Picture Story: calla lilies & tree swallows

calla lilies & tree swallows

Of all the pictures I have ever created, this one has always been my favorite. Shh, don't go telling my other pictures, they'll be all jealous and stuff.

With the exception of the birds — I drew the sketched the entire composition... and then followed the process of converting the sketch to a blue page, inking that, printing out a color fill and then coloring that with colored pencils, and well, a whole bunch of editing... you know, that same paragraph I type up virtually every time I explain how I translated a sketch into an illustration.

Yes, this was once just an outline on a white sheet of paper, before it was an entire production combining a digital scan of a painting, a digital scan of a colorized print-out of my calla lilies, and a digital scan of my drawings of tree swallows.  The tree trunks and the leaves were done with photoshop filters - as this picture pre-dated me owning a digital camera (otherwise I surely would have photographed some tree bark).

Anyway, there are 2 things I remember most vividly about this picture.

One is that I re-edited the calla lilies about 3 times, because there was something that I just didn't have right about the outline around them - and actually ended up mostly painting in the outline in photoshop until I was happy with it.

And the other is that the tree swallows were the first set of birds that I simply drew out on bristol - absent of any actual composition, to scan and cut.  Back in the olden days - when I created an illustration I drew the entire thing on one sheet of paper by hand... this was really the first time I drew the parts separately and put them together.  These were literally the first bird graphics that I meticulously removed from a white background in photoshop.

It's a strange thing to remember - but it's what springs to mind the most when I look at this image - as it was a point in a learning curve.

Anyway, calla lilies & tree swallows has always been one of my favorite illustrations, albeit simply for the visual.  It's intricate choreographed chaos.

nature in my heart

It's been a mild winter so far. I mean, technically, winter started on 21 December 2011. So, it's only been winter for a little over a month... here in Michigan that usually means we're 2/5ths of the way done. Maybe by May we'll have had the last snow. Maybe. I make no promises.

It's been mild so far, but we still have bitterly cold days - like last Friday it was about 6˚F. Brrrr.
So, I spend most of the winter inside trying to avoid frozen fingers, chapped skin, and shivering. And it's also project time.

Sometimes things just happen. Because when I plan things, the statistical possibilities of the details have this habit of getting in the way... and then I have another thing in the pile of unfinished projects. It's a never-ending cycle.

Well, sometimes I just sit down in front of the computer and go. No over-thinking it, no hemming and hawing... no what ifs.

nature in my heart
Valentines:

The project came together in the span of 3 hours, technically... I had been working on printing photo cards, and in the last few weeks I had done collage Valentines. And well, this project was just the natural progression.

The actual heart - I folded a piece of paper in half and cut it out. It was for yet another incomplete project involving tea bag filters (I drink a lot of tea, and the pattern left on the filter paper of the bags intrigues me). I haven't gotten that project done, but I do have my paper heart. Well, to use the heart for my collage Valentines I scanned it and turned it into a template - so, you know, it's just there in a folder on my computer.

Now, I like weird stuff and arty stuff, and I suppose I like indie stuff. I was always into science in high school. Pictures of cells and microscope enlargements were always just so interesting to look at... so, when I take pictures - I take pictures of all sorts of things - from flowers to the sky to tree bark to rusty things to fallen leaves.

So, I have all these pictures of all these strange things. And I had my heart template, and I thought "why the hell not?" Obviously I'm biased, but I think the finished project looks pretty cool, even if I know some people will think some of them are a bit ookie. I know they're a desired taste kind of thing.

You can check them out here ; )

I've been on a bit of a project spree lately, partly from being stuck inside, and I suppose residually because it's January. You know, the month of New Year's Resolutions. I'm not so much a resolution person myself... but I suppose I can pretend that I resolved to impulsively execute projects, at least for a little while. Then I can stave off the thought of "what if?"

lost hours...

Sometimes something seems to get done on the weekend... and other times not so much. I stopped by some field along the highway on my way home from work Friday morning because they had baled the hay. And, of course, there was some thistle in front of the hay - and an industrious bee... and then I remembered to wander out into the back yard and take a look around, and there was a damselfly... and the hummingbird perched way up high on the obsolete tv antenna.

