โIโm going to make everything around me beautiful โ that will be my life.โ โElsie de Wolfe ยท My entire life has been saturated in the natural and domestic spheres โ both creation and creating. Here I share about not only my art and design work, but the other elements that make up a creative life โ home, cooking, sewing, inspiration, nature, travel, adventure.
Last weekend, Drew and I paid a visit to New Orleans’s City Park. It is so pretty there! It is also HUGE and there is so much to see! We’ve been there several times, always seeing something new each time. Here is a cute little bridge over a little waterway.
While we were there, we decided to try out some new camera equipment we bought recently. More about that later. ๐
Here are some of the pictures we took:
More about these later! ๐
Yesterday I turned in my 4th painting in my painting class! This one was my favorite so far! I love Impressionism! Although, it was a little of a challenge for me, because I have a hard time making such deliberate and distinct brushstrokes. I want to blend everything nice and neatly together with clean lines. I love the way it looks, it is just so hard for me to do it myself! However, on this project and the next, I’m trying my best to step outside my comfort zone. I’m pleased with the result! The painting that I copied was “My Garden” by Gari Melchers.
Sorry for the poor quality image, I took this picture with my phone really quick before I turned it in. Hence the art studio floor for a backdrop. As promised in the post about my last project, I took pictures throughout the process to show how I came about getting an image that looked like this one.
First off, I taped my paper to my board and applied 3 coats of gesso. Then I drew the image onto my paper. After getting a rough sketch of where everything was at, I started the painting process.
I started with a complementary underpainting of sorts. This helps neutralize the color above it slightly and allows some of the compliment to show through in places where it should (especially on the sky in this particular painting).
Then on top of that, I started to lay in the blended undertones of the next layers.
And on top of those, I start to add the more distinct marks and brushstrokes. Slowly layering on top of the previous layers of paint.
In the last few pictures you can especially see the bottom part taking shape.
More layers of colored brushstrokes. ๐
The paint is applied in different techniques. The bottom layer was a wash, then on top of that you use drybrushing, glazing, and normal painting, depending on the look you are going for, or in this case, the look that you are trying to replicate.
Keep in mind that for this painting I only used 7 paints. Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Hansa Yellow, Cerulean Blue, and White. Therefore, every color of paint you see here all has to be mixed to match the color. There is rarely ever any application of a paint color directly out of a tube. You can see some of that in action, here.
Getting closer!
Feel like you’ve been staring at the same picture over and over again the last few minutes? Well that is sort-of what it feels like when you are painting. It looks easy, but it is oh so time consuming. You can spend hours painting and it barely looks like you made any progress! Ahh frustration.
Plus, even when you are finally done, you see about a million little changes you could make and the process continues… But anyhow, that is basically how I arrived at completion of this painting. Minus all the late night hours of work, color matching, paint mixing, brush cleaning, etc. etc. etc… I think you get the idea.
This is the first painting that I’ve done in a while that I’m thinking of framing and hanging on the wall. I’ll let you know what it looks like when it is up. ๐
How many of you all like to paint yourselves? I’m sure if you are taking the time to read this then you are crafty or creative in some area. What is your artsy medium of choice?
Remember the stuff I got the other day to make a stitchery wall hanging? Well I made it yesterday while Drew and I were watching a movie. It didn’t take long at all! This is what I ended up with:
I know, it is kind-of hard to see. It was really hard to get a good picture with good lighting and without a glare. I tried to take it outside for better lighting, but still got a glare. Hence, the reflection of someone’s car in my artwork.
You can see the stitching better here. I just wanted a simple, colorful, but slightly rustic look. I used the linen fabric I got the other day for the background, but you could use any fabric really. I like the grain lines and the color of this linen. The heart was made out of some leftover fabric I had in my fabric stash. Along with leftover buttons and some embroidery floss that is like thirty-something cents a thread color. Pretty simple.
If you look closely at the heart, you will notice it looks pretty similar to the heart I use on my blog–on my favicon, header, and signature. Well, that’s because it is! I just made it the size that I wanted for my stitchery and printed it out to use as a template to cut my fabric. You could do that with any image you wanted!
