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"

Picture Story: snow hootenanny

 "snow hootenanny" is another image that I created for the calendar. I actually began the original sketch in August whilst sitting at the Art Walk and biding my time. So, one would think that maybe it would have been finished as an illustration in a timely fashion... nah.

Like all the calendar graphics for this year - this one came right up to the deadline as well.

 

So, this is the original sketch.

 

And, as per the usual, I scanned the sketch, converted it to a blue page, printed that out, inked it, and scanned it back in to Photoshop and began editing it for fills...

 

 However, I was not enamored with my owl.  It was just too belabored and stiff and trying to be symmetrical... So, I printed out a light copy of my trees and sketched some new owls over top of that.  And then I scanned that sketch, edited it, and printed it out so that I could color it...

 

The thing that I remember most about coloring the owls is that I was watching "My Soul to Take." Yes, heh-heh, while I was coloring a family of owls for a whimsical owl illustration I was watching a horror movie.  It happens a lot, as that is my preferred genre of movies.

So, anyway, I colored my owls and scanned them, and cut the scan all during the span of that movie.

 

Now, I needed some trees. I suppose I could have just colored the bark by hand. But that isn't what I had in mind.  In the spring, summer, and fall, I go into town and wander around and take all manner of photos.  And as I've mentioned before, I photograph all sorts of things - not necessarily with the intent that those are glamorous photos that need to be printed out and hung on the wall - but because I can use the content to fill in some part of a future illustration.

So, the owls are sitting on sycamore branches via the magic of photoshop: layer rotation and the rubber stamp tool. Yes, this is what the file tends to look like when I'm creating a fill from a photo (or several photos).

 

overcast orchid rain

The picture needed a background. So, I selection one of my watercolor paintings, and added the digital scan as a layer.  This was one of the salt on watercolor / gouache paintings - so it has both the salt crystal effect and dabs of white gouache spattered across it. Overall, it looks kinda snowy, so it was perfect.

Anyway, I added it to the picture and then adjusted the color to something more bluish - because I wanted the picture to have a cool wintery tone.

The next step was to add snowflakes.  Now there are actually 2 separate layers of snowflakes in this picture.  The snowflakes at the top of the picture were derived from all the snowflakes I design for Christmas cards. In fact, the layer used in this picture came from the file that I make the snowstorm backgrounds.

Now, the snowflakes on the bottom of the picture — and yes, there is actually a layer of snowflakes super-imposed over the bottom half of the picture — came from a different source: Winterwood.

Yes, the picture I used as the graphic for February on the calendar 2 years ago, which, yes, is named after the Don McLean song — that I happen to be very fond of. Anyway - I made a layer of snowflakes for the bottom of that picture - and decided to use them in "snow hootenanny" too.

 

 

snow hootenanny

So, all those parts come together to make the whole: sketches, drawings, salt on watercolor painting, photo walks, scary movies, colored pencils, ink pens, and snowflakes...

4 random things...

macro shot of the living room carpet | frost on the rear window 

me | paper hearts

I'm trying to be more spontaneous and concise, I guess. It's February, it's chilly outside - too chilly to do anything, so I'm stuck indoors. And this last Friday I finally got around to working on the project that involved making art out of used tea bags... it was kind of a spontaneous project, since I had no real idea of how it would turn out. It turned out pretty cool in my own estimation.

Enjoy your President's Day : )

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.

oblivion

I'll Follow You

I made this picture.  I made it first by standing outside somewhere in the country presumably some morning, and then I enhanced it on my computer... because really, without some digital device - this image does not exist.

I think images tend to stand for themselves, so as I type this I cannot really see the purpose of explaining the image. I think it's self evident.  I also think that people can read into or take away whatever they want from a picture.

I'm particularly fond of this one.

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I've been MIA from blog comments lately, I know. If it makes me a bad blogger, then so be it.
Life is busy sometimes.
I started a writing project 10-12 years ago, and I've been on it on and off for a while over the years. But recently is the most consistently I've stayed on it. I suppose in a way it's like going through an old box of mementos that was shoved away in a closet somewhere... although I remember most of it as clear as day.

So, if I haven't visited you in a while, it's probably because I'm sitting here at my desk staring at a word processing document and thinking about printer formatting for book pages... and grammar quirks, and possibly semi-colons — they're not just for winking emoticons.

