Lensbaby.

Yay for snow!

Yesterday after school, I went out while the snow was still coming down and played with a fun little contraption.

I attached a lensbaby muse lens to my Nikon D5000 and wandered (freezing) around my neighborhood. The muse is designed to shoot fast and loose. Squeeze the Muse to focus, and bend your Sweet Spot around the photo.

This is the hideout of the famous Bonny and Clyde. 

Today, I am enjoying a day off school, watching movies, editing photos. I need to get motivated to make some art.

Just haven't been feeling super creative lately.

Fall Holga Pictures

I shot these a couple of weekends ago with Ilford 400 speed 120 film in my Holga. I love how 'fall' they are!

You really have to go see the cross-processed slide film from last fall of the same subject: here. Such a major contrast in results. I love lomography! I am planning an outing this weekend with a local Lomography club that I started. I will post pictures soon!

A funny story about a flying hippo and some dog tags....

Okay so a while back I posted something about hippos and kids. I alluded to a student's drawing at my school of a flying hippo....well, here it is...In all its 'flesh' colored glory. (I couldn't get a great picture of it...so this will hopefully satisfy)


I do have some really great artists at my school. We are currently working on a drawing unit. I am having them draw vintage cameras...the goals is to create an image bank...a journal full of drawings that they can use to create paintings and other artwork from and it is also intended to teach them how to draw. I am forcing them to draw for a long period of time...and it helps them learn how to see things.

we are also using viewfinders....sort of cropping the image so that it isn't all in the frame....not bad for 3rd/4th grade students!

I also wanted to share a blog from my old MySpace blog...it is a pretty funny one from back in April 2008.

Gum, black hole and dog tags......

One day a few months ago one of my students had on a necklace. It was one of those key chain dog tags and it had been personalized with his name and football number on it. It was very shiny and new. I told him it was very cool. After that, he just HAD to give it to me. I knew his mom would probably be wondering where it was eventually, so I put it somewhere safe so that when he came to me later I would be able to give it back to him. My safe spot just happened to be a special zipper pouch that I tuck into my purse where I carry my lipstick.

Today my student came to me during class wondering where ’my’ necklace was that he gave me...I told him that it was safe, in my purse. Of course, being an inquisitive 10 year-old, he wanted to see it...to make sure that it was safe. I went to my purse and unzipped the lipstick pouch...but the necklace was missing. I knew that I hadn’t taken it out of my purse so I began searching for it. I looked in the side zipper part. No, it wasn’t there either. So I started to remove a few of the bigger things, my wallet, my address book, a bottle of lotion, my checkbook, some ink pens, my gianormous set of keys, a granola bar.....

Finally, I spotted the shiny silver dog tag at the bottom of my purse....That’s right...it was buried beneath the bottomless pit of bobby pins, paper clips, buttons, earrings, pennys, rocks, scraps of paper, gum wrappers, tiny chunks of trident that have wriggled free from the wrapper, rubber bands, reciepts ...there it was....luckily I had found his necklace...but....when I rescued it from the rubble I realized that it had been slimed with some of that yucky spearmint gum...chunks of the gum had somehow goo-ed up the chain and his once-shiny namesake was now minty fresh with rubbed on gum residue. He saw the gum immediately.

He looked up at me. ’What did you do to my necklace?’ All I could do was laugh. ’I am sorry’ ’your necklace got gummed’ was all I could giggle. I went straight to the sink and got some soap as he watched me frantically trying to clean off his precious un-shiny dog tag key chain. Other students started to gather around at this point and I tried to explain that I didn’t realize it had slipped from the safe spot into the bog of junk in the bottom of my purse. I scrubbed and scrubbed, but the gum was stuck...Lime green gum.....I vowed to take it home and use some special gum remover to clean it off. "My mom’s purse wouldn’t have had yucky gum in the bottom of it" he said...."I know, but this kind of thing happens to me, I’m so sorry" I laughed, embarrassed.....

Um, yeah...my purse is not going to be a safe spot for children’s treasures ever again!!

{Aw Snap} October is Upon us!

Oh wow, my October is looking very busy. I apologize in advance if a few days go by with no posts. :-( I may attempt to write short iphone entries a couple of times a week....just to stay active. I have several projects planned including a custom scrapbook for a friend with a Christmas deadline...and a custom guest book for my friend Danielle who is getting married at the end of October. I will post pictures as soon as I get a chance to work on those things!

