Outside: summer roadside flora

Photos taken out and about,
because sometimes you see something and just have to stop...

Thank you : )

you blogged about me...

THANKS!
http://etsypapillonjewelry.blogspot.com/ by Tho Dinh
http://etsypapillonjewelry.blogspot.com/2009/07/wednesdays-hidden-gem-sarahk.html

just the morning coffee:
http://justthemorningcoffee.blogspot.com/2009/07/long-overdue-thanks.html

Constant Cravings
http://www.constant-cravings.com/2009/06/rockin-robin-tweet-tweet-tweet.html

Giveaway Winners!!!

The winners of the print giveaway:
Amanda at Just the Morning Coffee

&

Chris C.

Picture Story: lightshine — sarahkdesigns

"lightshine" available at sarahkdesigns



I finished this picture a short while ago (literally, this last Wednesday). I think it will inevitably end up being the “June” graphic for the calendar that I make next year. Unlike all previous years, this time I really am striving to not be manufacturing 10 pictures (because somehow, I always do get 2 of them done on schedule) in the 10 days before Christmas. The calendar, incidentally, is what I give out to my relatives as a Christmas gift.

Anyway, I think this picture nicely encapsulates the month of June. It is a landscape featuring irises, sunshine, American goldfinches, and a colorful summer sunrise. This picture started with those irises. I have them in my garden. They’re called “lightshine” and are from Schreiners (which is a famous grower of irises). The original rhizome actually came as a free gift because I had made such a substantial order. It has since reproduced, so now I get a couple stalks every year. They always have a good amount of blooms, and they’re always full and gorgeous. So, I cropped the blossoms out of my photos, and combined them with stems that I literally cut out of the garden after the bloom season ended. I scanned the stems & some leaves, and combined them through the magic of photoshop.

Obviously, they needed a background, and I wanted something that would coordinate with the colors of the blooms. Conveniently, I have scans of my abstract acrylic paintings on file, and I found the perfect fit. And for a while, the picture sat there on my computer as just irises & a background. I experimented to frustration with the idea of superimposing a photo of a cloudy sky over the background, but nothing was making me happy… and then it occurred to me that I used to make pictures of landscapes all the time with the sun, and it had been like forever since I had done that. So, a plucked a shade of yellow out of the irises and made myself a sun, with rays of light radiating out to compliment my lightshine irises.

And, of course, I need some animal life. I had originally considered doing butterflies, but just couldn’t bring myself to draw them. I apparently just wasn’t in the mood. So, I decided on the goldfinches instead. Many of them flit through our yard on a regular basis. I always see them in flight. So, having them fly over my irises was apt. That, and they’re yellow, so they coordinate with the color scheme of the picture.

All in all, I think it’s a cheerful encapsulation of summer.

Giveaway - sarahkdesigns print

lush ripe roses
(5 X 5 inch image on 6 X 6 inch 2-ply smooth surface bristol)

sarahkdesigns print giveaway
to enter, please send an email to sarkni@live.com
something like "lush ripe roses print giveaway" in the title would be helpful ; )

the winner will be chosen next Sunday, 28 June 2009, at NOON EST (eastern standard time).
the winner will be chosen at random (from some classical analog device like a name drawn out of a container).
the winner will be announced on the blog after I have contacted that person.
: )

Outside: eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis)

sarahkdesigns

♥ Most-Hearted 8 X 10 Print Sale ♥ (June 14 thru June 20, 2009) ♥ Any open edition 8X10 print with 7 hearts or more will be just $10.00! See something you like? See something you want? Heart it into the sale!♥
♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ •


this is in the sale : )

and these are some photos of the male of the pair of Eastern Bluebirds who are currently nesting in the box in my yard.

upcoming sale at sarahkdesigns!

From June 14 to June 20, 2009
sarahkdesigns will be having a "most hearted print sale!"
All open edition 8 X10 prints with 7 "hearts" or more will be just $10.00!

These prints are so close to being included in the sale...

evening iris ________ june blooms


bluebirds and tulips ______________ spa


summer sunset _____ chickadee love song


violet night _______ dragonfly love


sublime spring skies ___ spring sing

if you heart them, then they will be discounted : )

Upcoming sale at sarahkdesigns!

