an Update! ...Sort of

I know I said I'd update my website, but I haven't gotten around to it. Maybe I will over maternity leave. :)

Well, I did take photos of a cake I made for a birthday party:

I can't wait to eat it... it's a pumpkin spice layer cake, with homemade cream cheese icing. I tried the whole chocolate leaf painting thing and it turned out pretty well. I used basil leaves and surprisingly, basil and chocolate are a pretty good combination! haha I left the darkest chocolate leaves on the basil overnight in the fridge, but I probably shouldn't have. You probably can't tell in the photo, on the darker chocolate leaves, the basil left shiny "water" stains on the leaves. The other leaves don't have that weird sheen because I peeled the basil leaves off before I went to bed. I don't prefer the "water sheen", but maybe others like it... just my findings.

This counts as art right?

Updates coming soon

My website needs to be updated soon. It's been a while. Maybe I'll keep the layout (since I probably need a refresher on xhtml coding!), but change the colors and fonts, etc (style sheets). Nothing major, just something different. Red and black are some of my favorite colors, but it's pretty dark. Hmmm...

I also need to update it with somewhat recent photography, business card designs, wedding monogram designs and the other small things I've worked on since the last update.

I'm also finally getting back into classes. My headaches have been bothering me, so when I try to nap in the evenings to make the pain go away, I just end up falling asleep for the night... and that's been going on for about...uh... 4 months! LOL I need to get everything together, especially now that I really shouldn't be going out. Gotta get it all done by December!

Happy early 4th!

new paintings, different style, similar subject matter

My friend Laura's birthday is today, so I decided to paint her dogs and give them to her as a present.

She has a long-haired dachshund named Petra and a basset hound named Ginger... if you have my FB, I have pics of them on there. She commented on my t-shirt logo that I did last month (see post from May 12) that she wanted cartoon versions of her dogs, so I painted them! I was originally going to do one of per dogs in the same style as I did with my pets, but this style was easier and less time consuming (and more fun!).

I had to buy the cheap acrylics, which meant that I had to paint 2 coats of each color, which sucked. But I had to go cheap because one friggin tube of the stuff is $5! And they don't come in small tubes. Boo.

rhianna

I picked up my ol' sketchbook and finally finished the drawing of Rhianna that I said I as working on (from this time last year). Well, it's not technically finished, but in my terms, it is. I need more practice and patience. It's hard to work on something that doesn't NEED to be done while in the back of your mind you have plenty more important things you should be doing. Ah, such is the life of a procrastinator.

moo!

Just got a new "toy" in the mail today. And it was FREE! Last week, Moo.com gave away coupon codes for free mini card cases (just had to pay shipping)! I got a hot pink one. And it is pretty hot! ...and shipping was lightning fast! I ordered it on Friday and just got it today (monday)!

I also have some photos to post. Maybe I should just post them on my flickr account. Just some flower photos from my yard...

flick account

Finally updated my flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60887877@N00/ after 4 years since signing up. Depending on what I will do in the future (more photography?), I might upgrade to a pro account for $25/year. It's a good site to upload digital proofs that people can download the original sizes from.

Right now, there's not much on there, just a few of my favorites from a set of photos I took last weekend of my friends and their baby, and their friends and baby. (I took their Christmas card photos last year) I might post up more, i.e. wedding photos, dog photos... just need to find time to search my hard drives for these pics.

moo cards!

I love 'em!

These are just 5/100th of the cards I chose at random to keep in my wallet. Pretty damn awesome! (I owe you some, Peng!)

moo.com

Blur

The last few weeks have been a blur... (please reference my other blog for details).