And then I spent the rest of my night off reformatting photos for listings... and then I had to edit each of those listings. Which you can see here on SunshineSight

This guy has been hanging around the back yard a lot with his mate ; )

And then I finally took some photos of the paintings I did way back when (I mean last summer). You can see them at sarahknight on etsy. The problem was that there was no where in the house with enough light or the right kind of light to get any decent pictures (I mean short of going out and spending $300.00 on lights or something)... So I finally relented and just went out in the backyard and hammered a nail into the back of the rabbit hutch. Yes, it's, uhmn, rustic.

Although if you're familiar with etsy, you may know the sardonic joke that the 'etsy look' for photos is anything shot in a macro blur with kitschy objects that have nothing to do with your listing item on a gray / white / or otherwise neutral background that is either an old book or a piece of barn wood. The penultimate satirical commentary on this concept is this post from Regretsy. Now, if you're one of those people that doesn't ever make fun of something or enjoy snark or questionable language - then maybe don't click on that link.

Honestly, "barn wood" isn't really my style... but I kind of think if you've been here before and seen my work that you kind of know that.

Speaking of 'my work' — I have a piece in the U of M School of Art & Design Alumni Show: Things That Move.
Yes, you have to scroll forever down the page to get to it (like halfway). It's called "cherry apricot phantasmagoria" (because I come from the e.e. cummings school of thought). Anyway, it's bright red, or if you just do a "COMMAND F" and type Sarah Knight into the box, you'll find it.

• The show runs from 18 July to 6 August 2011
• Slusser Gallery hours are: Mon—Fri 9am to 5pm, Sat noon to 7pm
• 2000 Bonisteel Blvd.
  Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2069
• parking is behind the building which can be accessed from Fuller Road
  

Bluebirds...

So, the bluebirds...
Yes, I think I've mentioned the eastern bluebirds a gazillion or so times. When we're lucky, not only do they visit our backyard, but they nest there. So, below is a picture of the old nest box... it is no more. It was old, and it was literally falling apart. That's what happens with weather and age. My father made that nest box. And my father made the new nest box that after some swearing and consternation was installed in it's place.

Yeah, it's a wooden box bolted to a metal pole. The bolts holding up the old box were rusty. One of them had to be removed via hacksaw because the wrench and the can of WD-40 just wasn't going to cut it. Good thing my father bought me that hacksaw for Christmas, I guess...

This was the old box.

So, anyway, the bluebirds have been hanging around the yard again. They watched the demolition of the old house. There was much squawking and wing waving. And then, hours later they were in the backyard, nesting materials in beak, building a nest in the other nest box... you know - not the nice new one. Birds.

So, anyway, it is now Father's Day. So, if you're a father: Happy Father's Day!

Father's Day is one of those kind of annoying sneaky holidays. It creeps up on me every year. I love my father, don't get me wrong, it's just that Father's Day has this annoying habit of being on or around my birthday. No one likes multitasking on their birthday... There's a 2 day delay this year, but I still have to share it with the first day of summer.

Anyway, every year there is a last minute Father's Day gift... so this is this year's. Yup, it's a drawing of a male eastern bluebird. Yes, I draw a lot of bluebirds, you can see them here.

I sat down in front of the computer whilst catching up on the Daily Show & Colbert on hulu and drew the bluebird on a branch.

Then that was scanned into photoshop. I cleaned up the scan and adjusted the layer to just black and white. Then I blocked the scan and started filling it in with colors and used a photograph for the background.

This was the photo I used for the sky. I took it on Thursday morning while it was sprinkling on and off. Stormy skies are generally the most interesting to look at. Obviously, when I used it in the picture I adjusted the colors and levels.

I printed out the colorized scan of my drawing onto some 2-ply plate bristol and began coloring it with my favorite medium: prismacolors.

And there it is. Well, I have to sign it and slice off the border so I can fit it in a picture frame, but otherwise it's done :D

Have a Happy Father's Day!