Next week sarahkdesigns is having a sale!
My most-hearted 8X10 prints will be just $10.00!
So, I invite you to check out my shop: sarahkdesigns
and "heart" to your heart's content!

All 8X10 prints with 7 hearts or more will be on sale : )

here are some examples of what will be on sale:


calla lilies and tree swallows


bunnies and puzzles


greener pasture


3 sheets in the wind


eastern bluebirds on a wire


purple martins & purple irises

Outside: pink blossoms

These are photographs I shot this spring around Washtenaw county. The blooms on the trees are always so fabulous and ephemeral in the spring. Every time bloom season begins, the wind comes...

Outside: irises in june

It's June, so the irises are in bloom... these are a few of my favorites...

award

Apparenlty I have received an award:

from Elizabeth Pujalka
http://elizabethpujalka.blogspot.com/

So, evidently the rules of the “blog award” are to:

Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, & their blog link.

Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you have just discovered! Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen.

The Bleeding Tree
http://bleeding-tree.blogspot.com/

lost coast post
http://lostcoastpost.blogspot.com/

End of March
http://end-of-march.blogspot.com/

Starlight, Starbright
http://starlightjourney.blogspot.com/

Rose Coloured Rain
http://rose-coloured-rain.blogspot.com/

Lisa Cole – Seeing Stars
http://lisacole690.blogspot.com/

heart for art
http://heart4art.blogspot.com/

Kathryn Siveyer
http://kathrynsiveyer.blogspot.com/

Dead Poets and Dark Caves
http://deadpoetsandcaves.blogspot.com/

paperlilly
http://paperlilley.blogspot.com/

The Unauthorized Biography of Rosco P. Coltrane
http://olelafe.blogspot.com/

The Masked Philosopher
http://themaskedphilosopher.blogspot.com/

draven
http://draven99.blogspot.com/

photopolemic
http://www.photopolemic.com/

Naked Tile
http://nakedtile.blogspot.com/

---------
And I want to post script this post. It's not that I'm not grateful; but I am a cynic. I think this "award" should actually simply be called "tag, you're it!" I get that it's aim is discovery and a sort of pay-it-forward mentality... that, and I just spent an hour sifting through google blogger profiles trying to find 15 other bloggers with common interest who were legally adults...

Picture Story: 2 bunnies on a hill -- sarahkdesigns

"2 bunnies on a hill" available at sarahkdesigns

I draw, so I tend to think that the picture stands on its own. I'm just adroit like that. I suppose if I was in the business of using words to illustrate, then I would be a writer...

"2 bunnies on a hill" was made for one of my calendars. Every year I spend three weeks before Christmas putting together the calendar that I had vowed would already be done. (This happens every year: I get everything done at the last minute and vow that won’t happen next year… it always does, no matter how early I start).

Anyway, I make the calendar for my family: parents, grandparents, sister, aunts, uncle, etc. So, while I may be a slacker twenty-something who wears black t-shirts and maryjanes and listens to Pink Floyd… well, that’s not my Grandma. So, the calendar has to be family friendly, because I expect my relatives to hang this up somewhere and show it off.

I also like the calendar to be seasonally appropriate. We all live in the Midwest, so we have all 4 seasons. “2 bunnies on a hill” was originally created for the April slot of my 2006 calendar. And it did not look the way it does now when I had originally finished it.



This was one of my early digital collages. Digital collage was a technique that I fell into way back when I was working on a comic book. Since the comic I was working on was supposed to be black and white and I knew it would be printed digitally, I wanted to do something anathema to comics: incorporate texture! So, I spent a lot of time back then scanning pen & ink drawings and filling them with scans of photos or magazine clippings or scans of objects… Anyway, the 2006 calendar was my first to feature digital collages instead of just reproductions of my drawings or paintings. Ah, modern technology.

So, the “drawn” portion of the image literally actually is just the 2 bunnies and the silhouette of the hill. Everything else is present due to the magic of photoshop. The grass was created in a series of layers using the “grass” brush in photoshop. I just kept changing the size of the brush. I started small at the top of the hill and got progressively larger by the bottom of the page. Then I think I ran the layer through a filter.

