a path for me and my lazy bum to follow in because I was taking so many breaks and dramatically sighing.

I was so glad that he made me go all the way to the end because sitting up against the lighthouse and watching the tide take bits of ice away from the shore was immensly pleasurable. We sat still and silent for a long time.

I was just beginning to think about heading home when I spotted a pair of white swans bobbing towards us. I was surprised and delighted by their company because we hadn't seen another living thing that evening except people plowing. They came right up to where we were and looked at us for a little while before getting back to their sea slime eating. They were exceptionally beautiful in the half light and we were so happy to have them join us and stay so close. We headed back home and they paddled along behind in silence.

I tried to get a few pictures without flash but the light was too low. It was hard to remind myself that the picture was not that important. Sometimes having a camera helps me see things I wouldn't normally notice but this time it was inhibiting my experience a little. After a few hopelessly blurry shots I had to convince myself to put the camera away and enjoy the moment without obsessing about how to keep it.

Both Justin and I were so glad that we went out that night and I think we'll really treasure the memory. I'm surprised I didn't ruin the moment since I usually behave shamefully in romantic scenes. Justin knows better than to write me poems or give me mushy cards and roses because I can't help but snort-laugh about things like that. They are so awkward. This however, was my kind of spontaneous pleasure that left me sighing dreamily.

New toy!

I bought a Lomo camera off a friend yesterday and gave it to Justin as an early Christmas present. We both had the day off today so we spent the morning exploring Salem with our new camera in the fresh snow slush. The format of the Lomo is pretty neat but we haven't gotten the knack of knowing exactly what we're capturing with it yet. It has four lenses in a row and exposes one negative with four shots in rapid succession. The result reminds me of film stills.

I had such a good time today going on a photo seek with Justin. It was like the "good ol' days" when we used to go out exploring with our cameras regularly in High School. We lived in Connecticut at the time and there was nothing else to do besides sneak around abandoned houses and cow pastures looking for elegant compositions. Back then, we took ourselves way too seriously and only shot black and white photos with our ancient Nikons. We considered digital photography some cheap artistic abomination. Today, we realized how long it has been since we actually shot on real film. We must be getting lazy in our old age because we used to develop and print all our negatives a few years ago and now we're complaining about how big of a pain it is to drop the film at the one hour photo place. We've been completely spoiled by the instant gratification of digital photography.

I'm hoping that we go on many more excursions with our new Lomo. The mystery of not knowing what we caught on film and the excitement of waiting for our images to get developed will be what makes us choose to use the Lomo over our digital camera somedays.

SPT!

Today is Thursday and I took my picture. I do this almost every Thursday with a bunch of other people from Etsy. We all share this random ritual and have called it Self Portrait Thursday or SPT for short. The portraits we take can be quick like a snapshot or much more of a production. It is interesting to look back on these pictures and remember just what was going on and how I was feeling at the time. The images have really been a good challenge for many of us in the SPT group and definitely can be a way to evaluate yourself at the end of the day. It is really great to see how a portrait can reveal a little secret about the person hidden in their expression. My portrait today revealed that I'm developing a lady 'stache so I will not be sharing it due to my vanity. Justin and I have always cheated at SPT and took pictures of each other instead of ourselves. We figured it was just a technicality and besides, we need to break rules occasionally so we can maintain our badass image.

The picture above is my favorite SPT shot taken by Justin. It is strange how I hate seeing pictures of myself but I love having my picture taken. I ask him to do it all the time. He is such a good photographer and I love the attention.