Portraits of People that may have existed.

New Sketchbooky things:

Backing Up

Lately I've been struggling with just picking up my camera and taking a picture of, well, anything. After spending the last few years working on long term projects I'm having a hard time taking a photo without  it being part of a larger whole, that is, just going on walk and shooting whatever I find interesting. I keep thinking 'why am I doing this' 'where would this fit in with my other project', or 'I should be working on some larger project'. And the stress of it has prevented me for doing anything. I used to take my camera to an event and shoot a hundred pictures in one shot. I didn't care if they were prefect or anything. I miss those days, and I feel like some of my favorite memories were of these random moments. The other day I took a walk in my backyard, and realized how much I miss just documenting my life, and the small moments I've forgotten about. My goal right now is to stop stressing and just enjoy.

Sketchbook Portraits

I've been looking at vintage photographs lately in my sketchbook and adding my own spin.

Doily Prints

I may have mentioned this but I love the idea of trying to reinvent objects with previous memories to them. i.e. my Monopoly ring series. Recently my mom handed me these old rubber doilies that my great-grandmother had under a glass tabletop knowing that I would find some use for them, which I of course did.

I call these 'prints' only because I have no other idea how to identify them. I created some of them much like one would when they make a relief print (painting on top of the doily and pressing down but some others I created in a much different way by filling in the in-between spaces with paint.  

It's still very much experimental. Although it is still the same doily how I apply the paint make each look completely different. Yet none of them are prefect, not all of the paint sticks to the paper, and sometimes it still dries too fast, so there are still kinks, but it's interesting how quickly it came to me.

Summer Photos

Some photos of the adventures from this summer.

Summer picnics:

Quiet moments:

Fourth of July bokeh:

Trips to the country:

My Great (2x) Uncle's Shed:

Sketchbooky things.

I swore to myself that I would dedicate myself fully to my sketchbook during this post-graduation, pre-job stage. Well, somehow watching the entire series of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer has become my time holder instead. I've been using the age old excuse of "I don't have any project ideas," which is dumb, I need to keep exploring, nothing comes out of.... well, nothing.

All that rant aside, here are some of the sketchbooky things that have appeared since I last updated this blog. Maybe my goal for the summer should be to find a project. I have a feeling I'm going to miss having deadlines like I did with school. Alas,

Girl Scouts Rock the Mall

Last weekend was the celebration of a 100 years of Girls Scouts with the Rock the Mall Event in D.C. It was crazy. We got all of about 10 feet into the event and never really got a chance to do anything. Seriously, there were thousands of Girl Scouts everywhere. (We took the Metro in from Maryland, and I feel so sorry for all the locals who had to deal with us clogging up the line).

a map of troops attending the event,  there were actually outliners towards the west that I didn't get

I didn't get a lot of pictures, but I made a little sketchbook with I filled with sketches from the bus ride down/back and all the waiting around at the Metro station for the bus: