artalicious

I'm not dead…just haven't been able to muster up a blog post.

I decided today that needs to end, and so I'm bringing you the only artistic thing I've done in the past several months.

Behold.


On the 4th of July weekend, Robert met up with some friends at a local coffee shop, Mighty Joe Espresso (in case you couldn't figure that out!). The owner decided she wanted to do something a little different for some of her seating, so she was inviting customers to decorate some of her tables. I joined up with them a bit later and the above is our finished project!

Robert did the swirls and fishes (based on a design he did when he made tableware designs for a living) and I did the text. I'm happy with it. It's cute and funky and it was a fun, impromptu project.

I also think Robert needs to take up painting! I love those little fish!

So hopefully, you'll start seeing a bit more of me around here. I'm going to try and plan out some future posts, so there's no 2 month gap again!

For today's GPP, I thought I'd feature our newest (and LAST) dog, Saul! aka: Saulie Sue, Mr. Sue, "HEY! What are you eating?! Drop it. Drop it! I said DROP IT!"

For reference, He's the small, cute, black and white puppy with spots in the header. Now he's lots bigger (35 lbs!) and lots more clumsy. We don't have very many super good photos of him yet, but here's two of him riding in the car. He's very laid back. He also thinks he's a lap dog.



~JML

Posted in: painting, Random Things, Robert Hill on August 28, 2009 at at 3:36 PM 3 comments    

This weekend is the 2nd Annual Art-B-Que, in Avondale. It's a big party with artists, music, food, beer…what more could you ask for? It's all day Saturday, with vendors opening up around 10-11 am and with musicians closing up the night around 11 pm.

We'll be there, but I have to say, we're not totally sure what we'll be doing yet. This event has caught us by surprise! (And sadly, we've known about it for quite some time…sigh.)

I've got a few ideas brewing, but we'll see if any of them pan out.

Also appearing at the Art-B-Que are The Barrel House Mamas. They are a talented pair of women who write and perform "sweet and sultry mountain music." Robert has done a lot of photography for them and we're excited to see them perform again this weekend!



If you're not busy, we'd love to see any friends that can make it!

Today's GPP is an old friend of mine, Buster (aka: Shnoogie-Woogums). He was a cat we adopted when I was…in high school? Jr. high? I can't remember, but I was much younger! He still lives with my parents and in the photo below, he's up on their roof, surveying the yard work they're having done. I'm not sure if he aproves.



~JML

Posted in: Art-B-Que, Barrel House Mamas, Robert Hill, Studio on June 10, 2009 at at 12:26 PM 0 comments    

This weekend I got to see my good friend Amanda and FINALLY meet her husband, Henri! It was wonderful visiting with them and it's so obvious how much they love each other (awwww…). In the photo above, it's me (with blonde hair!), Twan, Rhiannon, Amanda and Henri (Robert is taking the picture).

We also got to take some photos of the two of them (ok, ROBERT go to take some photos) and they came out so well. Henri will be sending some of them back to his family in Cameroon (that's right, at some point they'll be going back to live there and we might be able to go visit!).

Of course, it started to POUR right as we left to go OUTSIDE to take photos, so we took a small detour to the studio and shot some like this:


How cute are they? The rain let up and we went to Agnes Scott (where Amanda and I went to school) and took some more like this:




I hope they like them! Also, p.s. to Katie, Robert also got a nice shot of Rhi, remind me to email it to you!

Today's GPP is of Boomer. Because she needs a home! Here she is, looking majestic in Katie and Rhiannon's backyard. Her usual look is actually much more goofy.


~JML

Posted in: Amanda, Henri, Portraits, Rhiannon, Robert Hill, Studio, Twan on May 26, 2009 at at 12:14 PM 1 comments    

Ok, this isn't exactly art, but I think it's pretty creative.

We own a house built in 1960. It has it's original hardwood floors (which are beautiful). BUT those hardwoods have shrunk a bit in their 50 years and now have some decent gaps between them (which are also beautiful). What is less beautiful is when our cats track litter all over and it gets stuck in those gaps. And then when those same cats mess with their water and we end up with litter cement in the cracks. That's actually kind of gross. And impossible to clean.

So Robert came up with a design for a "cat bench/litter home". The basic idea being that it's a bench with a hole in the top that holds our litter boxes. The kittehs jump in and out from the top, which ends up keeping most of the litter either inside the bench or on top. It's awesome.

I shelf papered the inside to make clean up easier (our big man cat can have, uh, difficulties with aiming). We also put it on casters so it's easier to move and it needed to be raised as it sits right over the AC vent for that room. We've made it very open so that the bench won't hold on to cat poop smells and discourage any of them from going in.

So far, it's been a hit! The litter is staying inside, everyone has been ok with using it. In fact they love to sit on the top (which has been enhanced with a thrift store bath mat) and watch the birds.

The other great bonus is that none of the dogs can sneak in there and eat "kitty treats!" Before we would have to shut the door to the cat room and make sure that the kitties got potty breaks, but not anymore!

Here's some other views. Fatty Duncan admiring the birds outside. They have their bath mat on one side and food and water dish on the other (the dogs also can't get those now either!).


The view during the feeding frenzy, uh I mean dinner time. Mr. Tub sez "Back off from my food bitches!" You can see one box peeking through the hole in the bench lid.


Robert is demonstrating poopy scooping time! We keep that long piece of scrap wood in there and use it to prop up the lid. You can also see the shelf paper. I didn't do the whole inside because I'm lazy and it's hard. I'd also like to paint the whole bench and seal the inside with a high gloss paint.


And on the "front" of the bench, we wound some sisal rope to make an extra scratcher for the cats to use.


So that's it! It was a fun project and it's really made a difference in keeping the kitty room clean.

For our GPP, I've been saving this fantastic photo of Boo, our girl cat.

This is our kitty:


This is our kitty on drugs!


~JML

Posted in: Animals, pet furniture, Random Things, Robert Hill on March 20, 2009 at at 12:29 PM 3 comments    

Say that title 5 times fast.

I should have recapped this on Friday, the day after it happened, because then I would have REMEMBERED more of what I wanted to write about.

So, in brief, it was lots of fun! Saw many friends and met lots of people (well Robert did, he's the one with art in the show and he's more outgoing than I am). Heard lots of great comments about his work, and lots of people told him he needs to keep making more! So exciting!

So let's progress to the photos, 'cause that's the fun part. I have to apologize for the image quality. We were running late and forgot to bring Robert's camera with us, so these were all taken with his iPhone and are thus noisy and not properly exposed. Alas.

Let's start with a portrait of the artist. Doesn't he look happy that I made him pose for this photo?



Here's the two of us together with his art.


And here's a shot of the art "in situ."


Here's our friend Jennifer Young, posing with her artwork.


And here's my favorite piece of hers.


I love that little bunny! So sweet and innocent in that flower. Jennifer does a lot of illustration work that I love. She's also a very talented (and helpful!) tattoo artist.

Here's one of Nell's pieces from inside the gallery:


And from outside:


Yes, that's me. I love Nell's work, how she uses line and planes to create these fantastic new ways of looking at spaces. The photos of these don't do them justice at all. I'd love to buy one of these, but we're poor and I'm pretty sure the kittehs would do their best to knock them off our windows and eat them.

Here's some pieces by other artists. I'll have to see if I can find out who they were made by since I can't remember. First these neat glasses that had images transfered onto their lenses.


I wanted to put them on to see the pictures, like those antique 3-d glasses, but of course, then the image would be too close for my eyes to even focus on it!

Here's me using a magnifying glass to look at some TINY print. That's Katie behind me.


There was also a really nice series of woodcuts. I wanted to get this one for Mike:


But I'm poor, so he'll just have to make due with this grainy photo. (He's got a Belgian Malnois puppy.)

Overall, it was a great show. There was a huge variety of works and just about everything was beautiful and well crafted. So many of the pieces were impressive in regards to how well people could work on such a small scale, and the amount of information or emotion that could fit into such tiny spaces.

Now, for the Gratuitous Pet Photo! Which today is actually a series of photos illustrating what happens when Keira gets to play with her boyfriend, O'Malley.

We start out with this:


A body SLAM! I love how O'Malley's tail looks in this picture. Actually I love his whole body shape. I think it conveys exactly what it would feel like to have Keira body check you. Which is mostly, "holy crap!"

O'Malley retaliates with an "I'll eat your FACE!"


To which Keira says, "Eat this, biatch!"


They both decide that they should work together to crash into the food lady. (Who is clumsy and slow and couldn't get her ass out of the way in time.)


Oliver thinks the whole thing is quite ridiculous. And that I should be petting him instead of photographing those losers.



~JML

Posted in: art show, Jennifer Young, Nell Ruby, Robert Hill on February 15, 2009 at at 2:53 PM 2 comments    

This is a bit of a brag post, because Robert has 5 pieces in an upcoming art show! As you can see from the postcard at right, it's called All Small Redux, and is in Agnes Scott's Dalton Gallery (my alma matter).

Here's a brief synopsis from their website:

"All Small Redux returns to the premise of the acclaimed 2002 exhibition, all small@eyedrum—that the exquisite and completely petite nature of small works can be overwhelmingly mighty.

In this time of downsizing, low returns, minimal output and small budgets, it is refreshing to celebrate the fabulous preciousness of the tiny.

All Small Redux adds into the fold the world of micro fiction.

Works at or under six inches, sixty seconds or one-hundred and eight words will be reviewed for possible inclusion in the exhibit."

I think that a total of around 50 artists are in the show, including our friends Nell Ruby and Jennifer Young. The opening is February 12, from 5-8. If you look on the postcard, on the last row, three over from the left, that's one of Robert's pieces! Let me see if I can find some larger photos of pieces. Here are my two favorites. They're lighter than in the photos, as the concrete was still damp when he took these pictures.

His concept is creating a modern fossil, basically taking bits of technology (wires, cables, cds, cell phones, computer mice, etc). Then embedding them in concrete and cutting them up into slices. They're lovely to look at and really interesting as many of them are almost unrecognizable from their original forms. This is a perfect project for him as he loves both fossils and technology. I'll probably need to have him write up a bit about this as he can explain it better than I can.

~JML

Posted in: art show, Robert Hill, sculpture on January 29, 2009 at at 10:36 AM 3 comments    

I think I've mentioned on here that Robert and I submit photos and illustrations to various micro stock sites.

*Warning, the following may be very boring if you have no interest in stock photography.*

For those whose eyes just glazed over, a micro stock site, is a place like Shutterstock, where people (mostly graphic designers) buy royalty free images for between $1-$50. They are different from the macro stock sites (Getty Images being probably the largest and most well known) where images are sold as either royalty free or rights managed and typically prices start around $100 and go WAY up from there.

The other difference is that most macro stock sites (like Getty) hire professional photographers, models, make-up artists, stylists, etc. While the mirco stock sites (like Shutterstock) have photographers and illustrators go through an application process, and then accept the images that they feel are up to their standards. Which means if you're not very good, they're not going to take very many of your photos. It also means that if you're an amateur, this is a good way to make a little money while improving your skills.

Both micro and macro stock agencies pay their photographers some set amount per image sale. This fee ranges for anywhere from .25 to several hundred dollars. The most we've ever earned on one photo for one sale was $28. And that only happened once!

Now that's an incredibly simple description of how stock sites work. I could go on and on, but 1) that would be boring and 2) I'm also no where near an expert in this area.

Ok, so boring explanation over, here's some of what Robert and I have been doing in the studio lately. Mainly we've been working with different models and perfecting taking portraits over a white background. These are useful to designers, as the white background ads a lot of versatility to the image. When we first started out taking photos of models, we didn't have the set up we have now, so we had to hunt around for backgrounds. This meant we have a lot of photos like this:


And it means that these don't sell very well. She's a pretty girl, but her outfit and her setting aren't clearly selling or stating anything. Compare it to this image, which can sell just about anything, by photographer Yuri Arcurs (who, by the way, is probably the top selling micro stock photographer out there):


See the difference? Now that's not to say that images without a white background will sell like crap. They don't, but the background needs to support the overall look and message of the image. Something that our random bricks weren't doing.

