Matthew and Melissa's Sneak Peek!

I'm so excited to post this sneak peek from Matthew and Melissa's gorgeous wedding two weeks ago! Not only was it a perfect fall day, but I personally had challenged myself to shoot a little differently. Without going into detail, I think that decision was for the better; I got so many wonderful shots that it was hard to choose exactly which ones to post here. It was a pleasure and a privilege to work with this family again (remember James and Natalie's wedding in May? She's Melissa's sister!). So without further ado - here, have some pretty.

Like I said - perfect.

All's ready and waiting...

The best part of being a female photog - OMG SHOES.

The lucky groom and his mom

Dapper gents!

The beautiful bride is almost ready for her close-up...

...and here it is!

Love from her ladies

One of my favorites from the ceremony

Making it official!

Small wedding party = fun!

Husband and wife!

At Foster Park, down the road from the church

"Come here, you!"

I let them practice for their first dance ;-)

That's all for today, kids! Check my website in the next week or two for a full look at all the proofs. Thanks again to Matthew and Melissa for letting me be a part of this wonderful day!

Creations and discoveries

Hello all! My apologies for the extended absence. I have finished my time at Interlochen and am now back in Indianapolis, working on wedding stuff with my wonderful fiance and starting a new job search. I have to admit, it's been great having this week off to just hang out, but I do need to get back to earning a living...

Anyways, here's a project that I started back in June, and wasn't able to resume until our last week at ICA - the granite etching for my dad's headstone. Here's the completed drawing that I worked from--

Unfortunately, it's now covered in red ink - to transfer the lines onto the stone,  something like carbon paper is placed between the drawing and the granite, then the drawing is traced over to leave the same marks on the stone. That becomes the guide for creating the etching. Make sense? I hope so...

And here is the finished product!

I will say I was rather intimidated to not only learn this completely new medium involving a very sharp power tool, but also having to create something of this magnitude for my very first project! I think that's part of why I had put it off for so long, and in order for me to even start on it, I had to make Devin leave our cabin :-p I suppose I needed to "bond" with the etching tool...

I find that many times, when I'm learning or experimenting ("playing," as I prefer to call it), I want to be completely alone. Call it performance anxiety, but I need to be able to do whatever I feel like doing without someone watching me...in my mind, they're thinking things like, "Wow, what a weirdo," and "what on EARTH is that freak doing?" Just one of my artistic idiosyncrasies. Moving on...

Latest project: new (to me) HUGE canvas!

This is a painting I acquired from Devin's grandparents, who are in the moving process and left many of their possessions up for grabs to the grandkids. Score! They originally bought it from a department store, which means it was mass-produced and therefore worth next to nothing. My brain said FREE CANVAS, and we grabbed it. It will be the largest canvas I've ever used - pretty sure it's 3 ft x 4 ft - and tonight I took step 1 towards a masterpiece: GESSO-ING THE CRAP OUT OF IT.

See also: PLAYGROUND. :)

For those who don't know, gesso is used as a primer for canvases (and just about anything else that needs it). It comes in white AND black (ooh!) and is therefore perfect for redoing a canvas. SHAZAM, a world of potential is born! I'm already cooking up ideas...and in need of a new supply of gesso.

And that's not all, loyal readers! After being gone for a few weeks, I have to give you more treats than that. So here's two artists that were introduced to me this week, one from my mother, and the other from my future mother-in-law. Brilliant ladies they are ;-) Bonus: Both artists are women, too!

First, we have Helen Dennis. Just today she closed an installation in NYC of projected drawings...check out the link to see what I mean! It's so many of my favorite things...drawing, mixed media, projection, site-specific, oh my! She also has some gorgeous pictures of Iceland, which is near the top of my list of places to visit.

Next is Debbie Smyth with some incredible large-scale installations of string art. Seriously, this stuff makes me jealous...but in the art world, jealousy can be nearly synonymous with inspiration. Am I wrong, fellow artists?? :)

I love looking at work from wonderful artists like these. It reminds me that really, anything is possible, that I'm not limited to the page/canvas/computer (unless I want to be), and that it IS possible to do great things with art in the present moment, as opposed to 100+ years after you die (poor Van Gogh...).

