the pageantry of bad photos

If I was more ironic,  then, well, I'd be more ironic... or I might be content with these things because their flaws are an expression of character or something.

I wanted one of those macro shots of a magnolia petal on the ground, but well, it was windy and I was standing at the end of some stranger's driveway essentially photographing leaf litter, and well, that's always weird... I seem to have missed my shot. The cement is in focus though - I mean that little part at the top.

 Over-lit... I mean the "dirt" looks good, but then there's the other 90% of the picture.

 You would think I took this photo on Mars — based on the red glow. Nope, just my camera's aperture not agreeing with my lighting.

 This is certainly not glamorous, but it usually does the trick: natural light.

 ...except, of course, I was interrupting the construction.

...and then there's the wind. Yes, thanks, wind.

 This would have been the previous shot.

 I'm bringing back bad lighting, and 1980's Sears catalog floral bedding selection patterns...

...if I try it indoors I can make it look even worse.
It's a white card and a white envelope - no attempts at photography thus far have provided satisfactory results.

 The inane things that have nothing to do with the actual task at hand are always infinitely more entertaining - look, its lichen or moss or something!

Oh, yes, yes I did. I got a nice shot of some nice green lichen right after it rained, and it's got that macro blur on it... Of course, this isn't a picture of a greeting card, so, its not terribly useful, but at least it was a decent shot. Perhaps its time to put the camera down for a bit and wait for the answer to come to me like the solution to a mystery on House or something. Damn, I'm going to miss that show when its final season ends. And, yes, I had a little school girl crush on Chase...

I sat down and caught up on "The Big C" yesterday afternoon. Somehow since the season premiere I managed to miss an episode. It's a well performed & well written show, I recommend giving it a try.
And maybe later this week I'll muster up the ability to take some usable photos. Maybe.

Anyway, I thank you for enduring the pageantry of bad photos, I actually have a lot more, but, well, I think you get the point...

ephemeral easter eggs

I caught up on the last 2 episodes of Grimm while I was sitting in the recliner and sketching... Oh, that David Giuntoli is such a hottie. Even if he was less handsome (or his eyes were a less sparkly blue) the show would still be fascinating. Sometimes early Sunday mornings are just like that.  Time to relax, enjoy capricious things, but really, just not think about anything and get lost in the moment.

I spent a lot of time taking less than spectacular photos this weekend... meh.

I spent a lot of time cooking last weekend... and then we had ham for 6 days.

Yes, that was Easter dinner. Ham, baked beans, homemade stuffing, wheat rolls, carrot cake, and the most important holiday dish: pink jello salad.

Every year I go out and buy a carton of eggs to boil and dye. I'm not sure why, I just do.  And I like my eggs in wild colors and abstract patterns, not unlike my paintings...
Well, the eggs have been eaten now, so their colorful shells are but a memory.

Anyway, it was a sleepless week and I feel like in spite of the amount of time that I spent not resting - that I got nothing done. Maybe this week will be better.

eggs and bunnies

Have a Happy Easter this Sunday!

I'll be having my nondenominational ham, pink jello salad, mashed potatoes, and decadent carrot cake.  I was never big into carrot cake, but somehow this one really appeals to me, and well, it comes out of a box so when it comes to cooking, you know, it fits into my schedule of not spending more than an hour on a meal.

Easter is a time when I remember to put on rubber gloves when I dye hard-boiled eggs so that I don't have to walk around for four days with colored dye on my hands.  As someone who has been doing art my entire life - I have some embarrassingly stained hands and fingernails a lot of the time.  Being a hand model was never my destiny.

bluebird nest

Anyhow, the eastern bluebirds are out there in the backyard building nests in the nest boxes.  They necessitate no dye.

hopscotch wishes

A few weeks ago I bought my bunnies and my cadbury creme eggs and my reeses eggs, and those eggs with the coconut cream. Anyway, these disappeared for a couple years - but the penultimate Easter treat is actually the Cadbury chocolate creme egg.  Those are the greatest Easter candy EVER.

