Random Bits Of Fluff

2010-03-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

MOVED!
I have moved my blog to the very beige spaceholder that is currently my website. The blog will be updated regularly, and the shiny new look is coming soon!

check out the new sketchbook.

2010-02-15T18:15:00.000-08:00

Illustration Friday :: ADRIFT

(click to enlarge)

Just sort of sums up where I am creatively right now! Sometimes it's hard to tell if you even have the right tools to get yourself where you're going!

2010-02-15T11:18:00.001-08:00

the weekend in review

It was a simple weekend. Husband was under the weather. I began the seedlings for my garden-the bright weekend made it easy to think of spring. Valentine's Day was celebrated gently; flowers from my love and an amazing dinner at Sorrento's.

2010-02-11T11:32:00.000-08:00

Thinking summer thoughts

I saw this photo:
here and I was in love. I am dreaming of warmer days (even though the "snowpocalypse" was a total dud here!) and I may need to build these along our pool in the future, more places for sunny-afternoon naps! Also, there may come a time when weeding that flower garden next to the pool becomes more than I can stand-and this is a great alternative!

2010-02-09T13:40:00.001-08:00

Yoga

I had fallen of the wagon for a bit after a parade of illnesses, but I'm back on now! I really love the yoga studio I attend, not just because I can walk there from my house (when it's not freezing out!) but because it's small, intimate, and very focused.

Metrowest Yoga is one big room, only one class at a time. The focus is the mind-body-spirit connection, but not in a preachy everyone-should-become-an-earthy-crunchy-zen-vegan kind of way. The way they offer their spiritual wisdoms are unobtrusive, just instructors trying to help us each see a new way of being or thinking. They feel like gentle guidence, gifts, not imposed expectations.

I love that it feels like a place of intention and healing and wellness. It's not like a yoga class at a gym-no spandex bunnies and thumping workout music pounding in the room next door. Everyone enters and becomes hushed and reverent, smiling and speaking softly. For me it slows down time and reminds me to just BE.

Also, now that it is almost Wednesday (I go to class on Sunday mornings) the stiffness is wearing out of my muscles and I can focus on the joy it brings me and not just the physical butt-kicking! Anyone who thinks yoga is not a serious workout has obviously never been to the classes I go to!

2010-02-08T09:10:00.000-08:00

the weekend in review

Learning to take more photos of the weekend, but this weekend was pretty lowkey, so not much to document. The superbowl was awesome, it was great to see the Saints pull it off. I must admit, I was doubting their ability. But the best part-as always-was watching it with great friends and awesome food!

A significant portion of the weekend was spent in the studio drinking lots of tea and pouring over ideas for my new website and beginning my trial of squarespace. There was a lot of drawing and being inspired by the art in my kids-book collection. It was a sunny weekend but cold, we were restful and found lots of fur on the bed and the loveseat (where the best sunposts in the house are!)when we came back from various erands. Also, a quick outting ended with me finding a great pair of platform sandals-my brain can't help but think toward spring!

2010-02-05T07:09:00.000-08:00

TGIF

I am at work, loving our new design lounge, and Kitty is here in the office with me. She is guarding the creative zone from bad clients who want us to make ugly logos and crappy websites. She growls at anyone who likes Comic Sans or Hobo.

2010-02-02T10:32:00.000-08:00

the weekend in review

The weekend was quiet as I am still recovering from the ills and trying to keep the husband from catching anything. Despite the extreme cold (it was only 17º!) I spied my daffodils trying to peek up trough the dirt, but I piled more mulch up on them and told them to sleep for at least another month. There was lotion and perfume-making, great BBQ here, dog sitting (the adorable golden boy is named Bailey) and much snuggling with our dog, Kitty. I'm looking forward to a week of freelance and some quality time with my Burpee catalog doing some garden-planning.

2010-01-28T10:19:00.000-08:00

Lists

I love lists. I have master lists of my lists. I keep pads of paper everywhere full of lists. Sometimes I even put things on my list after I've done them, just so I can cross them off and feel good about it!

I'm sure this means I need to get out more. But for the rest of you list-obsessers, this is my new favorite thing:

www.teuxdeux.com

It is a free super-simple list program/site that just keeps track of your lists! I have it setup as my default web browser site so that everytime I open my browser I can see what's on my teux deux list!

2010-01-27T06:36:00.000-08:00

Magic Soup

The sick is finally retreating, my Blackberry is back to being functional and the rest of the day will be spent at a photoshoot. Suffice to say, things are looking up. I blame the magic soup.

