12.05.2013

Prints available at Society6!

I now have prints available at Society6! You can purchase them in a variety of sizes and each one is printed on gallery quality GiclĂ©e print on natural white, matte, ultra smooth, 100% cotton rag, acid and lignin free archival paper using Epson K3 archival inks. Custom trimmed with 1" border for framing. Pre-framed and stretched canvas options are available as well. 

Society6 is also running a Cyber Monday After Party promotion right now through December 8th so if you follow the link below to purchase any of my prints you will get $5 off each item and free shipping!


11.22.2013

Ordinary Love.

One of my favorite artists, Oliver Jeffers, did some great hand lettering work on this new U2 video. I love the pairing of these two mediums and watching the process of it all and how it works just perfectly with the song. Excellent. Inspiring.



11.07.2013

Rolling waves of rain and grey.

Those fall clouds are here again. This year needs to slow down.


9.28.2013

So long summer sun.

I can't believe that summer is gone already. It's always gone too quickly.
But when look back on all the moments I captured this summer I realize it was quite a good one.









Bring on that brisk fall air. 




9.21.2013

Before & After: The exterior.

I haven't posted about much of the renovation that we've done on our house because, aside from my studio, there isn't much that we've completely finished since moving in almost two years ago. However, just the other day we received a letter in the mail letting us know that we won a Community Improvement Award for the exterior of our house. This means that at least one of our neighbors was awesome enough to nominate us and the city was impressed enough to choose us as a winner. And while I still don't consider the front yard "finished", I figured I'd share the immense amount of progress that we've made.

When we bought the house, it was a bit of an eyesore. The landscaping was nothing but overgrown bushes and thistle. The house paint was peeling and the canopies over the windows had definitely seen better days. Previous owners had made a poor attempt to enclose the side porch with plywood and plexiglass which was rotten and falling apart. Two ugly sconces hung on either side of the door, one completely broken. I could go on, but to sum it up, there was just a lot of ugly and brokenness happening.


After closing on the house the night before, we spent Thanksgiving morning changing out the light fixtures on the front of the house. The rest of that weekend was spent removing bushes and those sad canopies with the help of some family members. Not much else was done to the house until the following spring when the weather was nice again.




Over the following year we opened up the side porch and brought it back to it's original state, battled the overwhelming amount of thistle, tore up the concrete walkway leading to the front door and put in a  new one made of sandstone to match the original steps, planted two trees, had the house repainted, and started on our landscaping plan. When we were digging out our future flower beds, we discovered that there were actually concrete steps buried under the dirt that led up to our porch. Imagine that. 

This past year we finished the construction of our flower beds and new retaining walls (made from the broken concrete we removed from the old walkway). I spent the spring picking out plants and working on the landscaping. By the time summer rolled around the flower beds were really filling out with a mix of perennials and vegetables. We grew more zucchini than we knew what to do with. It was an immense amount of work and we were lucky enough to get occasional help from family and friends for the big projects. 




There's still some landscaping to do next year, beds to add, plants to move and replace. The concrete of the porch floor needs to be refinished and the railings are in bad shape. For right now though, I'm incredibly proud of what we accomplished. 

9.01.2013

Ohiopyle, PA.

Last weekend was spent in the company of dear friends and the woods of Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania. We hiked, ate lunch amidst some beautiful waterfalls, soaked up the scent of the campfire, and talked about the future. 

I also fell head over heels in love with Fallingwater. Yeah. 











(More pictures here.)

8.21.2013

The Gospel.

There are sights that I've seen that can take your breath away. The Grand Canyon. The redwood forests. Yellowstone. The Milky Way on the a dark, dark night.

And then there are the sights that I see every day, but for some reason, on that one day for no particular reason, I stop to pause and realize just how incredible the moon looks in my own backyard. 

All of those remind me that His creation is everywhere. The Gospel is everywhere.


(Another piece from my most recent show.)


8.18.2013

Roam.

Another piece from my recent show. 
The wanderlust in me envies the lives of the bison spent roaming the west. They are some of the most magnificent creatures I've ever encountered.



8.12.2013

Go To The Mountaintop.


This is the first of several pieces I'll be sharing that I made for a group show with some good friends at AG. This particular one was inspired by the National Parks documentary by Ken Burns. 


I'm making giclee prints of a few of these and may make them available for purchase in my Etsy shop if there is enough interest. 

7.31.2013

The Lake Weekend.

It's a sort of tradition with my oldest and dearest friends. A week away at the lake house for laughs, relaxing, drinks, memories and more laughs. I couldn't ask for better people in my life. 








7.07.2013

The Quehanna Wild Area in Pennsylvania.

We hiked seven and a half miles on our first day of backpacking in the Quehanna Wild Area this weekend. It's a gorgeous, lush forest full of ferns, rhododendrons, hemlocks, and tiny plants that we started referring to as "forest fingers". The trails we followed kept us close to water sources which meant many tiny, lovely waterfalls. But by the time we had crossed what seemed like the fiftieth stream that evening, with sunlight fading fast and not a spot to stop and camp in sight, morale was fading. Did I mention that my boots were holding as much water as I was carrying in my pack?



After making a steep 400 ft climb out of a ravine at dusk, we happened upon the first flat area we had encountered in several miles. It was nine o'clock at that point and there was barely enough light to set up camp before we were working by flashlight. Too exhausted to even take the time to cook, we had a couple of peanut butter sandwiches, hung up the bear bag, and crawled into our tents.

I've never experienced such quiet at night as I did sleeping in this field. There was nothing but an occasional bird chirping or plane flying overhead. That and the elks bugling at four in the morning. Despite the quiet, I barely slept but crawled out of the tent feeling energized again when the sun rose.




Everyone but Andrew had to put on sopping wet boots again in the morning. That, in combination with the aches and pains of pushing ourselves too much the day before when we couldn't find a place to camp, led us to cut our weekend short. We hiked several more miles out of the wilderness area and back to the highway to retrieve the car. It wasn't what we had planned, but it was a fulfilling couple of days in the wild.





Additional photos HERE.