zinnias

Over the fourth of July weekend I went to my local garden center and bought more flowers than I have room to plant.  I bought lavender, blue salvia, Mexican evening primrose, rudbeckia (they look like yellow daisies), and zinnias in a variety of colors.  The more herb-like plants went in my front yard in pots, and I saved the rest of the flowers for my tiny back patio (my private oasis) where I sit under my umbrella, look at the flowers, and read or write.  Hands down, my favorite out of all of those are the zinnias.  I love the way they look photographed with the instagram app, using one of the brightest filters.  They definitely brightened up my otherwise slow and lazy weekend, and now I'm inspired to do some sketches and maybe event paint them using bright and unusual colors.

garden shots

I sat in the garden on Sunday an wrote ten pages in my journal.  In between sips of coffee and occasional hand cramps, I took some photos with the Hipstamatic application for iPhone.  It makes my garden look much nicer than it really is!  Next is to try the Instagram app.  And to buy more flowers for planting.

a great source

NEW INSPIRATION

I've been in a "vintage" kind of mood ever since I saw Woody Allen's new film called "Midnight in Paris" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/movies/midnight-in-paris-a-historical-view.html with my Dad on Father's Day.  More on that in another blog entry, but if you haven't seen it yet, just know it has to do with traveling back in time, and also with following your bliss (and serendipity)...Serendipitously, I just found a great source for vintage graphics called The Graphics Fairy.  She has an astonishing assortment of old fashioned, romantic images from which to choose.  You could use them for your own blog, or for whatever print projects you can imagine.  I especially like the nature images, but she's got angels, fairies, apothecary labels, and other decorative borders.  So cool!  You'll find the link on the sidebar on the right-hand side and at the bottom of my page, or just go here:  http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/.  Happy graphics hunting!

more doodles

I've been doodling during meetings at work lately and have been pretty happy about how some of them have turned out.  Doodles are nice because they tend to come from nowhere, or from somewhere deep within the subconscious.  I'm mostly doodling flowers and trees and decorative vines.  I think any of these could be used as templates for tattoos or decorative borders on stationary or other things.  What do you think?

doodles

flower

tree