My roommate Cheryl* is an excellent cook and one of her specialties is Matzo ball soup. When we lived together in Waltham she would make it for me when I was ill-usually she'd make a huge pot because when one of us got sick, ALL of us got sick. Call it old Jewish mysticism, ju-ju, scientific research that proves chicken broth has healing properties-whatever. I'm convinced that Matzo ball soup can cure anything.

So, now that I am married and live kind of far from Cher, I was going to have to make it for myself. And while I'm fairly accomplished in the kitchen, this soup holds a kind of sacred place and I've been too intimidated to try it. But the other night, I decided it was time. The recipe was kind of thrown together and holy cow, it worked! It still didn't have that special something that Cher's does, but it was delicious. And suddenly I am feeling exponentially better.

*I think that "roommate" is a distinguished title that indicates a person who was willing-maybe even enjoyed-putting up with you on a very intimate level. I think it deserves a status like "Mr. President," even when no longer in office, one is still referred to as "Mr. President." So, while all the ladies who we lived with in that giant house in Waltham have all gone off to other directions, I still refer to them as my roommates.

2010-01-24T16:35:00.000-08:00

this space left inentionally blank....

This year has begun on a bad foot, and I am hoping that this is merely the bad stuff getting itself out of the way so I can have a great year, and not setting a trend for 2010. First, food poisoning, then falling off a curb and busting up my hands and knees, then technology failure-new battery needed for my crackberry after three days trying to resuscitate it, and then the flu finally caught up with me friday afternoon and has stalked me through the weekend.

I feel like if I sleep through til February I might be ok...

2009-12-15T06:47:00.001-08:00

Soon....

Soon my website will be going down for a little nap.
but hopefully it won't take me long to swap hosting providers and redesign the new site and blog!

This new year will be bringing lots of change.

2009-12-08T09:18:00.001-08:00

Where does the time go?

I can hardly believe it is already December and Xmas is right around the corner. I see a lot of cookie-baking and jam-making in my future.

In the time since my last post I have been delving into the social media world and getting to know the Twitterverse. So far I've made some great connections and found it to be an excellent source for new information and resources, as well as just some really funny stuff.

I've probably designed and redesigned my website at least 10 times since this time last year, and yet none of them have been posted. I'm still searching for what I really want it to say and do, but I'm feeling closer to a finished concept than i have yet, so maybe this will be the year!

I may be leaving my steadfast webhosters and darling husband/web designer to try out a squarespace option that will allow my web-incompetent self to do my own updates. It's cheap, good-looking and I could put this blog right in it! I have some more digging to do, but we'll see!

Also, a few weeks ago my company sent my boss and I to the amazing Edge conference in Boston, hosted by the Boston Ad Club. The speaker line-up was top-notch and the presentations did not disapoint. I was totally jazzed by the end, full of information and inspiration that will start playing out for me over the next few months as I start to revamp my life as a freelance illustrator/designer. Well, once I finish cleaning out the studio...

There are still more house/door posts coming, and some day I will post this year's vacation photos to my flickr account-but for now I will leave you with the photos from our vacation companions (one of whom is an amazing amateur photographer):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottmccracken/sets/72157621802627046/

A great time was had by all, and as the snow is being forecast for tomorrow, I am dreaming of being back in that perfect week of summer!

2009-11-05T12:01:00.001-08:00

Thinkin' bout my doorbell, when you gonna ring it?

So, our very old house just got a very new door, and I will post more pics of the awesome new door and the fabulous carpenter who put it in once it is painted. But, in the meantime, we uncovered and cleaned up an amazing antique.

Anyone who has taken the grand tour of our house has been forced to ring our very unique old doorbell. It bolts onto the center of the door with the turning mechanism on the outside, and the bell on the other. It makes the most amazing -and loud- ring! We were worried that it would get broken when trying to take it off the old door, but our amazing carpenter-who will get her own post because she is just that awesome- got it off without any trouble.

The previous owners of the house-or someone in it's past- kept painting over the mount for the bell on the inside, as well as getting paint into the intricate molding on the turnkey faceplate, so we really had no idea what it was made of or what it looked like under all that. You can see the giant white globs on the bell-mount and the red paint on the key in the photos.