Every year I think to myself that I should just go for it and work on this project. And slowly every year life creeps in and provides a distraction. I think, perhaps, this year will be different.

the anonymous sale

8X8 inch photos are on sale at sarahknight.etsy.com
browse here

"into spring"

Every now and then, I suppose in the hopes of selling something or perhaps amusing myself, I put things in my etsy shop on sale. And I make an announcement on a couple of etsy teams and on twitter... and I rarely, if ever, actually sell anything that is on sale. It's like an exercise in futility.

I think, sometimes, that blogging is like an exercise in futility as well. And that in a way we're all anonymous on the internet, and on some levels we'd like to connect with other people (let's keep it platonic) and then there are all the things we consider to be personal... keeping that separation between the two takes some kind of discipline. Disregarding it is often more fun, at least for the moment in which it happens.

The future is that nebulous place where we'll remember to clean the grout or better organize the office or regret things.

So, I make things, and I have a shop online, and I'm having a sale. The sale ends 2-14-2012, or whenever I get around to changing the prices back. Evidently Valentine's Day is on a Tuesday this year. Yes, I just walked over and changed the calendar to February. Things move slowly here like that sometimes. And yet time marches on regardless of my calendar.

It's still cold here, even though it is a mild winter. The days are shorter. And since I work midnights it's dark out when I leave for work and it's dark still when I'm driving home. Winter is always kind of a dark time. Truthfully, it's a lot of time indoors with artificial light, so, in a way it seems like an unreal period.

I like my television though. So I've really enjoyed Grimm, Once Upon a Time, Supernatural, the Finder, Californication, and Archer. Yes, I'm 32, and that's my demographic. Plus, I think I have a slight crush on David Giuntoli. Yeah, he's dreamy. Don't worry, Jared Padalecki and Geddy Lee — I still have crushes on you too.
That's probably the over-sharing part that I'll consider regretting later... but won't. I'm a lazy crush, it's not like I write letters or visit fansites. Yeah, I watch the tv shows and I buy the albums, that's it.
So, anyway, if you enjoy passive entertainment - then check out those shows.

A few days ago I also got out my copy of "Atom Heart Mother" by Pink Floyd. In case you were unaware, Pink Floyd is the greatest band on earth. Yes, that's right: Pink Floyd is the greatest band on earth. Damn, they were awesome. I don't think I've listened to that record in a couple years. It's refreshing to just press play and be blown away by artistry.

Anyway, things may be a little lax here from time to time, as this is my blog about me on the internet. And as it turns out, my life is basically working a full time job, driving to and from work, the occasional spurt of cleaning around the house, taking pictures when the weather is nice, painting, drawing, illustrating, watching television and the occasional movie, buying groceries, doing laundry, feeding the fish, and trying to get to bed on time.
Oh, and I write too; and I don't exactly mean this blog. I mean fiction.

I started a project about 10 years ago. And now is apparently the time when I feel compelled to work on it. It's exciting to embark on a new endeavor, even if it's an old endeavor that you've been shuffling around in piles on the floor or desk for years.

So be well, and keep yourself entertained.

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?"

ubiquity and tidings of Valentines

This song has no title, just words and a tune... well, okay, actually, it's an Elton John song from "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." My Mom had that record. It was a double LP, those were a big deal back in the day. "This Song Has No Tittle" is one of my favorites from that album along with "Grey Seal" and "The Ballad of Danny Bailey." Anyway, I like that song and when I thought about presenting another blog entry - it popped into my head.

I'm not a religious person, and I've never taken much stock in the adage that everything happens for a reason. I think there is the explicable and the inexplicable, and someday what was once inexplicable will one day be explained. Time marches on, time stands still... Yeah, I'm one of those people who likes Warren Zevon. We can't all be the same, you know.

Anyway, I tend to come from the camp of thinking that often (but not always) things are relative, and discordant threads can be connected. So, let's give it a whirl, shall we?

I just spent 20 minutes re-working my banner for my etsy shop. If I was a different person, then I might plan to do this stuff and have everything coordinated and whatnot. But that's not me. I looked at the stuff I was working on, I looked at the way stuff was organized in my shop... and I thought it's time for a new banner... since I think I had the current one for like 3 whole weeks. I hear that's like centuries in internet time.

