Inspiration Friday

This has been a great week full of learning and positive growth.

1 thing I learned this week is how important it is to do things for people to show I care.

I'm going to work on creating things for my friends and family, surprising them, because they expect to get nothing. I just did that this week! I created a picture of my two instructors sort of in cartoon form.

What kind of gifts do you treasure most?

Inspiration Friday

This Friday I spent time on two different projects inspired by people I know.

The first was inspired by a friend of mine that loves music and languages. She is fluent in Spanish and now we are learning Arabic together. She's about 36 years older than I am and she picks things up so quickly. I don't think it's really true what they say about youngsters being more absorbent of languages, at least not this youngster. I won't say I'm doing badly with it, but I know it takes effort on my part to soak it in.

My friend also plays the violin and lately she's been getting me to play. I quit orchestra after my freshman year, partly because I disliked our teacher, playing tests, our nun-ish orchestra dresses, and I wanted to replace it with an art class.

So for my friend, I am creating a violin pendant necklace out of polymer clay. I think I'll write her name in Arabic somewhere on the pendant as well, or make another pendant with her name.

The other project I'm working on is a caricature of my two instructors that I have for a 2 week course I'm taking right now. They are being our instructors completely free of charge, and they arre so genuine! So I thought to capture the fun personalities that they have in a caricature would be nice.

I will hopefully be posting pictures of what I end up with soon. :D

Inspiration Friday

Oops. I missed writing this past Friday :/

This week I have been inspired by cats. Yes cats. Just today I spent some time with the furry creatures, 2 adult cats and a cute, mischievous kitten named Pooka (not the kitty in the picture-- that's another friend's cat).

My step-dad was drinking some wine and Pooka was trying so hard to get to it. It was awfully cute and funny.

Even before spending some time with our friends' cats tonight, I had been thinking about writing a zine about my old cats, Cooper and Cesar.

I have lots of hilarious stories about those guys. Like how Cooper curses (yes! curses!). How Cesar crossed his front and back legs in the windowsill, and how we tried training the cats to use the toilet.

I want to write the zine not only to share my stories of my kitties with other people, but also to help me remember them. To find out what happened to the kitties you'll have to read the zines when they come out :D -- possibly in a brand new shop on Etsy!

Inspiration Friday

I know I haven't been posting here much lately. I have to admit blogging is pretty new to me.

I've decided from here on out Friday is "Inspiration Friday". Usually by Friday I've come across shops, people, movies, or things in nature that inspire me. So now I am going to obligate myself to sit down and write each week on Fridays about something or someone that inspired me.

So for the first Inspiration Friday I want to feature Captain Cat, the art and design shop of Zelda English and Rodrigo Neto. They're absolutely awesome. http://www.etsy.com/shop/CaptainCat?ref=pr_shop_more

The image on the right caught my eye when it was featured on Etsy's front page. Captain Cat makes these Raccoon Masks out of recycled materials and paper-mache.

I love the photography and the fantasy-like mood of the picture. If you have not looked at Captain Cat's shop, you must check it out!

What really inspires me about Captain Cat's masks is that they make these wonderful masks out of recycled materials! I also am trying to make items for my shop out of recycled materials and it's great to see others being so successful and innovative!

Pikaland

Today I found a great blog, Pikaland.

They feature illustrators on their blog and are an indie publisher of zines.

I also discovered that Pikaland has a virtual school for artists, Camp Pikaland.

So if you are an artist or are interested in the art you should check out their website http://pikaland.com/