But a few layers of metal stripper and some SOS pads later, we uncovered what appears to be copper or brass, and the intricate flower molding on the mount, matches that of the keyplate. And the keyplate which we thought must be black metal, was actually also just grime and paint! We took the whole thing apart and cleaned all the cogs-it is amazing how black they were before we started. And once we cleaned up the back, we could read it, and that date that says "Aug. 1. 93." means 1893-our house was built in 1897, so it might be older than the house!

We probably could have buffed it down to the really shiny metal, but we sort of loved just cleaning it enough to see that it is old, but shiny underneath and we didn't want to wear down any of the molding. We can't wait to paint the door and get the whole thing finished. Uncovering our little treasure was an awesome house-adventure!

2009-08-26T17:08:00.000-07:00

Playing catch-up...

Illustration Friday :: IMPATIENCE

this is an old assignment off of IF, but I liked the word and I am trying to catch up a bit and see if I can't fit a few full color paintings back into my life. I have rearranged the studio and it is inspiring me...

The idea here was the old saying about a watched pot never boiling. I wanted to paint the steam, but when I was done I wondered if it wouldn't have been more appropriate to have painted it without the steam in order to have acheived a true feeling of "impatience."

At the very least, I think I might hang it in my kitchen.

2009-08-12T19:25:00.001-07:00

From the sketchbook
(click image to enlarge)

I haven't been doing a lot of drawing from life, but I feel like I could use a "back to basics" refresher lately, so I sat down in front of my mirror for a 20-minute quickie. I dislike how I always end up looking so serious in self portraits because I'm concentrating so hard. It is easier to keep my face in one position that way, but maybe I should try a series of self portraits where I make funny faces at myself.

I always use a mirror for self portraits, photos are already in 2-d so it feels like cheating, but it means my face is always flopped. The freckle under my right eye should be on *your* left as I am facing you, but I'm not so talented as to be able to draw myself flipped. It makes me wonder how the old great artists did it, are all those famous self portraits backwards?

My best friend made a funny comment after a sketch I did of her a while back, about how she only knows what she looks like when I draw her (I used to average about 5 portraits of her a week when we were younger). That her mental image of herself is through my art is rather flattering. It has been years since I did a drawing of myself and it's funny, I think I had forgotten what I looked like too.

Anyway, I needed the reminder that I hadn't forgotten how to draw real things, so hopefully I am not doing too badly and people will recognize it as me!

2009-08-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

From the sketchbook

We are back from vacation, and I promise to post pictures soon. I did manage to take a sketchbook and get a few sketches down for future illustrations, but also did a few from-life studies Eiffle-who has been drawn here before. Our friends, Emily and Scott, joined us for vacation with their awesome Boston Terrier, Eiffle, which was a really great treat. He has a lot of personality-but it he is difficult to draw because he rarely stays still!

Also just before vacation I did a sketch of our giant dog sleeping, and the way she sleeps reminded me of a tattoo i designed for a friend of a fox, so I decided to draw a fox (I was also testing out some new colored pencils), but then I came back with a bic pen and drew the frog, not really sure where he came from, just felt like drawing a frog and I LOVE drawing in bic pen!

2009-06-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

finally got around to posting last years vacation pics because we're going again in 10 days!

Suncook Vacation 2008

the sketchbook will be coming with me!

2009-06-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

And at least a little art, here's a quick 10-minute sketch I did of my husband a while ago...

He sits very still when he is on his laptop.. . .he gets a little fidgetty when he realizes I am drawing him.

2009-06-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

Updates and things.

I know that generally this blog is for design and illustration, but the design I've been knee-deep in lately has been interior design and garden design! I have been so busy outside, despite the rather gloomy June weather, that I have not been sketching nearly as much as I'd like. However, I am making some progress on an identity for a tech company in Pittsburg as well as for a local bio-tech quality consultant that I hope to feature here once they are out in the public eye. And the kid's book I am peddling is off to a few more places. I still have high hopes that we'll be picked up by a publisher.

On the home front, we have been doing some serious gardening and a few home rennovations with plans to have the house reappraised and refinance! Lower mortgage payments are always nice.

My one pot of small daisies from last year apparently wind-seeded all over the garden by the pool. They're everywhere and I love it! But while weeding in my garden I met a new little buddy-who gave me quite a start-isn't he cute? And he was very obliging when he let me take his picture-once my heart had started beating again.

