Five Cousins

Went to a nearby park last weekend to take photos of some friends. There was supposed to be a good chance of rain in the afternoon, but the sun ended up coming out instead, making the day rather warm! Thanks for being such great sports in the heat, guys!

Brick Building Backgrounds

Say THAT fast three times! LOL

Happy Easter!

In addition to my miniature graphite pencil drawings, I am excited to announce that I am now expanding my art business to include mini photography sessions too. In the past, I have offered to take the reference photos I use for my drawings when a client didn’t have any good ones of the subjects they wanted me to draw for them. This was nice for me because it ensured that I was able to see all of the detail I needed in order to create a highly detailed drawing rather than try to work from a poor quality photo. After taking a local photography workshop last summer taught by an incredibly talented friend (you can view her amazing website at http://www.kariphotography.com) I ‘caught’ the photography ‘bug’, and practiced, practiced, practiced on my own always (no) usually (no) sometimes willing kiddos. I also begged, borrowed and bribed other semi-agreeable models to sit in front of my camera for hours on end while I tried to figure out more than I ever thought I wanted to know about natural lighting, aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings. I think my camera is finally beginning to wear out its welcome among my family members so I am just going to take a deep breath, pinch my nose, dive in and go public with this crazy idea of mine.

If you or someone you know is expecting or has recently welcomed a new little one into the world, my camera and I are always looking for more ‘practice time’. Schedule your newborn or estimated due date now! The best time to capture that newborn innocence is within the first two weeks of birth. My calendar is limited due to my own family responsibilities and a full-time job on the side, but I will do my very best to schedule all newborn sessions within those first important weeks.

And don’t forget about my Miniature Graphite Pencil Portraits! Created from your photos or mine, I draw a variety of subjects; animals, houses, autos, airplanes and boats, and now recently, children. Each drawing takes approximately 3-6 weeks to finish, depending on how many other orders I have waiting, so please plan accordingly if you are giving it as a gift.

Contact me at juli-art@juno.com to learn more about how to order your miniature graphite pencil drawing or to schedule a mini photo session.

Baby M

Last weekend I had the pleasure to photograph Baby M again. You might remember she was my first newborn model after the photography workshop I took. She’s seven months old now and still as cute as a button, or make that a bug – a ladybug! :-)

WIP continued...

I've gotten a little sidetracked recently with a couple of other art related projects, so I haven't added too much to my WIP drawing. I've started the on hands and toy but you can see I still have a ways to go. Hopefully I'll get a little free time this weekend to try to finish them. :-)

On another note, I've been busy putting together another side to my art business... stay tuned for more details coming soon!

11 month cutie.

WIP

I've gotten a little further on my WIP. I've finished (for now, anyway!) her jeans. I'll go back and add darker highlights where needed once the entire drawing is done. Next I'll be working on the toy in her hand...

I don’t normally post WIPs (works in progress) because first, I often go back and rework some part of it that already appears to be done but may not be to my liking as I progress further with the work, so if something appears wrong it may not stay that way in the final drawing, and second, I’m using an ancient scanner so my graphite drawings always look a lot grainer than they really are in person. “Someday” when I have endless time on my hands I plan to work on learning how to better scan/photograph pencil work for posting. :-) But since my posts up until now have been rather far and few in between, I have made an exception and have decided to post my current WIP so that you can be ensured of at least a COUPLE more posts in the next few days! LOL Final drawing size will be 2.5” x 3.5”. Comments/critiques welcome!

Well, as the line in The Abyss goes, “Virgil Brigman back on the air….”

Thought I’d better update my blog soon or lose the two remaining people that DO check it once in awhile LOL! I’ve taken on a new project this year. I got the idea from an article titled Project 365 in one of my Creative Keepsakes scrapbooking magazines. You take a photo each day and scrapbook them on weekly pages with a little bit of journaling under each photo. At the end of the year you’ll have a day-by-day look into the daily life events for that past year. It sounded kind of fun, and really, how hard can it be to remember to grab the camera and take at least one picture each day? (actually, I’ve had a couple days where it’s gotten pretty late at night and I’ve almost forgotten to take my picture, but I’ve been able to do it so far!) I then print them out in 2x3” size so I can fit seven photos plus a little journaling block under each one on an 8 ½ x 11 piece of scrapbook paper. Then I just put each page into a 3-ring binder and it’s done! It’ll be fun looking back on it in a year, and who knows, maybe I’ll even continue this project in the years to come!

This project got me thinking about another one that would be interesting to do. Every morning when I walk into the building where I work, I can see the Cathedral on the hill across the street. Depending on the season, sometimes the sky behind it is dark, sometimes it’s colored by the sunrise or rainy, sometimes the trees have leaves, sometimes they don’t, etc. I thought that it would be fun to be able to set up a camera on a tripod somewhere and be able to take the exact same picture each day at the exact same time and then at the end of the year print them out in order and see how the scene changes from season to season. I wish our backyard were a bit more photogenic for this project, but I don’t think the neighbor’s house or the pine trees in between our houses are going to change TOO much over the course of a year! But it would be a fun idea to keep in the back of my head in case we ever do move and have a place that would work to keep a tripod set up year round….