Yes, I love candy. I mean, it's not like it was a secret.

On a virtually unrelated note, I was sifting through my vast collection of CDs the other day and ran across my copy of Warren Zevon's "Wanted Dead or Alive." I love Warren Zevon's music, possibly more than I love those Cadbury chocolate creme eggs.  And I bought that album about 9 years ago, and remember listening to it as I was driving to work. One of my favorite songs is his cover of "Iko Iko." I'm often drawn to songs where I have no idea what the hell is being said. So, a lot of the initial appeal was probably the puzzle of figuring out the lyrics or wondering what they were until I finally remembered to google it.  Anyway, the song has its own history, which you can read here.  I'll just be here playing it on repeat until I need to go cook a ham.

Have a Happy Holiday!

the cold, the bad, & the ugly...

Remember the last post about the magnolias? Yeah, well, they got their 2 days of blooming and then it was over... the cold front came in, so the thing is one "spectacular mess" now:

However, this week I finished a project I've been working on for a few weeks now, so in order to get some things set up I needed to take some photos of some of my creations... as it turns out, I have taken a lot of crappy product shots. And I have found that the easiest way to get photos that require the least effort and editing is to take them outside in atmospheric light. So, I put on my gloves...

And just because there's a formula or a routine for something doesn't mean they're all spectacular shots... As it turns out, I make things that are difficult to photograph...

 Yes, those are worms. Well, polymer clay worms. What? You're a little grossed out? Ah. Don't be.  That's nature's garbage disposal system right there.  Well, that and less than stellar photos.

Anyway, I make weird things. And you know, we've been to this well before. So, I was standing in Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago in the aisle with all the "wood" stuff, and I picked up these little plaques and laughed and thought "I could make something weird with these." So, I picked through them and bought the 8 that looked good and square.

I had to think about how I was going to execute this project, since I have a tendency to be a little messy.  So I decided the plaques needed to be stained first.  Now, I had also bought these wooden discs a couple weeks prior. They're basically the same thing I use for brooches, except round.  And I'm pretty sure I bought them to use for brooches, but this whole wormhole idea big-footed that.

 So, while my stain was setting, I made my worms.  And then, while finally watching "The Rum Diary" on my first new television in fifteen years - I spackled and primed my wood pieces and added the worms... of course, then I had to wait for that to dry — which is when a week's worth of watercolors began.

Once the spackle was dry, then I added the dirt — which is essentially a combination of acrylic paint with glue and tea grounds, a couple more layers of tea grounds, and an overcoat of a mixture of paint, glue, water, and gloss varnish... and then that has to dry.  And then I sanded the edges of my plaques and gave them another coat of stain... and then painted all the backs white... and then gave the plaques a coat of gloss varnish. So, I still need to take some pictures of them, but, essentially, they're finally done.

Anyway, this frigid weekend part of my photography plans were to change up the pictures for my "bad apples." This is an old shot... Yeah, so basically, I changed the background.

 

This bad apple is one of my favorites, since they look like they're having a little conversation.

So, the entire photo shoot usually takes place on the back porch.  Either I put a 13X19 inch print out of one of my photos down on the porch steps or I set up a drawing board with the print out across the arms of one of the chairs. Product photography is rarely glamorous.

Anyway, the magnolia is right there next to the porch, so when I was done shooting the worm-work, I took some shots of the magnolia and it's big mess of petals...

 Ironically, real live worms were hard at work.  Of course, since it was cold out, as soon as I picked up the thing they were hiding under, they squirmed their way back to shelter.  Nature is funny like that.

And then it rained. Rain & cold are real impediments to getting photos done and out of the way, so then the project had to move indoors, where between 2 camera let's just say there are less than stellar results...

So, maybe today it won't be too cold or rainy and I can get my shots done. Maybe.

Outside: magnolia

Magnolia, oh magnolia, you dear dear bush...

magnolia fantasia

magnolia cascade

magnolia skies

intricate magnolia

As I have mentioned before, here in Michigan when the magnolia finally blooms it then usually immediately snows. So, the bushes look fabulous for about a day, and then they are covered with snow and turn all brown and sad looking... and then all the petals fall off in a spectacular mess.

