Entering competitions isn’t something that comes naturally to me, it feels like a foreign language or way too much trouble than it’s worth, and more often than not I end up thinking my work just isn’t good enough to enter. However, along with learning the truth about that destructive mindset, I’m realizing that entering is more about getting out there than it is about the actual competition, so I’m closing my eyes and diving in!

In March I submitted four photographs to the Jenkins Arboretum, a local arboretum and garden center, for their 2012 Members Photography Exhibit in which one of my photographs was awarded an Honorable Mention and the print sold! The exhibit was small, with less than 50 entries, but it was still very nice and there were a number of wonderful photographs that I really admired. Here are my entries.

“Flower Ballet”

“Orange Blossom”

“Purple Iris”

“Redwing On Reed”
Honorable Mention

I’ve also entered two online competitions including A Long Pour’s Hipstamatic Photo Contest. A Long Pour is a wine blog, with a strong sense of community, striving to bring you “the stories behind the bottle” of California wines. In addition to wine, ALP loves the Hipstamatic Camera App and is running their first contest ever; The ALP Hipstamatic Photo Contest. This competition has been lots of fun to participate in! There are over 100 entries and counting and they’re wonderful! I love seeing the lovely variety of wine related photos, especially the ones of vineyards. I entered a number of photographs, including Kaleidoscope & The Ritual, from my latest Art-A-Day Challenge.

“Kaleidoscope”

“The Ritual”

“The Tunnel”

“Last Drops One”

“Last Drops Two”

“Shadow Pour”

“Dragon’s Eye”

Yes, that last one is wine in a bottle. There are still a couple of days left to enter this contest, so head on over to A Long Pour to enter or view all the other loverlie entries.

The other online competition I entered is a Talenthouse Creative Invite. Talenthouse is a website I recently discovered that hosts a number of competitions for artists of all types. They provide opportunities for artists to work with leading brands, artists, musicians, etc. and gain recognition for their work. I’m not entirely sure what I think about them, especially since I have yet to received a reply to the email I sent them weeks ago inquiring for more information about their terms. I don’t know if I will continue to use the website, but I felt it was worth checking out when I came across the competition to “Design for Ladyhawke and Sarah Larnach”. I’ve never heard of either of them before, but the description of what they were looking for brought my portrait “Masquerade” to mind, so I decided to submit it.

“Masquerade”

Ladyhawke, a New Zealand singer-songwriter, and her album cover art director, Sarah Larnach, are asking artists of all types to submit portraits that tell the story of their inner feelings. As far as all the self portraits I’ve taken go, I think this is the one that best fits that idea. Here is the description I submitted with my entry.

Do you ever look in the mirror and feel disconnected from the person staring back at you? Have you ever presented yourself as one person to the world while feeling like another person entirely when you’re alone? Do you ever smile when you’d rather scream? We often live our lives hiding behind our own faces, contorted into an appropriate mask for the occasion. I created this piece around that concept, to reveal the trapped emotions within.

In addition to the 19 portraits selected by Ladyhawke & Sarah, there will be a “People’s Choice” winner. I’m not a fan of community voting deciding the winners because invariably there are those who know about 1000 people and convince them to vote for them everyday and spam their Twitter and Facebook pages with pleas for votes. I really despise begging for votes and tweeting the same thing over and over, so I generally never get many votes if I bother entering into a voting contest. However, if you are inclined to vote, I would really love to have your support in this competition. You can mosey on over to this page, click on “Support Julia” (it works through Facebook), and you’ll receive a reminder to vote for me when voting opens in the next couple days. Share and tweet at your own discretion, but anyone who does gets my undying, eternal gratitude!

I’m searching for more competitions to enter while trying to keep my head above water with everything going on. Often I feel like I’ve been transformed into a tiny boat tossed about on the waves of a vast, dark ocean. One moment I’m on the peak of highest swell, only to be flung down into gigantic whirlpool with a kraken waiting at the bottom! Here’s hoping the next sea monster will be friendly!

Cheerio!
- Jüls

It wasn’t often talked about, but he was a World War II veteran and Prisoner of War. He flew a B17 Bomber and survived being shot down and put in prison camps and forced on marches. I didn’t understand this growing up. I knew my Grandfather made beds for my dollies that my Nana sewed quilts for and fixed numerous things for us. I knew he liked my drawings and my clay figures. I also knew he was a veteran and a POW, but I didn’t really understand what it meant. I learned about WWII over the years in school and on TV, but still there was a disconnect between that and my Granddaddy. Even now, I don’t fully understand the importance of it and it really didn’t even begin to dawn on me until I heard a description of all the things he did and of what happened while he was a prisoner at his funeral.  It feels almost surreal to suddenly realize that there is a whole different dimension, multiple dimensions, to this person you’ve viewed through the eyes of a child your whole life, but I am glad, because he was a hero who protected freedom.