Happy Holidays!

Practice photo shoot last weekend using a white background.

So, after having several people comment on the cute little "boy" photo shown in my previous post, I felt I needed to dress "her" in a pink tutu and re-take the photos! LOL!! I wasn't really thinking about her outfit the last time, I was just more concerned with learning to meter with a black background instead. She did have a pink shirt on originally, but drooled on it so much that we took it off! ;o)))

This year I have again entered my drawings in an art show in a small gallery in Kansas. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had received the "Tiniest Treasure" award for one of my entries! :o)) Unfortunately, the detail doesn't come through very clearly in online photos. They look MUCH better in person! So if you're ever in Kansas this month, let me know how they look! LOL Here's the link to this year's show:
http://www.carriagefactoryartgallery.com/miniature-art-show-01-2008.html

Here are the links to their previous shows I've been in too:
http://www.carriagefactoryartgallery.com/miniature-art-show-2007.html I received "Honorable Mention" and "Third Place" in this one.

http://www.carriagefactoryartgallery.com/cat-in-art.html

Finally, a post! I took this photo awhile back, to practice shooting with a black background for a holiday card idea I have in mind.

Fall Leaves

I love taking photos in the fall because of the vibrant colors, and these just make ME want to play in the leaves too! :o))

Here is a commission I recently finished. (Note: the drawings are all actually on WHITE paper, in graphite pencil, but for some reason they sometimes photograph with a blue tint, even when photographing outside) The lady who commissioned these has lived in all three houses and intends to have them framed together in a collage frame.

Other Hobbies

Okay, so this blog is supposed to be for 'all' of my artistic hobbies, not just photography - at least that's what I promised in the beginning! :) Ever since I can remember I've enjoyed drawing with graphite pencil. A couple of years ago I discovered fine art miniatures. Most of the miniature societies agree that a miniature should follow three basic rules; it should be smaller than 16 square inches (4" x 4" for example), the subject should be no larger than one sixth of its actual size, and the detail should stand up to close inspection or magnification. Most of my subjects up until now have been pets and houses, with a few cars, boats, planes and miscellaneous wildlife subjects thrown in here and there. Recently I've decided to challenge myself to draw people, something that has never really interested me in the past. Here's my first attempt at a person - one that I did of my daughter. In the drawing she's about 5 months old so it only took me 2 1/2 years to get around to drawing her! Hopefully her younger sibling won't have to wait as long for HER portrait! LOL

More Photo Practice

I got in some more practice taking photos for a friend this weekend. It was a lot of fun, but I really have a GREAT appreciation now for photographers who run around photographing children - I'm not sure who was more tired at the end, them or me! I'll just post a couple of my favorites here. Thanks for letting me practice on you, guys! :-)

This little guy brings his bear blanket with him everywhere, and I wanted to try to convey how sad it is when eventually children outgrow their "best friends" and leave them behind. I didn't notice until afterwards that it looks like he's standing on bear in the second photo after his sister helped me by setting bear's head upright. I do like his head upright that way but I wished I had noticed the lack of spacing between the two subjects. Oh well. Mental note for next time!

There were grasshoppers everywhere and I liked how this one cooperated with us for this photo! :-)

Photo Practice

This weekend I am going to be photographing some friends but didn't really know where I wanted to take their pictures yet. I grabbed my camera and my one of my available photo assistants to take a look at a couple spots I had in mind. It was getting late in the evening so I wasn't expecting to get a lot of "good" shots - more or less I just wanted her to stand in a few different places so I could see if the backgrounds looked good or not. We started out taking these along the bright red brick wall of this building until she noticed the two HUGE daddy long leg spiders crawling up the wall and refused to stand against it anymore. (I have to admit, I felt like they were crawling all over me for about two hours afterwards, too!) LOL

We then drove over to a nearby park for the next shots. By this time the sun was getting really low in the sky and it was a beautiful bright golden color. I started taking these pictures but didn't really think any of them were going to turn out at all when looking at them on the camera screen. I thought they were all going to be much too dark. I was trying to hurry to make the most of the available light left, and all she wanted to do was run, run, run of course, :) so it was a challenge to get her to sit still long enough to take one or two pictures! Most of the time I'd get one taken and off she'd go - I'd have to call her back and bribe her to stand still for "just one more" please! Overall, I'm pretty happy with all of them. I love the golden color of these - what you see here is how they came out of the camera!

This last one is my favorite!!

Baby M

This weekend I had the opportunity to put my newly learned photography lessons to the test. A good friend of mine graciously allowed me to photograph her beautiful newborn baby girl. When I first arrived, Baby M was wide awake, little arms and legs going a mile a minute. Uh oh, I thought. This isn't going to be as easy as Kari makes it look! Many of my first few shots ended up blurry, or with a hand or arm across the face. However, after a brief milk break, Baby M settled down and went right to sleep, allowing me to get these cute shots of her. Thanks, K, for letting me practice on your darling baby girl! :o))