Well, we had 80˚F weather here for a week in March, so, I got my time with the magnolias.  It is a balmy 53˚F presently as I type this.  It rained during the night and the forecast predicts more rain. So, there-yah-go — we had our brief week of spring, and now it's back to weather as usual.

brief almost connected to the post musical interlude: Grateful Dead "Sugar Magnolia"

I was never a Dead-Head, per se, but "American Beauty" is an album that I happen to own. I'm one of those people who usually buys an album for one or 2 songs, and then eventually ends up listening to the entire thing, and well, I become fond of all the songs.  And "American Beauty" was one of those albums that followed that pattern. I'm pretty sure I probably bought it solely for "Sugar Magnolia." But I became quite fond of "Ripple," "Till the Morning Comes," and "Operator." But actually it was "Box of Rain" that I became completely smitten with. (Oh, and I'm pretty sure everyone has heard "Truckin" and "Friend of the Devil," unless, like, you live under a rock or were born after 1990)

Anyway, I could put "Box of Rain" on repeat for hours, I love that song. So, you know, buy the album, you'll eventually find all the good songs.

Anyway, as it is every year with the magnolias:

"Such a long long time to be gone

And a short time to be there."

—Robert Hunter

Enjoy your weekend!

so beautiful or so what

So beautiful or So what? So, I'm a little behind on my musical releases... that's just kind of how I am. You know what? I didn't go out and buy skinny jeans whenever those became "stylish" again. It is what it is. Right now I have this song —  so beautiful or so what — stuck in my head. So, that's so what.

 Paul Simon's website...

Truth be told, I just took a shower. So, as I type this I'm waiting for my hair to dry.  Normally, I default to TRESemmé shampoo and Pantene conditioner.  I'm a creature of habit. But every once in a while one must be adventurous, or just wash all the residue out of one's hair. So, I liked the way this smelled. Yes, as a consumer of hair care products, these 2 Herbal Essences products had all the necessary marketing tricks:

√  purple stuff comes out of the bottle

√  the bottle is purple

√  alleges to smell like "wild cherry"

√  use of the word "orchid"

Okay, so I actually think it kind of smells like grapes. But, well, it made my hair all snazzy when I used it. In the event that it's not apparent — violet (and by proxy all purple derivatives) is my favorite color. I love cherries, and I have long curly hair.

 

I also like cake. Strawberry with cream cheese frosting... mostly because that's what I found in the cupboards. Mmm, cake.

I decided, on a whim, that I wanted to do some watercolors... which might have something to do with the sudden influx of watercolors to my sarahknight etsy shop.  You know, when I list them I have to leaf through the pile and make sure that I've scanned them, and then I'm probably day dreaming about my fantasy house with all my paintings on the wall or something.

Anyway, yesterday  when I got home from work I sat down and caught up on the last 2 episodes of Californication and cleared off a good area on the floor in order to get out my case of paints, the box of watercolors, the box of gouache, the set of gouaches, the watercolor palette, the gouache palette, the bowl of salt... and then I spent a good 10 minutes cleaning up paintbrushes so that I would have something with which to fling wet pigment at the parchment...

I highly recommend Californication as a series.  I always enjoy being surprised by the plot twists on this show... and like Hank, I can't exactly say I have any fondness for Tyler...

I painted 14 yesterday, and four so far today. And now I'm waiting for them to dry. That's probably the hardest part.  There's a difference between the way they look when they're wet and how they look when they're dry. And even though I've been using this painting technique for 12 years — there's always an element of surprise, and it's usually the good kind.  I already scraped the salt off the 14 I painted yesterday, and it's going to be hard to not put most of them in the "keep pile."

Some notable keep pile escapees... here, and here, and here, and here...