I originally wanted to put a quote on it, but I couldn’t find one that I particularly liked for this. What better to say than simply, I love you? I just lightly wrote out on the fabric what I wanted it to say to get an idea of where to stitch each letter and used a simple backstitch. If you have little kids that are just learning to write, I think it would be cute to have them write out something and then you could stitch it in their handwriting. My mom did that when I was little on my Christmas stocking. She had me write out my name and then stitched it out. I still use that stocking every Christmas with my little 5-year old handwriting. ๐
If you want a quick and easy idea for artwork, this is it! It only took me an hour or so and cost me less than $10 for the entire ensemble! You only need a small amount of fabric, embroidery floss, buttons, lace or whatever you want to put on it. I got the frame today at Michael’s and I think it accents it perfectly! The frame is a 10×13 matted to an 8×10. The frame came with the matte and it was on sale for $4.99! I love the rustic look of the creme colored frame!
This weekend has been quite citrus-y! When we were at the mall on Friday, we stopped by the Lush counter at Macy’s to check out all the handmade soaps. They all smell so good! We are both particularly partial to lemony/citrus-y scents. Drew ended up getting a little of two different ones and our bathroom since then smells like a big bunch of lemons! ๐
When we were at the grocery store yesterday, we bought a big bag of lemons (for only like $2) because Drew is now set on making his own organic soap and wanted to give it a lemon scent, of course.
Lemons in the kitchen reminds me of home. My mom often had a big jar of lemons on our kitchen island. She would use them to zest into scones, or more often than not, not use them for anything and they would go bad before we had a chance to make anything with them. I think they are really pretty in a nice glass jar on the kitchen table. ๐
Anyway, not only did I want scones after looking at them, I really, really wanted lemonade! So, I made lemonade. I used a recipe out of the Southern Plate recipe book we got last weekend. More about that, here.
Here is the recipe:
1. Combine 1 cup water and 1 3/4 cups sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking to dissolve the sugar.
2. Remove from heat and let cool.
3. Pour into a 2-quart pitcher along with 1 1/2 cups lemon juice.
4. Stir and add enough water to make 2 quarts. (or according to taste)
5. Stir and serve over ice. Refrigerate any leftovers.
Even though the recipe doesn’t call for freshly squeezed lemon juice, that is all we had and is what we used. We made a smaller batch because it takes a lot of lemons to get 1 1/2 cups lemon juice. (one lemon will give you roughly 3 tablespoons of juice)
The fun thing about this activity is if you have kids, (or a fiance that acts like one) you can let them play with the leftover lemon halves. I’m sure they will be entertained. They can build things like lemon towers:
Even better than the lemonade itself, is if you put it in the freezer until it starts to freeze, and then you get nice and cool frozen lemonade. Yummy! Especially with this 80+ degree weather here in New Orleans! Goodness it has been HOT! What happened to Spring?! ๐
Today has been a great day! I found lots of cool things!
Drew and I went thrift shopping and found a cute picnic basket and some other cool props for our engagement pictures! We are thinking of having a sort-of picnic in the park for them. I say “sort-of” picnic, because I want it to look nicer with a vase of fresh flowers, old books, a big pretty glass pitcher of lemonade…the sort of things that are too much work for any normal person to take on a real picnic. But I’m hoping they will make for nice pictures. We’ll see how it goes. ๐
We then ran by Jo-Ann’s to look for some other fun crafty things. We found some pretty burlap fabric to use for a picnic blanket for our engagement pictures (I wanted to use a quilt, but the ones we have aren’t in the prettiest colors and I won’t be home anytime soon to find a different one or make a new one). Lately I’ve really been into linen, burlap, and other fabrics that have noticeable grain lines. As you can see from my blog background. I don’t think that it will be the softest fabric to sit on, but it is really pretty and goes with the natural/country but classy look we are going for. ๐ Plus, burlap is super cheap as far as fabric goes! It was $3.99 a yard! (before using any coupons/discounts/or sales) Ahh, just look at that nice prettiness:
As we were looking through the fabric selection, I found some pretty home decor fabrics that were on sale! I bought a little bit of two of them to make some pillows for Drew’s couch. (I really like the patterns on them, especially the brown/creme one!)
I also got some linen fabric and some other fun things to make a stitchery wall hanging thing. I miss sewing. As I was looking at the crafts stuff, Drew was walking around complaining about me taking too long and I guess looking cute at the same time, because somehow he got two different ladies to give him coupons. One for 50% off any fabric and another for 25% off of your entire purchase. Yay!