Outside: magnolia

Spring has been a little strange this year. According to the calendar it began on 20 March 2011... well, it sure hasn't felt like it. It felt more like winter-lite. At least it did until this week, when the temperature seems to have risen. So, the magnolia had an interesting season of blooms. I mean about 3 weeks ago there was a day where the buds were covered in snow for 24 hours...

And now the blooming season is drawing to a close, so the petals are dropping... I suppose it's like confetti.

Sidewalk tourism: my favorite maple

Of all the trees I photographed this fall — this was my favorite maple. It's somewhere in Saline, MI. Of course, I don't live in Saline, and I'm one of those people who is terrible with street names, so, I know where it is, and yet I have no idea where it is...

Anyhow, I was mesmerized by this tree. Standing under it and photographing it was a sublime experience, even if it did happen to be really really cold that day.

I would like to thank Hilary at The Smitten Image : )
for being featured on her blog post: Three Photos and the Posts of the Week
http://thesmittenimage.blogspot.com/2010/11/three-photos-and-posts-of-week.html

Thanks!

Please excuse me if it takes me a day to make rounds with comments. I've been working on a time consuming project this week, complete with a number of "5 hours of sleep" days. I am exhausted. Fortunately, it should be done today (I hope). So, take a nap for me : )

Autumn Leaves: water droplets

It has been like Indian Summer here lately. And apparently with Indian Summer comes the trappings of summer, warm weather, sunshine... and wind. Yes, there was a tornado warning here yesterday. Oh, Indian Summer.

Anyway, in my travels of sidewalk tourism I have photographed many leaves, and trees, and tree bark (and even the occasional squirrel). And every once in a while (since I am a sidewalk tourist in the morning) I see dew on fallen leaves. There's something about water droplets that is just intriguing.

On a completely unrelated note - my collection "autumnal mood" made the front page of Artfire on Tuesday - whoo-hoo! You can check it out here.

end of summer feeling

The birds and the trees are beginning to give subtle hints that this summer is going to ebb into autumn...

I've been seeing a lot of flocks of birds traveling through the skies in my various travels... and I went out to photograph the clouds on Sunday morning and noticed that the leaves on some of the trees in the orchard are starting to turn colors...

I suppose I'll be pining for summer come the first frost. I am however enjoying what we refer to as the "free air conditioning" — it's nice to have an end to 80˚ and 90˚F days.

a giveaway

This is a giveaway!
There will be a drawing, and the winner will receive this photographic print: leopard orchids. The print image measures 5 by 5 inches, and is printed on a piece of glossy photo paper that is 5.5 by 5.5 inches.

To enter:
send an email to sarkni@live.com with the word "giveaway" in the title of the email.

The names of the entrants will be written on paper, and one will be drawn from a vessel of some sort. The drawing is this Friday (20 August 2010). I will then email the winner, because, obviously, in order to send you the print — I need your address, and I don't expect anyone to publicly declare that sort of thing in a blog post, hence the relative privacy of email.

I don't have a mailing list, newsletter, or forward email addresses, or anything spammy like that. The email is exclusively for the giveaway.

: )

Summer is a busy season

My apologies for the lapse in blog entries... rest assured my own mother has repeatedly reminded me about the lack of new stuff...

This summer has been a busy one. That's not to say that I spent every previous summer doing absolutely nothing, but well, this summer has just been particularly productive from an Arts & Crafts standpoint.

According to the file on my desktop, I have made 51 8X10 paintings so far this summer. So, I have been busy scanning those... Additionally, I made 20 11X14 paintings back in June, which, of course are sitting around waiting to have hangers attached to their backs so they can be photographed... I have gone on a tear with papermaking. It's been a good couple of years since I've done it, but in the past 20 days I have moulded about 20 bowls from pulp I made myself... and now I have to paint them and finish them, and photograph them, and list them.

I'm not sure how to explain my decision to manufacture hair accessories from silk flowers & barrettes. But, I scoured the internet for information on how they should be attached, and there they are: sitting in boxes in the office...

And of course, as always there's the photography...

