Monday, January 31, 2011

2/30 ArtChallenge: Your Favorite Animal


This is Bunny. She belongs to SweetPea.She was purchased from the Target Dollar Section 5 years ago and I was certain she wouldn't last more than 6 months. All these years later she's had ears sewn back on, tummy seams repaired and is losing much of her stuffing. This lucky Bunny spent a summer in Paris, France last year and here she is enjoying a TGV ride to the south of France for a beach vacation. 

We all LOVE Bunny.

Don't forget to visit the other half of my ArtChallenge...my daughter, SweetPea, and her art can be found here: SweetPea Prose

Sunday, January 30, 2011

1/30 ArtChallenge: Yourself

 SweetPea assisted me with my photo shoot and she made me laugh. I love this picture because it embodies how I am feeling right now about life. If things aren't making you laugh, perhaps you can just laugh them off.

Don't forget to visit the other half of my ArtChallenge...my daughter, SweetPea, and her art can be found here: SweetPea Prose

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Mom & Daughter 30-Day Art Challenge


 As I am sure you've noticed, the internet is riddled with 30-day, 365-day, 52-week challenges that many people in the crafty art world like to use to raise the bar in their given medium. 

My daughter loves to draw. She always has, and has been in an oil painting class since she was 4. She is now 9. 

To her, painting and drawing have always been obvious forms of art. She hasn't, however, really grasped that photography is my art probably, because admittedly, it isn't always art for me. Often for me, and I would guess for other photography-loving family people, it can be a simple medium with which to record an event.  Snapshots if you will. 

So Sweetpea and I are going to venture into a 30-Day challenge together. List in hand, she will draw and I will photograph each day according to the subject matter. Since it is a drawing challenge, some subject matters may be difficult for me to photograph i.e a place I'd like to go, so I'll have to get creative. We will start on January 30th and finish up on the last day of our shortest month.  I can't wait to embark on this project with her and I hope at the end we both raise the bar just a bit with our art.


Monday, January 24, 2011

Innocent Wonder


Razoring to our favorite park in Paris we discovered how much fun subway vents could be!

Monday, January 17, 2011

WinterWonderland



With last week's massive snowfall, how could I resist entering this week's iheartfaces' Winter Wonderland photo contest. I chose this one because the joy on my daughter's face captures the mood of the day. There's nothing like the feeling of snow dripping off your hat as you make snow-bricks on a glorious day off from 3rd grade!







Saturday, January 15, 2011

Question for the crafty people.....

So this year I was hoping to move away from the tacky SpongeBobSquarePantsish Valentine's Day cards and come up with our own using photoshop. Then as if Shana at Florabella was reading my mind, she posted some free templates for Valentine's Day Cards on her Facebook page. There are some really cute designs including bookmarks which I think would make a really neat V-day card for 2nd and 3rd graders!! If you want them you can find the details HERE and you'll need to "like" her Facebook page HERE.


And the designs are really easy to manipulate. What I am now finding difficult is where does one print such things. Places like Shutterfly don't do straight-up printing of photoshop files, they fit your picture into their own designs. A print house might be pricey considering these are to be handed out in school. So what is a girl to do? Print them at home. I guess I could, they wouldn't look GREAT but then again, they are to be handed out at school. Plus I am hoping to do them double sided and frankly I'd probably use a ream of paper and an entire ink cartridge just getting the damn sides to line up.

Anyone out there got any suggestions???


Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Thankful

I am such a goal oriented person that it seems weird that I am not a New Years Resolution kinda gal. But the truth is I think it is silly to limit yourself to setting goals to just once a year. However, as 2011 begins I can't help but think back to all that I am thankful for from 2010. It was an amazing year filled with travel, personal exploration, and cherished family moments. This year I look forward to improving my digital photography skills, which was something I started seriously working on last spring. My goal is to be able to make rock star images on the fly and capture some great moments with my family. The three areas of photography I particularly love are travel, food, and kids. I hope this year I can capture the incredible colors and sights of Asia as we travel to China. We shall see what lies ahead!

In the meantime, here are some b/w shots from Christmas as I participate in The Long Road To China's black & White Wednesdays.