New Wedding Album!

  My ever lovely friend Stacy had beautiful wedding photos that she wanted made into an album.  We tried a new company, and so far the results have been very positive, but I will report back once the final verdict is in.  There were a couple of challenges that created some fun opportunities, such as how to display the cake cutting, shown above.  I did some creative photoshoping by fading out her brother (who seemed like a headless white shirt due to cropping) in the bottom right photo in the collage above, and putting a spotlight on Stacy as she walked down the aisle on another page featured in the album.  Below are a couple of alternate collages that didn't make the cut, but I liked anyway.  The full album can be found at www.betsynoel.com.

New things on the horizon!

I have had a million and one other things going on for the past few months and it has really cut into my painting and other artistic endeavors time.  That is all going to change, starting tomorrow.  Looking forward to getting back on the artistic bandwagon and taking care of business.  I have had lots of adventures recently and there so there is plenty of material to work with, and now nothing is standing in my way to putting it down on paper/canvas/screen.  Keep your eyes peeled for lots of new postings!

New Wedding Invitations

This invitation was for a customer who requested that the international wedding poster be made into an invitation.  To preserve the original style, we opted for a two sided invitation, one with the traditional text and the other featuring the standard wedding poster, customized to fit their seattle/indonesia theme!  The RSVP card is a two sided postcard, and little fellow featured on the text side is the couple's pet iguana.  Congratulations to Lydia and Bryce! 
Note: The faded border indicates the "bleed" area that will be trimmed during the printing process, and will not be visible on their actual invitation.

New Etsy Shop

I resisted.  For a long time.  And frankly, I don't know what all that resisting was all about.  I have entered the world of Etsy, and it works so nicely with my name (so really, really, why was I resisting for so long?).  And I must say, aside from some hitches, such as my shop not being searchable on google, I am really loving it.  So go check it out at http://www.etsy.com/shop/BetsyNoel !  I also redesigned the website to include a wedding section now because I am totally sucked in.  Truth is, I love weddings.  I love marriage.  Why not celebrate it artistically?

Wedding Posters?

 

I didn't realize there was such a thing until my friend Kristen commissioned one.  Apparently they are all over Etsy, in varying degrees of complexity and design.  Some are pretty much photographs with text, while some are quite impressive digital designs.  I combined all her desired elements: our hometown of Coronado with his Austrian homeland.

Upside-down or Right-side-up?

 

This painting is meant to merge my two homes: Coronado, CA, where I grew up; and Mt. Pleasant in Washington, DC where I currently live.  It is no where near finished despite hours of work.  It is rather massive in size, which accounts for many of the hours, simply because it takes awhile to put that much paint on a canvas of this size.  I am now stuck.  I have no idea where to go with this, the sides don't seem to marry easily -- perhaps it is telling me I can't have it both ways?  I am tempted to throw shapes on top, like bicycles, cars, planes, clearly out of proportion (imagine a bike taking up a quarter of the painting) just to tie the damn thing together.  On top of that whole mess, it is hanging sideways right now due to space constraints, and the peanut gallery informed me "it looks better that way."  Ugh.  This is why other paintings are so unfinished right now.

Various Stages of Incomplete

 

I cranked out a lot of letters this weekend.  Unfortunately the process of making letters mandates some drying time, so none of them are quite done.  But!  The bulk of the work is done.  F for frog and flamingo I for iguana (I wanted a prettier animal, but really what animals start with I?), K for kangarool (my husband is lobbying for the addition of a koala to this painting as well), J for Jaguar (not even close to done), L for lion (need to add a ladybug and perhaps a lizard?), M is for monkeys.  Once the letters themselves dry, I am going to lay on the blue, and followed shortly by the grass (and eyes!  I did not forget about the eyes!).  It appears I am back in business and back on track for finishing this alphabet.  I remarked this weekend, Are there Really 26 letters in the alphabet?

No matter how hard I try, I always seem to end up with paint on my sleeve.  The poor flamingo and frog took a beating from the arm of my shirt and had to be touched up, and I had to distract myself from paintings in order to spend some time scrubbing oil out of my shirt.  Why I choose to paint in clothes I don't want ruined continues to mystify me, and my mother.