The funeral was the only military funeral I’ve ever been to. Unfortunately National Cemeteries are incredibly busy with funeral after funeral day after day, so there’s a time limit on the service and it was very abbreviated. It was a sad experience, but great in its own way to see the respect given by all. I was asked to take a few pictures, so here are a select few. Hipstamatic recently released a film that included a red, white, and blue stripe in the corner and I was glad to have it for this occasion.

The Honor Guard who shot a volley of rifle fire.

The bright sun threw the pavilion we were under into deep shadow, so I opened up my HDR app on my phone to capture this last salute.

A close up of the symbol of what my Grandfather fought to protect, after it was folded and presented to my Grandmother.

All along the fence by the pavilion they had the crests of the different branches of the military. I took a picture of the Air Force crest even though when my Grandfather fought the Air Force wasn’t its own separate branch of the military yet. Instead he was in the USAAF, the United States Army Air Forces, the direct predecessor of the USAF.

At the meal after the funeral there was a table set up with many pictures and memorabilia.

A collection of patches, pins, and a bullet from the war

And last of all, a collection of pictures of me and my Granddaddy when I was little.

O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man’s avail
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

- Julia Grace

And on that bright note here are my final favourites, starting with “Envy” for Day Twenty-five’s theme “Green”.

Nyari, my green tree python, is a favorite creature of mine, in an “admire the deadly beauty from afar” type way. She isn’t actually deadly, but a bite from her is not a pleasant thing since she has rather long teeth. Green tree pythons often have rather delicate dispositions and don’t take to stress well, so handling her often isn’t something I do. She does however have a very tall enclosure with branches and greenery and I love watching her crawl and coil. She’s a beautiful model, even if she does have a shy yet firey temperament!

I wanted my piece for this theme to have layers of meaning beyond the obvious color for those who wish to ponder such things. Since green is associated with envy, which can be likened to a monster and to venom destroying and poisoning you from within, I chose to photograph Nyari whom represents monsters, venom, and because snakes are representative of original sin in the Garden of Eden. Envy is one of the “Seven Deadly Sins”, so that ties in quite well.

My next favorite is “Blush“

Since I haven’t eaten a peach recently I changed Day Twenty-Seven’s theme of “Something You Ate” to “Something You Could Eat”. This is one of the pieces I broke out of my regular routine with and was pleased that I did. I’ve never painted a still life before, though  I’ve drawn a fair few in my art classes and only a handful were in color, so this was something rather new for me all around. I also broke away from the stubborn idea ensconced in the deepest recesses of my psyke that everything I do has to be hyper-realistic. That single idea has caused me more agony over my work than any other. Moving away from attempts at hyper-realism has made me a much happier artist. That’s not to say there’s something wrong with hyper realism, though I once had an art teacher who said it wasn’t “real art” or “true talent”, it’s still something I hope to be able to achieve one day, but for now I am choosing to explore other options. It was very freeing to paint this peach representatively (but not hyper-realistic), accept it isn’t perfect, have a few things that I dislike about it, yet still enjoy the way it turned out.

The peach itself is based from a photograph of the single most largest peach I’ve ever come across. To give you at least some idea of it’s girth, here’s a few photographic portraits of it.

The final favorite of this challenge, which is in a three way tie for my absolute favorite with “One Tough Bunny” and “The Ritual“, is from Day Twenty-Six’s theme “Night”.

This feathered subject was a wonderful surprise. I originally started painting a moonrise above a dark forest when this guy swooped into my mind, grabbed my pen with his talons, and threw himself into the painting. I adore raptors, especially owls, so I was more than happy to have him and painting his luminescent feathers was my favorite part.

I chose the title “Phantom” since Barn Owls are often referred to as the “Ghost Owl”, “Demon Owl”, “Hobgoblin Owl”, and many other goulish names due to their spooky appearance, call, and probably the myriad occurrences of one suddenly appearing out of the night, white face gleaming, in close proximity to nervous humans. They’re beautiful creatures and one of my favorite species. I can readily imagine a little mouse, just out of the frame on the forest floor, unaware that death on silent wings is almost upon it.

