kelli murray

i've been wanting to write about the adorable miss kelli murray for quite some time now...

this girl is so freakin' talented... and has to be one of the sweetest people i've met! 

her art rocks, she has kick-ass style, she's an amazing designer and she's just an all around awesome person! if you haven't heard of her or checked out her stuff... you must head over to her site.

i adore her art! 

i love her blog

shelby & i got the chance to meet her during a shoot a while back, and recently we shot some of her lookbook photos. she always draws her look as well... so rad! (i told you she had amazing style!) 

she also sells her art on etsy...  

and if you're in the san diego area... check out her art show this next week. it will not disapoint! 

Mixing it up...

I'll admit it, when it comes to makeup, I'm boring. I find a lipstick/blush/eyeshadow shade I like and I'll wear it for years. It's just how I roll.

So, last week I was having drinks with a few fun gals and one of them is a makeup artist here in Portland (moving to LA, soon!). She was rocking hot pink lipstick and when I commented on it, she busted out her little bag of tricks and gave me a mini-makeover at the bar. I was a little scared when she started applying hot pink blush and hot pink lipstick, but I gotta say, it looked RAD! Especially for a night out. Who knew? Her suggestion is to keep the eyes bare, (although I look about twelve without mascara) and freshen up for summer with hot pink cheeks and lips.

Give it a shot and tell me what you think!

Loving Nikki McClure...

How much do you love these images? She's a local-ish artist from Olympia, WA and for the past few years, one Christmas gift I can usually count on is a Nikki McClure calendar (thanks, mom!). I love starting each month with one of her simple images and a single word. It's almost like setting an intention for the month. She also has originals, children's books, prints, notecards, etc.. Amazingly enough, she creates these images using an X-acto knife and a single sheet of paper.







If there's a baby in your life, I highly recommend this board book . . . It makes it about halfway through the alphabet, starting with Awake and ending with Nap. Too cute.

coffee, friends, blogs, & color...

hello! happy tuesday... :)

hope everyone is doing well... 

i had a fabulous time this past saturday meeting up with some local blog friends! 

brandi, shelby, haydee, heather, and i all met up for coffee at the pannikin. A few of us had never met.... so it was so awesome to put a face to the blogs we've been reading! The 5 of us had the most amazing & interesting conversations. we ended up sitting there for 3 hours talking about everything! it was so awesome to meet such a smart & unique group of girls... so inspiring! 

check out their blogs if you haven't already... each one is amazing! 

the pannikin via flickr

speaking of blogs i love.... if you don't already follow color me katie, you must go take a look at her stuff!
she is the most positive and inspiring artist. you can't help but smile visiting her colorful blog.

here's a short video that explains her work as a street artist. the world needs more people like katie! ;)

sita therese

my amazing friend, sita (who you might recognize from the photos i took at her wedding in cabo if you follow my photograhpy blog) is an extremely talented artist. we work together and had the chance to travel together in costa rica... and both being creative, we love to bounce ideas off each other and try to inspire one another to get our creative juices flowin'...

i love her style of painting...  check out this skateboard that she painted as a gift to dave and i right after we got (the love of our lives)... mr tank! how insanely cute is this?! :)

so last month, while we were chatting, we came up with the idea to attempt a collaboration together... combining my love for photography and her love for painting. Sita cruised over to my place after our weekly "yoga church" sunday morning class with tom (which i highly recommend for any spirtiual peeps our there who love some good motivation + yoga) -- and we began our first piece. We went through some of my old photos and decided on this one here that i took of a flight of birds...

i printed it up a bunch of times in different sizes, cropped portions and we gesso'd it to a canvas.  we cut up this photo i took of another bird and used this too. (i wish i had taken a photo of it before the painting began!) it looked pretty cool..

it was a huge mess... we were covered in sticky gesso, tank wanted to walk on the canvas... prints were being ripped off the canvas and re-gessoed on. we learned a lot about what not to do next time when using my photos (don't use a certain type of paper, etc) ... it was so crazy and we loved it.

sita then took it home and started painting away and created this amazing painting over the photo collage that she titled "love birds". I would have to say this first collab is about 20% me and 80% sita... but we plan to do more soon that will have more photography in them.

I still haven't seen the final piece in person, but from the photos sita posted on her blog here and here,  it looks so awesome. i promise to take a photo and post when i see the whole thing.

check out more of sita's cool designs on her blog.... sita therese designs

also -- how funny is this!? we both showed up to work today dressed like twins! we did not plan this... or call each other before work! i guess we just really think alike! so funny.....

i heart stina persson

i stumbled upon stina persson's work a while ago and just love everything she does...  she's a mixed media artist from sweden that has an impressive list of clients that range from coca-cola to bloomingdale's to numerous magazines.

this is one my favs...

from her bio page:
the goal with her work, stina says, is making the ugly prettier and the beautiful a little edgier. she creates her work by hand; using inks, watercolor dyes, and colored pencils, and sometimes mexican cut paper. the work is then scanned, and given a digital touch-up. 

 

 

check out her site for more from her amazing portfolio.

 

{all images from stinapersson.com}