So now that we have a "for real" set up, I'm hoping that images like this one:


Will earn more sales. The model above, by the way, is one of our favorites to work with. She's got a great personality and is so comfortable in front of the camera. Two great qualities when you're spending 3 hours locked in an 11x19 foot studio with someone!

The other kind of image that sell really well (and that I need to make more of) are vector illustrations. They're great because designers can pull them apart, edit them, scale them to any size, etc. Our top selling vector illustration is this one:


It's not sexy, but it's handy and it's earned over $100 since it's been accepted at various stock sites.

So our goals for this year are to shoot, shoot, shoot, edit, edit, edit and illustrate whenever we can. I've currently got a backlog of at least 500 images to go through (of which probably only 70-100 will be stock-worthy, and of those, probably only 50-60 will be accepted by the sites we submit to).

The sites that we currently work with are: Shutterstock, Big Stock Photo, and Dreamstime. I'm in the process of getting us accepted and set up with a host of other sites. I really need to get us going with iStock.

Ok, I'm stocked out for now. I need to get back to practicing some fine art. I'll be thinking more about that in the coming days.

~JML

Posted in: Big Stock Photo, Dreamstime, Getty Images, Illustration, iStock, Models, Portraits, Robert Hill, Shutterstock, Stock Images, Studio on January 14, 2009 at at 10:12 AM 2 comments    

I thought I would put up some images that we've been taking in the studio (and by "we" I mean "mostly Robert").

First, we had an open house of sorts with all of the other studios and the gallery. We took holiday portraits for anyone who was brave enough to step in front of the camera, and there were some fantastic results!

Here's a great one of our friends' kid hamming it up. When I asked her if he practiced this a lot at home, she looked at me and said she's never seen him dance like this before!



Then we got this cute image (which I took, not too bad I think!):



We also took a holiday portrait for our friends, Katie and Rhiannon with their dogs, O'Malley and Oliver. There was much waving of toys and shaking of treats and wearing of antlers (on the dogs). They went with this one for their holiday card.

We then thought it would be a great idea to traumatize our own dogs, so we brought them over to the studio and made them do embarrassing things with holiday decorations. No animals were harmed during this photo shoot, but I can't say the same for the decorations.

Here's Keira, plotting our demise as soon as this is over.


Aggie gets pissed off. Keira hits the floor.


All is soon forgiven. Much kissy face is seen.


They make up over a meal of holiday garland. Lovely. I launch myself at them to make sure they don't swallow any. Damn dogs.


The rest of the images can be found by clicking here. We ended up picking 4 different photos and printed them out with funny captions and put those in our holiday cards.

Next up will be some of our model photos we've taken for stock.

~JML

Posted in: Animals, Dogs, Holidays, Katie, Kids, Portraits, Rhiannon, Robert Hill, Studio on January 12, 2009 at at 1:15 PM 3 comments    

Well, one thing I would like to do more is post more about art that I made this year. To start that off, here's an illustration of sorts that I've been working on.

I'd like to modify it enough to try and screen print it in one and two colors with my (new since Nov.) screen printing kit.

Right now it's got too many colors and screens to do that, but I think I can work with it. I'm also going to keep working on the letters and such a bit more. It's not quite done.

In other news, Robert and I did get the studio space. We've had it since late October and we really like it. It's allowed us to move a lot of the "art stuff" out of the house, plus it's let Robert set up a seamless white background for stock photography purposes.

We're now using SmugMug to host galleries of client photos and I'm really happy with it. Now I need to make sure we start to make money off of it to justify the yearly fee!

~JML

Posted in: Illustration, New Year, Robert Hill, Studio on January 9, 2009 at at 11:35 AM 2 comments