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

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.

Innocent Wonder

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

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!

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???

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.

Happy Birthday SweetPea!

9 years ago today I woke up at 6:00 am, showered, made sure my hospital bag was ready and then we casually drove to the Labor and Delivery wing of our hospital and checked in. Being induced is a funny thing. It felt like I was checking into a hotel. We were shown our room and we unpacked. Seriously.

But the nice thing was that I was so incredibly present in the birth of my first child. I wasn't distracted by trying to figure out if this was labor or how to keep it going. None of that.

My first words when I saw her were "Oh my God she's beautiful." To which my mother replied, "of course she is."

I can't believe 9 years has gone by. In a blink. That's what all the parents of older children told me would happen, but in those early days of middle-of-the-night feedings and a house full of gates and locks, I didn't quite believe it. But now I watch her long legs as she runs up the stairs or fixing her hair in the reflection she finds in car windows and realize how big she really is.

She is growing into this amazing young lady. Watching her unfold and peel back all the layers that make her who she is is an incredible thing. She loves to read, paint, play music on her recorder and viola, and has a smart ass side too that reassures me she'll never take crap from anyone. She is so determined, independent, and smart. So many qualities that can be troublesome in a 9-year old but that you know you will be thankful for in years to come.

My daughter is beautiful and she hates it when I call her "pretty" so we will stick with "cute" for now. But really we are just splitting hairs.

So, Happy Birthday to my dear SweetPea, the little girl who makes me catch my breath and marvel at how very lucky I am.

Holiday Joy: Tree Tagging

Every year the holidays sneak up and bite me in the ass. This year I decided to sign-up for a holiday photography course to help me not get lost in the mayhem and enjoy all the moments. I am taking the course from Willette Photography and I, along with a huge international group of people, will be snapping my way through the holiday season as I prepare for Christmas Day. It is actually forcing me to get myself organized so hopefully I'll be more on the ball this year and not wake up and find myself 3 days from Christmas with not a single photograph taken or kiss under the mistletoe.

Each year we normally tag a tree in Vermont and cut it down one weekend after skiing sometime in mid-December. This year we decided to stick closer to home and tag locally.

Some of the shots I am required to get this week for the course are getting the tree. For me, November 27th is just a tad early for that. I like to have a living tree by Christmas day and not a pile of needles all over the gifts. Today we brought some decorations to the tree farm so we could tag and decorate but NOT cut down quite yet.

We will cut down the tree in two weeks and bring it home to decorate and enjoy in full!And in other news, in three weeks we will bring home our very first family puppy.

Oh boy, it should be an interesting Christmas season!