Sky Craft

Two weeks ago when I stopped by Gainesville on the way home from Tallahassee, Mia snuck a wonderful note into my purse, which I didn't find until I got back to Orlando. It was such a great surprise and a very sweet "best friend" note. Included was a poem that she wrote herself:

Roses are Red

the Sky is Blue

if I owned a Cloud

I would Fly to You

It became my own personal challenge to create a work of art (mainly through painting) for the poem. Although the finished product -not shown- didn't turn out how I hoped.. and now I have to decide if I want to redo it or just try to spruce it up.. above is a shot of the basic idea.

I got the new paintbrushes today - all for free!! That was pretty accidental, since the cashier and I were talking, neither of us realized that when she scanned the package, the bar code didn't read. And I didn't notice until after I got home.. Hmm, whoops!

Oswalda Copplepot

If you remember the Instagram photo from Good Will around my birthday, you will know that Michael and I have been trying to do the Penguin prosthetic (from Batman Returns, 1995) since the beginning of June. Although he had to work today, he suggested we try it tonight. And it was a success!

(the Master at work - photo from the time lapse)
Michael sculpted this piece all by himself with clay over my cement life cast, then ran the foam and cooked it in a small oven. Nothing was store bought this time. I'm so proud of him!

This doesn't show off much of the female business suit type outfit we got at Good Will, but I love that hat which he purchased today from the party store!

What a babe! (Can you tell I've been using Crest White Strips?)

Michael already has another project in mind that I get to help with/ be the model for. I think that one might be all make up though, without using a prosthetic. There are a few things I will have to remember: how long it can take to finish the process. I got through 3 episodes of "Glee" tonight! And to have a area with clean air to run to when he has to use alcohol palettes & spray them onto my face.

Under Construction

Here are a couple more pictures I took that I have been meaning to post from Wednesday. You can see the sun setting behind the grassy mound behind Tonia. The lighting was nice then. But a quick 20 minutes later it was too dark, which is why Miriam's photo turned out grainy. I adjusted the ISO (in attempt to get the most light in as possible), but the higher you make it, the more grainy the photos turn out. Which is why I prefer taking photos in the middle of the day. We didn't have a problem with the "clubby photos" because there was enough artificial light coming from the store.

(And one more of Alana since I hadn't posted any of her with her boyfriend, Cody. If I didn't mention it before, he had a wonderful attitude that weekend, especially for the shoot - getting the horses to look where we wanted to and helping set up props!)

Sweet Sorrow

Tonia is in Orlando this week, so we got together for lunch yesterday at Crispers - I was 30 minutes late because I always forget about rush hour traffic. It was interesting to see how Crispers redid the inside to look more like a cafe, with high tables on one side and leather chairs on the other. We drove to Miriam's house at 6:30pm where she & Tonia got ready for the shoot. (It was so flattering to see pictures of baby Matilda that I took last year framed around her house. Also note how she used a stick to hold her necklaces. Very cool!)

Since we ran out of time (sunlight wise) at the first location, we drove around for a bit until we decided to stop at Leader's - a patio furniture store. The over head lighting was great against the dark sky. And I found that the lights from traffic added a cool bokeh effect in the background, so we stuck with that for a while. Miriam told me about a new editing site called Pixlr, which is what I used to edit the following photos:

I was going crazy with experimental edits and ended up loving them way more than anticipated. It may have helped more that I was listing to upbeat "club" music as I was tweaking them.

Best in Show!

We planned to get some "professional" photos with Alana in her riding outfit, but ran out of time and the tea party took priority.
Here is some more info about her sweet horses:

Squirt is a 1989 Bay Roan Appaloosa Mare.
(This was taken during her bath.)

Fancy is a 1988 Sorrell Paso Fino Mare.
She was very friendly & liked me taking pictures.

Starpoint is a 2001 Bay Thoroughbred Mare.
We tried to get her to rear up, when she got excited.

Portraits ~ Alana "Ashley Anna" Grace

We had been trying to plan a 3-day get together for ourselves (Alana, Cody, Michael and I) since January, however, our schedules didn't work out until this past weekend. I drove up to Tallahassee on Friday after a lunch date with Michael at Panera. He couldn't come with me because he was working all day on Friday. & I should note that although I called my mom on the drive up "with nothing to say", we ended up talking for over an hour! I felt a calm, mature sensation during our conversation. 
Friday night Alana and I spent a couple hours chatting and picking out outfits for the photo shoots. On Saturday, we spent three hours in the hot afternoon at the barn while Alana got the horses ready, then went back to her house for second showers and lunch, before making our way back to the barn for photos.

Although I took over 1,000 photos, we narrow it down to about 500, then me picking out my personal 60 favorites, these two are my very favorite. In my next posts I will show off photos of Alana and Cody then give her horses their own post.

Beach Polaroids

Here are a few mini-Polaroids taken while we were at the beach. The further away ones were taken by Parker. I didn't put the brightness setting high enough to the bottom left photo. Live and learn!

Romantic!

Gulf Shores

A lot of times when I get back from a vacation, its only then that I realize how few photos I actually took. And these aren't my favorite (composition wise), but they lead to good memories! Showing off a couple of the places we had dinner at while we were at the beach:

I tried crab claws for the first time. They were okay. There is an art to eating them and by the fourth and fifth one, I was getting pieces of crunchy cartilage. The end of that.

Michael didn't mind the waits before dinner if it meant being able to day dream about his future boat. =)