Anyway, here are some lovely drawings I did a couple of weeks ago. I have a student teacher this semester...it is so nice because I have a helper with grades, art displays and clean up so we tend to get things done very quickly. This has given me time to prepare examples for future projects and do a bit of drawing for myself. I will admit that drawing does not come easily for me.





Let me explain. I can look at something and draw it. I can draw something fairly well, with practice. Sometimes I hate drawing. Drawing can be boring. It is mentally challenging and I have to force myself to sit and draw. I know that I can draw well if I practice, and I am too busy/lazy to practice very often.

Last spring, I got to participate in Art Lab with the Spiva art Gallery and the first session was a two-hour drawing experience. We spent 2 hours creating sketches and drawings for an image bank that we later used for installation art at the gallery. I really enjoyed the time we spent drawing, it changed my perception of drawing in general and I have been itching to set aside time to draw since then....

I brought in a bunch of old cameras (and my computer!) and did some blind contour drawings of each one. I am thinking of doing the same thing with an old beach cruiser, and other vintage things around my house.
Then I did some (not blind) contour line drawings with a black pen of the old cameras. I love all the lines and shapes...this was sooo fun. Drawing can be so theraputic. I will also admit that I was partially inspired by this etsy store.

A parade of old cameras: Brownie, Polaroid, Polaroid (2) Diana, and Holga. (Above, iZone polaroid!!)

On the D500

(low-light, slow shutter @ city museum)

This post is for Sarah! The photos in this post are from my St. Louis trip 2009. Some are from Missouri wine country, the zoo, the City Museum, and the roller derby.


Okay, so I am totally not a camera expert. I started using a Nikon camera in college and I really loved it. I will be keeping my old film camera and I will probably buy some film for it in the near future because I don't know how long FILM will be available at Wal-Mart...I am guessing that if it isn't a disposable camera, you won't be able to buy film unless you go to a camera shop in the next 5-10 years.

I had a lot of fun in the butterfly wing at the zoo:

Anyway, having a good quality digital camera is important to me so I have been saving up for one that will fulfill every need. I have a Fujifilm Finepix S700 that I will probably carry around for snapshots and other small events, but for the most part, I will be using my D5000 for most pictures.

If you are thinking about buying a Nikon, but you just aren't sure which one....I suggest reading the Amazon.com buyer reviews. Click here to read reviews for D5000. Read the good and the bad for 2-3 cameras so you can distinguish authentic critical information buyers remorse.

Nothing beats going into a store and trying the camera out for yourself before making a big purchase. I thought about ordering mine online, but when I went into Best Buy and realized how quickly the camera turns on/off, goes from one picture to the next, and how easy the 19 auto-settings were to use, I knew this was the camera for ME.

On the pet portrait setting:



While in St. Louis I had lots of time to play around with it, but I found myself wishing I would've brushed up on the tutorials over on the website before going to the zoo. I spent a morning in early July watching all the video tutorials and practicing with my camera, but remembering all of those things (when there is a lot going on around you) takes time to master, and practice!

On the flower detail setting:


Picnic lunch...I skipped the sandwich, in favor of a sushi roll...and I got to try out the food setting:





At the winery, this barn had an owl on the weather vane!



My friend Danielle and fiance David with vineyard behind them, portrait setting:




@city museum

This is why I don't play in the ball pit...this little name badge was a PIN--super sharp!


City museum, night landscape setting:



Again at the city museum, this was taken in low-light/no flash...long shutter speed. This is a wall covered in old stamps--metal ones...Next time, I will take some chalk and paper and do some rubbings, it was awesome!



This one was taken at the roller derby...I really wish I would've studied a little more about taking moving pictures...or at least had my big flash, it was hard to get a good shot here:



As you can tell, I had a lot of fun taking pictures on my trip-- lots to scrapbook! Overall, I really love my new camera, but I don't feel like I have fully mastered in yet, in the four weeks I have owned it...but I kind of like that....There is a cool stop-motion animation setting and an auto-tracking setting....lots to learn and play with!

Also, I ordered a custom camera strap for my camera and I bought a Swiss Diana bag to carry it in.