I’m glad to be finished with this challenge, but I eagerly look forward to the next one I participate in.
Toodles!
- Joules

I’ll start off with a photograph I took before falling behind, entitled “Corded“, for Day Fifteen’s theme “Phone”.

Since I use my iPhone for most of the photography in these challenges, and it had already appeared in Day Ten’s piece, I wanted to do something other than take a picture of it. I’d originally thought of a rotary phone, but don’t own one. There is, however, a corded phone here for the land line when the power goes out. I decided to take a photograph from an uncommon angle and since the cord itself is my favorite part of the phone I chose a view looking through the center of it. Playing with the cord brought back fond memories of twirling myself in the long, sagging, white cord of our kitchen phone as a child. I remember its weight and the sound it made slapping against the cabinets and the floor.

The next piece is a digital painting for Day Nineteen.

The original theme for this day was “Something You Hate To Do”, but I couldn’t think of anything I hate to do that would make a worthwhile art piece because, let’s face it, who really wants to look at a picture or painting of a cat box or hairball on the carpet. Ick! I shortened the theme to “Something You Hate” and one thing that I really hate is spiders in or near my bed! I really don’t mind spiders in general as long as they aren’t on my person, holding tarantulas aside, but there’ve been too many times I experienced them dropping or crawling on me while half asleep. The worst experience by far was when I was rudely awoken from sound slumber at 5am as one of the cats chased a baby tarantula sized fishing spider up the bed along the wall it’s against. Thankfully even in my half asleep state I managed to scramble out of the way as my “knight” proceeded to kill the “demon” on my pillow and leave its carcass as proof of his heroic deed. Ugh! I spent the rest of the night cocooned in a blanket in the exact center of the bed. That was the inspiration for “Nightmares On Silken Threads“, though it doesn’t depict that particular incident. I chose the title for its double meaning of silk sheets and spiders hanging from silk threads.

My top favorite for this week, which has tied for first place with “One Tough Bunny“, was the most fun to create as well. “The Ritual” involved black silk, wine, and a flashlight.

Myriad stories ran rampant through my neurons as I set up and photographed this image. I thought of vampires and elves, of darkness and light, of Carroll’s Alice and Neo’s red pills, until I was entirely distracted by trying to get the lighting and focus just so. Still, whenever I look at it, my mind returns to wander the many pathways of what might happen when the girl drinks from the glowing cup. Is she in danger or will it save her? Is she joining a family, a culture, or a cult? Is it poison, wine, dragon’s blood, or the red light of a dying star? I love the possibilities this image brings to mind and the inspiration it gives me for future stories. I would also love to hear what story it tells you! Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

That completes Week Three’s favourites. I’ll be posting the final week’s favourites in a few more days as well as posting about some really wonderful art supplies and the new business cards I designed. Stay tuned!

Adios!
- Jules

Since week two’s entries are all posted, I’ll continue in last week’s vein by posting a few favorites, starting with Day Eight’s entry for the theme “Sun”:

“On A Bright Note” was a fun piece to create. It’s painted with acrylics in my journal. As seems to be the pattern for many of my favorite pieces, I started in with a completely different idea, but when the paint didn’t do what I wanted, I glopped more onto the page and let it carry me where it wanted, and got a better result for it. I had a lot of fun playing around with the textures of different brushes. I’ve painted very flat in the past, so now I’m trying to incorporate more texture and impasto into my work.  I have since painted more another piece in the same vein and I think I will continue with the galatic theme and do a series on canvas and see where it goes.

This piece also made me appreciate the difference between viewing a painting in life versus looking at a photograph of it. It took quite a while to get a photograph that came close to accurately representing the texture and colors of the orginal and even now it still leaves much to be desired. It really makes me look forward to the Van Gogh exhibition I will be visiting next month.

Next is a self portrait of sorts.

“Bits & Pieces” is Day Ten’s entry. Since I decided against a more typical self portrait since I often use myself as a model for other themes, I thought I would try my hand at the idea of photographing a group of items that represent me. It was definitely hard to choose what items to use and it’s far from a complete representation, but it was fun to put everything together. Some items contradict each other, and some are probably hard to figure out what they are, but I think that adds to the representation since I’m made up of quite a few contradictions! I would like to do this again in the future when I can spend more time gathering different items.

