face time

A few weeks ago my favorite comics lady Kate Beaton of Hark, a Vagrant posted a small timeline of self portraits she had done from 2004 to the present and I went CRAZYGONUTS. Hers are way awesomer (and more consistant!) than mine, but I figured it was time to do one of my own. It was especially great/painful to find that one from 2004, my senior year of high school. I thought Magritte was the greatest, if you can't tell.


Here's where I get my pink glasses, and still wear earrings.


Here's where I learn how to use Illustrator and then graduate from MCAD and start doing outfit drawings.


Sadly I have not done any self portraits in 2011! WHAT GIVES, EMMA

mad about hue

photograph by style me pretty & painting by morgan blair

My awesome buddy Tanya just pointed out that I've been collecting this color palette of white, tan, orange, marigold, red and teal a LOT. And it's true! I can't get enough of it, it's girly but not the cotton candy and pigtails kind. Looks like it's time to get crackin' at another illustration.


painting by Arian Behzadi



The other thing I'm excited about right now is Melancholia, Lars Von Trier's next movie. It's a companion piece to Antichrist AND it stars my girl crush, Charlotte Gainsbourg! It looks gorgeous and sad and a little terrifying (I'm super afraid of outer space for some reason). Antichrist, if you haven't seen it, is not exactly a movie for the faint of heart, but I've come to really like it. My movie lovin' boyfriend showed me some making-of documentaries and articles that gave a lot of insight into what the movie was all about. It's also pretty gorgeous.

Anything catching your eye a lot recently?

windy city

It's already been over a week since my mini-Chicago vacay? TIME FLIES, FRIENDS. I had a ton ton ton TON of fun, so much food and a lot of watching my lil' bro do some fancy fencing footwork - and I got to hang with my buddy Molly, who rocks. Here, some photos of said food and said fencing. It was pretty much cloudy or low lighting the whole time I was there, so a good 99% of these photos are BLURRYTOWN.







I wish I had a nice DSLR or something fancier than my dinkydink PowerShot to capture the fencing, it was extra exciting and the photos are, as explained previously, extra blurry. The brother did awesome, though - both he and his team placed in the top ten!







Oh my god the food. I died of happiness SOOOOOO many times. We had snacks at the cafe des architects, which included some preserved eggplant dip and creme fraiche AND five different cheese samples. The other highlight was mondo deep dish tourist attraction lou malnatis, who impressed me so much with the sweet vinaigrette in our salad that I'm planning on attempting to recreate it this weekend. Oh, and the pizza was worth the hour wait FOR SURE.

Thanks for the awesome times, Chicago! I hope I can come back soon.

self image

In my quest to discover new photoshop techniques and try new color palettes, I did this illustration! More brush tool fun, lots of texture experiments, tra la la. I'm still not quite happy with that rabbit, though. It looks weird!!

As an artist I've definitely seen myself go though phases of style and inspiration, but I struggle sometimes with what I want my work to look like. It's easy to connect my work to my life, and right now it feels both are sorta in limbo! I want to be able to settle down and really cultivate a certain look... I just don't know what that look is yet. ART, GUYS. IT'S DIFFICULT.

This illustration should be showing up on something fun tomorrow, however. SECRETS!

inkblot

I think I'm still a little surprised that got a tattoo (1.5 years ago, at that!). I'm not sure why, either! All sorts of people get tattoos - not just bearded ladies and dudes who like mosh pits. Perhaps it's because I was pretty sure I didn't want one up until about a year before it happened. But now I'm extra super duper in love with them, and of course (like everyone told me) now I want a new one.

Here are some pictures I've been looking at for inspiration!



Amanda's tattoo was a big kick in the butt for me! Flowers were kinda on my list of things that I might like to be a permanent part of my body - especially since (in keeping with the childhood home idea) my parents have always kept a great garden. My memories of the peonies opening up with little ants crawling all over them are especially strong, so I'll probably work some peonies in there.

However, I think I'd like to draw the tattoo myself....



Like calligraphy extraordinaire Jessica Hische! She is really one of my heroes.



Left arm/should/back area is where I'm aiming for this time..



A great blog to check out if you're considering a tattoo yourself is Sometimes Sweet. Danielle features a lot of tattooed ladies (and some gentlemen) in her weekly Tattoo Tuesday series. That's where I found Megan Fay's super awesome laurel tattoo. Allison and I had big ol' gush fest on Sunday about laurel tattoos.

Another spot for inspiration is the somewhat hilariously titled f*** yeah, girly tattoos (c'mon now, no swearing in front of the blog!). There's a lot of uber trendy stuff (WAY too many feather tattoos, yikes), but every once in awhile something really beautiful pops up.



(p.s. As I always say when this topic comes up: sorry mom! I love you!)

day tripping

farewell folks! I'm off to see my brother in a fencing tournament (i know i know, awesome) and eat my way through the windy city! Have a lovely weekend.

music to my ears

I listened to this song NONSTOP yesterday. It might be a good karaoke song, if I did karaoke. It's just a Blondie kinda weekend, I guess.

Next week there's something fun in the works.... I can't wait to share it with you guys! In the meantime, let's listen to some of my other Blondie favorites....