It's unseasonably warm here in Michigan right now. A couple days ago I got my bike out of the shed and pumped up the tires. The first ride after the winter lay off is always the toughest... anyway, the crocuses have already bloomed, and now the daffodils, the forsythia, and the magnolia are going at it. I'm convinced it's going to snow tomorrow, even if the calendar indicates that spring has now begun.

Anyway, I recommend having a nice slice of cake and then going out to wander about and look at all the springy things popping up here and there... and maybe catch up on some Paul Simon too.
: )

love is like jazz...

I think I heard this song on the satellite radio at work, or maybe on one of the music channels on the television... because, as much as I am remiss to admit this, I haven't exactly just turned on the actual radio in a while. Anyway "Love Interruption" by Jack White. Oh. My. God. I am infatuated with this song.  I think the first arc of the infatuation was trying to figure out that the hell he was saying in the chorus, because I'm a tad deaf like that (there were a lot of hearing tests taken multiple times when I was a kid)... but after figuring out that it was "I won't let love disrupt corrupt or interrupt me" — I still have a desire to play this song repeatedly like a 12-year-old hopped up on the Bieber-juice. So much so that I looked to see if the album was available in a store, and then subsequently checked Amazon. Evidently "Blunderbliss" is available on April 23/24...

Yeah, I'm old (32), I still buy cds. I like having the actual thing.

I'm a casual Jack White fan.  I'm not exactly a devotee, I don't think I'm hipster enough for that.  The White Stripes were something that had to kind of grow on me... because Pink Floyd really does take up a lot of the oxygen when it comes to the atmosphere of my favorite bands (well, that and Dylan, Zeppelin, Cat Stevens, and Everclear...). "Elephant" was actually the first White Stripes album I bought.  I also got the next 2 White Stripes albums, plus the Dead Weather and the Raconteurs records.  So, when I remember some time in April, I plan to buy this one as well.

Anyway, until then I'll just be playing that video on repeat and letting the serotonin take over my brain every time it comes on that station at work...

Aside from saying that "Love Interruption" is just a damn cool song with interesting lyrics, an engaging lyrical structure, and an perfect harmony of sound, I really can't tell you anything about it beyond the fact that really, I like it because it's cool. So, I suppose the same model that applies to the way I like a song also applies to the way I produce work sometimes. 

orchid honeydew dawn

I apparently made this painting on 4 August 2011.  According to the calendar, that was a Thursday.  And, vaguely, apparently I did actually blog about it in the abstract.  But I don't really remember making this painting, like what I was thinking or what I was 'watching' on tv at the time — in that most things are made while I sit in my living room in front of the television while my eyes and attention are on whatever I'm making... So, I guess I was playing with gouache for one of the first times, and obviously salt and watercolors, but nothing quite jogs my memory to the specific moment when I made this.  Given the cumulative amount of random things I remember at any given moment — having no recall of precisely painting this painting amuses me.

But I like it, because it looks cool.  It's the wrong answer to give in an art school critique, but it's the simplest answer. Technically, it doesn't look cool; in that the individual and overall tone of the colors is warm, but, well, sorry Paris Hilton, I'm not one of those people that wanders around and exclaims "that's hot." So, yes, I'm declaring that I think it looks cool, which I guess might be me being egotistical, but well, I'm actually not completely neutral when it comes to the things that I make, and I like some of them more than others... that's why there's a keep pile. Sadly, I cannot keep them all. Well, I guess I could, but no, I can't.

I didn't get much made this week. Some weeks are more productive than others. I mean, redesigning my business cards doesn't really count as making something? Does it?

Maybe it does...
Watching Tabatha Takes Over, Criminal Minds, CSI (yes, I have a little girl crush on Spencer Reid too), and WWE Raw, probably ate up a couple hours of time as well. It can't all be Supernatural and Grimm all the time. Besides, the Rock sang for us. Yeah, I will never understand the appeal of John Cena... Rock 3 / Cena 0. That's all I'm sayin' particularly in the event that anyone was keeping score. Yeah, I know you weren't. Yes, I know, I know, people, the outcomes are pre-determined as we say.

