Photographer Eve Simone truly demonstrates that you can be a great creative while maintaining a busy schedule. The hours in her New York residing days are split between a fulltime job, her husband, a baby daughter, their two feline companions, and the love of her creative work.
“I am lucky if I get a full day to photography, so it’s definitely a challenge,” Eve said.
Lack of time definitely hasn’t dampened her creativity though. Her feather, flower, and various other images that are for sale internationally on her Esty shop are beautifully constructed with a soft elegance that makes these wall art and postcard photographs fantastic. Though they look simple, many of her works are a collection of scanned images that she has compiled together.
“There are some images I have been working on for months that no one has seen because [they’re] missing something or [they’re] just not there yet,” Eve said.
Her grandmother, a mixed media artist who started in photography, would prove to be the source of Eve’s dedication and inspiration, an idol beside Joseph Cornell and Diane Arbus. Growing up, Eve would spend hours in her grandmother’s studio and darkroom, where she became familiar with the form.
Currently, Eve is working on releasing egg and shell images that promise to be just as great as the rest of her work.
She continues to work toward a bigger goal.
“I am waiting for the day that I have my very own personal space for creativity...enough space for a darkroom and space to finally start my collages and time to work on everything that I dream about at night,” Eve said. She sees herself moving away from Brooklyn, back to her roots in North Carolina where she’ll find nature in abundance.
You can follow Eve’s journey through her Web site and Flickr stream.
"Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict." - William Ellery Channing
A reader asked me the other day how I added the dark feathered border to my photographs, so I thought I would write about it today.
I usually use my Adobe Lightroom 2 computer program and simply use the options under "Vignettes" to add my desired border.
However, if you don't have Adobe Lightroom 2, you can use Photoshop. It takes a few more steps, but it is still fairly simple.
First you must have the photograph you desire to border on a layer apart from your background. You can do this by simply cutting the image out and repasting it. From here, click the fx option on the bottom lefthand of your layers window (it's the one next to the infinity sign looking icon). Once you have the fx window open, you need to check the box to add an inner glow and set the blend option to multiply.
The standard color on my Photoshop is yellow, so I simply changed the color to black, and set my opacity 100. You also want to set the source option to edge. Then simply play around with the choke, size and range options till you figure out a border style you're happy with.
The follow images are my before and after. Although a very subtle change, the border will be a lot more drastic on bright photographs.
I know the images on this post are relatively small, so I set up the images to open in a new window if you click on them!
Hope this helps anyone trying to figure out how to border their images.
In 1995 New York native, Michelle Wey, moved south of the border to a self-described artists’ haven, a town in Guanajuato, Mexico, named San Miguel Allende. It was there that she would meet Billy King, a Canadian who invited her to join his jewelry making school and paved the way for her into the business.
“He curses and sputters a lot, but he’s a great teacher and I can’t thank him enough for creating an environment for open exploration of all aspects of the jewelry making process,” Michelle said. From there, she began selling her work almost immediately in a gallery that belonged to a friend.
A decade and a half later, Michelle has become an avid jewelry maker, creating beautiful modern and often geometric pieces through the use of old-fashioned techniques in cutting, sanding, soldering, and hammering among others. You can find her work for sale internationally through her Etsy shop.
“Jewelry making seemed to come naturally to me. It suited my love of form, color, sculptural elements combined with the need for precision.
“It is almost like being a sculptor, in miniature,” Michelle said.
One of Michelle's signature elements is the use of mixed metals, which she achieves mostly by incorporating gold into her sterling silver designs. The gold she uses in her designs is full karat gold that she buys from New York’s jewelry district or Mexico City’s International House of Metals, so her customers get the most out of their buck. This is something truly to be appreciated about the designer.
“My shop is a representation of my jewelry line. The piece you see pictured is the actual piece you will receive,” Michelle said.
And that single piece takes Michelle an average of eight to 10 hours of labor-intensive work to create.
“I don’t really like to think about it because if I tried to pay myself for my time, my prices would be need to be caudrupled!”
But like so many other artists and creators, Michelle practices her work for the love of it, adapting and evolving as her work continues to develop. One way she has done this is by utilizing the Internet.
Michelle has discovered the potential of co-designing with clients over Etsy.com, much like she has done with clients in person.
“It has been amazingly possible and positive albeit a little protracted, meaning what happens in an hour in person between two people sharing ideas, might take one to two weeks and 20 e-mails between two people over the Internet. But it has been worth it with various wonderful clients so far on Etsy.”
Besides making jewelry Michelle also loves to paint, play tennis, walk her dog, take care of her garden, and spending time with her boyfriend and amazing group of friends.
To learn more about Michelle’s journey you can follow her on her Facebook page.
Deb from Pipistrelle blog is offering a print giveaway!
To enter simply visit her blog by clicking the image below, follow her, and comment on the post with your favorite image from her Etsy shop.
G'luck!
Ello loves! What have you been up to this weekend?
I've been dealing with an extremely frustrating situation: trying to figure out affordable centerpieces for my wedding reception that can be self-made. There are a considerable amount of options, which may very well be the problem. The flowers I'm considering are whole orchid plants, sunflowers or succulents. Maybe even a combination of all three. As well as glass vases versus clay planters.
This week I decided to try out an idea that would allow my wedding party and I to make super affordable succulent centerpieces at about $30 a table.
The amount of glass vases needed for my first centerpiece idea is more expensive than I had first anticipated, so it occurred to me that clay planters would be a good alternative. However, I wasn't sure if I liked their orange tint for the wedding or how inexpensive they can look. But then I realized I could paint the clay planters white to make them look a little more expensive. I already had four succulents I had bought at Orchard Supply about a month ago and some leftover paint, so I just needed to get the clay pots. I went to Michaels, which I love, and bought five of them in a variety of sizes and a base for under $10.
It took me about three hours (most of which was spent watching Roseanne while I waited for the paint to dry) to make the entire set.
I am not 100 percent sure if this is the idea I'm going with, it would probably need to be a little larger and perhaps include some moss for a more outdoorsy feel, but I really loved how clean and fresh the centerpiece looks, especially for the price.
