birthdays and butterflies

My birthday is June 21. So, today would be the day after my birthday...

Every year there's cake - Betty Crocker Cherry Chip cake with the corresponding Cherry frosting.

I became aware of this cake somewhere between the ages of 6 and 8. It was served one year on Grandpa Duda's birthday. Prior to this particular family shindig — all cake had been white or yellow or chocolate, and was either frosted with vanilla or chocolate.  Grandma Knight did occasionally break out the German chocolate cake. While I am always a fan of the coconut pecan frosting - I never quite got the appeal of the cake portion of the cake...

Anyway, cherry chip cake became my favorite cake immediately. The fact that the cherry frosting is pink was probably also part of the appeal. I was a child, it was an unusual flavor, what can I say? I mean, other than it appears at least once a year in my house. It's awesome cake.

My sister's birthday is in another couple of days. Every year we basically trade $20 back and forth in the span of a week.  So, every year I have to conjure up a gift and usually end up making a trip to the post office on my birthday so that it will arrive around or on her birthday...

I conveniently worked up a couple new "species" of butterflies in the last month or so. You can see some of them here.

Hopefully you're enjoying your summer!

midnight mist

I've found myself in a funk lately. I'm tired, but I can't sleep. When I wake up I don't want to do anything but watch tv. There's nothing on tv (oh, shush, PBS devotees, I want zazzy scripted drama, not pandas mating or opera or period pieces)...

Anyway, in an effort to make the most of the garbage bill (since I'm the one who mails out the cheque) I have been going through the house and throwing away a lot of things that no one wants or needs. Yes, recyclers and thrifters everywhere just groaned. Seriously, I can guarantee you that dusty cardboard that has been sitting in the garage for 8 years and has been crawled over by all manner of insects is, in fact, not a glorious vintage find. Neither is that broken plastic hummingbird feeder...

I have lived a life of what a professional organizer would probably categorize as chronic disorganization. And I have a lot of stuff, and some of it is cool and some of it is useless, and a lot of the time it ends up in a pile on the floor or on my desk or on a shelf. I always think "I'll organize that eventually, but right now I really have to vacuum, because company or the cable guy is going to be here soon." There's never enough time to clean, but the future to organize the piles and boxes and bags of stuff squirreled away from the curious eyes of family and strangers is endless, right? Of course.

So, every once in a while I flip through one of my old sketchbooks and bask in the glory of all the things I have drawn or half drawn and not finished over the years... and the funny thing about my sketchbooks is that they were always kind of there.  They were there in junior high and high school, and they were there in college.  And they don't just have drawings in them, I often took notes in my sketchbook, which was my way of sitting there during a lecture and entertaining myself while pretending to pay attention.

So, when I got to my "Art History" notes, I was pretty amused. All those 'famous' paintings and their periods and dates. Except for the ones that don't have dates, those circa some year paintings. Well, I have plenty of undated work.  In fact, this little gem has no date on it:

midnight mist

All I could really tell you is that: yes, I painted it, it's salt on watercolor, and it was done in or after 2008 and probably before 2011. But really, I painted it and the date of the painting is irrelevant. It doesn't indicate anything. It'd just be a factoid.

I like this painting, although it's not exactly my personal color palette. I wear a lot of black (t-shirts) I don't so much decorate with it. And color scheme-wise it is a little goth/noir/dark in the vibe department. That's something I like as a character, not necessarily something that is my character. Technically I might be dark and moody sometimes (or a lot of the time) but I never had a penchant for dying my hair black, reading poetry, enjoying the Cure, or wearing eyeliner. Come to think of it, I've never seen any of those Twilight movies that the kids were all raging about, in spite of the fact that I watch Grimm & Once Upon a Time (and watched The Gates and The 9 Lives of Chloe King) and enjoy that Caress Scarlet Blossom body wash (which you know was meant for girls on Team Edward) (I just like the way it smells, and Patchouli is supposed to be the official fragrance of hippies, right?).

Anyway, I made that painting. And I probably wasn't thinking about goth things or romance novels when I did it. The truth is always more droll. I probably had a big puddle of black paint on my palette, along with the puddle of blue and that old tube of crimson red I bought way back when I was still in college (graduated 2002) and yet it is still pliable in the tube... and since it happened to be there, well, the painting happened. I know, that so lacks zazz. Lack of a cool story or inspiration aside — I think the painting looks cool. And well, paintings are things to look at.

So the lack of date or inspirational story is irrelevant to me. The painting is the painting. The paint is right there on the paper.

midnight gypsy

And so, via the magic of drawing and process and photoshop and my epson scanner — midnight mist is now immortalized in the wings of a fantasy butterfly. You can check out the rest of it's gypsy cousins at sarahkdesigns.

Have a lovely weekend!

butterflies

Enjoy your Memorial Day, whatever it is that you do.

I spent the weekend mostly indoors, and well, it was what it was. I don't feel spectacular, and I was thinking maybe Monday I'd make a doctor's appointment, and then remembered it was Memorial Day, and just kind of sighed.

