Before and After

I haven't posted in forever, I know! I have been into all sorts of trouble lately and just haven't had the chance! Well, not real trouble... what would you call a new job in a new state in a town where you know no one? Anyway, at my new job I was asked by my principal to design some student of the month certificates and when I asked for the school seal I was given this...

And my issue I have with this lovely electronic piece of information is that it in fact does not look electronic and you cannot blow it up, and you are restricted by the black background. It looks like a photograph of something embroidered!

So I went ahead and redrew it as a vector image so it can potentially be any size you want it to be and it is transparent.

And then I was interested in colorizing it a bit, so I played with it and did this.

My students said it looks a bit "cartoony" like the Simpsons! Which, I will give them that, it is a very simplistic in its lines, but I was sticking with the original typeface. I suppose the next step would be to do a bit more stylizing to the lines and give this a more "classic" look, but hell, that would only happen if I got paid for this!

I'm off to do some baking, now! My sisters sent me lots of baking tools for my birthday (thanks!) so now I must get to more fun stuff!

soooo tired....

Just got in from Relay for Life. It was a fun night, I didn't even take a nap! I didn't take too many pictures either, but a team next to us had this adorable wagon so I had to ask if I could shoot it. I totally want to have one of these when I grow up and carry garden supplies around in it. I'm not grown up yet, am I, right? Anyway, here it is on the turf in front of a tent, it almost looks like a studio shoot!

Who's a Good Boy? Charlie's a Good Boy!

This dog here, Charlemagne, is one of a kind. Okay, well maybe not one of a kind, but I am pretty sure not every owner is as clever as my Liz who is training her GERMAN shepherd in GERMAN, who's name is CHARLEMAGNE, and who's personal catch phrase is "Hündinnen Liebe Me". Love him.


Also, brought my marketing students to a family theme park for some fun and to talk with the Director of Marketing. It was pretty much a rainy day, I did a crazy sky-rocket-bungy-thing, but I fell in love with this old carousel there and wanted to get a shot of it. This is the oldest horse on it, and I believe it is from the early 1900s, probably should have taken a picture of the sign so I knew all the details.

Spring in The City!

This past weekend, my Mom and I went into The City to play. We had gorgeous weather and beautiful sights to see. My camera was almost dead, so by the time I had taken a video of a dog that looked like a walking Barbie Doll from behind, I only had enough battery for this last photograph. I love the wrought iron, tulips, and just a peek of the Chrysler Building, which is beautiful by itself anyway. Click to enlarge.

CoCoNuTs II

First of all, a certain someone said something about the crumbs on my cake platter so I had to do a re-do of the photograph. Notice, there are two more slices gone (I had to convince a total stranger to take a piece last night and then I had another this afternoon). I am bringing this into work tomorrow to share with the faculty.





Second of all, I made it to the second item of my ambitious list, coconut chicken fingers and tangy apricot sauce.

I attempted to do a double layer for extra crispiness, but things didn't work out so well I believe because I baked these babies. So, see below I have my preparation line....




And, the final product!




Third of all, I will make strong attempts at making my Alice in Wonderland sugar cookies this week, but the rest of my night is dedicated to grading homework, classwork, and projects!

CocoNuts

Vanilla Cake (out of a box) + Vanilla Icing (from scratch) + Angel Coconut Flakes = a pretty good cake, if I say so myself, I just wish I had someone to share it with!

Photography experiment

Click on the pictures! This past weekend I played with the V-Girls. They were my models and inspiration as I played photographer and experimented with depth perception and close-ups.


These flowers really pop in the photos, they almost look superimposed because of their color.


Wood pile


Canoe with the girls off in the distance.


Fallen tree


Love this photo. One day she'll be able to climb that tree.


The other medium of the day.


If only I purposely composed this picture with all these shades of purple, what can I say, the clothes were clean and the shoes "findable".

Photoshop Lessons

During my internship (year or so ago), I got to design and implement a few Photoshop lessons. I showed the students how to use lassos, colorize, combine photographs, create photo masks, use the cloning tool and probably a few more things. Below are the materials from one lesson. The first photo is a an original picture that I took on a family camping trip. I then scoured the internet and borrowed someone else's picture of a butterfly (sorry, can't site, don't remember, but thanks for it!). Then using the above tools I showed the students how to make the third picture. Neat, huh?

PHOTOGRAPH

+borrowed photograph

=COMPOSITE!

This next lesson was more about masking and creating objects in Photoshop. Again, first is a borrowed photograph of a beautiful horse running on a beach. I chose horses because a few of my nieces love them. Keep in mind, for the following creation I used the same exact photograph I just masked, rotated, and enlarge. The whole point of the mask is that I never cropped the photograph, leaving it in its original state should I need to easily fix it. This lesson also makes use of a textured background, multiple shape objects, and dropping shadows to create the polaroid frame.

borrowed photograph + lots of work

COMPOSITE!

Hmm... I think I might do something more with these polaroid frames, they are kind of trendy right now....