We went to Target because I had to get some toiletries and I wanted to look for a cute, simple and inexpensive tote bag to put all my painting supplies in, because next week we are starting a plein air painting series and we have to haul all of our painting stuff to Audubon Park all week. I toted my stuff to Drew’s house the other day in a plastic bag and it not only cut into my hands because it was too heavy, but the bag started to rip. My painting supplies were really expensive, so I really don’t want to drop them all over the place. Way to go me– I left all my bags of any sort at my home in Harrisburg. But, I found a really cute one for only $12.99. ๐ Yay again! (I also found a really cute pink floral scarf there too! I love scarves!)
After that, we stopped to eat at a little cafe for lunch and then off to the mall. I swear, I hardly ever buy anything, or find anything I really like, but today I seemed to just hit the jackpot everywhere. I found a dress to wear for our engagement pictures that is really well made for a inexpensive dress from Macy’s, shoes to wear with it, that were a lot cheaper than I thought they would be, AND a Fossil cross-body small purse that is almost identical to Trang’s that I love and have been searching for something similar for months (Drew had promised to get me one as a Valentine’s day present and I hadn’t found one since then that I liked)! YAY! It was a very successful day! Plus, almost everything I bought was either on sale or reasonably priced! Quadruple yay! ๐
Here is a little sneak peek of my engagement outfit: (That floral print is actually the scarf I bought from Target today. I’m thinking about using it as the sash for the dress because I’m not in love with the sash that came with it. It is a little thick for a sash, but I think it would work. It is a pretty perfect match for those shoes!)
I’m getting really excited about our engagement pictures. We’ve got a little project up our sleeves with them. I’ll tell you all about it, once I’m sure that it is going to work. ๐ Wedding planning has actually made some progress in the last month. We’ve talked to venues, caterers, photographers, looked into prices for honeymoon locations, priced lots of things and come up with a how-much-we-think-this-wedding-is-going-to-cost-budget. Now we are trying to come up with a lets-actually-be-able-to-afford-this-wedding-budget. We are trying to figure out what is necessary, what isn’t, what we can do ourselves, and want we absolutely have to pay for. We’ve had a lot of good ideas lately about ways that we can save and how we can do things ourselves. It is starting to feel a little better. I want it to be a fun and pretty day, but I also don’t want to spend a ridiculous amount of money for just ONE DAY!ย Is it a little too ambitious to cater a 250ish person event ourselves? What do you think? ๐
I have to have 85% of my painting finished by tomorrow. It is not anywhere close to there. Not at all.
My back was hurting from painting in the studio at school (metal stools with no backs), so I brought all my painting stuff to Drew’s house where I could turn up the music and work in a more comfortable environment. Except that there wasn’t any space for my painting anywhere but on the bed. That’s the nice thing about being an adult. You can do all those things your mom would have never let you do. Like paint on the bed. ๐
I’ve been painting for several hours and I haven’t even gotten any paint on the bed! See Mom! ๐
Although I’m somewhat frustrated at my painting though. It isn’t turning out like I want it to and is taking five times as long as the time I have to do it in. ๐
My brain feels kind-of like this:
Hopefully it gets better, quickly.
Happy first day of Spring!! It is such a beautiful day here! Lovely weather! I’ve got a nice yummy smelling roast sizzling in the oven and I’m working on my research paper for my Medieval England History class. ๐
Speaking of things that are so beautiful, how many of you are familiar with the magazine Sew Beautiful? You know, Martha Pullen and her sewing empire? Well if you are at all in tune with the sewing world, I’m sure you have heard of this famous sewing magazine. Martha Pullen even has a sewing television show on PBS. She does all kinds of fun things, including her Summer School of Art Fashion in Alabama. My mom and I went to it 3 or 4 different summers when I was little. My little sister Kelsey went with us once too. They have all different classes you can take and learn specialty sewing techniques and there is a super fun Sew Kool for Kids School too! I’m sure they still have it, you should definitely look into going! It is really fun! We even got to go to Martha’s house for a special event each year!
