pieces of me: a day in pictures

Sometimes you just need a photo adventure with some good friends where you walk around town and take silly pictures and go inside all of the stores. 

And pretend to own all of the nice houses.

And pet the cute little puppies by the lake. 

And eat at Hudson's Hamburgers because it's been there for 100 years and they don't serve fries.

And buy rings that make you feel like an art teacher. 

And wear hipster glasses while playing chess at Java on Sherman and drinking a Bowl of Soul.

And playing with the kid toys because we're all actually six year olds. 

Because this is a beautiful life.

pieces of me: part two

I like to go on adventures (hence the name of my other blog...natventures HA). And I also like to take my camera with me on my adventures. For photographic evidence reasons.

Also because you can't have too many pictures.

(I totally took these pictures while I was driving. Don't worry! I just held the camera up and clicked, hoping I got a good shot somewhere in there because you can't look through the view finder and drive in a straight line at the same time.)

The sun was out on my drive down to Moscow on Friday afternoon and just, I always feel more like myself when the sun is out. I can't explain it.

And then that Nathan guy and I went on a walk around the Arboretum at the UI on Saturday after we went to play tennis because what else do you do on an overcast Saturday?

Unrelated, I really suck at tennis.

pieces of me

i took my first photography class when i was a senior in high school. i used my dad's pentax camera who's shutter sounded beastly whenever you took a photo. i didn't really know anything about cameras or photos or light rooms, i just knew that photography made art easy. i didn't have to have above average drawing or painting skills to make things look realistic, i just needed to press a button.

having a DSLR and clicking a button doesn't make you a photographer, though. and as much as i would love to be a professional photographer, i'm just not. i still don't know enough about f stops and ISOs and apertures for which lighting scenarios are best. besides my one high school class a billion years ago, i'm mostly self taught. but being an art major helped significantly with my understanding of good design and composition, so i'd like to think i have some things under control.

anyway, i don't take enough pictures. i'm still figuring out how to see the beauty in the everyday. so i'm starting a series of pictures to photograph my everyday life. i took to my apartment today, photographing the space which i physically inhabit. you can tell a lot about a person by what they photograph and how. so here's me - in picture form.

student work

here is some student work from this second semester. my kids created artwork based off the theme STEAM which could be interpreted literally, metaphorically or whimsically. These are some of the best examples and they are all a variety of media and content. 

these kids are so stinkin talented! 

after we finished up the STEAM project, I had them relax a little bit with some Zentangles. Instead of just filling in circles like my art 1 classes did in the first semester, they filled in animal shapes.

these are some of the ones I have so far.

Saturday Morning Fun

So I played around on Gimp this morning. This is what happened. I'm a little obsessed lately.

blends and shades

Hi there. It's been a while, I know. Welcome to January 2014, kids. So far I have really only been working in graphite, a medium I forgot I loved. Wooden pencils, blending stumps, big erasers. They feel so good in my fingers and it's been so long since I drew with them!

In college it was all charcoal, chalk pastels, ink, paints, etc. No pencils. I even took my notes for class in mostly pen, so there's that. I mean, but here we are now with graphite. New year, new(ish) medium? It makes sense.

Enjoy.

mask maker

My roommate Kelsey makes masks. They're awesome. She just created an Etsy shop too, so go check it out.

I took these pictures of some of her masks so she could list them on Etsy, and since I'm shamelessly plugging her shop and abilities, I might as well shamelessly plug my photography too, right? Yes and yes.

Native American Mask:

Elf-Inspired Masks:

Spider Web Mask: