{2012}

At the beginning of the year I made this post.
At first I was all "this is going to be easy" well, it wasn't. The fact that my phone died while I was in NJ didn't help either {since I took 90% of the photos with my phone camera since it was easier} but I managed. So here it is, From where I stand:

FromWhereShicakeStands from Shicake on Vimeo.

2012 was a pretty decent year for me so let's just hope 2013 doesn't come with any tricky stuff. I think I'll do another photo project or something like that. We'll see.
Happy New Year's Eve mates!

♪♫ Stop, Drop and Roll by Foxboro Hot Tubs

{Inspiration: Live the Language}

Every time I go to Vimeo aka I-want-to-cry-because-life-and-talented-people-who-make-videos-and-such I have a list of videos I watch more times than I should. Case in point: EF International Language Centers promo videos.

Beautiful stills, a lovely selection of typefaces and {me being me} foreign cities make this videos one of my favorites. Promoting: Vancouver, Sydney, Los Angeles, Beijing, London, Barcelona and Paris, the latter being one of my favorites. All videos directed by Gustav Johansson.

EF - Live The Language - Paris from Albin Holmqvist on Vimeo.

EF - Live The Language - Barcelona from Albin Holmqvist on Vimeo.

EF - Live The Language - Beijing from Albin Holmqvist on Vimeo.

{Fifty Shades of Grey}

Actual shades.
I'm not planning on reading that book. Ever. I got bored {don't judge me} and went to the I-just-saw-the-name-on-the-bookshelf kind of thing and made a poster out of it.

Things tend to get really boring when you have free time and 0 things to do.

♪♫ Young Folks by Peter, Bjorn and John

{Bitácora del Capitán: Crafters}

Been trying to paint. Not sure it's working.

{Dip Dye}

Again.
Last year I had my hair dip dyed in a really rich phthalo blue. I wanted the same color this year but my sister only found a sort of teal one.

 Gave it a try. Leslie came {like last year} and did my hair. It was really frustrating since the moment I took it out, part of it stayed blond {I had to bleach my tips hence the blond color} so I had to re-dye it. This is how it turned out.

I guess I like it? I need to give it some time to get used to the color since it's kind of light for my taste. Also, this is how my t-shirt end up looking like:

Two strikes of galaxy! 

♪♫ Postcard of a Painting by Maxïmo Park

{Self-Portraits as Famous Paintings}

Or, you know... something like that.

I've been wanting to do this since forever but I didn't have the inspiration nor the time to do it. Since I have to take some photos for my photography class assignment I decided to give it a shot. They were 5 but I'm just letting you guys see 3 since I didn't like how the other 2 turned out. The painting I did where:

• "Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Johannes Vermeer
• "Self-Portrait" by Frida Kahlo
• "Son of Man" by René Magritte

"Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Johannes Vermeer

"Self-Portrait" by Frida Kahlo

"Son of Man" by René Magritte

The ones that didn't make it where:

• "American Gothic" by Grant Wood
• "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe" by Vincent van Gogh.

Not the easiest thing to do since I had no tripod so I had to "make" one {that being using boxed, chairs and other things to place the camera} but it was fun. One of the comments I received from one girl at university was "You sure have a lot of weird clothes" I just had to laugh.

I want to do something by Roy Lichtenstein in the future since I didn't have to paint my face with any of this photos {Except Frida's but that was just a plain black line} so expect some other photos similar to this ones soon... Ok not that soon but whatever.

♪♫ Obstacle 2 by Interpol

{Lemon or Lime}

Whatever.
Today I was trying to make a certain amount of time go fast so, as usual, I started to doodle. For some reason I ended up making something with a lime/lemon shape. The thing is, in my country, the majority of people tend to think the small green fruit is a lemon and the big yellow one is a lime when in fact {or according to a pretty fast research} is the opposite.
I end up making this:

It reads "Lemon or lime, whatever. I see them everyday, every month. I make lemonade and i try to bake"
Why the "And I try to bake" part? I have no idea. I try to stay as far away from the kitchen as possible. I was not made to bake or cook or whatever. I suck at it.
After getting home I was staring at my computer screen with absolutely nothing to do so I decided to mess around with this doodle. I simply vectorized {not sure if I should say that} the letters and put some color in the background.

Yellow and green because, well you should know this by now.

♪♫ Fantasy by The XX

{Inspiration: Lisa Congdon's 365 Days of Hand Lettering

I'm a sucker for hand lettering.
I love the way it looks, how it makes design something special plus it's typography. What's not to love about typography? Since I can't really do any good with typography myself, I have to cry and sob watching other's artist magnificent work.
So when I came across Lisa Congdon's 365 Days of Hand Lettering project I just zomg!
In her own words, the project is about:

Each day for 365 days for the year 2012 I will post an image of something I have hand-lettered: a letter of the alphabet, a word, a phrase, a quote, a name. Some of the lettering will be based on traditional forms of calligraphy or vintage lettering and some will be of my own design.

 Here are some of the days of hand lettering {photo credit from Lisa Congdon 365 days of Hand Lettering site. Make sure to check the rest out}

♪♫ Le Festin by Michael Giacchino

{Mental}

Hey there!
For my last Photography II assignment I had to pick a theme to make conceptual photos. Me being me, I went with mental disorders. I had to take 5 photos representing mental disorders, which I love. As usual I went to one of my two forever-using-for-all-my-photography-assignments models, Leslie {Katherine, you'll be coming back, like always}. I had other things in mind but I guess I'm pretty satisfied with the result.

Bipolar disorder: condition in which people go back and forth between periods of a very goo or irritable mood and depression.

Schizophrenia: mental disorder that makes it hard to: tell the difference between what is real and not real; think clearly; have normal emotional responses; act normally in social situations.

Multiple personality disorder: mental disorder characterized by at least two distinct and relatively enduring identities or dissociated personality states that alternately control a person's behavior, and is accompanied by memory impairment for important information not explained by ordinary forgetfulness.

Insomnia: inability to fall sleep or to stay asleep as long as desired.

Paranoia: mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically elaborated into an organized system. 

For the multiple personality disorder, I had to take different photos of Leslie with different outfits and such... It was pretty interesting.

That's a pair of big brown eyes. That is all folks.

♪♫ The Simpsons Theme by Green Day

{Egg}

I don't think I have any more brain cells left to write down something coherent in here so let's get to the point:
I was doing my packaging assignment for tomorrow {hate how it turned out} Got bored after I finished it. Ended up doing this.

My head is throbbing.

♪♫ Brand New Start by Little Joy

{Inspired by Julia}

Photography II will be the dead of me.
Another assignment for my photography class. "5 photos inspired my Julia Margaret Cameron". I guess I'll just post the most decent ones cause... well, yeah.
Models for the assignment where Leslie, Katherine {Told you! You were coming back}, Gabriela and Cristina.

As usual one thing led to the other and we end up with "CANDIDS!"

♪♫ Sunday Morning by Me playing Ukulele

{Pattern Shorts}

Back in NJ while I was working for the summer I had to wear khaki pants as part of my uniform.
I got this really cheap long ones while I was there in our {me and my dearest} no. 1 option when it came to shopping cheap/ actually good clothes.
One day while I was working I felt pretty badly to the ground {that was kind of embarrassing...} and they got this weird spot on my upper tights. No good. So after thinking what to do with it I decided I was going to paint them.
Got some scissors, made the pants shorts and started painting my pattern. Good thing: Pretty damn proud of how they turned out. Bad thing: I have no more red paint *sad life*

Another thing that I got but haven't had the chance to tell you all about was a bunch of old analog cameras. I got them from the same store I got the pants. I know the Olympus one is working, not sure about the other two. If they don't, well they make pretty decoration/ photo props.

Materials {Shorts}:

• Long khaki pants.
• White, red and black fabric paint.
• Black Sharpie®
• Scissors.

♪♫ Sous le ciel de Paris by Yves Montand

{Inspiration: Paris vs New York by TonyMiotto}

It's a motion graphic kind of day {it's always a motion graphic kind of day so that last sentence was irrelevant}. Delight your eyes with Paris vs New York by TonyMiotto.

Paris vs New York from TonyMiotto on Vimeo.

{A present for Geo}

Hello there!
Going back to what has become the best summer of my life, Natali, Patricia and I wanted to give George, our department supervisor, a little something. As many of you might know, I prefer handmade gifts over generic buy-from-a-store ones. The original plan was to make a portrait of Britney Spears out of bottle caps {people who worked at the bar always save the beer caps for us}. I didn't worked out. In the end I draw a black and white portrait of Britney Spears.

Me and the girls went to Goodwill to find a decent frame to put the drawing when all of the sudden, we found a badass frame: It had a big cork board and three photo frames. What we decided was that we were going to take photos of ourselves holding George's name. Me being me, I painted my face and the girls' faces.

He loved it! Success. The day of the last employees party the park throw, he put it outside for everyone to see. I felt ~special~ {not really but you get the idea.

Materials:

• Acrylic paint.
• Pencils.
• Cardboard.
• Markers.
• Big photo frame.

{Photography II}

This is going to be the most frustrating class of my entire semester.
My teacher is, let just say it, plain badass. She had shoot for many magazines including covers and she knows so much about the photography field its crazy. That's one of the reasons I'm gonna be pretty stressed out this semester.
ANYWAY Leslie was my model this time {Katherine, you'll come back. I can guarantee that} and it was...uh interesting.

I'm missing some of the photos from the assignment but meh. You'll see more... someday.

{Bloody Nails: The Tutorial}

Wow that tittle was so intense.
I've been bombarded with questions regarding this nail design I did a while ago.
"How did you do it?" "I want tutorial D:<" etc, etc...
The thing this I suck when it comes to making fancy, well explained tutorials but since I was bored and stressed out yesterday I took some photos and I'll try to do my best to explain.

You'll need:

• Base coat.
• White nail polish.
• Top coat.
• Red acrylic paint.
• Water.
• Brush.
• Piece of old wood or plastic.

{Good Bye NJ}

After 3 months of living with 2 of the most amazing people I've ever met in my entire life, I'm back to my country.
Last Thursday the park throw a sort of Award dinner/party for all the employees. Lots and lots of tears, laughs and such were shared that night since it was going to be the last party and, for some, the last day at the park {Not the last day for the Dominicans. That was Friday but whatever}
Jamaicans, Romanians, Americans, Turkish, Chinese, Ukrainians and else were all gathered together in this awesome night that marked the end of one of the best summers of my entire life.

We made this "mural" as a present to one of our supervisors. I painted the girls' faces and draw the Britney spears.

And that is how this summer ends for me. Now I'm back to University classes, stressing out and such. Oh life...