And now for the before's and afters of our old, yucky, rotting fence, and our new gorgeous cedar fence (done by Wachusett Greenscapes) The old fence was rotting so badly that we had to tie one of the posts to a cinderblock so it would make it through the winter. In a science-y kind of way, it did have some really interesting lichen growing on it. The red stuff was really cool, it reminded me a bit of the lichen with the eyeballs from the movie Labyrinth.

Before...

...and after!

It came out so perfectly, and the new gate we added on the back side of the fence is great! No more walking all the way around to get to the vegetable and butterfly gardens!

It will be nice to start a spring someday where there isn't so much to do. I'd love for the plants to just come up and bloom and be pretty. No digging, no major construction, no giant piles of loam at the end of the driveway. Here's hoping all the work pays off for next spring!

2009-06-03T16:38:00.000-07:00

I come bearing art!

So yeah, that last comment about trying to get into a rythm of posting twice a week? Didn't work out so well! As you can see that was the middle of April and it's now the beginning of June!

BUT, I am including some art. These are some paintings I did a few years ago now but that I really like, I was on a red fruit/vegetable kick for a while, and I think I'd like to pick it back up again. It started with a pear I brought to work and a boss who said my pear was to gorgeous to eat, and that I really should take it home and paint it. . .so I did! And then a few weeks later I opened a bunch of radishes and there was this teeny tiny little radish nestled in the middle. It was just too cute to eat, so i had to paint it too! There are more red paintings, perhaps that will be a theme here for a while. . .

Maybe I'll frame the radish, I might hang it in my kitchen. . .

Ok, more soon, I promise!

2009-04-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it is April already!
I swear the new site is coming soon (my new blogger header is like a sneak peek), I'm just waiting for my faaaabulous photographer friend to send me the amazing photos she took of my graphic design portfolio for the site, then I'll plunk those in and it will go live!

I am a bit nervous about putting my work up, maybe because it's been so long since I've put up anything new, and I've never shown my graphic design work on the web. I'm hopeful that once the site is up and the spring crazies have subsided that I will be posting more here (and sketching more too!)

Ideally I'd like to get into a rythm of posting at least twice a week, once just for me and once for IF. We'll see how it goes. . .

2009-02-03T19:18:00.000-08:00

Illustration Friday :: FLAWED

So, this is a portrait of a friend's awesome Boston Terrier, Eiffle. Eiffle is flawed in ways which make him not fit to show for his breed, too big, nose is too long, and most adorably, he has one ear that just refuses to stand up. We all think these are the traits that make him the most adorable Boston Terrier ever. (on the whole, the breed is kind of funny looking!)

The fact that he's in blue isn't really significant, I jsut happened to have a blue pencil in my hand when the idea hit me.

2009-02-03T19:17:00.000-08:00

Illustration Friday :: CONTAINED

I had this idea a while ago when I saw the category, but I never got around to doing anything with it. I was gifted with some funky new colored pencils, so I thought I'd play with the concept and try them out.

2008-12-08T17:18:00.000-08:00

Illustration Friday :: SIMILAR
quick 10-minute sketch. just the first thing that popped into my head. . .and i actually had a pencil when i was working on this one! usually my sketches for this are done in BIC ball point pen. i'm a bit behind on illustration friday stuff because i'm working on sketches for our new year/holiday card (which probably shoudl have been done a week ago!)

also i am trying to sketch more from life, maybe there will be a post soon of images out of my sketchbook. . .

AND the husband is working on the new website RIGHT NOW! so hopefully that will be up and running soon. . .

2008-11-18T11:48:00.000-08:00

i need to post this somewhere so i don't lose the link.

http://cdn1.ustream.tv/swf/4/viewer.45.swf?cid=317016

live streaming video of adorable Shiba Inu puppies. i want the entire litter. . .

2008-11-11T18:22:00.001-08:00

(pardon this week's two for one action as I missed posting last week's assignment)

Illustration Friday :: VACANT

I meant to post this last week, I did a bunch of little sketches. . .you know. . the inside of Paris Hilton's brain, the inside of the average American wallet. . .but this one seemed simpler.

Illustration Friday :: WISE

This one was tough, owls seemed too trite, and "wise" seemed like a subjective word. I chose a simple rendering of a Native American wise woman, looking outward and upward, watchful.

2008-10-30T06:26:00.000-07:00

Illustration Friday :: REPAIR

so this is a drawing of my best friend who survived a bout of cervical cancer, this time of year two years ago. she was 28 at the time and had to have a radical hysterectomy, but she had a fantastic attitude about the whole thing, "at least i dont' have cancer in organs that i need to live!" so they took everything out and she's been given a clean bill of health. she has a long thin scar from hip to hip from the surgery, but she's been repaired!

