here's what's new

For the whole two of you out there on the internets that may read this, my apologies for not posting recently. With the upcoming holiday season I've been taking a break from painting to focus on knitting and other forms of gift-making. Handmade gifts have the potential to be hokey, but can also be wonderfully thoughtful and sweet, and they are always some of my favorite gifts to receive. This year, I'm going to focus my efforts on bookbinding, as I have found some great instructions on how to hand-sew and bind books. I just need to go thrift shopping to find some neato book covers to make the covers of the books with. Hopefully I'll spend black Friday sleeping in and then leisurely secondhand shopping instead of waking up with the hordes of retail-swarming crazies.

Here's my holiday shopping list so far:
*acid free paper (white and black)
*book covers (larger the better)
*waxed linen thread (or thick thread + beeswax)
*photo corners (if I can't find my old stash)

I'm also making other handicrafts, and have thought of doing a family portrait to give to my parents for Christmas, but we'll see how that goes, if it even goes.

Another thing I've been busy with is being the maid of honor in a girlfriend's wedding. So some of my recent weekends (aka-painting times) have been devoted to dress shopping. I'll also be making her wedding invitations, and I've been scouring the internets for cool ideas and inspiration.

On the more serious side of things, I've picked up a little freelance design work. I'm currently working on a project for Utica Community Schools, creating a cover design for their Continuing Education catalog. The deadline is very short, and it will be made digitally, and hopefully I'll post it up here late next week.

That's it for now.

new painting

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by SweetExy

My next painting is a portrait of my friend Mimi and her dog Fuji. This piece is the first in a series I am planning about identity and appearances. I am working on making images with multiple figures, and would like to include a painting of a large crowd in the series, so I can study hands and work on my ability to create likenesses.

Which come to think of it, might be a challenge because the photo reference I have gathered is all from MySpace. But I like using MySpace photos as painting references because of what a person's MySpace says about their identity--it's one of the few places a person can control perception by including and excluding details.

I'm also infatuated with red under-painting and sketching right now, and hope to let some of the bright cadmium red show through the colors I add on top. There's some compositional problems with this picture (like what to do with the had at the right, and who exactly belongs to it), but hopefully I'll work those out tonight.

Check back soon for more progress and maybe some digital color comps.

walrus paintings preview

I finished these three paintings of walruses, which are based off of some sketchbook doodling. I'll post actual quality scans without carpeting or futon at a later date.

on the internets:

So upon my daily investigation of the far sides of the internets, I came upon this article, entitled "How Starbucks Saved my Life."

Also, this website, www.buylesscrap.org that brings to light the fact that major corporations with ethics issues (*cough* Gap and Nike) can take time to donate to OTHER causes, but don't solve the problems they are currently making in developing nations. There's also a handy list of the charities supported by the (RED) campaign, with links to the websites of the featured charities, where you can donate without buying more stuff you don't really need.

And this article from webworkerdaily.com about mouse shortcuts that you may not know about. My favorite new mousing skill is clicking a link with the scroll button, which, if you have tabbed browsing enabled, opens links in a new tab--an action handy when you're searching the internets from end to end in search of things to blog about.

On a more personal note, I just finished three paintings last night. They'll make it to the website in the works, but I'll preview them sometime this week here.

my photo included schmap.com

Greetings!

So today, upon opening my flickr account, which admittedly, I don't to quite often enough, I recieved a message from the people at Schmap.com asking if they could use a photo I took during my study abroad in Florence on their website. Here's the photo:


It's of Mercato Centrale, a large indoor market in Florence that sells fresh produce, meats, cheeses, and just about anything else food-related you can think of.

Sadly, the submission deadline was Sunday, August 26. I was able to submit my photo after-the-fact for consideration in future updates, and Schmap guides are updated frequently, so keep your eyes open.

If you're ever looking for a free, cool accurate guide to just about any place in the world, check it out.

hello + welcome

Welcome to the first installment of my blog, the companion to my website. This is where I'll post all the news on me, and pictures of personal projects of all kinds, as well as lots of other random art-related stuff. Check back often, I'll keep updating.