On the 7th of December, I was very fortunate to take a trip with my boyfriend, Danny, and my best friend Shane to Dan's hometown in Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey for his brother's wedding. It felt so refreshing and wonderful to be on the opposite side of the country. Everything in his hometown seemed old fashioned, the air was crisp, and the trees made the atmosphere almost like I was up in the mountains... just without the mountains itself and altitude sickness. ;) I felt right at home there.




On the 11th, we took the train to New York Penn Station where I got to not only see the city for my very first time, but also met up with my cousin, Heather, whom I hadn't seen since 2002. It was a full day of walking, the whole entire time, and everywhere I looked I was in "awe". My time there was very short since I only had a day to be there, but it was a wonderful and breathtaking experience. My fish eye lens was the SHIZ in the city!







On the 13th, we had to come back to the whale's vagina, and I all ready want to go back. I'm so glad I got to finally meet my boyfriend's family and friends, see where he grew up, and take a trip to New York and see my cousin and her fiancee. This last week was the greatest moments of 2011 for me.

Today, I got to do my first photo shoot with my dearest friends, Rod, Stephanie and their soon to be baby Keiran. For some reason, I was pretty nervous about this because I've never done a photo shoot before. It was a lot of fun, and taught me on what I should and shouldn't do for the next time. I'm pretty happy with the turnout, but I also see a lot of flaws with some of the photos. I didn't have a tripod, and I sometimes went a bit too fast to the point where some photos aren't centered, the lighting is off, or the colors might be a bit blah... but it is what it is. These are some of my favorites that I posted below, and here's the link to the rest. Hope you enjoy them, Rod and Stephanie! And many congratulations to the two of you and your soon to be baby Keiran. :)

Got my brand new Rokinon Fisheye lens today and caught this beauty right in time for the sunset at Moonlight Beach.


Needless to say, I can't wait for my trip to New York so I can use this thing in the city.

Went to cloudy Moonlight Beach to take a few photos before I had to run to my car from it being very windy and cold. Not good for someone in shorts and flip flops. Either way, they were doing construction down there so it wasn't a grand ol' day for some photography.



Last but not least, this is a photo of my parent's house with their Christmas lights up. LOVING this camera.
Stay tuned for more photos when I get my new fisheye lens tomorrow (!!!)

I got a new DSLR Canon Rebel Camera for my birthday, and I couldn't be having more fun. These pictures were taken just outside of my friend Shane's house. I love the tree in his front yard. We don't get much of a fall here in California, so it's comforting witnessing SOME trees that change. More photographs to come later.

Some fun random sketches I created. My intentions of these pieces was to try a different style which I was inspired with from a TV show I watch, and to see where it'd lead me. I had fun with the borders. The second image "Bound forever" I drew all out and then used a program to make it smoother.

After over 15 years give or take, I finally got to carve myself a pumpkin for Halloween. Every year I would think to myself that I'd need to do this... but never got around to actually DOING it. So this year, my boyfriend Dan, friend Shane and I decided to get up off our bums and drive to Bates Nut Farm to grab ourselves some fresh pumpkins. I was also able to snag some Pumpkin Butter which is absolutely DELICIOUS!!! Every spoonful is seriously like eating pumpkin pie.

Anyhow, we got our pumpkins I would guess about two weeks ago? And finally we decided to carve them. I, unfortunately, thought it would be a FANTASTIC idea to carve a side portrait of Dan's and my beloved bearded dragon... due to the fact that I had plopped him on top of my pumpkin and he just stood there looking like godzilla on his throne. Who wouldn't be inspired by that? Well, it turned into a mental chaotic disaster since I only had steak knives, a cheap arse pumpkin carving tool which later on broke, and Dan's razor tool. And not only that, but his scales would have taken forever to carve.


 Since Dan is able to spit out artwork like no other, I had to give my pumpkin carving a rest for a day or so. Finally this afternoon, I decided to just go for it and turn it into some random...thing. It was a little annoying because I was forced to use my bearded dragon's one eye and his ear as two eyes, but it was also fun to create something out of a failed attempt. So I just carved whatever, wherever, even if it didn't make sense. I almost wish I had bought a few more pumpkins because carving it was very therapeutic for me. It also got me into the holiday spirit. I hope this motivation actually gets me inspired to put effort into a costume for this year......

Did some random sketches tonight which took about 30 minutes for all four. Just playing around and not really caring about mistakes and what not. The material I used for this was Natural Vine Charcoal.





My favorite out of the four is the one of my family's and my dog, Eddie, who recently had to be put to sleep three and a half weeks ago. I have a different drawing I've been working on of him that will have its own post with a memorial of Eddie.

On Monday, I had asked Dan to send me a nice picture of himself because I wanted to paint a portrait of him using my new oil paints. He, of course, decided to be funny and sent me a silly picture of himself ...and in my opinion...looking as if he were trying to let out a big fart. HAHA. So, I decided to draw a caricature of him like that in my sketchbook.

I used prismacolor sketch pencils, prismacolor fine line markers, a markette pen for the tip of his hair, white out for the shine, and prismacolor colored pencils & art stix. This whole thing took about two hours. One thing I'm upset about is that I didn't make him fat enough, but I still am pretty happy with the outcome. Click on the pictures to enlarge.