I really haven't been doing much for myself lately. I do have a business card to work on for someone and a baby photo shoot Saturday. Extra monies coming in is always a good idea, but I have been SLACK on my web courses!! BAD JAC! I am more than sure that I will have to file for an extension to finish everything after December. Geeze. Gotta get my priorities in line. I feel bad for turning down freelance projects that I can do, but know that I really don't have time for. I did finally get paid for the 2 websites I did, which went straight to savings... I'll probably have to report those earnings to Uncle Sam, so I might as well not touch it for now. (But hopefully we will have a nice tax break next year... LOL)

Oh! I did do one thing that I can post! I'm running a relay race this Saturday: the Care for Cora Run at Savannah Christian School. I'll be running with my friend Stephanie and her two twin girls! It should be fun! To make it even more fun, we decided to give our relay team a name and make matching t-shirts! Check out our team logo I made:

No thumbs -- I know! But I was too tired to make it any more detailed...haha

finally!

I finally ordered myself some Moo.com mini cards! I have wanted them ever since I saw an ad for them on someone's flickr account. I got Pennie a gift certificate for Xmas and she recently sent me some of her minicards...and they looked awesome!!

I used a bunch of photos and a few patterned vector files I created or just had on hand....

Cant wait to get 'em!! Will I even want to give any out? :)

Lucian

Finally finished Lucian the other day. I put all three next to each other and this one looks different with the multiple tints and shades of blue. I only used like 3-4 in the other 2, this one was a bit more complex so I had to add more. Oh well. And now I finally get to hang them up! Yay! My first actual pieces of "fine art", if that's what you want to call 'em... heh heh

March in a nutshell

Been busy during the month of March apparently.

Made some cupcakes and discovered Georgetown Cupcake (GTC)! MMMMmmm... the photos above are of my creation for a friend's baby shower. I took much inspiration from GTC. :D Although not as yummy...but still pretty tasty, if I do say so myself! I also used fondant for the first time, but didn't have time to make pretty shapes so I rolled little balls instead. Did the job and was still "pretty"!

I also ran my fastest 5K time ever on the 21st (Gulfstream 5K run - 28:20), and also my fastest 10K on my own (01:02:30) last month!

In terms of work, I finally finished the nail salon website I was working on: Crystal Nails Salon. So hopefully I will be getting paid for that and the other site I did for the same client soon. I need monies! They threw in a free mani and pedi, which I redeemed last Saturday. It was my first manicure... Very relaxing...

And speaking of relaxing, I treated myself to TWO massages last month. One was at a day spa up the street (surprisingly very nice for the little town we live in) and the other was a student massage at a Massage Therapy School. Both were pretty awesome! I want more!!! March was my "pampering month"... I also got a Pedicure with Shonna when we went to Charleston!! We should all plan a spa retreat vacation one weekend... I am hooked!

In the process of the final painting of the "Pet Triptych" which is of Lucian (my cat). It's the most detailed so far and the tiny brush I have been using is about DONE. I will post it up soon.

Other than that, I have been behind on my schoolwork which I should be working on now. heh heh...

happy national pancake day!

OK, so that subject has nothing to do with this post. I just couldn't think of a good subject line. But today really is National Pancake day and I think IHOP is giving away free small stacks until 10pm. woohoo!

I haven't been doing much artsy stuff lately. I still have my final Lucian painting to do, but it seems like it will be the most complex out of the three, so I've been procrastinating on that. I think I also need new brushes. I need a smaller one. I also want to at least draw the lines for a painting for my friend. She has 2 doggies and she saw the ones I did of Mac and Snorty and wanted me to draw one out for her to paint. I can set it up like a paint-by-numbers. So I need to get cracking on that.

I have been working in Flash and finished up my first Flash site which I am proud of because learning it was a b!tch. It's for my friend's restaurant: www.masatoofjapan.com I also did the restaurant photography (I ordered the plain mahi and steamed rice, which is not on the menu, but I loved it so I featured it on the site, heehee).

Next is business cards for a friend that I have not been able to work on lately because I have been sleeping at night instead of staying awake to do that and school. Argh! It's so hard! Especially with me being sick. I have been falling back on classes and now there's no way I'll get the 2 classes finished by March 11. Great. I've also been doing this P90X workout that tires me out, so even before I was sick, I was still sleeping through the night instead of working. Friggin not enough hours in the day! Tonight I need to NOT take a nap, because the past few nights I was like, "ok, I'm just going to take a SHORT nap" but ends up being an 8-hour nap and then it's time for me to start the 8-5 work. I'm lucky I work at home, otherwise, NOTHING would ever get done.

