miscellany

1600x900. A bit of damask, a bit of grungey antiquing, a bit of a random quote I like, aaand a lot of blue.

Clearly, the shops have kept me busy…and everything I’ve designed for months has gone right into there, or into a customer’s happy lil hands. <3 cyanandsepia.etsy.com is the main design shop; assorted crocheted goodies are available at cyanandsepiahome.etsy.com

When I realized I was changing my desktop wallpaper for the first time since, oh, January… I decided I should do something to change it up. It’s probably good for me to work on something completely frivolous and pressure-free once in awhile. ;)

Editing the product-shots I took for my forthcoming Etsy shop, and I have to say… it’s crazy what a difference a tiny (or lot) of editing can make. This shot was, eh, nothing great, but about five minutes of retouching and it’s SO much better. Some are taking longer to deal with, mainly because I didn’t always pay attention to what was in the background… and my camera is starting to die, which means lighting is sometimes wonky and, worse still, I’m getting noise lines in some images. wahhh.

It’s funny, when I started going through these, I was thinking about the fact that I wanted to keep a consistent ”look” to them - but I didn’t want to go the obvious route of white backdrops. For one thing, it’s overdone, but it’s also very cold and sterile, and I’m a MUCH bigger fan of the cozy little vignette shots that abound on Etsy. But another factor is the editing style of the images - in some shots, it’s a warm or cool tone to the photos, a low or high contrast look… and I really hadn’t decided what way I wanted to go in that. I still haven’t really decided, but, looking back through things, I think a “look” is sort of kind of developing, which makes me happy. :)

(…and yes, I agree, the vignette border is rather heavy-handed in this. But it’s a pretty over-the-top notecard design, so I decided it was fitting. ;)

My New Year’s resolution. I had a little spot of quiet reflection last night, as I sat out on my front yard and watched fireworks nearby, beneath the thousand clear stars. The thought had been skirting around the edges of my mind for awhile, but… that’s where I find my inner peace, my real happiness, my joy, is in the million little details of the world around me. In the texture of old paper, the thousand colors in a single stone, the endless variations of blue in the sky. In surrounding myself with little things of beauty, a cute cookie jar and brightly colored mixing bowls in my kitchen, the cute little mini-wastebasket I made for the living room by wrapping yarn in red and orange and tan around an empty tin can. The stars out here are so clear, so sharp, out here, I could stare at them forever. These are the visual moments that make me really, truly, deeply happy.

Plus gorgeous music cranked up. That helps too. :) (Last night was Miracles of Science and a spot of Sigur Rós <3, this morning it’s School of Seven Bells. I’m having a bit of a moment with blatantly joyful indie-ish things.)

So, 1600x900 wallpaper, and yes, it’s a big giant mess of texture and azure and damask and totally gratuitous lol. But I really felt the need to re-affirm my artist statement this morning, and why not surround it with all the things I love?

Textures from all over the planet: sanami276, lostandtaken, texturefairy, and a photo or two of my own. And this is, of course, Madeline L’Engle’s phrasing of ananda, from A Swiftly Tilting Planet. <3

Make a little birdhouse in your soul. <3 1600x900 wallpaper, a re-arrangement of a notecard design I made up this morning. (For sale soon!) When the general layout popped into my head last night, it was bright aqua and red. That *is* where I started this morning, but… wound up somewhere rather different, that I like far better. :) Almost went much less saturated, almost went more green, but went back towards my blue mainly because I think it will look better as a print. (I resisted the urge to go all the way back to my fav color. Really!)

Birdie drawn by me! In curves, no less! (I now use inkscape for drawing vectors - simple, low-memory, straightforward and FREE. <3) Textures and branch vectors from… bittbox, the graphics fairy, and spoongraphics. Fantastic pattern-fills from gimei.

$I am sorry I could not send anyone seeing this a box of cookies - as it is, certain people were astonished/terrified at my final bill for shipping things out this year. (I was not one of them, as I’m used to shipping Priority Mail over distances of a few states.) But! I finally whipped up a cheat-sheet, as I’ve meant to do for yeeeears. It is cute, and cohesive, and sufficiently explanatory. No inadvertent consumption of cayenne by grandmothers. \0/$

I am sorry I could not send anyone seeing this a box of cookies - as it is, certain people were astonished/terrified at my final bill for shipping things out this year. (I was not one of them, as I’m used to shipping Priority Mail over distances of a few states.) But! I finally whipped up a cheat-sheet, as I’ve meant to do for yeeeears. It is cute, and cohesive, and sufficiently explanatory. No inadvertent consumption of cayenne by grandmothers. \0/

The mother-in-law requested I attempt Buche de Noel (aka, a Yule Log for us less-sophisticated-foodies). To my astonishment, it mostly worked. :) Not as round as I’d hoped, but, nothing broke! I got egg whites to amazing stiff peaks! I made meringue mushrooms! Also, it is severely delicious. <3

Not exactly my best, but, I needed something more Christmas-colored on my monitor for the weekend. :) 1600x900 wallpaper.

Original photo by me, font is Fusty Saddle, one texture layer is a photo of mine, the other is from textureking. Add lots of re-coloring layers and some blur and some gratuitous overlay-layer-blend, and in like ten minutes, voila.

I should stop with the design spoilers, but.. I am SO happy with this one I can’t help it. <3

Original photo by me, taken at the botanical gardens in DC a few years ago. Made the background go away, and… well, actually, this was original supposed to be a ’50s/’60s style aqua and red “thank you” design, but I thought I’d try bringing in a hibiscus silhouette. And then the flower kind of took over. (Way happier with this than I was with the original plan though!)

Just because I’m still giggling over it. Forum sig for the husband, showing off his amazing box of a speeder in SW:TOR. (He gave me screencap, I did the rest.)

What I do to cheer myself up. Original photo by me, cropped lots, removed a lampstand and fixed some wall, aaaaand then played awhile. <3 I need to take more photos of flowers, they’re always good inspiration. (This is actually a bouquet the husband splurged on last-minute, to have sent up to our hotel room for the wedding. His moments may be rare, but, he does have them!)

At a portfolio review in college, I remember being asked why I was drawn to taking pictures of things like peeling old paint. I was stumped for a moment, because it just seems like such a natural thing to do - the contrast, the textures, the grit of it all. But I answered that it was also because of the sense of time it conveys, the feeling that even the most everyday of objects has a story to tell - how many hands have run across that windowsill, and what lives did those people lead?

Close-up of boardwalk railing, by the Intracoastal.

Even the shadows look shiny in beach-morning-light!

So this is a December morning around here…

1600x900. Twist on the previous wallpaper. The Fly always looks his best in black and white, so I had to try a version that way. Not quite as satisfied with this as the color version, but, I have Christmas stuff to go unpack sometime today!

Given all the Achtung hoopla, I needed something appropriate on my desktop. <3 Scrambled around for awhile this morning hunting up better Fly pictures for my stash. Pasted Mr The Fly out of the background image, and popped in a new one for a more collage-style effect. Had to do a little distortion on the background due to low-quality noise, but, like I wouldn’t have done so anyway. ;) I have such a weak spot for halftone patterning it’s ridiculous. And, clearly, warm colors.

Despite the fact that the main image was on a white background…I had to crop out that background largely by hand anyway. Tedious, but, at least I had something pretty to look at while zoomed in 300%!

1600x900. Will be posting an alternate version too.