JFlah's Blunders

Jen's Nativity Vector - a freebie by yours truly available at creationswap.com I drew this last year in Illustrator for use in an event logo. I've made it available as a freebie at creation swap. Download my free Nativity vector . There are no copyright issues to worry about since this is from a sketch I did - it's free for personal and commercial use. If you do use it, I'd love to see it.

Sand, Shoes & Hat on the Faux Beach - JFleming 2013 A few weeks ago I went to Orange Beach - it was a great trip. I haven't laughed like that in ages, nor have I enjoyed a vacation quite as much as I did that one. Anyway, on the last day of the trip, I got some plastic containers so I could take home some of the sand with me. I know this is a little strange, but I wanted the sand so I could put my feet in it when I was wanting to go back to the beach. If I worked in a different environment, I'd probably take the sand containers with me to work and put my feet in them while I'm there, but as it is, I've been putting my feet in the containers while I'm at home. Originally, I thought I'd make a sand box for that purpose, but having the sand be in containers that I can actually lift is nice too. It's been great to immerse myself in that faux beach by putting my feet in the sand. Those dollar store containers are just big enough for a foot to wriggle ar...

Swamp Scene I did at Joy Petty's shop , Nov 16, 2013 (acrylic on canvas) This is an acrylic painting I did at a paint and pour party last weekend. We gathered here in town for a birthday celebration and had a blast. I enjoyed doing this, though it isn't gonna make the cut - I mean, it isn't exactly wall-worthy. We used five colors and three cheap brushes... it was a challenge to make it look decent - though I thought the sample that included a blue tree instead of brown one was slightly nicer... that and my horizon line of trees look very different than everyone else's trees because I made them look super close to the viewer. AND the pelican doesn't look like a pelican. Anyway, this is about as good as it gets for something that was done in less than two hours under those circumstances. And I'm sure you can tell that I'm not the best photographer - ha. I'd definitely do this again. I had forgotten how much fun doing art in a group setting is. I...

Here's the second stocking - not the second one I've done this year - just the second one that I had to get done before December. I've got a basket full of new ones I could start on but I think I'm going to do something else for a while.

Nativity Bucilla Stocking kit stitched by yours truly The last several Novembers have found me frantically stitching up a felt stocking kit or two. In the last five to seven years I have put together stockings for all of our new family members, made one or two stockings for gifts and made one or two stockings for a friend's family. This year I've only got two to complete - pictured above is the first of the two. It's for a friend's family and I wish I had another one for ours since it is so nice. The second one has a Santa with the "hickory-dickory-dock" clock. It still lacks about three hours of work...

Mom and I being goofy in the photo booth - We were laughing so hard that I'm surprised they're in focus at all.

"Gimme Your Sandwich!" says Obama... This is so terribly accurate...

Dax / Boxer / Courtesy Carli Davidson & Harper Collins (by way of Colossal ) If you have about three minutes, this is worth watching. It sure made me smile.

This video was surprising. I like how it was calm - no one getting angry, although everyone seemed to be firmly entrenched in their own belief systems. There's a clear presentation of evidence, or lack thereof, all done in a respectful way that would make any thinking person stop to examine what and why they believe what they do. I know it's a long video at almost 40 minutes, but it's worth the time investment.

These are the fonts I like at the moment. Some of them I'm chomping at the bit to use, but since they're a little out there, I'm going to have to wait for the "right" kind of design to place them into. Most of these are available at dafont.com or on one of the other free font sites that I have a tendency to haunt when I'm looking for a way to spice up a boring design. My top favorites are Exo , Ash , Credit Valley , Great Vibes and Crixus . I get to use those on various things pretty often.

Here is a line-up of some of the simple Christmas stockings I made this past weekend. At church they're needing some stockings for a mission trip they're taking in October and since I can't go I thought I'd contribute this way. My favorite ones were the ones with the red polka dot patterns on them. I only had green ribbon for the hangers, but I think they look alright. The one with the penguin pattern is from a pair of old sleeping pants I got from a friend a while back (never did fit me, she's so skinny) and think I've put them to good use making a few stockings out of them. If you want to make some stockings too, let me know - I can get details and a pattern for you. They're being sent to Mission, TX with our mission team.

