The Painted Hand

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a wonderful and happy Christmas today or when ever you celebrate it! I received a great book for Christmas called Christian Lacroix: On Fashion and is a visual feast for any fashion/textile/graphic/color person! The book is divided into different sections like florals, stripes, color, and plaids. All of the clothes on display are a mix of Christian Lacroix's work along with other designers and all of them are displayed against an industrial white backdrop.

Brazil Fashion

Hello friends!  I'm finally back from South America and wow is it ever cold here in New York!  I had a great time doing fashion research for work and learned about many designers in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.  I wanted to share a few of the wonderful designers that I bought samples at and the first one up is Alexandre Herchcovitch from Brazil.  I had so much fun at his store in Sao Paulo, where the sales associates were so friendly and helpful. The entire environment was drenched in lavender-pink, butter yellow, tomato red and a seafoam green as seen in the above picture from his latest S/S 2009 collection along with the background pattern taken from the outside of his store.  The wooden crates were taken at the fruit market in Sao Paulo and happened to have some of the shades previously mentioned and also loved the pattern they made stacked on top of each other.  More to come with South American design and color soon....Enjoy for now!

Gourmet Shoot

Please go on another hunt for me and look for the November issue of Gourmet Magazine to check out the cover and the "Over the Top" spread on pg. 120.  There you will find these gorgeous pages filled with Thanksgiving food that my partner, Lish assisted on styling and making the food for the photo shoot (she is a freelance food stylist for various magazines and food tv shows).  The colors in this story were so rich as you can see from the cover image above.  The turkey is perfectly golden and the rosy apples with all the mysterious and murky blues as a back drop - it's really decadent.  If you can't tell yet I am in love with Gourmet's food spreads and think they do an amazing job with color as you can also see in these previous two posts here.  

Martha Madness

Ok folks, apparently I missed the boat on this one and a lot of the Martha Stewart craft projects I designed and assisted on have been in Walmart since July.  I had checked and checked online, but nothing kept popping up - and suddenly I saw an add with my fluffy little pom pom animals staring back at me.  I wish the photos were better so since I 'm not by a Walmart go check it out for me and tell me how they look.  I created a lot of the children and adult craft kits and then also assisted with crafting everything for the photoshoot.   Enjoy!

Organic Fall Shades

In my opinion I think these colors are a good update to traditional Fall colors. Beautiful yellow-toned colors of Ochre and Saffron become interesting when paired together and instead of a typical bright red, there is a muddled tomato color combined with a the dulled blue. I think it is a lovely twist to Fall! I think these colors are also great because they were created with organic paints. I ran across this project in Central Park last year for Earth Day and there were literally hundreds of kid paintings all lined up - it was very inspiring.... Photos by me

Halloween Crafts at Martha Stewart

  I was flipping through the November issue of Martha Stewart Living and I stumbled upon an advertisement for her Halloween crafts.  Staring back at me were some of the projects I helped create last year when I was freelancing there.  The chandelier and spiderwebs are glittered so you can imagine the kind of sparkly Rainbow Bright I looked like each night I took the subway home... You can view them at Martha Stewart Crafts  and at Michaels.

Hope you enjoy them!

 

 

 

Napa Heaven

 To think wine comes from grapes always blows my mind.  I fell in love with wine country in California last week...beautiful hills with row upon row of grape vines, sun glistening down on them and the smell of grapes turning into wine...and let's not forget the tasting part :)  I was really in awe of how blue the grapes actually were and not the typical purple that we automatically associate with them. 

 Also, I've decided to start naming my colors in hopes that I try not to repeat the same color and to try and keep some sort of an organizational system for me.  If anyone ever has any questions about CMYK colors, I also hope to provide you with that answer a little faster by naming my shades!  Enjoy!

Inspecting the Sidewalk

I'm back from my trip and am ready to dive back into this blog. I hope my readers will continue to check in more often as I promise to have tons of color eye candy for you all to get creative with. So, to get into the swing of things I discovered to never underestimate the little things you might find from looking down at your feet. When I was in San Francisco this past week (which was oh so fun!) I was waiting in line to go to the SFMoMA and found myself standing on this sewer lid that had scrapes of color all over it.  I told Lish to go ahead in line and let me take pictures of the sewer as I was so captivated by it.  I'm sure people thought it strange, but I can't help but snap pics of unexpected color happenings. I also really loved the patterns the octagon shapes made.  So, don't forget to glance in all directions when walking about and to really zoom in on random things that may hold many treasures for you. 

Off to San Francisco!

I've been absent from here, and have been brewing some new ideas for this blog, beginning with a little makeover. I'm off to San Francisco and Napa Valley for a week to simply relax and eat myself silly with my partner in crime. After that I hope to be back in business for a bit, however I will be traveling to South America for work again...this time to Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Punta del Este - anyone ever been to those areas? Suggestions??? I especially could use shopping advice. Thanks! Photo taken by me in Medellin, Colombia

Hello from the road

I am currently stuck in my hotel in Medellin, Colombia because of a major downpour - apparently their winter is beginning, so I figured why not share a few photos while I have a spare moment. My first stop was Mexico City, and truthfully was not too impressed, however I was able to go to a town 2 hours north of the city where I was taken to this beautiful resort for breakfast. Then onto Medellin, where I am until Tuesday and then I will leave for Peru. The colors have been gorgeous, tons of rich terracottas and beautiful blues and teals. If anyone is in need of inspiration, so far Medellin is taking the cake. Here are a few pictures to tide you over until I come back. Also, please ignore the tiny pictures - not sure what's happening with how these photos are displaying...until then keep coloring for me!