And now, allergies are overtaking me, and I must bid you goodnight and adieu...as always, thanks for reading!

Rain Art

What do you do when you and your sketchbook are stranded in a tiny office during a rainstorm? You say, "Hey, Mother Nature, let's make something beautiful together."

Contour line drawings on slightly low blood sugar. Ink and rainwater on paper.

Sneak Peek: Kevin & Susan

At long last - the sneak peek of Kevin and Susan's July 23rd wedding in Muncie! The day was unbearably hot (as many other days in the Midwest have been this summer - eesh) but a great time was had by all. Susan and I have been friends since 8th grade, so it was an honor to be able to capture this special day.

The ceremony was at St. Francis of Assisi, a gorgeous modern Catholic church on Ball State's campus

Photos of the ladies at a local playground

Handsome guys at the Newman Center

Everyone agreed that Kevin would make an excellent boutonniere model :)

Took advantage of some free time to do bridal portraits

A walk to remember...

One of my favorites from the ceremony

Husband and wife!

The glorious exit

Having some fun - right before it downpoured!

Too funny!

First dance

Beautiful rings and bouquet

Full coverage of the day to be posted at www.kathleengrady.zenfolio.com within the next 2 weeks. Thanks again to Kevin and Susan! Best wishes for the happiest of marriages :)

Drive-by posting!

Look what I just finished!!

Creative productivity

So I haven't actually completed my next alphabet drawing yet (although it is in the works), but during my last doodlefest I opened my mind even further. This next little guy is in a style that I've always wanted to do, but never really tried or had particular inspiration. It's minimalistic, but it says a lot...several different things, in my opinion. So here's that:

And next we have a drawing that's a bit of an inside joke - when Devin and I were watching Animal Planet with some friends last week, we learned that animals like wallabys and kangaroos are called MACROPODS because of their foot size. So then I thought up this guy:

Devin lol'd when I showed him. Mission accomplished!

And finally, we have a screen shot from the laptop skin project (I've actually added the explosion since I took this, but I want the next posting to be the COMPLETED one). Added the birds, planes, clouds, and texture on Arthur the whale. I think he's coming along swimmingly (hehe!).

In other news, I'm heading back down to Indiana to shoot a wedding for a friend from high school this weekend. Get ready for some more photo postage!

A work in progress

Here I am in my bloggy again! Here's a little update on my pen n crayon series, letter C:

Didn't quite turn out like I had hoped, but oh well. The purpose of this little project is just to get me to step out of my comfort zone a little bit, and to let go of any preconceived notion of reality. Am I doing that? Yes.

The focus of the week has turned to the laptop skin I'm designing for Devin. His parents gave him a groupon for one for his birthday, and it expires at the end of the month. So I need to get this done! It's mostly born from his ideas, with some of my own tweakings...what I'm doing is drawing the "bones" on paper, then transferring these drawings to Photoshop for color, shading, and texture. The scene that we've come up with is a blue whale, falling out of the sky, with lava shooting from his blowhole, eating birds and planes. Yep, pretty crazy! So here's what the whale (we've named him Arthur) looks like right now:

Creating the lava will be interesting. His skin also needs to look rougher. But between drawing time and Photoshop play time, this took about 45 minutes to complete. 

Yesterday I drew most of the other elements. Here we have the birds:

Naturally the scene will have more than 5 birds...I will just take these basic positions and repeat them in different locations and sizes.

And here we have 3 biplanes, whose pilots are presumably freaking out:

This last guy will be trying his damnedest to escape Arthur's mouth! Will he succeed?? Nobody knows...

So my hope with this is to keep cooking up silly ideas with Devin, and making them into something marketable and purchaseable...laptop skins, iPhone skins, desktop backgrounds, etc. My Zenfolio site actually allows me to sell "digital products" like this, so it could end up being a decent side project. I'm also hoping to start submitting t-shirt designs to Threadless. Here's hoping I can corner the digital market!

TTFN, readers. I'm off to spend the next half hour putting these planes into the file with Arthur...hopefully he'll resist the urge to eat them...