It wasn't an entirely lost weekend. Somewhere, somehow between sleeping and eating, there was some art created. Yeah, there was some cheesy bread and cheeseburgers and orange sherbet and cheesecake and chicken nuggets and potato salad, and a lot of Dr. Pepper. It was one of those kinds of weekends... plus I caught up on the last 5 episodes of Revenge while I was working at the computer.

Anyway, I worked on the fantasy butterfly series, because for no reason other than it occurred to me to do it — I designed a couple new sets of wings and then went through the process of converting new sketches into fully finished images.

 chalcedony angel

ruby cypher

So, in addition to the majestics, the swallowtails (okay, so maybe those are a little less fantasy), the duchesses, and the fairywings — now there are the angels and the cyphers (and eventually the gliders and that new one that I finished this morning that I haven't named yet).

glider

 the yet unclassified fantasy species...

And, of course, I have 2 more sets of butterfly templates that I have yet to fully work through. Maybe this week? Maybe not. I've never been one of those plan things in advance people...

Anyway, to all the United States peeps — have a nice holiday, and the rest of you — enjoy Monday!

The lost week...

Sometimes the weekend finally comes and I sit here at my computer and wonder where the last 5-7 days went... and then I remember all the mundane things that ate up my free time. The last two mornings (because I work midnights, and that's what's left when I get home at the end of work) were spent on dentist's appointments. My teeth are clean, have been treated with fluoride, and I now have 1 less wisdom tooth... and now my mouth hurts.

So, if I disappear this weekend or this post seems exceptionally disjointed - that's why.

"midnight mist"

I made this painting probably about 3 years ago. And I finally got around to listing it on etsy. I also recently used its digital copy in my butterfly project. Which you can see here or in the picture below:

I sample or recycle my own creations a lot, I suppose. I mean, when I painted that painting 3 years ago I wasn't specifically thinking "I'll scan this for this specific project that I plan to do at this date." Because, really, I'm not a plan-on-a-schedule type of girl. I think things happen separately, simultaneously, and often cumulatively. And sometimes that means having an idea, letting it sit there for a long long time, and then finally just doing it.

Long before I finally actually did the butterfly project or painted that painting I was thinking about how cool it would be to decorate with butterflies — like as ornaments — as evidenced by my summer decor from this post. All those monarch butterflies were sort of a preliminary learning curve with photoshop and printing and aligning the front and back of an image on a print so that it could be cut out without any off-set... and that I used fishing line to hang them was probably an due to something from the 3D class from my freshman year at the University of the Arts. We had to build a cube frame out of balsa wood and then fill the cube without gluing anything to the frame - the easiest way to accomplish this was by suspending things with fishing line - which is thin, clear, and almost invisible and made to support X amount of weight...

So, every now and then I think about how nifty it would be to take the idea for the ornaments and convert that into a mobile or a wall hanging... so that's what I'm going to work on this weekend — which is also what's in the last 2 pictures. First I had to line up my images, and now I have to cut them out. Only time will tell how long it takes me to getting around to actually suspending them from something...

Have a good, relaxing, productive weekend — and a Happy 4th of July!

butterflies

I think everyone has a romanticized version of themselves. Like if you had to define yourself as a person - the words that you would choose are a projection of the qualities that you desire... and to some extent every person thinks: I defy labels. Really, we don't, but we all think that.

Labels, of course, are subjective.

So, what I know is that I probably have little use for "the rules," whatever those might be. If you've visited this blog semi-regularly, you may have noticed that there is a lack of format (which, unless you have OCD and you check here daily) is due largely to the fact that I do a blog entry when I actually have something to share, as opposed to having a format.

I don't desire to abide by a format in my free time, which I consider this blog to be. Formats are just like rules, and usually they're kind of arbitrary and eventually they get boring or feel like an obligation. Obligations come with expectations and guilt, particularly when expectations aren't met... and I like to avoid that. Formats also involve a time table and repetition. I'm not really a format kind of girl.

When I was a child I had a lot of toys, particularly Barbies and Cabbage Patch Kids. And one day I was downstairs playing in the Barbie Section (that was the name of the area in the basement that had been apportioned to me & my sister as a play area) and realized that I had no desire to be a doctor or a lawyer or an astronaut (or whatever the third rung of that analogy is supposed to be). My childhood ambition was either to be a princess or a hairdresser...

I mean, I styled a lot of doll hair, and I had all the latest dolls from Herself the Elf, Rose Petal, Hot Looks dolls, Strawberry Shortcake, She-Ra dolls, Golden Girls (not the sitcom), Barbies, Maxie dolls (like Barbie), Jem and the Holograms... some of those probably also account for my princess aspirations (besides the fact that princesses had pretty dresses)... Anyway, I am neither a princess or a hairdresser.

I'm not a goal-obsessed person. That's probably why I got that art degree.

So, every now and then an idea for a 'thing' will pop into my head. And I may write it down or draw it in the back of my sketchbook, or I might not. And if I just remember it - that's fine.

