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!