midweek inspiration 6

This has been a pretty dreary looking week so far, lots of grey skies which make the trees look extra mossy and fairytale like. I was looking through my bookmarks and stumbled (once again) across UK based photographer Rosie Hardy's flickr site (<--- click for more). Her images are half pretty and innocent, and half dark and sexual, the colors are amazing, and I just love them! She is also her own model in most of her imagery and is absolutely gorgeous... its pretty ridiculous.

(It took me a LONG time to get this post together because I just could not decide which pictures to use! There are so many good ones!)

These 100% make me want to scoop up my camera and go on a photo adventure! I wish I could create imagery like this... after all, everyone loves a good self portrait.

[[ "this way". "fill these spaces up with days". "conserver". "inner strength". "romance isn't dead". "after the storm". "wait for me". "we painted the skies". "eleven paper girls". "these walls i can take". "incognito". "i will find a way". "anomaly". "solitude". "untitled". "1/365". "so she dances". ]]

getting started...

Like I mentioned on my weekend adventures post, I spent a good chunk of last weekend putting together some initial process for the wedding invitations I am currently working on. I did not really feel like looping a preview in with the matrix and robot building supplies, so I figured I would give a little peak into my initial typography and visual exploration process here. These are heavily cropped and extremely vague screenshots, I would not want to give anything away after all. But here they are, the beginnings of my current project...

[[ cropped screenshots in illustrator. ]]

On a side note, I need to start making more money because there are soooo many great fonts for sale and I want to buy them all up asap! I have sort of run through my selection of freebees. Hmmm... tax write-off?

weekend adventures 21

I would not really say that I have a tremendous amount of exciting adventures to share with you... this weekend was more about getting things done, or at least started. There was also quite a bit of nerdy movie watching... thanks boys.

friday night
I was so stressed out from last week that it felt great to kick back and relax knowing that I did not have to be at work early in the morning. I don't know how we got on the topic... but Pat, surprised that I had not seen 'The Matrix' series, insisted that we start watching it. Most of the evening was good, except for a little mishap, so I guess you could call it relaxing-ish.


saturday
I was focused on the robot party and set out to find some costume making supplies. I honestly thought that I would be able to find some clothes at one of the very limited cheap clothing stores we have around town to go off of, but came up completely short handed after visiting Goodwill, Ross, and TJ Max. Left with no choice, I headed over to Home Depot, a place I absolutely HATE visiting! I always feel so out of place and confused when I have to go there alone. I do not know much about home repairs, in fact every single time I have gone there by myself I have been picking up paint or various "art" supplies.

I grabbed a shopping cart and just started wandering the aisles until I stumbled across some of the things I was looking for. I could not ask for help because the conversation would have gone as follows / "Hi, can I help you?" / "Yes, I am looking for that silver, metally, tubey stuff... you know the thick tubey stuff that is bendy, like in E.T., but smaller and silver..." / "..." / In fact, when I finally checked out with my silver metally tubey stuff, some hex bolts, washers, two cans of spray paint, and a lot of duct tape... the woman at the counter politely asked me what kind of project I was working on, and upon explaining that the materials were all for a robot costume she laughed and said "Ok good, I was worried you were actually trying to build something with all of this!"

[[ some of my robot building supplies. ]]

Saturday concluded with some well deserved drinks after all of that exploring and the next in the Matrix series, which was not nearly as good as the first one. I liked the concept of the films, the story is very intricate, but I did not really like the introduction of the village and all of the tribal elements, that took it away a bit for me. It seemed artificial, forced, and a bit corny at that point. I did like the introduction of the Frenchman and the ghosts though, that was totally weird and creepy, my favorite thing apparently.


sunday
Sunday was all work and no play. I completely secluded myself all day to my room (since I have no office anymore) and really got started on the wedding invitations I am freelancing. I think I got the main direction of the system worked out... I just have to put the elements together, mimic some materials, and create all of the little components before it is ready to be presented as the first draft to my client. I wish that I had more time to work on it during the week, it is hard to work on it for only an hour or two at a time when I get on a tangent... I feel like I need five hour blocks to really make the progress I am looking for... but during the week, I just do not have that luxury.