2008-10-19T15:47:00.000-07:00

Illustration Friday :: LATE

just the first thing that popped into my mind. .maybe a little cliché. . .
i am lacking in major amounts of free time and i'm just trying to get back into the world of drawing again, so it may be a while until i take a sketch to finish, but these weekly assigments at least give me a place to start. .

i have so much art in my head i think i need to take a month off just to get it all out!

2008-07-18T11:31:00.001-07:00

i've been looking at these two illustrators blogs a lot lately. . i love their stuff. . .

http://artistamuvek.blogspot.com
http://rottentuna.blogspot.com

something about the layering of color over sketch. . .linework. . .there is an energy in the lines. . .frantic in irisz agocs's . . .but smooth and thick in michelle white's. . .

i feel like i want to start playing with line. . .i don't usually. . .my work is more color abutting other color. . .

i feel like i am a slave to photorealism in my brain too much when i am drawing. .like i need to connect more to my imagination . .take bigger leaps away from the source. .

2008-05-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

2008-03-06T07:31:00.000-08:00

Well .. ok. . .here are some of the sketches for the kids book i've been working on. .

it's been a strange process. . .it's so foreign, the repeating characters, the fact that the angles need to be just so to show who is talking and who is not. . it's limiting, but i hope to add interest with detail and color in the finals if/when we can get someone to pick it up and want to publish it!

i'm terribly worried that the writer will feel let down. . like it's not enough. . but i think that's jsut my inexperience with something like a kid's book. .
we'll see where it goes from here!

2008-01-30T06:19:00.000-08:00

it has been a lifetime since i posted. i need to make more art and scan more sketches and just get into it. the winter SAD has me trapped in a debilitating depression that seems to be keeping me from doing anything.

however, i am nearing the final revamp of my site jennifermangini.com (which will now also be accessible via jennifer-perry.com)

and i am sketching and comping the work i am doing for When I Talk , my very first children's book. i just need to get to it. this book business is very overwhelming. I think i might be terrified of finishing it and making it real!

2007-01-03T16:53:00.000-08:00

so i did some research about the Portuguese root of our last name, and found out some interesting things. It means "pear tree" and was most likely of Sephardic Jewish decent. The husband's family were catholic, so their ancestors likely converted when the Inquisition and the Holocaust came rolling through. . .
So for xmas I did this crest for my in-laws, now i just need to get it framed!

2007-01-02T18:40:00.000-08:00

Phoenix

i love the symbolism of the phoenix rising. . .i'm trying to keep my illustrations simple and i'm working in a little more texture and some play on the foreground/background relationship.. . we'll see where that goes.. .

my large container of detail brushes has gone missing, so it feels a little rough and not as polished as i usually do. . .
but it was fun to play with the hot pink/purple into orange and yellow.

2006-12-28T16:34:00.000-08:00

This is my image for Peace. . it's what i used as my holiday card this year, nothing complicated, just a peaceful winter scene. . .i'm still trying to get in the hang of making a painting a week on top of everything else!

I have a ton of sketches for the themes i've missed, i'm hoping to get paintings up of them soon, it's hard to catch up once you're behind!

2006-12-01T09:24:00.000-08:00

Invention
i feel like a cheater. . i'm trying very hard to actually *make* an illustration every week, but i'm a little behind since i'm trying to finish my illustrated holiday card and get it out the door. . .
i did this piece as an entry at ICON a bunch of years ago when the conference was held in Philadelphia . . .

for those of you who don't get it, Ben Franklin invented bi-focals.

2006-11-28T18:50:00.000-08:00

Clear

i meant to post this two weeks ago. . but life got crazy. . .i finished painting it tonight, but the sketch has been done since the day after the theme came up. . .here's hoping i can catch up!

2006-11-09T20:08:00.000-08:00

This is my loose interpretation of "smoke".
My best friend's 30lb cat, Smokey, is a (giant) russian blue...he's sweet. It was an excuse to use his big adorable face.

2006-11-05T13:55:00.000-08:00

i did this piece a million years ago, it was just the one i found first to use as a test. apparently i *am* a tool using mammal because i did figure out how to use this thing and upload pictures. go me.

i started this blog with the sole purpose of playing with the kids over at illustrationfriday.com