Anyway, back to the magazine. My mom has had several of her own sewing creations featured in it before! In several different issues. A couple years ago, she made outfits for Jill, Kelsey, Evie and I and we all got to model them in a photoshoot for the magazine. Jill’s and Evie’s came out in one issue, and mine came out in a different issue with a whole separate article all about my outfit. This month’s issue, Issue No. 135, 2011 Volume 25, Number 2– features another dress that my mom made! It was Evie’s flower girl dress for Blair’s wedding! When Blair and my Mom took Evie down to get her pictures taken in the dress for the magazine, they said that they had some other outfits that they needed models for and Evie and Georgiana would be perfect! So they both made it in the magazine!
The issue is this Spring’s issue all about inspiring ideas for Easter sewing and it just came out! Here are some photos from the magazine:
Here is the dress my mom made for Evie and Evie modeling it. ๐
Here is a close up ๐
And the description.
Here is the page with Evie and Gigi modeling other dresses. ๐
Georgiana ๐
Evie ๐
Here, are a few more pictures of Evie and Gigi on Martha Pullen’s website.
Lately, my face has been breaking out a lot. I think its been mostly due to the high amount of stress that I’ve had lately with school and all that. I feel like I’m back in middle school! I’ve used Proactiv the past couple years and I just feel like it is full of chemicals that are too harsh for my skin. I’m not a big fan of chemicals. Not using them in products or eating things full of them, etc. I like things natural. So anyway, I’ve been looking out for natural facial products. One day I got on the internet to look up natural cures for acne, most of which listed a combination of vitamins A and E and aloe vera. We have an aloe plant, so I’ve broken off small pieces of it lately and rubbed that directly on my face.
Today we had errands to run so we stopped by to check out some vitamins. I saw some multivitamins that were for hair, skin and nail health. I thought about those, but ended up with this:
I really wanted vitamins or vitamin cremes or something that I could apply directly to my face, since I thought that would be more effective rather than just vitamin supplements. I found this bottle of grapeseed oil that says that it is 100% pure sensitive skin care–a light silky moisturizer for all skin types. It claims to be useful as an all-natural moisturizer aiding in protection from premature aging and in reducing the effects of acne. It also says that it can be used as a base for lotions or even as a conditioner for all hair types. I love the multi-use quality of natural products! This was only $9.99 for a 16 oz. bottle; a whole lot cheaper than any other moisturizer and so much healthier!
I also got some E-ointment which has both vitamin E and Aloe Vera in it. It is good for dry skin, wrinkles, stretch marks and to soften fine lines and scars. My older sister, Blair, used it a few years ago to rub on her foot after she had surgery. I like to use it as chapstick. It is perfect to rub on your lips for a pure lip moisturizer. If you want to make it easier to tote around, just put some in a little tub for make-up or something. I know I have a few little tubs from Bare Essentials that they gave me when I purchased some eye shadow a few years ago. They use them for sample eye shadows. I’m sure you can buy them somewhere too. It was only $5.99 for that 2 oz jar and that will last me quite a while!
As you can see, I also picked up some vitamin A supplements as well. They were only $2.99 and are “essential for normal vision and healthy skin” as the bottle says. Be careful when you go to the store to look at see what the ingredients are in the vitamins and things that you buy. Some aren’t organic and have other things added into them. The more natural and pure, the better.
After leaving there, we went to Borders Bookstore. Both of the ones in the New Orleans area are closing, so they had a big sale going on. We should have gone sooner, because most of the books and furniture were already gone, but we did get a couple books:
Do It Gorgeously was already on my book list! I was actually going to get it for my older sister for Christmas last Christmas, but they didn’t have it at the bookstore when I was Christmas shopping and I had other books that I wanted to get her and got her instead. It says “How to Make Less Toxic, Less Expensive, and More Beautiful Products.” That is totally my style. It has homemade recipes for beauty products and skin care, sewing tips and how-to’s, food recipes, ways to save energy, lifestyle tips, gardening tips, how to be nifty and thrifty, how to get out certain stains and clean certain things and even exercise tips. It is definitely a neat book!
I haven’t had time to look through it a lot, but I was just flipping through and saw some of the skin care section. It has different skincare regimens based on your skin type. It gives natural recipes for cleanser, toner, moisturizer, balancing oil, exfoliators, sunscreens, eye-makeup remover, eye serums, eye gels, skin masks, acne gels, hand sanitizer, lotions and even deodorant and mouthwash! It even gives recipes for insect repellent, PMS reliever, cough syrup, and other natural health remedies. All made with natural vitamins and ingredients! Plus all those were just from a couple pages of the book. It really makes me want to make everything I use!
