slick




for part of my product advertising shoot, I decided to take a picture of an LV wallet in amarette from the vernis line. I used rocks and drops of water to mimic the smooth and reflective texture of the wallet. I kept the background in neutral colors (rocks, coral and wall) and put an emphasis on the jewel toned wallet.

On my mind...

I thought I'd mix it up tonight and start posting what I use to post back in the myspace blog days...

Art is a huge part of my life along with work but what can keep me talking for hours is the stuff of love, the spirit, and how love comes about at the deepest level.

Sure it starts with loving oneself and then that feeling spreads to everyone around you. But how do you get it? Do you find it under a rock somewhere? Do you luck up on it? Did your mom just pack it in your lunch on your way to school? Absolutely not. My friends always make fun of me because I'm expressive and deliberate about this fickle thing that's intangible. I truly feel everything I do comes from the foundation of love and the practice of sharing it with others...And it doesn't have to come with pain, suffering, greed or manipulation...it naturally comes from awareness...the process can be hard sometimes...but what process isn't when you're trying to achieve something amazing?

I've discovered and practice awareness in every situation (or at least try) with love and compassion, be it good or bad. And to break it down...this is basically what I noticed.

Whenever there is a problem:

There's a question trying to ask itself

Instead of fixing the problem with logic (which is important to a certain degree), I approach it by understanding what question is trying to be asked.

What intelligence is trying to happen?

What gift is trying to be given?

When you're interested and you stay awake, the answers come...and what you do becomes intentional instead of allowing life's noises, fears or perceptions get the best out of you.

What question do you have?

Portraits





Portraits are hard to capture, being on both the subject and photographers side. This week, we had to do outdoor portraits and I really like this one. The focus was on lighting (2 sources of light from the top left and bottom), textural interest from the background and the smoke, and the cropping of the composition...I stylized the shot so there would be direct light focused on his expression in the eyes...

Boxset art

I love collecting really pretty boxes = shiny, ornate, sophisticated...But I never knew how to justify keeping them without being a pack rat (seriously, who keeps all these boxes!). I use to stack them on top of floating shelves which were cool...but suddenly, tonight I had a quick and super simple way of showcasing a chic art installation using my candle, lotion and perfume boxes...compliments of clear thumb tacks :)...I love how the light hits certain panels of the boxes to make them reflect and sparkle....



My favorite Laura Mercier decadent pistacio body cream...Think of smooth, creamy, nutty smell of deliciousness...







peek-a-boo



some images from my favorite makeup brushes and japanese figurine. i just got a simple canon sxi to shoot and experiment with...let the fun begin...:)

more sketching


warmed up with my lines and sketched my favorite lavender aluminum cased hand cream from L'Occitane.

next week, more on perspective...ug

sketching fun today

I'm working with a mentor at work to grow my art skills. I love it and it's rigorous. This week we're practicing warming up with ellipses and drawing lines...then doing a sketch...here's a quick sketch..

pencils


Took some images of of my Prisma Color pencils this past weekend practicing depth of field. My professor submitted to our Spring Show so fingers crossed it gets selected :)

fleur



Practicing with ISO this week. I decided to check out the flowers in my backyard and take pictures when the sun was peaking from the sky...here's what I came up with (ISO 200)...but what I didn't come up with is the name for this flower?

Digital Photography



Been doing a lot of photography the past few weeks for my class and I'm really enjoying it. I'm hoping to dedicate more time now that I just got a new camera (Luminx DMC-ZR1)I figure I should get a DSLR at some point but I want to focus on composition and just getting use to taking good pictures with attention to light, shape, reflection....etc...Here are a few images I've taken so far.



Watching

simple, gamine, glee

gamine glee


people comment on my style and I'm starting to find it interesting that my philosophy of wearing simple, effortless and sometimes unique pieces can do the trick. i think we have so much potential to express our sense of fashion by wearing things that embody our character be it the cutest sweater dress to a favorite patent italian leather bag. This is the beginning of dreaming, of being creative..or using what you have to enhance your naturally beauty...it's feeling feminine, curious or glamorous. Audrey Tatou always had that sense of allure...

fashion among other things start by simply opening your eyes to dream.

ps thanks T for telling me never to wear make-up

Martial Arts and Springs



Training was awesome last night and my Dad is definitely stepping up the intensity. This year's lesson is based on flexibility, control, concentration and focused on pushing out the kinetic qi energy. This is the hardest part. It's such a refined practice and training that few can harvest this energy. It takes hours of 1:1 training and practice.

We spent some time sparing and talking Wing Chun theory while browsing some old movies from the grandmaster himself, Ip Man and the training brothers, Wong Shun Leung and Bruce Lee of course...Bruce Lee was aggressive, a true martial artist and you can see the difference...he was solid...focused....though he didn't learn the true Wing Chun, his legacy originated from the art...



Spring
The notion of your arm acting like a spring and being flexible, powerful and automatic is the hardest part to train for. Essentially, when you're a baby, you're taught to grasp, hold, throw things from a favorite red hand ball to a nerf ball....everything is based on utilizing the mind and muscle to generate an action. The training last night was based on automatic, no thought type of reaction for the simple reason that when you're in a fight, you don't have time to think when you're making a move, because by that time, your a@@ is beat. I kept thinking about a homing missile...one the target is locked..the target moves forward..nothing slows it down, it is focused and clearly directed. So we practiced blindfold so the training is based on instinct, feeling rather than using the brain to anticipate every move. It was hard but I can't wait until my arms are conditioned enough to act on their own...




The difference between Movie Martial Arts and the Real Deal.

To be continued...

bubblebath






there's something I love about bubbles, the way they look, feel, smell like watermelon bubbleyum...strawberry blowing bubbles...lavender bubbles in bubblebaths (i loooooove bubblebaths)..they have this fuzzy-wuzzy feeling...the beautiful shapes that seem to float on forever......

bubble blue





I call this series 'Finally getting off my ass and actually creating something'. Ok, I've created something before but last weekend I was encouraged to buy 7 canvases and a cheap 5 pack of paint brushes. There was a point where I was drawing a lot, in a sketch book, Bristol Pad, Drawing Pad, you name it..but like many other things I start...I simply forgot about it for a while...or just don't do it consistently enough.

So tonight, I've decided to throw some paint on a canvas and see what sticks (it was much harder than I thought!). I don't remember the last time I painted on canvas, maybe 10 years ago..but anyway, I grabbed my trusty tackle box of art supplies with acrylic paints, plastic canister, paint brushes and sponges and proceeded what many of my loving friends call 'art'.

I squirted the blues and red paints out of pots of paint and soaked the sponge in water and smeared it all over the canvas to make a background color.....so I had my blues, and then decided on a concept....hmm...'jellyfish!...brilliant.

yeah right, looked like white flying apple pie saucers...no good...so I just painted over it...

Then i decided...hmm how about a cool landscape? Yeahhhh one with a bridge and cool shadows....or maybe a castle...ok...you know what that looked like? Remember when you were a kid and played pick-up-sticks and all the sticks were just jutting out of odd places after you threw them up in the air? There you go. Complete mess

Three times a charm I said since it was my last attempt since I wasn't sure how much the poor canvas (and now my blue painted fingers) could take. So I decided to go organic abstract.
It was a blend between a serene blue with a bold contrast of tree and bubble shapes.

And finally I knew it was a start. Thanks to Beautiful Losers playing in the background to inspire me, I began to feel hopeful again.....here goes..1 down, 6 to go

PS don't mind the cable and I don't know why I do all my work in the living room and on the floor, but who cares right?