[thursday 2005.01.27]
illustration friday: gluttony

this week's topic is gluttony. one painting came to mind when i read this topic. it is of a man shoving his face with food while a little boy pulls on his pant leg begging for a morsel. while doing a search to find who the artist was, i came across several other pieces on gluttony. sixteenth century mural in a church in france shows a greedy fish eating other fish. andrea lanzani's gluttony painting shows two people feasting on food and drinks. a pig carcass peeks its way into this painting (the image of the pig represents gluttony) and one must note the drab, poor clothing of the subjects. gluttony is often thought to bring about greed which brings about poverty and one's demise. i never did find the painting i was thinking of... but i found a lot of other interesting things.

for my illustration, i wanted to do something on a lighter note. i could have chosen to show greed and overindulgence in the form of a sin with the religious beliefs that go behind it. but instead i chose to paint a bunny who turns orange from eating too many carrots. orange is the color often associated with gluttony, so it only seemed fitting that the subject matter take on an orange color from participating in the act of gluttony. it is my lighthearted take on the subject.

watercolor with .60 rapidograph and some digital color on background/border

[ posted by beth at 5:24PM ] [ ]

we made good time, despite not being able to see anything but white on the way up! it snowed the entire way to galena- the road had vanished underneath all of it so we just followed along in the tracks of earlier vehicles, hoping we were on the road.

our condo was nice- lodge meets english pub vibe to it. fireplaces and jacuzzis in the rooms, red christmas lights outside lit up in the snow.

at almost 10 at night, nothing was open except for 'happy joes'. someone commented that happy joes is what denny's would be like if they served pizza. not the best, but the root beer float at the end made it slightly better.

saturday we woke up and went to the 'galena cafe' for an early lunch, and then headed to chestnut. chestnut mountain is cute- looks like a little village in the swiss alps... on a smaller scale. the village is actually on the top of the hills instead of at the base. and you ski down to the mississippi river along tree-lined trails.

we met up for dinner at 'vinny's', and later came back to our condo to watch movies and have evening cocktails.

sunday we woke up and went to 'clarks again' for breakfast (note- one person cannot eat a single pancake here, they are huge) and off to the wine cellar and various shops. then we went to see rhonda and erik ski at chestnut. then stopped at the lookout tower before heading home.

see our chestnut mountain ski weekend photographs here.

[ posted by beth at 7:03PM ] [ ]

in an effort to get better acquainted with our new sewing machine, i made these travel tissue holders:

while not the most practical thing, they are dandy to dress up those travel kleenex for keeping in the car, office or purse. i'm not creating my own tutorial because bella dia already has a great one that you can follow. however i do have pictures from my own personal documentation of the project. from bella dia's site, i've also learned about amy butler patterns and fabric. and now that i've caught the sewing bug, there is no stopping me to make pretty purses next.

[ posted by beth on 2005.01.17] [ ]

we finally have snow! that means time to dust the cobwebs off the skis and head out to the country. the sky was a bit gray, but the snow was a brilliant white. i became entranced by the vast whiteness that stretched out before me. two cardinals, in their brilliant vermilion, swept low right in front of me and did a little dance before retreating off into the trees.

all was going swell, until i saw chad fall down up in front of me. then i saw that one ski was lying in the snow with this dark shape stuck to it. as i came closer, i saw what had happened and realized that our outing was over. the sole of his shoe had come off completely. it just ripped right off of his shoe and stayed there, still attached to the 3-pin bindings. i was laughing so hard. he was in great spirits considering he had to walk all the way back to the trailhead with a bottomless shoe. let's just say that his socks got a little wet from walking in them on snow.

next time, we'll be sure to bring duct tape and epoxy.

almost four decades after its release, i finally watched 'the graduate'. despite being an older title, this film is still fresh & comical. mike nichols did a superb job directing and i loved the camera angles and zooming. and now i better understand simon & garfunkel's mrs. robinson, which i've been singing for years not knowing it was a written specifically for this film. a great classic to own.

[ posted by beth on 2005.01.09] [ ]

i put together an archive of all the old sunberst splash pages.

the name sunberst came about nearly a decade ago when a friend started calling me bethany sunberst (no my name is not bethany). sunberst is a lively name, a happy name, a "berst" of energy- how i feel when i'm designing. and i liked that i had the rights to the unique spelling because of my own last name. for a short while, i toyed with the idea of the name orange-olive, but later let that domain run out because it was not as personal to me.

i'm happy with my current splash page because it is very "me". it is feminine, and the cherry blossom tree brings a sense of organic nature to it. the tree also represents the growth i have experienced as a designer over the last few years. i'm sure that there will be great new splash pages in the future as my style evolves.

[ posted by beth on 2005.01.07] [ ]

while cleaning out files on some old zip 100's, i found this picture from our last day at school. it was winter, and we are at bennigan's on michigan ave.

that was our usual table, the big half circle one right when you walk into the door. we ate there on our second day of school together (corner bakery was our first day) and had to go back one last time. we did not actually have our graduation ceremony until the following may, even though we were finished with classes in december. it was well worth the wait. we had a beautiful ceremony in the gold room at the congress hotel & my friend joe was valedictorian.

i loved my school. we only had 400 students which made for a very unique, intimate experience. and unlike other colleges, there were no sports, or fraternities, or clubs. we were all one- one unit of creative energy. it was a very fulfilling experience that i am proud to have been a part of.

[ posted by beth on 2005.01.04] [ ]

this year for christmas, we made vintagey baseball pillows:

making pillows is easy, fun & you can do all kinds of things to personalize them for the recipient. in this case, we embroidered old school houston astros & chicago cubs logos. i did a google image search for the art. i had to tweak the cubby art slightly to simplify a few of the lines to get the look that i wanted. the "look" i was going for is a very soft, homemade, vintagey/resale shop look.

this originally was my project, but then chad jumped in to help and ended up working on the astros pillow all on his own. i think he really enjoyed it! i had a lot of fun creating the cubby bear one.

learn how to make this project on my vintage baseball pillow project page.

[ posted by beth on 2005.01.03] [ ]

what a wonderful year 2004 was!

found this great picture of my mom & i from 1980. i had festive red socks, green courds & a red barrette in my hair. love the wood panel walls!

started off the new year great by going on a cloudy 34° bike ride. lots of other happy cyclists were out on the trails, too. it was so refreshing, and riding through the trees... you could hear them making those awesome winter cracking sounds. with a lack of snow here this winter, we can't go snowshoeing or xx-skiing, so cycling is the best alternative to get outside! check out bike winter.

something i learned this weekend- 'ragstock' on belmont has a 25% off special if you bring in a picture of your dog for their wall of doggies. :)

where are all the old sunberst blog entries you ask? i moved all the previous entries to an archive. there is a link to the archived entries in the left column. or check out my blog directory to see a listing of all blogs written.

[ posted by beth on 2005.01.02] [ ]

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