4.27.2009

Seriously Awesome and Inspiring Fashion






These are from Agatha Ruiz de la Prada's Fall 2009 Couture collection (pics snatched from here. WOOOOOWWW! I seriously love these. They are, of course totally impractical, and those are some seriously loud color combinations, but that's what makes these pieces so awesome. Inspired by surrealism (one of my faves), and clearly channeling Schiaparelli (another one of my faves). I wish I could pull off wearing something so crazy. But these pieces are seriously fun, whimsical, and extremely creative. I will certainly be following her runway shows from now on.

4.22.2009

Johnny Brenda's

IMG_0136


This is a rather crappy picture of Acid Mothers Temple, a Japanese psychedelic band, playing at Johnny Brenda's in Philly over the weekend. JB's is a pretty sweet concert venue: balcony section, tasty beers on tap, and supposedly really awesome food. The band was... interesting, not my usual style choice of music. Good if you are into psychedelic/jammy sort of music. I was totally fascinated by the beaded curtain the background which they project lights/videos on, and I just had to make a print based on it. If I were to print this, the scale would be much much smaller, like a teeny tiny pinstripe, but I wanted to show off the details.

JBstripe


You can find inspiration in the strangest places... and I certainly do!

4.20.2009

hmmmm...

daffodils


Not sure if I really like this one, but I really do need more florals in my portfolio, and I thought it would be nice to do one in just two colors.

4.17.2009

Sunny weather today...

daff2daff1

...which is conducive to outside flower sketching! I think it's about time to make a Loongwood Gardens sketch day trip.

4.13.2009

Website + Buttons!

buttons


Ooooh, big news, my website is done!! The buttons actually turned out to work out well for my website design, and now of course I had to throw them into repeat. And my mom told me, that not only are some of those buttons from my grandmother, but some are from my great grandmother, and maybe even my great-great grandmother! Family heirloom buttons, and I didn't even know it, which is pretty cool.

I'm super happy with how my website turned out. Using Adobe GoLive is such a difference from the my days of a crappy Angelfire website that I designed line-by-line html code. So hopefully I can get my name out better and get a fabulous design job! And now that that's done, I can get back to more designing, blogging, and getting outside in the finally Spring weather.

4.08.2009

Fabric Goodies

Spoonflower Fabric


Got this in over the weekend, my spoils from winning the Spoonflower weekly fabric contest.

There is something so exciting about seeing your print on actual fabric. It's almost like opening up an awesome Christmas present when you pull your fabric off the screen printing table, or undo the knots from your shibori fabric, or pull your fabric off the loom. When I don't get excited about that anymore, I'll know its time to change careers.

But anyways, I am super happy with how these turned out. This is the 2nd order I've placed with them, and this time I paid a lot more attention to color management in making the file, and I learned quite a lot about color profiles and CMYK vs RGB vs LAB. And the colors are much more accurate to what I wanted. The next step of course is ordering their color chart swatch.

But what to do with this lovely-ness? The blue crazy print I think would look awesome as an applique on a sweatshirt, the gray flowers would make a bangin' dress (I got two yards of that), the leafy print is screaming (in my ear, quite loudly) to be made into a poofy skirt, and the birds are so cute I don't know what to do with them.

And, I got a domain, and my launch date is this Sunday!

4.06.2009

What I've Been Up To....

website... in progress


A little sneak peek at what is to come soon! I've been working hard on this, but I don't want to give all of it away. I will be buying my domain name tomorrow and setting an official launch date. GET EXCITED, cuz I totally am!

4.01.2009

buttons!!

buttonns


i am going to be more diligent about updating this blog, i swears!

it seems that every time i sit down and try to think of a layout/design for my website i get sidetracked and end up doing something else. today was no exception, so i ended up drawing buttons:

buttons


i have a large button collection which i started when i was little. i collected buttons from old clothes, inherited buttons from my crafty grandma, and of course always bought buttons whenever i found particularly interesting ones in sewing shops. i always, always organized my buttons by color. the picture and the sketches are from my collection of white/off-white/mother of pearl buttons. it's so strange, that even now, i remember which buttons were my favorites when i was little.

in short: i still love buttons. i have a crazy idea of doing button "portraits," just a big ass painting of a single button. but uuh, back to that website, fo realz.