Venice, Italy (2008)

As part of the same study abroad trip I've been talking about, we spent a few days in Venice, Italy. I absolutely loved Venice and wanted to stay longer. I felt like there were so many places to explore that I didn't get a chance to. Luckily, when my husband's family decided to go on a Mediterranean Cruise a few years later, in 2010, and invited us along, I got a chance to return briefly to Venice again!

The following are my favorite photographs taken in Venice in 2008. (I'll post the ones I took in 2010 tomorrow.) You can really see the difference in camera technology between the two years. As part of the symposium research money I earned at Eastern Michigan University, I purchased a new, fancy camera in 2010.

Even though these 2008 photos aren't the best (compared to the 2010 ones), I have used some of them as source photography for creating artwork.

The Bridge of Sighs

Sunset

Reflections in the water

The Rialto Bridge

San Marco

I created a large, full sheet watercolor of this photo (22"x30" in size) for the 2009 EMU Symposium (which I talked about in yesterday's post). It is now hanging in my parents' kitchen.

Naples and Sorrento, Italy

I went on a Mediterranean Study Abroad Tour in the summer of 2008 when I was in college. It started in Zurich, Switzerland, then zigzagged through Italy hitting Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples and Sorrento in the south. We then caught a night boat out of Brindisi and headed to Greece, where we visited many sites on the mainland and (by way of two more night boats) spent a few days on the island of Crete.

Though the hotel we were staying in was in Naples, we spent most of our two days in the area visiting the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum (I'll post those photos tomorrow). Furthermore, I had an eye infection at this point of the trip, so what little sightseeing we had time for in Naples I didn't utilize well (given that I was irritable, tired, and in pain, with blisters on my feet and pus oozing out of my eye).

Nevertheless, here are my favorite photos I took in Naples and Sorrento.

Bernadette & Nebula: 5x7 Watercolors

I chose a funky orange-and-purple color scheme for these two 5"x7" watercolor paintings. They would look great displayed together, or mixed and matched with other of my patterned watercolors. The fronts are unsigned (like all of my pattern watercolors) so that they can be hung horizontally or vertically, in any direction.

These are both available for purchase through my Etsy shop.

Here is the duo displayed as a set:

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Pattern Bernadette:

Like all of my 5x7 watercolors, Pattern Bernadette comes with a 8x10 white Crescent mat suitable for framing. You can purchase Pattern Bernadette here.

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Pattern Nebula:

Like all of my 5x7 watercolors, Pattern Nebula comes with a 8x10 white Crescent mat suitable for framing. You can purchase Pattern Nebula here.

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Please note that some of the above photos show the orange areas a bit yellow-y. The photos were it looks more orange are the images that are more "true to color." I photographed these with and without the included mats in two different rooms of my house, and my dining room apparently has poorer lighting than my living room does (which makes sense, I guess, given the size and number of windows in my living room).

Finally, here are some bonus "in progress" shots taken when I was finishing these little guys:

California Dreaming

I love being in Michigan for the holidays (though even in Michigan we don't get a "white Christmas" every year like we used to), but on days when the wind starts getting a bit too cold, I do find myself imagining warmer weather.

Here are some photographs I took when I was on the west coast in the summer of 2012. It was a year after we got married, and my husband and I joined a few mutual friends for a very speedy road trip (1.5 weeks total) south to Oklahoma, west all the way to the Pacific (stopping along the way at the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park), and back home again (hitting up Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Colorado, Mount Rushmore, and the Mall of America, and then taking a very roundabout way home to southeast Michigan by heading up through the U.P., crossing the Mackinac Bridge, and visiting Traverse City and the Sleeping Bear Dunes).

All of these photos are from beaches in the Los Angeles area.

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Santa Monica Beach:

Super crowded and not really my kind of scene, but the colors of the amusement rides were gorgeous and fun, and the California sun made for great lighting for photos.

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Venice Beach:

Even less my scene (I've never tried to skateboard or smoke pot in my life), but again, I couldn't help but appreciate the vibrancy of the graffiti and the gorgeous late-evening sunshine making its silhouettes on the beach.

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A beautiful sunset on a beach in Malibu, CA:

Definitely my favorite "beach" we visited, this strip of sand was just off the road and nearly deserted (there were only two or three other people who came down to enjoy the sunset, parking their cars on the side of the road like we had and descending down into the sand). It was quiet, the sand was warm, and the sunset was (as you can see in the photos), a tranquil rose color. Plus, there were pretty flowers!