Why am I doing this to myself? I won't see a normal sleeping pattern until next year (after I'm done with these classes). I have been getting offers for freelance projects, but I had to turn many of them down because I just really don't have the time. argh!

Well on the plus side, tonight we are going out to eat. Yay!

Superbowl!

I haven't gotten to work on the third Lucian painting yet. He might be the hardest. He's got stripes in his face and his fur is short so it shows more texture than the dogs. So it could take a while to paint. I might have to work on that next week.

This weekend is of course the Superbowl! I haven't made any cakes in a while, so I thought I'd do something for the party. I didn't feel like making a logo cake like I did last year....then the year before I did a clashing helmet cake (good thing the Colts and the Browns didn't have complex logos!). So, I decided to go with cupcakes.

I looked up the official team colors on wikipedia and did a batch of half Cardinal's colors and half Steeler's. I think they came out pretty good. I like icing them, but mixing the colors takes a while and it gets pretty messy.

I'm not really into either of these teams this year, so I'll probably root for the underdog...which is the Cardinals?? Eh...maybe I'll stick with Pittsburgh...

painting, part 2

I finished this painting of Snorty on Saturday. Probably took me a good 5 hours while listening to the Food Network in the background. I got a good headache after doing it. I guess acrylics have some type of toxic odor, although you can't really smell it while using them.

This photo looks better than the real thing. I added more of the color in between the light blue and white, as seen on the right cheek. I used it sparingly in the one I did of Mac, but in this one I mixed in too much of the light blue, when I should have used more white. So in reality, that lighter light blue kind of merges into the light blue...unless you are looking at it in a certain light.

Ah well. With these mistakes/lessons, I should be able to perfect the last painting of Lucian!

painting, part 1

Here is my first attempt at paint.

It's acrylics. It turned out pretty good except I didn't mean to go all the way black. The black was meant to be a dark blue. I have no sense of color mixing, and added too much black to the already darkish blue. Also, the dark blue I used is too close to the shade of black. I wanted more of an medium blue. It looked better with the first coat, but you could see my strokes, so I went over it again with another coat and made it waaaay too dark. Oh well. I know what to do for the next one.

I also learned that cheap paints are cheap. The blue I used for the "medium blue-turn-dark blue" and the white were cheapies. And I had to do two coats for both of those colors. The others, not so bad.

Next up is Snorty.

Happy belated new year!

So December was a blur and so was the beginning of January. Lots of stuff happened, mostly good, I think, except that I haven't really done much artistically. I actually have done lots of work, just mainly stuff for my online classes, a nail salon website, and a t-shirt design for a half marathon (which was a contest...which I didn't win...b@stards!) But all of it is not worth posting here.

[[ Oh, I did do a couple family holiday photo shoots, which can be seen on my website. I do think those turned out lovely :) ]]

I am, however working on my first ever painting! I've been thinking about it for over a year, but just now got the balls to start it. It's going to be a triptych of my pets. And they will be graphic, as opposed to realistic, so it's not too hard to do... or so I thought. Well, it's not hard at all, it's just taking lots of time. I'm doing it in a sort of paint by numbers style, so I'm just painting on shapes of color, no blending involved.

I'm working with acrylics because they dry fast. Easy to work with, but still they have to dry and I'm impatient, so it's taking a while. I really want the work day to be over with so I can work on it! (...as I type this during my working hours...heehee) I did a bit on my lunch break, which was nice. It's very therapeutic...

I will definitely post photos of it when I'm done. I'm proud of myself for starting this!

I also have a few other freelance projects: Masato (in Pooler) website and another wedding invitation. Gotta love the word of mouth! So I will be super-busy in the next few weeks... I also have to finish up 3 more classes by the beginning of March! eep!