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    

So, I'm messing around with the blog layout and thought I'd put up a new banner. I'm going to blame those two cuties as the reason for why I haven't blogged in FOREVAH. Let me tell you, the next time you start thinking "Hey, 5 dogs sounds like a good idea!" trust me, it's not.

We are down to just 4 dogs now and hopefully we'll soon be down to 3. The pups in the banner were strays that were born in our neighborhood. They were just too cute to let them get run over by cars (which is what killed the rest of their litter) or to let the local drunk keep carting around (which is what was happening to them!). The other dog we had was my in-laws dog that we (successfully!) re-homed for them. I think that Robert and I must be insane. Or big suckers. Probably both.

So, since it's practically June (eek!) I'm going to roll the April and May stock updates into one. We have put the puppies to work and shot some stock images of them.

The look of the blog will probably also keep changing. It's not quite how I want it, but sadly I know just enough html to be dangerous, but not enough to keep me from tearing my hair out as I try to change things!

And now for the GPP (like those three up top aren't enough!). This is my friend Crystal's newest addition, Molly. She was a stray that someone dumped.


And these are Crystal's dogs meeting Molly and thinking "ZOMG. WE CAN HAZ KITTEH?!"


It turns out that they did get to keep her after all! (Crystal may also be a sucker :) )

~JML

Posted in: Animals, blog edits, Dogs, Stock Images on May 22, 2009 at at 10:38 AM 2 comments    

Man, I've been slacking on the blogging. I blame it on the bad weather.

March has been ok. Actually it's been pretty good considering the lack of uploading and photographizing.

Shutterstock

We had 16 photos accepted and 9 photos rejected. So we're up to a gallery of 246. Downloads were pretty consistent, though we had more zero download days compared to February. We totaled $20.59 in sales and earned another payout! I wasn't sure if we would hit the $20 mark this month. I know I'll need to step up the submissions for April for sure. We're also less than $30 away from increasing our payout from .25 per subscription download to .30! It doesn't seem like a huge raise, but those extra nickels can add up fast!

Here's a favorite from March's uploads.

That's Ali, a model we've worked with a few times. She's sweet, easy to work with and very good at expressing subtle emotions.



Big Stock Photo

I didn't submit anything to BSP. But we still had three downloads for a total of $2.

Dreamstime

No submissions to this site either. We had 4 downloads for a total earning of $4.13

Vector Stock

This is a new site for us. I saw them mentioned online and went to check them out. They accept and offer only vector files and signing up was easy. Uploading is a little slow, so I don't have many files online yet and no downloads. So we'll see how they work out.

Goals for April

Almost identical to March! Upload more! I'd also like to get accepted to iStock, at least in the vector department. Some kind members there have looked at my work and I think I need just one more illustration to complete my application.

I stole today's GPP from Katie. It was too cute to pass up!


Granted, you do have to search a little to find the pet. That's O'Malley, doing his best impression of an Ottoman Gremlin. Or else he's playing hide and seek, it's a little hard to tell.

~JML

Posted in: Big Stock Photo, Dreamstime, Shutterstock, Stock Images, Stock Recap, Vector Stock on April 2, 2009 at at 12:10 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    

Well, it's been another month!

Robert and I did hardly any shooting this past month, and I really slacked on the photo editing. Despite all of that, we still had ok sales.

Shutterstock

We had 34 photos accepted and 9 photos rejected. Our gallery now has 230 images! Overall, we had a total of $23.51 in sales. We also had at least one sale for every day except the 28th! That's great as generally sales drop off to zero on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Here's a favorite from February's uploads.

It's actually an illustration I did a long time ago for a logo. It didn't end up being used and I randomly found it on a hard drive a couple weeks ago and thought I might as well upload it! So far it's earned me a dollar.

Big Stock Photo

I had one image accepted (the above) and none rejected. We also had zero sales. Nothing too exciting there, but not unexpected since I don't do much with BSP right now.

Dreamstime

I had one image accepted and none rejected. We had 4 downloads which equaled $5 in sales! A bit better than last month, especially considering that I'm not very active with this site.

Goals for March

Upload more! We still have 85 bazillion images, some of them need to end up online! I've also been working on my stock inspiration binder and we're just about ready to try some still life shots and see how those turn out. I'll post those images once we finish with them.

And now for the GPP! For those not in the Southeast, it snowed buckets yesterday. Which meant it was time for Snow Dogs! Here's a brief glimpse of what our day looked like.

nom nom nom. snowball. nom nom nom.


back the f@$% off, small dog. my snowball.


did someone say something?


what's that food lady? did you say…


SNOWBALLZ? sproing.


SUPER SPROING.


snowball crisis has been handled. i will now pose majestically in the snow.


The entire snow set can be found here.

~JML

Posted in: Big Stock Photo, Dreamstime, Shutterstock, Stock Images, Stock Recap on March 2, 2009 at at 2:50 PM 1 comments