[[ the matrix series screenshots. ]]

Sunday concluded with?? Surprise, the last Matrix movie. So nerdy. This one was pretty cool special effects wise, but I still preferred all of the Matrix scenes as opposed to the Zion business... though visually interesting during the fight scenes, I still found it to be a bit cheesy. People sure take a long time to die in these movies... I also wonder if the sales of pleather and alternative looking sunglasses skyrocketed once the first one came out in 1999. Interesting series. More interesting concept. Visually awesome and really advanced for its time. Creepiest villain ever. Overall not a bad watch. Though I think that they did that Kung Fu "come here" hand motion too much. But, I do really like the overall story conceptually.

"why hello beautiful don't you look nice."

Another week gone by... Yay Friday! 

This is going to be a busy weekend though, I have some freelancing to work on, and lots of robot costume making for Colleen's party next weekend. Bring it on silver spray paint! I am sure my fingertips will have a silvery sheen to them come Monday. 

I took advantage of Modcloth's 'Cabin Fever' sale last week and am anxiously awaiting my purchases, I hope they come soon, because I am really excited for my new hat... pictures to follow when they arrive. But, what I am really excited for are the clothes I ordered last week from MNKR. Modcloth carried one of their oversized shirts a few months ago and ever since I got it for Christmas I have been in love. I am really into comfy warm oversized clothing this season. I went on their website to take a look and found two new things to love. They should be coming in the mail soon as well. The best part? Only $3 shipping, and reasonably priced clothing. Have a look for yourself. 

[[  already own "hello again". i just ordered top left and bottom right. next time around i want the bottom left. i was trying to limit my spending though... ]]

They have great captions too... 

"Why hello beautiful don't you look nice. Are those new shoes you're wearing?" - Bonjour Beau.

"Hello again. Why hello again yourself. Its been quite a while hasn't it? Sure has. How's school? Crazy busy. How's your studio? Busy as well. Been to the music box lately? Not since the last year. Remember that one show we saw there? Of course I do. That was fun. Yes it was. Well, it was great seeing you. You as well. I guess I'll see you around. I'm sure you will. Until then. Yes. Until then." - Hello Again.

tangled

Have you seen the movie Tangled? We watched it earlier this week, and it is super cute. The graphics have gotten soo good now. Of course it is cheesy and there are a lot of songs, it is Disney after all.

I think it was partly because she looked similar to Sleeping Beauty, who was her favorite, and partly because she was so silly and had similar facial expressions? Or maybe it was just because I wanted her to... but the whole time Rapunzel totally reminded me of Johni. I also kept thinking, independently, that the "prince" figure bared a striking resemblance to Brandon... It was not until the end of the movie when they are in a boat surrounded by lanterns that I put the two together and realized that I found some serious doppelgangers. Oh, did I mention her character is also a painter? I don't know maybe I am crazy, but looking back on old pictures I totally see it. Especially the big eyes and little toothy smile.

Is it weird that I still think about her/you so much?

[[ movie action shots. ]]

midweek inspiration 5

As I have been looking through wedding blogs for inspirations on the invitations I am currently working on for a client, I am extremely inspired by the calligraphy done by some designers. I have always explored different styles of lettering as a means of entertainment, often filling page after page with song lyrics. I would like to get back into this and become a better calligrapher in the future, because I think that handwriting is fascinating and beautiful. Here are two artists of interest:


Dana Tanamachi specializes in creating large scale one of a kind calligraphy pieces... out of chalk! They are really gorgeous, and I would imagine extremely time consuming, especially for something as fragile and quick to dissipate as chalk.

Dear Darling Calligraphy has the BEST personal font style! I am in love with the strangely drawn out letters, the varying weights, and orientations of the text. This is definitely a style I would like to strive for in the future. Luckily, my doodles are much more closely related to these then the latter. I love the hand written envelopes with individual designs as well. Perfect.

rain rain go away

This one is on the short side... I had some major computer problems at work today, and then had to organize all of my art stuff to make room for our new roomate, so I wanted to relax a bit before posting.

Ok, so today was not nearly as bad as yesterday in terms of actual rainfall, but the ten day weather forecast indicates rain non stop. Yep, I must be in Oregon. It was literally insane how much and how hard it rained yesterday though! I had to bust out the rain boots and everything. Thank goodness for giant clear bubble umbrellas.

[[ white sky. shiny street. puddles galore. rain boots. ]]