So, for a long long time I had this idea about a project with butterflies, and really, I didn't sit down and meticulously plan out the details... I just finally did it. So, one Saturday morning one of the showtime channels was playing "Ripple Effect" and I sat there and sketched out butterfly wings... and realized that I think that Forest Whitaker plays phenomenally annoying characters (yes, I've seen the Criminal Minds spin-off).

And eventually, I scanned those and inked them, and scanned those, and made a 'body' and then 'antenna'... and piece by piece, slowly, and perhaps organically the project finally came together. And I realize that I tend to think of my work in process terms - like I scanned that, inked that, etc — because generally, those are the givens. The colors, the shape, the composition — I think of those as simply being inherent and I suppose, beyond explanation...

And sometimes I think things have amusing and unintentional parallels and connections. Because to 'colorize' the butterflies — I used scans of my watercolor paintings. And perhaps, when you were a child you had a watercolor set and made a butterfly by painting half and then folding the paper in half and pressing it together. I don't remember ever having done that at home — I actually only remember doing it in the fourth grade...

But then, I paint watercolors that don't follow "the rules." According to the rules - if you use some sort of gimmick - like salt on watercolor - you should do it sparingly, just in an area or something. Oh, pfft to that thinking.

When I paint with watercolors, other than knowing that I will be using paint, salt, water, paper, and a brush — I don't plan my compositions — they happen. It is what it is, which must be very wrong to the people who will tell you that there are rules...

So, I finally finished* the butterfly project that I've been thinking about for about a year now.
*finished is a relative term.

morning dew fairywing

rose madder majestic

morning aurora swallowtail

You can see the rest of them at my sarahkdesigns shop as they trickle into the butterfly section.
I suppose if I had planned it and put it on a time table - it would have been done a long time ago. But, that's just not how I work.

Now, since this is the last day of my 'vacation' — let's see which new project gets my last day of vacation, so I'm relaxed and focused attention. Will it be the calendar graphics, the bird project, the dancers, the 'portraits,' the watercolor over photographs, or the girls? Or, maybe I'll finish cleaning the living room. Okay, yeah, the living room probably isn't going to win that one.

Have a lovely weekend, and do whatever is going to make you happy : )

Summer begins...

Well, summer officially starts on 21 June... which I know because it's my birthday. But it's summer now. The weather really doesn't care what the calendar says. It's humid and 70-80˚F out right now — that's summer weather.

So, a couple weeks ago I happened to look up at the obsolete tv antenna that towers over the house, and sitting way up there on the top of one of the rods was the male hummingbird. It's amusing to see such a tiny creature sitting way up there, where presumably he's surveying the territory. So, I cleaned up the feeder and made some bird kool-aid for him and the rest of the hummingbirds to fight over... and this weekend I finally got around to taking all the snowflakes down. Yes, I still had vestiges of the winter decorations hanging around the place. Laziness, I suppose.

So, the hummingbirds and the butterflies are now up.

A few years ago I was looking for snowflake Christmas ornaments at Target, and I happened to notice that they had all these resin bird ornaments... so I picked through them all, carefully, and literally bought all the hummingbirds that didn't have broken beaks, as resin is fragile, and these were just hanging on hooks. They had bluebirds and chickadees and goldfinches too, and yeah, I bought some of those as well, but they were all made in a perching position, where as the hummingbirds are flying. (Some day I'll get around to making something that my bluebirds can sit on)

So, anyway, all the birds were painted as the male form of the species... so, I brought them home and repainted them. I made males and females, and went so far as to use iridescent nail polish to make their feathers more authentic. So, every year when I finally let go of my laziness for an hour or so - I get them out and put them up - and they stay up until October or November - long after the real birds have flown south.

I made the monarch butterflies probably about 10 years ago. I suppose it's silly or childish or whimsical or maybe a little 'Flowers in the Attic'-ish, but I like weird stuff I suppose. And if you looked at the pictures and you're wondering - that brown blob on top of my computer is a snail knick knack.

I did some paintings on a whim last weekend, so now I need to scan them and varnish them, and sign them, and print out and attach the labels for the backs of them... I finally went through my paints this week (since the garbage was off by one day in observance of Memorial Day), and threw away all the bottles that were dried up and chunky or almost completely empty. I do that every now and then, particularly when I can no longer fit all the paint into the basket that holds the paint. The overflow of arts & crafts supplies gets to be a little much every now and then...

The summer flowers are here. The irises are blooming! Irises are my favorite flower, hands down. I love them in virtually every color (except the brown ones - that I will never understand). But violet (and any other shade of purple) is my favorite. Violet is also simply and unilaterally my favorite color.

Plus, after probably not having ridden on an actual bike for like 15 years - I bought a bike this weekend. Yes, it's a lavender shade of violet, which was most of the appeal... aside from the fact that it's a female model, adult sized, and has brakes. Yeah, I'm not one of those cyclist people, so, really I bought it because I want a bike to tool around on mostly for leisure purposes - which means riding it around the block in a residential area where I am least likely to be impeding traffic or hit by a car.

Hopefully your summer is filled with color and happy things, and maybe air conditioning, a fan, or the occasional cool breeze.