A Habitual Practice

I’ve been working on honing my ink drawing skills. There are a couple of reasons for this, one: To make me a better inker, as I attempt my skills as a comic artist/ graphic novelist. And two, I believe that constant practice, weather is is in sports or in drawing, makes you better at your end goal. Three, to work on more regular online updates. I have obviously not done so here on this site, but on my Facebook and tumblr, I have done so. So here are the fruits of my labor:

 

Past and Present Photography

As an artist, I am usually strongest in the drawing and painting department. While I thoroughly enjoy experimenting with many different media, it is my main base. I have never really considered myself a “photographer”. I think this is mostly because I know many very talented people who do, in fact, consider themselves professional photographers, and their work is amazing. I do, however, very much enjoy taking photos for my own enjoyment, and every once in a while, I think I get something worth while. So, I give you, my photos:

I have always enjoyed abstract photography, because of its inherent irony.  The average photo is usually considered to be a realistic depiction of objects in space based on light itself.

But light doesn’t always show us everything clearly, and we can’t always see all of the picture.  A photo can still be a mystery, and that is intriguing.

seep

blur wisk

glow

contrast

Of course, traditional photos are very much worthwhile as well. To capture what is around us, is something that humans have been doing since caveman days, and now photography is the quickest way to do that.

These are views from my home town in Oregon that I took on a walk very near my house. I am particularly fond of the deer sign one. Sadly, I did not see any real deer that day.

A View From Home

deer photo sign photo

yellow tree blue sky

These are in or around my apartment in Southern California where I am living now. They were during some of the rare times when SoCal actually has clouds.

CLOUD and two trees...

Tree and Line and Sky

Still Home Life

These are from a trip to Vegas a while back.  The baby one, I still do not understand.  I tried looking in there… only blue light.

peekingMaybe this is where is comes out.

Beam

 

If you are interested in more of my everyday photography, you can follow me on instagram:  http://instagram.com/melissabethrose#

In Between Two Trees

This last Easter I collaborated with many people in my church to create a stained glass window effect on our windows in the church sanctuary. The wonderful Amy Dry, Rachel Glazener, and Amy Jenson, and I planned and designed it, while many other members helped us to bring our plans into fruition.  Amy Dry wrote such a well written and thoughtful explanation of our goals and ideas, that I thought it would be better to just give you the link:

http://www.redeemerlm.org/in-between-two-trees.html

Tree of the Knowladge of Good and Evil

Olive and Wheat

Palm and Hissop

Vine and Branches

Wheat and FigTree of Life

For My Brother

My little brother got married this summer! I was so happy for him and proud of him.
One of the many creative details that they had in their wedding, was that they made an activity-book for the children who would be attending. I thought that was brilliant, as I remember getting really bored when I was a little kid at a wedding.

Anyway, I kept asking him if he needed help with anything, so he had asked me to design a few parts of it, including the cover. Here are the results!

Wedding Activity Book Cover

Wedding Activity Book Color by Numbers