Drew’s brother’s girlfriend, Trang, has a friend who only eats raw food. It is a whole special diet. More about it, here. Trang has posted several things on her blog that they have made and they look good and it really intrigues me how healthy the raw diet is. I saw this cookbook all about raw desserts and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for me to give some raw recipes a try. I really want to make the nut flour in this book to use in stuff. If you are skeptical about the raw diet, here are a few pictures from the book:
Don’t these vanilla macaroons look awesome!
Look at these yummy fruit crepes!
Baklava
Even raw brownies!
I definitely have a lot of new recipes to try in here! Yummy desserts that are healthier for you? I’m totally in on that one!
The last book we got was another cookbook all about Southern cooking. As much as the raw diet sounds neat, I couldn’t completely give up all those yummy deep south staples. I’ve already read through quite a bit of this one and the woman who wrote it is so interesting! All these recipes are from her own family collection. They all sound delicious! So delicious in fact, that we just had to make one for dinner since our mouths were watering just looking through it!
We ended up making:
We used her family recipe for fried chicken planks and we made mashed potatoes (the first time I’ve made them this whole semester!), corn and fresh green beans to go along with it. They were amazing! We also followed her recipe to make southern “comeback sauce” which tastes pretty much identical to Louisiana’s Raising Cane’s sauce! (Raising Cane’s makes a big deal about their sauce being a secret recipe) We both really like their sauce and it is great now that we can make it at home! (for those that don’t know, Raising Cane’s is a really good somewhat fast food restaurant that is known in Louisiana for their chicken strips and Cane’s sauce. It started in Baton Rouge and is really good!)
With dinner we used our new cloth napkins that we got yesterday. I’ve been meaning to make some for a while, but we saw these at T.J. Maxx yesterday and I liked the pattern and they were only a few dollars for a pack of four. They match the chartreuse green that we have in some of the accents in our kitchen and they will be much more economical than paper napkins!ย I’ve got some other fabrics that I’m going to make some more in the same size to go along with these.
Here is a closer look at part of the pattern.
We’ve only got three daisies left from my flowers that Drew bought me a few weeks ago! They still look pretty though for being out so long.
Lastly, we also got a new bottle for our olive oil yesterday. Drew broke the topper on our old one and we couldn’t get it off to put more olive oil in it. I love the curvy shape of this one! It is from World Market.
Please excuse the dirty stove! Isn’t the oil pretty in this bottle? It goes well with our chartreuse kitchen accents!
Anyway, I’ve been babbling on long enough! Today was a pretty fun day. I also got the research done that I needed to do for my Medieval England History paper. Now I just have to write it. But I think I’m going to go try out my new grapeseed oil moisturizer first. ๐
Did you all wear your green today? I did! Here is a shot of me today, even rocking out the green shamrock shades my dad sent me that I mentioned the other day:
I’m sorry my greens don’t match, oh well, at least I’m not getting pinched! ๐ Hope you all have a fabulous St. Patrick’s Day!
This week we turned in our 3rd assignment paintings in my painting class. I definitely learned a lot on this one. We used a technique that I’d never done before. We used only mixtures of umber, sienna, and white to create an underpainting first. This is what my underpainting looked like:
In the background we could only use umber and white. For the middle ground we could only use sienna and white. Lastly, for the foreground, we could use all three and mix them together, but not mixing umber and white. This gave me what you see above.
Next, we used color glazes to transform our paintings from neutral to colored. We did local color glazes, analogous color glazes, complimentary color glazes, and so on. These are really watered down versions of the color that you want, allowing the background image to somewhat shine thorough. It takes a bazillion layers of every color to achieve this effect. In the end, you are left with something like this:
Quite a difference, huh? I’m happy that I learned how to use this technique, but it is somewhat difficult. Plus this painting fell all through midterms, so it isn’t as grand as I had hoped for, but it will do. ๐
I’m excited about our next project! It is really different from all we’ve done so far. No still life! Yay! Here is a little sneak peek:
I’ll try to take more pictures throughout this one, so that I can give you a better description of the process. ๐