Found this sketch of Jacob and Esau by jesusonlysavior.deviantart.com while I was doing research for a sermon title slide a month or so ago. The reference for the sermon was going to be the reuniting of Jacob and Esau after Jacob had swindled his older brother out of the birthright and ran off. I downloaded a copy of the black and white sketch of this scene for inspiration - inspiration of the kind of emotional quality I was hoping to achieve with the slide. The actual sermon slide ended up being some visual pun about burying the hatchet. The sketch sat on my desktop for a week or so before I felt compelled to colorize it. I wish I was better at the whole light source thing. I tend to ignore the light sources when I'm coloring and tend to color whatever part however I feel like coloring it. I'm sure if I started keeping that more at the forefront of my mind, the end products would be better overall. Anyway, I enjoyed working on this. I've posted it on my deviant art pa...

Yep, that's a broken shed door lock. I cut grass over the long weekend and when I went around to the shed to get out my mower I realized I didn't need a key to get in. Someone had pried the lock. Thankfully nothing seemed to be missing or tampered with, but I keep thinking that they just pried the lock in preparation to come back and clean the shed out. Now I'm going to have to replace the lock doohickey and for good measure. I think I'm going to board up the cute little shed window - board it on the inside, cause it's so cute. Should anyone decide they're going to knock the window in, well, I guess I'll board it on the outside then. I've got to go to the hardware store to get something to replace this broken one with. Every night I've been praying that God scares the culprits into staying away, at least until I can manage to get the lock system replaced/upgraded. I almost hope it was just some juvenile kids instead of some of the other malconte...

Screen Shot from the video Erik Johansson's work has always surprised me with its complexity, beauty and mostly for the thought process behind the images themselves. Check out the inspiring video above if you're short on creative juices. It got mine flowing.

This is the end result. You can tell where I added, but to the untrained eye it won't be noticeable. It has become common place for me to "add" bits and pieces to photographs of people when I'm not granted the opportunity to take my own photo. If I can't find a replacement part online within the first few minutes of searching (because it is difficult to find a photograph that has the body part I'm looking for photographed at just the right angle, and/or if the angle is right, in a usable resolution) I often end up "painting in" whatever bit or piece that I need to make the composition work for me. The reason I'm thinking about this right now is that I did a baptism slide this week and I had to add an elbow. Since the slide isn't closely scrutinized (and is projected), I didn't concern myself with adding the perfect amount of noise to the painted part (if this was for print I would've been a bit more careful), but I started to t...

Ok - so as I was doing some personal research I came across a video about color theory that blew my mind. It's worth watching not only because it's cute (and isn't trying to sell you anything at the end of the video) but because it sounds plausible. What do you think? Is there pink light?

Color pencils on butcher paper - approx. 8"x10" - July 2013 I'm so out of practice that it's embarrassing. I didn't even get close to catching her likeness. I fudged on the hand, didn't do a nose - just erased the first few attempts. Didn't help that the source photo was blurry. Anyway, this is my maternal grandmother - probably somewhere in her 40s. Mom said that she was asked who told her mom to get into the wheel barrow and she said that it's likely that she got in there herself - she was just that kind of person. I will forever remember her as the woman who beat me at checkers without the least bit of mercy (her toothless mouth laughing as she relished the victory), loved Campbell's cream of mushroom soup and knew just about everything there was to know about quilting.

My parents just purchased a new clothes washer and dryer. They kept the boxes thinking that maybe their grandchildren would play in them. I was looking for something to do and was talking with Mom about it and so I decided to fix the boxes up so the kids can play in them. I would've reinforced the seams with some duct tape or something so that they'd last longer, but Mom said it's probably going to be one of those things where they play with the box once or twice and then it goes to the recycle bin, so I didn't reinforce it. I didn't decorate them either since I figure they'll have a really short shelf life.   Photographs are below. Sorry for the picture orientation being off. Since I'm working on my parent's machine I wasn't able to get the photographs to import correctly for some reason. They're turned in the folder preview. I turned and resized/resaved the original files so I could post them, and I even renamed them, but they're impor...

We're still in "The Patriarchs" sermon series. Here are the last four sermon slides I've labored over. Sometimes I wish there was an onsite art director - someone, anyone with a basic idea of what they want from these slides. I've made some basic decisions about what I want to see in every slide for this series (the optical flare for one) to add some continuity, but I wonder sometimes if I had someone dictating what they wanted to see if it would help me with the amount of time I spend researching and developing a visual concept. Then other times I'm glad that I don't have to accommodate too much design direction - yeah, I want my cake and to eat it too. Had no idea where to start with this one. Spent at least four hours searching for ideas then another two finding source images that were in the creative commons. Collage was created by manipulating four source images. I also utilized some great lightning brushes I found a while back. I studied the way ...

Pencil and white crayola color pencil on cardboard done during a lunch break this week. It's not perfect, but I've never been perfect... The reference photo from Flickr