This week’s last favorite is a digital painting for Day Thirteen’s theme “Blue”

“Pipsqueaks” was born of my love of painting and drawing goldfish and koi and the idea of the two meeting in a pond.  This was my first time drawing any digitally. I really enjoyed drawing the fins, but trying to get the fishies to look like they are in any way underwater was quite the challenge. I could have fiddle with this painting for days and days, but thanks to this challenge I’m learning when to say “Okay that’s enough for now. I can always revisit it later or paint it again in the future.”  Since I am quite fond of the little orange goldfish in this piece I’m sure I will draw him again.

I’ll be sure to share week three’s favorites, once I’m caught up!
Have a wonderful evening
-Jullese

I’m posting each day’s piece on Facebook, (check the album out here and be sure to “Like” the page!), but I wanted to share my favorites from this week’s themes here. I’ll start with what may well end up being my favorite from the whole challenge; I think he’ll be pretty hard to top.

 ”One Tough Bunny” was Day Five’s piece for the theme “10am”. I often find myself taking themes and prompts very literally, so I’m try push myself to come up with ideas farther outside the box. 10am was also rather difficult in and of itself as a theme since how do you really represent 10am? I knew I didn’t want to simply take a picture of a clock, I’d done that for a related theme in the last challenge. Since I am usually up past 2am I’m often just waking up around 10am, so at first I started a piece involving dreams. That particular idea fell apart quickly, making me feel rather dejected, so I changed directions.

Despite not wanting to photograph a clock, I still wanted a clock represented somehow and when I really ponder times and clocks I invariably start thinking about Alice’s White Rabbit. I decided falling down a rabbit hole was exactly what I needed, so I ran after my own version of the leucistic lagomorph. I didn’t want to copy Disney’s, so I gave him a complete make-over, including attitude. It started off with having a clock in his eye, meandered from an anatomical rabbit body to having more of an anthropomorphic form, and then the tattoo appeared. I still felt like he was missing something, a pocket watch of course, so I gave him one on a choker, which led to the earring and tada! He felt complete. We’ll see if any future pieces can top him in my favorites, it will add one more aspect to the challenge

Next we have a photograph from Day Four’s theme “A Stranger”, entitled “Masquerade“.

The multiple exposures showing hidden emotions concept is something I’ve been fooling around with for a while. I haven’t yet achieved exactly the image I have in mind, but this one is quite close. This is the first time I’ve done a “triple exposure”, previously I used a double exposure option in camera, but since I use myself as a model it’s been difficult to get things lined up correctly while guessing where to position myself. Taking three separate exposures and lining them up in post production allowed me to get everything just the way I wanted it and add a third face. I like the way this image turned out, but I’m sure I will continue playing with this idea.

My last favorites from this week are both from Day Two’s theme “Words”

“Wordwell” was a really enjoyable image to create. I knew I would be unable to finish my other piece by midnight, so I scrambled to come up with something in the interim. In a fit of desperation to avoid taking a picture of random magnetic words or having to open a bottle of ink and try to write in something other than my usual inelegant scrawl I tossed a bunch of the magnetic words into an inkwell, put together the beginnings of a poem, added a “quill” in hand, and snapped the picture. Turns out a little bit of desperation can be a good thing for my creative process!

“Written Word” was a theme in the previous challenge. I’d considered using magnetic poetry in that image, but decided in favor of something I’d written, so I was glad for another opportunity to use them. I’m really glad I did because it allowed me to get a bit of poetry into the challenge as well.

The second piece for Day Two, “Dandelion Storm“, was an experiment for me. I decided to make a “drawing” entirely out of text. I hadn’t realized exactly how tedious this would be and so was unable to post it before midnight, but I completed it the next day.

Despite the myriad repetition of duplicating text layers (greatly aided by zealous use of customized shortcut buttons on my wacom tablet) it was satisfying finding just the right fonts and words to use for each part. (You can find a list of the words I used here.) I’m happy with how it turned out, not having any prior experience with this particular art form, but I’d probably still be fiddling with it if I let my perfectionist side take charge!

Here is a detail shot, so you can get a better sense of the text

Overall, adding things such as painting, digital art, and anything else I enjoy into the challenge has definitely been harder than focusing solely on photography. It takes much longer to paint and draw than it does to photograph and since I am not as confident in my skills in other mediums it has been stretching my comfort zone, but it is motivating me to get my hands back into other art forms and practice those skills. As long as I can keep myself from falling into the “Pit of Perfections”, where I’ve spent way too much time berating myself for my art not being exactly perfect, I believe I’ll enjoy this challenge just as much as the previous one. I’ll be posting my favorites weekly, but make sure you tune into my Facebook Page or Twitter if you want to see a piece daily.