I like internal rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance - that kind of stuff. So, after I'd been on etsy for what felt like a century I looked at my one shop and thought "well, this thing needs a name, I guess." I mean, if you go on the etsy forums — a whole gaggle of people will tell you that your shop name is really important or some such thing... but they'll tell you a lot of things.

My shop is actually sarahknight, but I can slap whatever text I want (within the bounds of reason) on the banner. So, I was bored for 10 minutes or whatever, and I thought up "technicolor emporium." It's rhymey & Latinate-ish, the latter part redundantly indicating it's former...

I seem to have dropped the name. It was, after all, just some thing in my banner; some thing that rhymed. But it was there for about a year, and well, the earth didn't stop rotating around the sun, so, well, it is what it is.

I had this idea that I would do the basic design and then just rotate a segment of a painting or a photo in or out for the background. That was the simplest design... and that lasted for about a year. At least it did until I re-formatted the design early this morning. It's the same difference, just without the idea of a name.

I am Sarah Knight, and the items in the shop are what I make. In real life, as opposed to the internet where this isn't surveillance footage, I make a lot of things. But in addition to sleeping, eating, showering, and leaving the house to go to work or the post office or to buy necessities — I make a lot of stuff. I draw, I paint, I take photographs, I make jewelry, I play with sculpey or clay on occasion... and for whatever reason I have a lot of glitter. I did some cleaning recently, and it's always funny to find stuff that you stashed away in some bag or box somewhere... and virtually every time, for whatever reason, there was a tube of glitter. You'd think I'd have something with glitter in the shop... but I don't.

So, I'm back to having an etsy shop with no title. It's just me — sarahknight. Not that anything has changed, really, because I have the same items. I just have a new banner. As I type this it's the second one from the bottom in that graphic. The previous one was the picture of sprinkles. It's a fun picture, but I never formatted it for the shop, and well... I dunno, it's getting on Valentine's Day, so I guess I should act more Valentines-ish.

I like chocolate and chocolates, I think you might have to be suffering from a medical disorder to not like chocolate or candy or sweet things... that's just not normal. But, I'm not a big Valentine's person. So, every year it rolls around, and I'm like, "oh, yeah, that."

This year I decided to make some Valentine's for people like myself slightly less committed to the conventions of Valentine's Day. I wanted to do something with collage, but I got halfway through that project and just kind of stalled into "meh" territory. It sits in a pile next to the paper cutter. Instead, I was cleaning and I have all these old books hanging around, and well, on etsy everyone prints stuff on old book pages. So, I decided to engage my inner hipster and I too would print stuff on old book pages and make Valentines...

As it turns out - my old book was a psychology text book, and the first page I ripped out - almost at random, since my criteria for a page was something with no pictures and mostly text - was about drugs and the brain. It felt ironically humorous, since I was printing the shape of a heart filled with a selection of one of my photos. Hallucinogen Hydrangea was actually the first one I printed. It seemed adroit. It still makes me chuckle. And well, I am that kind of person, I guess. We couldn't all be Martha Stewart or someone's wonderful mother.
People less committed to 19th century poets and Victorian era decor need Valentines too...

So, while watching "The Finder" I glued my hearts to some poster-board that I cut to size and scored and folded, and then added a coat of varnish... and well, they're done. At least I can cross that off the "things I never got around to doing" list.

So, what does that have to do with my banner? Well, that red-winged blackbird photo is on one of my Valentines, since in order to make them I took a little trip down memory lane and sifted through my photos... the rest of it? Maybe not so much.

I changed up the font. I like Century Gothic. I like Coke, I like the color Violet. Pink Floyd is my favorite band, and I wear a lot of black concert t-shirts. Some things are just ubiquitous. But every once in a while you gotta change something up, or everything just turns into background noise.

So, I nixed Technicolor Emporium and picked a new font. I wanted something in a handwriting style. My go-to font is usually Bickley - because it's just a pretty font. But it wasn't fitting the mood... so I picked something different. Font geeks probably know what that's called. Basically, it's fancy, but it's not too pretty or too uniform. Looks a little less like script and a little more like handwriting - the fancy kind.

