Halloween Rain...

Hello Lovelies~

I hope you are all doing well out there this week! As usual, a whole bunch to share over here. To start, I was recently hired to do a new baby/family shoot for a lovely group of people. We took a quilt out to a beautiful local park and started snapping away. I think we got some really good shots and what a fun time we all had! (Goodness, I think photographing babies is my new favorite thing to do.) Take a look:

And, this month is The Stapelia Company's 5th anniversary! Can you believe it?! I scarcely can, myself. So many wonderful projects and opportunities during that time and I'm busier than ever, which is so good. To celebrate Stapelia's birthday every year, I shoot, design and print Halloween cards for clients, friends & family. (I'm way too busy at the holidays to send out Christmas cards, and I like Halloween much more, so it's my way of connecting with the people in my life through my work in a personal way.) Well, this year's card went out last week and I believe most people have gotten it, so here it is! (Also now available as a fine art print on Society6.)

I went to a wedding this past weekend way up north for some very dear friends of mine. What a beautiful day we had! And all of the guests stayed overnight in these beautiful, modern cabins right on a lake. Perfect autumn experience all around. I don't take my camera along to events like these, even just to get candids, especially if they've hired a wedding photographer. I find I have more fun if people don't know I'm a photographer. Point is, I didn't get any pictures of the day, except this shot of the wedding bouquets I took with my phone. Now, imagine all of those beautiful colors and textures multiplied a hundredfold into a full-blown wedding and you'll have some idea of how wonderful it all was! I wish them both nothing but happy years ahead...

The rest of my weekend consisted of doing fun Fall things like listening to ghost stories at Portland's Victoria Mansion (an historic mansion in the area that's beautifully ornate and was gas-lit for this particular event, which made for a creepy good time) and carving pumpkins! This year, I wanted to try a new idea out which involved inserting a gourd inside a pumpkin like a skull and then making it look like the pumpkin was blowing open to reveal the skull inside! It was a lot of work, but a friend and I managed to do it after several false starts. (Tip: definitely get doubles of everything for mistakes... Hahaha.) Take a look! Whew. I love Fall so very much.

And this car was just parked in Portland right by those beautiful fall trees, so needless to say, I had to take a picture!

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Stag in the Fall Woods...

Hello Lovelies!

I hope this week finds you all well and (if you're in the Northern Hemisphere) getting all cozied up for fall! The weather here in Maine has cooled significantly and the leaves are changing quite rapidly. I think this coming weekend could be the peak of leaf season and that's a bit early. However, I have my Halloween card shoot this weekend, so if the weather cooperates, that will make those shots amazing!

Speaking of new work, I just posted all of my Stag promotional photography for my Halloween release today! I have some fun vintage Halloween items (costumes, props and party games) just for the season going into Stag this week, so I created some 60's-inspired photography to get people excited for the products and for the holiday! Here are some shots and the rest are over here. Keep an eye on Stag as things drop, I really can't believe how fast things sell over there.

I have a fun project coming up and I'm putting a call out there for two women and two men! If you're local and interested, you can message me or shout out on my Stapelia page under the casting call. I will post that this week. Yep, that's right, I have 4 Lucha Libre masks and I want to shoot a 'gang' of Luchas in hideous 70's era garb + masks. (Think, the anchor team fight scene in Anchor Man below.) So if you're outgoing, funny and love polyester... give me a shout. This is going to be good...

Enough work talk, I have some great things to share this week too! First up, have you ever read the Paris Review? (Don't feel bad, neither had I before last week.) Well, it's full of great literary interviews and I stumbled upon a great one by my favorite author, Ray Bradbury, that I thought I would share with you guys. It's not a long read, but I just loved everything about it especially that bit about Mr. Electro at the end. Check it out here.

And speaking of great artists, I found the pumpkin carvings of Dan Szczepanski recently and I couldn't believe it. (Sure, we've all heard of Ray Villifane's work and you really can't top that, plus he uses real pumpkins.) Szczepanski's work is done on artificial pumpkins, which I think might make things a bit easier and crisper, but I love what he does with lighting, depth of cuts and color. Check out some of his work below, or on his Flickr feed above!

And for those delicate agriculturists out there with an herb garden or wee backyard vegetable patch to tend, there's this little gem: Farming with Dynamite. Say what?! I wish I could see those tips...

Until next time: Unpleasant dreams...

Pulp Halloween...

Hello Lovelies!

As Halloween approaches, there is a whole lot of awesome going on at The Stapelia Company and just in general and I can't wait to pass it along! First, a reminder, that the 1 Year Anniversary Giveaway goes until Halloween (October 31st), and I will announce the winner November 1st. All you have to do, is comment on any blog post that mentions the giveaway with a book or movie you think I'd like and your Etsy shop name or email address so I can contact the winner. (If you're just coming over to play, the giveaway is an entire set of my Alice in Wonderland art illustrations.)

Ooo! I went to a pumpkin carving party last night and it was a blast needless to say. I was dared into making my own pumpkin design since I was "The only one in the room who could draw" so I went for the zombie... take a peek!

And, I just listed the third scratchboard piece in my Night Revelry Series, the Vampire Boy. He's fun, feisty and comes with a wonderful letter pressed matte from Yee Haw Industries! Perfect for that last minute Halloween gift.

I, like most people, really enjoy the pulp covers from the 3o's and 40's; they're colorful and bold and scandalous (just the way we like it here)... Well, imagine my delight when I came across a spread in Harper's Bazaar UK that features Claudia Schiffer as the young ingenue in various pulp fiction-inspired fashion shots. Here are just a few... needless to say. Wonderful.

And, another wonderful find for design enthusiasts in particular is the Grain Edit, a site dedicated to wonderful graphic design. My personal favorite was the interview with Hatch, a San Francisco based design team who makes wonderful things. I especially loved the paper ephemera and research and sketches they used to come up with the packaging for Jaqk Cellars, a wine label. Love it. Go take a peak!

Let's wrap up with a movie review because it's been awhile and it's October, the perfect month for Halloween movies. I want to recommend a personal favorite of mine; Elvira Mistress of the Dark. (Yes, that's both a movie title and a character name folks...) Why is this movie so great? Let's start off with the hilarious puns and sexual innuendos, then we can move on to the 80's era clothing and hairstyles (including banana clips, pumps with jeans, and of course, mullets), and finish up with the totally ridiculous plot and characters. Oh, and the ending is worth the price of admission... Love it. Own it. Recommend it. Now go find a copy!

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...