So, I've been working on some pictures of Queen Anne's Lace, as there seems to be a patch of it growing out in the garden, and I am too lazy to weed it. I'm good with photographing it, weeding it — not so much...

I really like the bokeh in the last image. These will probably all inevitably be for sale in my "sarahknight" shop on etsy.

Outside: summer flowers

It's nice to see some color outside...

I'm not sure of the identity of the first picture. The second picture are day lilies. The last picture is an Asiatic lily.

please excuse my vacation...

Please excuse my absence, technically, I am on vacation. It's been a while, so I'm really rusty at this vacation thing. I seem to have spent the first day of my vacation cleaning the bedroom and the office / living room...

This did, however, prompt me to actually print out some of my own artwork for myself, and finish off some paintings and actually hang them on the wall. It's been a very long time since the artwork in the bedroom has changed.

Anyway, one of the last things I did on my way home from work was take some pictures of some flowers in a field by the highway. I admit that I don't know what kind of flowers these are. But, hey, there was a bee hanging out. It's always a challenge to try to focus the camera and get the shot before the bee moves on...

Whether you're at work or at home, I hope you all enjoy your week.
Oh, and since June 21st has already passed us by, which means that I am a year older, it also means it is officially summer. So, enjoy your summer!

serendipitous daisies

I have this blurb in my etsy profile that reads:

I like to stop every now and then on my way to and from work to photograph whatever strikes my fancy.

And I'm not kidding. I will actually stop while I am driving to or from somewhere just to take pictures of something.

I was, in fact, on my way to Adrian to run errands when I noticed these white flowers on the hill that comes out of the ditch on the side of the road. I couldn't actually tell what they were as I was driving by, but I knew I was going home by the same route, so I decided I would stop and check them out.

Indeed, I stopped on the way back home. I was figuring that the little white flowers were probably going to turn out to be weeds... but I could still take some pictures of them and play around with them on the computer nonetheless. As it turned out, to my surprise, growing up out of the weeds and tall grass in the ditch was a large patch of daisies. Serendipity.

I must have spent 30 minutes traipsing back and forth in that ditch...

Snow in June

Okay, so technically, it would have been snow in May, but I got busy doing some craft project and didn't get around to selecting pictures and formatting them...

The snowball bush has bloomed!

The blooms are gone now, and the petals have fallen to the ground, and subsequently turned brown... but it's always pleasant to look at while it lasts.

That and I've been playing around with Photoshop and got an idea for a new filter... so, of course, I had to make it and then apply it. I wanted something that had the look of the way paint cracks on antique paintings. Amusingly, I was wearing an old concert t-shirt when inspiration struck. So, now I have my new photo manipulation filter.

And I was playing around with some "bokeh" from some of the snowball bush shots and made myself a layer of it, and now my sarahknight shop on etsy has a new banner : )

spring moments

Life gets busy sometimes, and when you look back, you really can't remember what you spent that time doing.

Spring, or as it ought to be known - winter lite - seems to have finally ended. Yes, I know, the calendar tells us that summer starts on 21 June. Well, over night we went from running the furnace to opening up the windows and turning on the fans. It's no longer less than 50˚ at night, and I no longer wear my coat to work. It's 70˚ in the morning, and humid as all get out. Yes, we went from winter-lite directly to summer, and that seems to be the way it happens every year.

So, I've been working on photos for my "sarahknight" etsy shop off and on & here and there. Sometimes the photos are old, sometimes the photos are shots I have taken recently. I've been in a "spring" kind of mood lately.

The first one is called "wide open spaces." This is the 'old' photo (yeah, it's like 4 years old, ha!).

The last 2 images are recent. I almost can't believe the dandelions already bloomed and turned to fluff already. Of course, there will be more and more of them for the rest of the summer... The last image is my first ladybug of the season. Yes, I know, it's really a multicolored asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis). Anyway, this little beetle was out in the yard sitting on the brand new butterfly bush I just planted. How sweet : ) Hopefully all bodes well for the bush.

As always, I invite you to check out my treasuries:
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/people/sarahkdesigns