The sky was created from a scan of one of my older salt on watercolor paintings. It was back in 2000 or 2001 when I started doing abstract salt on watercolor paintings. I did a series of them for an aqueous media class, this was one of them. Anyway, I scanned the painting and flipped it over on itself with layer styles. So, if you look closely you might notice that one side kind of mirrors the other. I think I also put a color layer over the altered scan of the painting.

The stars were created using the shape tool. They are also “filled” with portions of a scan of salt on watercolor, although it reads more faintly. I wanted the coloration of the stars to be like those glow in the dark stars that they sell in toy stores. I always thought those were nifty. I had a few of them as a teenager.

The fill of the bunnies was recycled from a comic book project. And that fill has been used in many of my digital collages. The original file for the fill was created from a scan of a picture in a magazine. It was actually a rug on the floor in the picture. Anyway, I scanned it, and copied and pasted and rotated parts of it, and used the clone stamp tool until I had what amounted to a much larger sampling of “rug” (or curlyfur.jpeg as it is known in my files). It’s original purpose as a fill was supposed to be (ironically) for a demonic rabbit.

Anyhow, when I was deciding what I wanted in my etsy shop I decided to go back and revisit what was originally known simply as “April.psd”. I think I wanted something purple. As it turns out, violet is my favorite color. So, I decided to liven up the sky with a wash of purple and periwinkle that mirrored the shape of the hill. And for consistency and color relationships, I decided to change up the color of the grass; making it a more olive shade of green and lighter at the top of the hill.

I’ve certainly been surprised at how many prints of this image that I have sold : )

to be updated periodically: you blogged about me...

and I appreciate that.

Images are made to be seen. Yes, I’m sure there’s a conceptual artist out there who can work to prove otherwise; I illustrate to have people look at my images. So, thank you to everyone who has ever done me the enormous privilege of blogging about my work which can be viewed on etsy at sarahkdesigns or sarahknight.

Handmade by Angie:
http://jangiesetsyshop.blogspot.com/2008/12/sarahkdesigns-and-curbsidetreasure.hatml

TiLT Treasures:
http://tilttreasures.blogspot.com/2009/01/sky-of-blue.html

the Plasticity of Happiness:
http://plasticityofhappiness.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

MoxieFabWorld:
http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2009/03/five-x5-for-friday-lets-go-fly-kite.html

Etsy Stalker:
http://etsystalker.com/?m=20090317

Etsy Stalker:
http://etsystalker.com/?p=386

Etsy: the Storque rocks!

Thank you to etsy user "anda," who featured one of my pieces in:
Etsy Finds: Top Ten Turkeys http://www.etsy.com/storque/spotlight/etsy-finds-top-ten-turkeys-2970/

this was the item featured: "wild turkeys at the cranberry bog"


and can be found at my etsy shop: http://www.sarahkdesigns.etsy.com

To be updated periodically: you blogged about me...

and I appreciate that.

Images are made to be seen. Yes, I’m sure there’s a conceptual artist out there who can work to prove otherwise; I illustrate to have people look at my images. So, thank you to everyone who has ever done me the enormous privilege of blogging about my work which can be viewed on etsy at sarahkdesigns or sarahknight.

Indie Crafts @ CRAFTGOSSIP
http://indiecrafts.craftgossip.com/2008/11/24/is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-cranberry-bog/

Monkey Musings & Such
http://coffeemonkeymusings.blogspot.com/2008/11/laundry-day.html

bloomize... a journal of blooming ideas
http://www.bloomize.com/teddy-bears-and-tulips

You’ve Got Maille
http://youvegotmaille.blogspot.com/2008/11/let-it-snow.html

Practically Perfect
http://chrisandjennytucker.blogspot.com/2008/10/serendipity-christmas-cards.html

Adam and Angie
http://adam-angie.blogspot.com/2008/08/etsy-roundup-of-week.html

GrayEyedScorpio
http://grayeyedscorpio.blogspot.com/2008/04/etsy-search-word-puce.html

ILLUSION IS THE FIRST OF ALL PLEASURES by Lindsey Rose
http://lindseyrose.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/february-slump/