I'm totally guilty of being a casual devotee of fancy penmanship. For whatever reason I found making letters in certain shapes or styles to be entertaining way back when we were doing primers in elementary school. I'm quite fond of my own handwriting... you can see me being neat and uniform with my penmanship on my name on my business cards:

And you can see my unyielding fondness for Century Gothic. I like Century Gothic mostly for the circle shape of the "o" and the "e" but also for the "a." You see, my name is Sarah, and no one writes an "a" with that goofy little glyph thing on it (except maybe Lisa Bellamy in fifth grade). It's a relic, is really what I'm saying, and I'm not hipster enough to think it's cool.
Anyway, sometimes people being snarky confuse Century Gothic with Helvetica... if you're having one of those moments — look at the "a" and you'll know which it is.

You probably know me as this face... well, also in my shiny new banner - yeah, those are my eyes. Yes, I do have green eyes. No, I'm not Irish, or descended from Irish people. I've eaten too much goulash to hold onto any such inclinations. Mom had green eyes, and so did Grandma Duda (nee Hajos)... of course, it also has something to do with the bey2 gene and the gey gene... Dad had brown eyes, and Grandma Knight has blue eyes. Yes, go make a punnet square now ; )

Anyway, the photo is one of the product shots I took for the lizard barrettes. Yeah, I'm a weird rock'n'roll kind of girl like that.
In the event that you ever wondered...

That's me.

Mind you, it's a blurry shot, and since I'm trying to smile-ish for the photo I have sort of a dumb look on my face. I do not have glamorous teeth; thanks, Mom. So, yeah, I don't go for the toothy grin or the idea of spending $30,000.00 on dental work. And yes, I am wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt, and my favorite violet colored shirt with the little red flowers on it from the Gap which I bought at a thrift store like more than 10 years ago. Slackers represent.

Anyway, I spent the last couple of hours sifting through photos... it might not have been the most productive night, since other than a new banner and a new potential banner I didn't make anything per se. But well, it's January, and yesterday we had the coldest day so far this winter. Yes, it was a balmy 9˚F here in Michigan. Obviously that's why I scheduled my appointment to get the oil change yesterday. Brrrrrr.

Anyway, I look forward to April or May when it's warm enough to leave the house, because I'll probably go back to the marsh where I took that photo of the red-winged blackbird...

Picture Story: winter winds

So, in the first week of December I had 2 out of 12 calendar graphics done... and sometimes that means that I flip through the old sketchbooks and look for things that I drew that I never quite got around to finishing. I needed a picture for January, stat.

I think I had some idea about a girl and a snowman sledding. But I was out of time to sketch new ideas...

The snowman with the kite was what I found. There's a note at the bottom that says "for January 2010." What that actually means is that I sketched this in 2009, and was thinking it could be one of the graphics for the 2010 calendar.

I scanned the sketch, converted it to a blue page and printed that. I inked the snowman and the kite, but nixed the birds (which were supposed to be bluejays).

Now, the snowman is wearing a scarf and a hat, so I needed something to fill those in with... this scarf appears in a lot of my winter pictures, like this one.

sapphire sunshine alchemy

For the sky - I wanted something more than just a photo of clouds. So, I decided to combine a scan of one of my paintings with a photo of the sky. I picked "sapphire sunshine alchemy." I played with the color settings and changed out the magenta and yellow - and made the layer more saturated with blue... and then used some layer styles to combine it with a photo of clouds.

"winter winds"
@sarahkdesigns

And this is what the finished picture looks like, of course after I filled in the snowman, the snow, and the kite. And that became the graphic for January 2012... so it only took me 2 years to get around to executing it, ha.

Technically, my illustrations may be digital, but visually, they are an accumulation of physical things: drawings, photos, paintings, a scarf... and then there are all those snowflakes in the background that I designed individually. There's a point at which making the picture seems mechanical: draw it, scan the drawing, convert that to a blue page, print it, ink it, scan that, block the scan, and then start filling it with bits and pieces of digital files - like photos or scans... but all that stuff comes from somewhere. I actually stood out in my backyard photographing the sky on some summer day. And I actually went out and took photos of tree bark - which were what was used on the arms of the snowman.

Anyway, it snowed here in Michigan for the first time in 2012 just yesterday. It's pretty, but I would rather not have to drive in it. I guess I like my snow better when it's on paper. At least then I don't have to scrape it off my car.
: )