the pure interest

It snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed yesterday and then again last night. I have to admit, it IS beautiful as it has coated all the trees and houses with a lovely icing of white a few inches think. But I am definitely ready for it to be over!! I am cold and I want to be in my garden again

I downloaded these so cute free flowers here @ You the Designer. I still don’t really understand how people have time create this kind of adorable, perfect art. But hey, I’m glad they do it so I don’t have to!!

I promise to have some photos and updates soon… I took some awesome ones this weekend because it was snowy but sunny and gorgeous. I went out on Lake Erie, frozen, for the first time in my life! The last two days have been so crazy from running to one thing to another that I have neglected the pure interest. Do you ever find yourself so overwhelmed by photo posting, organizing, touching up and flickring and blogging that you just DON’T? That’s kind of where I was at.

forgive me?

So… here’s the honest truth. I am a graphic designer. I studied fine art and got a BA in it with a concentration in Fine Arts. I like art. But I don’t… look at much fine art. As a habit, I tend to only look at design… and I don’t really get into art history or museums. I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s interesting and I’ll look at it. But I do not readily seek it out. I am ashamed of this, and it makes me feel like a horrible artist and probably a shame to my major and all my art-loving-studio-owning professors.

That being said… I randomly saw an ad on Face Book. I think this might be first ad I’ve ever clicked on on Face Book. This artist is young, but I absolutely love Moran Danan’s work. So warm, with beautiful composition, abstraction… it’s the kind of art I want hanging in my living room, and the kind I want to actually stare at and interpret. Unfortunately for me, anything above about $50 is too much for me to spend on anything decorative… however maybe one day I could own one of these pieces. Enjoy….

This is only a small sampling of her work… check it out!

This weekend was really great and I have lots of cute Tycho and friend picks to post this week. As for the links following, I can’t take credit for finding any of these with any hard work, but I wanted to list the ones that interested me even so I have a chance to remember to check them out!

photoshop brush viewer
I think this one will be a necessity for me as my big photoshop brush collection sometimes takes 20-30 seconds to load.

a really funky form builder
I’ll have to check this out to see if it really is as good as it seems to be. Aren’t the different colors so cute??

electrifying beams in photoshop
seriously? someone can teach me how to do the beams thing from the sprint commercials??

a similar light beams tutorial
from PSDTuts

really beautiful website design
nothing except to look at it for inspiration…

a logo design handbook
is it possible to have a handbook on how to design a logo? you’ll have to read it (as will i) to form your opinion

aaaight font!
Looks like a sharpie marker, handwritten kind

vintage photo effect
this is really cool, and i think could come in handy.

another beautiful light effect
in a cute coffeecup….

desktop wallpaper method
maybe i can try this on my next offering …

this logo design is so awesome
I guess it was “unchosen” which sort of sucks, but it was inspirational nonetheless.

Have a great rest of your Monday everyone Only another hour left to go… (for local readers)

Are all my posts going to be titled something about mornings this week? Anyway I woke up this morning with very intense stomach pains and cramping. They were almost debilitating at moments, feeling like knives were stabbing me from the inside just under my rib cage, and gradually over the morning it spread downwards.  But suddenly around 1pm they subsided well enough that I could eat. It was so bizarre - my doctor wantd me to go to the ER, but I really didn’t think it was necessary, so I waited it out and I am hoping and praying it doesn’t return. Brian is gone now so I’m on my own. Truly, I’m more concerned about my good friend Danielle who has been sick for days and is just not getting better. I hate feeling helpless… I just want her to be better.When I upgraded to Flickr pro, I got some free MOO cards. I was so excited for them… they are cute! I will not give them away…. becuase I like them!!  Here are some photos.While catching up on LOST and American Idol from last night, I was surfing Youtube watching old American Idol videos, (name Katharine McPhee’s audition - she’s still my favorite) and came across this girl named Savannah. She looks about 12, but sings and plays guitar pretty amazingly. I don’t even like Jordin Spark’s song Tattoo, but acoustically and with this girl’s style, I really do like it! Anyway I thought I would share. <EDIT> I just clicked on her myspace… is she already famous? Where have I been? She’s probably a bit young for my taste but her music seems pretty mature. Oh well.While browsing youtube, I also got sort of freaked out by the ridiculous amount of girls/people out there who just video tape themselves singing or doing basically anything to get on youtube and be the next “sensation”…. like when they post a “video response” to someone’s song… their version which most of the time is NOT good. I don’t know. How do you all feel about that? Tomorrow is coming a new desktop background. Are you excited?

I have done a little etsy christmas shopping this year… the handmade notebooks and other things make such cute and meaningful little additions to gifts. Through browsing, i noticed Jennifer Boston’s store… and was blown away by her work. I just love it all!!!! from teeny weeny gift cards to photography postcards and notebooks, she has something for everyone. I especially dig her glass magnets!! She’s also located in Pittsburgh, close to me! I don’t even know Jennifer, but here is her store:

Obviously I’m a horrible blogger (and too many of my posts begin like this, so obviously I’m an annoying blogger as well) . . . but here is what I’ve been up to. Through my freelance I’ve gotten to work on some just fun-fun-fun stuff, and I can’t express how awesome it is to feel creative and create things I really like again.

Sorry the business cards are blurry, but I am trying to avoid putting my cell phone and address that blatantly on the internets. Although I’m sure people can find them relatively easy anyway. Oh well. Anyway, I got them printed by Vistaprint. YOu really just can’t beat them for price, and the quality is about 90% (just some small white edges on the solid brown in the cut) but overall I am pleased. For being on a small budget they definitely do the job.

The Christmas cards were a cross between love and hate. I Loved doing it, but I hated that I felt guilty because I spent probably about 10 hours total on the whole project, and I beat myself up saying that I should working. But I got to far to turn back. I’m not sure I’ll do it again next year, I might just have to buy some instead of doing it myself. I love how these turned out but it was exhausting!

The gathering band piece in particular is special to me because they are my friends, I took the photography and designed the post card. There are three other designs and I’m not sure which they’ll pick but that one is my favorite.

Dave Van Buskirk’s CD cover art has been a great process as well. It’s not totally finished, but getting to do corresponding web graphics has been so fun! Another photoshoot I did was for a family in our church, but it is a surprise gift so I can’t post till after Christmas.

It is snowy and icy here…. sort of sunny though, pretty. I will post some pics tomorrow!!

I’ve been over the last few months really into different free photoshop brushes that are all over the internet. I just love the effects I can get with so little work, and the combinations that make truly unique art. Anyway, Jess over at How About Orange (a blog I got referred to through someone else awesome but I can’t remember now) posts about some great stuff, and she referenced These cool combos.

So I thought I would show you some of my other favorite links to brushes.

Links from Tutorial Blog

Brusheezy has some awesome choices!

Obsidian Dawn

This site is nice because you can see all the tiny thumbnails of what you are downloading

I love Garcya’s blog- he is always giving away free stuff. Some of my favorites:

You can find hundred/thousands more just by googling free photoshop brushes. That’s how I found most of mine!