illustration: wedding invitations

my super cute friends remi&nu asked me to design their wedding invitations. i couldn't be more honored (or excited)! i also designed their save the date cards which i'm pretty stoked about...

i want to have their invites printed on card stock. i found a really nice local photo lab that was able to scan the painting i made and print the save the dates for me on watercolour paper, but the final product was a little curved due to the lighter weight of the paper. for the invites i'll be experimenting with other printing services and i'm nervous that it'll require a fair amount of trial and error before finding a good enough printing company. i did a bit of reading online and several people recommended catprint.com & stationeryhq.com, so i'll be giving them both a try. i'm going to order the save the date design on card stock and compare to the original... i'll review both here!

illustration: heythanks!

we're so lucky to have a friend who doesn't mind stopping by our place to check on our cats edwin & albert when we're out of town for one reason or another. yesterday matthew & i spent a couple of hours at our favourite coffee shop and, between a cappuccino and a giant cup of earl grey, i painted this little guy to say thanks to kinsey! looking at this photograph of the painting makes me so anxious to get a nice scanner already! SOON.

get your website good

i overheard a coworker saying something about "you gotta get your cookin' good..." in reply to coworker#2 saying something about how coworker#1 never goes out to eat at work like the rest of us lazy slobs.

anyway i think coworker#1 is super wise. you gotta get your -whatever- good... then you won't feel as much like you're missing something or as helpless, you know? i feel that way about my website, but really i'm just happy i made it for now.

good story.

foreign language: harry potter et les interprétations erronées

i'm reading the first harry potter book for the first time... in french! i'm proficient in french, but have a ways to go before i'll be fluent so i'm fully aware i'm missing all kinds of details. i'm going to translate & illustrate my interpretations (and inevitable misinterpretations) here for you. so enjoy!!

mr. dursley got ready for work and took off in his car and noticed this cat reading a sign...and he was all like, "that's weird...cats don't read..." and then he saw this fancy man in town and he reflected for a moment on how he doesn't care for the flamboyant funky fresh youths and their emerald green capes. later, he stopped and got a donut and overheard some people talking about harry potter and he was totally in denial, like, "pssh... no way they're talking about the harry potter i know...for all i know that kid's name is harvey or something."

ballet: molière knows

came across this quote while reading apollo's angels -

“all the misfortunes of mankind, all of history’s disasters, all the bungling of politicians and mistakes of great generals—all come through not learning to dance.”

illustration: late paint

last night i began work an illustration project for a friend's photography business. she actually asked me to design this ages ago and i'm only just now getting around to it. unfortunately, i think she might have found a new logo between asking and me finding time...which is such a bummer! but i'm going to keep on keepin' on designing it because now it's in my head. and it's fun. i have a tendency to share progress on something with almost as much excitement and pride as sharing the finished product. so here 'tis! draft 1 of design 1 of the stephanie kaloi photography logo. obviously final draft text would be less sloppily positioned and stuff. i'm excited to see where this ends up... i have a few other ideas... allons-y!

HOMEWORK:

recite the mantra: do not place paintbrush in wine, do not sip paint water

music appreciation: loudness

this weekend, my husband and i went to a new (to us) restaurant for lunch and decided to pop in our favourite local guitar shop just to poke around and get informed about amps for our at home performances and noodling. we have two old peavey's from who knows when that we've been longing to upgrade. our general options were solid state or tube amps... i had half a thought about solid state lighting, but fortunately it was only half a thought as i am on vacation from work! it does me almost no good whatsoever to read about the technology behind things like instruments or amplifiers or cameras or camera lenses... i need to experience them first. after about an hour of plugging in to a bunch of amps, we went with a vox 15W tube amp with suuuper badass distortion abilities and a really great warm sound on the clean channel. we came home and plugged in my SG and played for about an hour and at some point it occurred to me that you might be able to hear it from outside our house... so i went on the front porch and HOLY CRAP. it was SO LOUD. i hope our neighbors won't mind us shreddin' on weekend days but at least we know to keep it quiet at night. makes me long for the days of knowing that one guy with a padded basement or garage whose parents and neighbors were apparently totally cool with everybody making way too much noise...

o hai

it seems like a good time to start documenting. i have a few illustration projects in the upcoming year that i'm excited to eventually share here... the major designs on my list are a couple of friends' wedding invitations, and another friend's photography website logo. i also plan to make some greeting cards i've had in the back of my mind for a couple of years.

i'm attending national stationery show in nyc in may as my friend sam's booth bitch/hype girl. (you should check out her extremely amusing and adorable stationery here.) i'm so looking forward to it. maybe some year i'll have my own booth! for now i'm just glad to support a friend.

i also wanted to share some updates on more ambitious learning goals of mine. i have a lot of interests which can get overwhelming at times. continuing education and taking time to explore what you love is so important to me. i majored in chemical engineering in college which demanded a lot of my time and didn't leave many hours for practicing art or music... or being very social for that matter. now that i've been out of school for a few years i'm determined not to let myself get into a work/life rut. i am working on an independent study curriculum to broaden my understanding of a few subjects that are dearest and most fascinating to me. my subjects this year will be: ballet, french, science, and music.

ok let's do this!