Gutenacht
- Jülz

These are actually a few wild berries that have survived all winter, but they are so delightful with their plump, indigo-hued forms clinging onto twirling vines that I had to share.

I believe these are well on their way to becoming daffodils

A world where frogs can fly

These salamander nymphs are so hard to identify properly I’ve given up trying, but I’m certainly not used to seeing them swimming around in January! This guy was happily prowling around in the muck.

Here’s another little guy from even earlier in January.

Other critters were making appearances under some logs

This centipede was none too happy about being disturbed, so I kept my fingers well away. Can you spot the hiding pill bug?

This delicate little blossom had already released its stem, perhaps hoping to blow away on an errant breeze to have a grand adventure.

I hope everybody else in the area is enjoying this pretense of spring while they can and I wish pleasant winds to those elsewhere.
- Jools

]]> http://www.juliagracearts.com/20120131/pretense-of-spring/feed/ 0 http://www.juliagracearts.com/20120126/daily-travels/ http://www.juliagracearts.com/20120126/daily-travels/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:00:18 +0000 JuliaGrace http://www.juliagracearts.com/?p=787 Almost every day my dog and I go for a stroll around a field on our property. Inara keeps busy stuffing her nose into the grass and mud searching for small rodents to hunt. I walk around taking photographs and looking for the quasi-resident group of blue birds or the occasional falcon or hawk.

This time of the year everything is muddy and brown, but there’s still a lot of beauty left. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from some autumn and winter walks.

I happened to be outside as one of the last real thunderstorms of the season rolled in. It was amazing watching the herd of stampeding water droplets blow across the sky, writhing and boiling.

These dried flowers are whitish blooms in the summer, but they dry out to a pretty slate gray, covering our field in an ever growing haze. When you crush and smell the dried blossoms, they have almost a medicinal smell to them. I wish I knew what they were, but I haven’t been able to identify them yet.

Over the past few years this lovely, though probably invasive, species of grass has been popping up in the field. I’m mesmerized by their tufts swaying in the breeze or glowing golden in the afternoon sunlight. They’re one of my favorite subjects to photograph out on my walks.

I live next door to a family with a large barn with a number of horses and they always have a barn cat or two prowling around, much to the local wildlife’s dismay. This past summer we had so many stray and barn cats around that we barely saw any frogs! One day I happened upon this tortoise shell kitty, practicing her camouflage. Can you spot her?

Happy Trails!
- Jools

The kit contains:

• 1 Foam Working Surface
• 2 38g Felting Needles
• 1/2 Oz White Wool Roving
• 1/4 Oz each of Black, Chocolate, Smoke, Cupcake, Sky Blue, Marigold, Red, Toffee, & Lima Bean Wool Roving

Each student will receive one kit to keep and will have plenty of wool left over after class to continue felting. I will also be providing wire for feet and ribbon for hanging for anybody who would like it for their felted creation.

I am so excited for this class and can’t wait to give the students these wonderful kits! I will be felting up a storm over the next few months making samples for the class, so stay tuned for plenty more pictures!

Adeiu
- Jules

Recently I have been given the opportunity to share my love of this wonderful craft by teaching a class on it through Main Line School Night, a great place offering a wide variety of courses to the local community. I’m incredibly excited to teach this class. Here is the information on the course:

Needle Felting: From Fleece to Fantastic

 Date: Saturdays: April 14th & 21st, 2012
Time: 12:15-3:30pm
Fee: $89 (Includes Materials)
Location: Creutzburg Center
260 Upper Gulph Rd
Radnor, PA 19087

View & Register Here

I will be teaching the basic techniques, with which you’ll be able to create almost anything, and talking about the many applications of needle felting. You will come away with your own felted sculpture or ornament and everything you need to continue felting. The course fee includes a felting kit, sourced from a fellow artisan, containing a foam working surface, felting needles, wire for feet, ribbon for hanging, and an array of colorful fleece. Registration opens today! There’s 12 spots in the class, so register soon. Feel free to send me a message with any questions you have.

I am hoping for a full class and if there is enough interest I may be able to run the class a second time, so please spread the word. Post it on Facebook, tweet it, blog it, and shout it out your window!  If you have a favorite spot with a notice board, let me know and I will mail you a poster to hang up. Every little bit helps.

If you would like to see a few more examples of my needle felting check out my Handmade folio. I will also be making many more samples for the class over the next few months so stay tuned for more  pictures!

Keep Crafty
- Joules