Anyway, after 15 years with the 19 inch RCA, I finally bought a new tv. So, uh, now I guess I have to get that thing of the box and figure out where the red and yellow and white chords go. I figure this should be fun, and by fun I mean unnecessarily difficult. I guess that's really my project for this weekend.

*Update! I have now stepped into the 21st century! The television is assembled and functional. Woo-hoooooooooo! It's time to break out the cream soda and the pizza or something, or finally get around to watching The Rum Diary now that Johnny Depp's face will be life-sized.

the lost post...

The weekend seems to have whizzed by without a blog post... whoops.

Which is funny, because I spent a lot of time sitting in front of the computer. But I was typing, and well, screen captures of text just aren't that dynamic when it comes to blog posts...

I did, however, go shopping. I mean, I went shopping to buy conditioner and garbage bags and napkins... and somehow ended up in Hobby Lobby. Yeah, I have no idea, right? ; )

Anyway, I snagged the remainder of these 2 bolts of awesome fabric.  Ecograda Rose on the left & Ecograda Lattice on the right.  If I've never mentioned this, I love gaudy retro floral patterns and color schemes from the seventies.  I have an entire stash of what I think of as "future curtains." You know, for that window-licious house I'm going to buy when I win the lotto one of these days.  These colors & this pattern were just too much to pass up.

I have plans for new things in my "sarahknight" shop on etsy coming up in April.  This is one of my projects...

And I've been working on sketches of people... actually, I've been working on this project on and off for a couple of years now. I already have an entire sketchbook of "the girls." I just need to find the time to actually get past the sketching phase of the project and move on to the next phase...

In the mean time I immensely enjoyed Archer this last week. Katya as a cyborg was priceless.

However, I think Grimm left a bigger impression on me. I may have already copped to having a school girl crush on David Giuntoli. And really, who wouldn't? Just look at those sparkly baby blues.  Which reminds me of one of my favorite Jackson Browne songs... yes, that was a non sequitur.

Anyway, last Friday's episode was The Plumed Serpent. I think maybe it should have been called, "wow, that is a lot of shirtless Nick Burkhardt," but, you know, that's me. And, yeah, there was a lot of shirtlessness there.

: )

Not that I'm complaining.

Oh, and OMG, there's a tumblr called MONROELICIOUS, ha! The things you find when you google "shirtless Nick Burkhardt."

Anyway, hope everyone is having a good week :D

Picture Story: Christmas ride

The picture that became "Christmas ride" is another of the sketches that I had started in August 2011 while sitting at the art walk.

The original idea of the sketch was to have the deer — with ridiculously long legs — going off the picture plane. It was supposed to be abstract in that way.

 

Well, by the time I had printed it out as a blue page to be inked - the deer was no longer tromping off the page.

In fact, by the time I colored the deer — it had a new stranger kind of perspective.  The funny thing is — this was one of the first graphics I actually started working on a colorized scan of as it pertains to the calendar graphics, but I kept waffling on finishing it.

 Anyway, I got the colorized / colored-over drawing of the deer all scanned into photoshop and cut the scan and got my composition file ready — and then I needed a background.

Now, since the deer is leaping through the air and I intended for this to be a wintery / Christmas-y graphic (because it was the graphic for December) — I needed a sky. And because I was in a rush, whatever plans I may have had to create something specific to this picture were dumped in favor of using something I already had.

My starry sky was originally created for "violet night." It's also the starry sky that I used in "deer in the winter woods." But I wanted a more subdued version, so I used a layer of color over it.

I also wanted my sky to look more like a sky and less like a flat patternesque plane — so I selected a sky photo to superimpose over my stars.

And then, because it's a winter picture — I added a layer of my snowflakes.

The girl wasn't originally a planned part of the composition.  But looking at the deer over the sky in my file — it was just missing something. Now, eschewing the normal process, I actually just printed out a super-lightened copy of my deer and literally — with a pencil sketched the girl onto the composition. I inked that with a very thin-lined pen, and then colored it with prismacolors. I scanned that drawing into photoshop, cut the scan and added it to the file.

And, voilà: "Christmas ride"