Cabin Trip

I recently had a much-needed weekend getaway at my parents' cabin. It had been nearly all summer since I had been there, and I was so surprised to see the progress my parents' had made on their garden. This was the most recent fruit of their labors with the help of their new tractor (read: my dad's pride and joy.) I must also mention this particular tractor, among other admirable qualities, was also selected for its ability to comfortably hold their dog Rasta on the floorboards.

They had spent weeks terracing the land, putting up deer-proof fencing, and building garden beds. Their fall garden is an all-organic mixture of seed-grown greens, including a variety of lettuce, green onions, and chard. Fertilized with hand-turned compost and my dad's special brew of compost tea, the garden was really taking off when I visited. My garden at home, on the other hand, is suffering a bit due to a growing insect problem, so I was very envious of their success.

The trip was complete with a soak in their handmade wood-burning hot tub and a trip to the creek. I was fortunate enough to catch a few pictures of the hot tub in the low morning light. The light perfectly illuminated the rising steam coming off the top of the water.

The wood-burning hot tub:

My parent's very animated dog, Rasta.

Logo Design for Wild Trout Lodge

Wild Trout Lodge is the name of my parent's dream resort in Coffee Creek, which I felt needed a professional logo. I wanted to make the logo look vintage through typeface and the design of the trout. I had played around with a few versions of the trout which had the colored stripes down the side, but I ended up liking this simple blue one instead. I only used 2 colors to simplify the logo's design, while bringing emphasis to the darker elements like the name and location of the Wild Trout Lodge. I hopefully want to make t-shirts soon for the whole family, so I made a mock-up of that as well.

Logo Design for Blue Truck Farms

Here is my most recent logo design for Blue Truck Farms. It is an aspiring local sustainable micro-agriculture effort that is seeking to sell produce and canned goods at farmers markets. Blue Truck Farms is also considering becoming a CSA (community supported agriculture) which functions via subscriptions made by community members that pays for a weekly box of produce. The owners have a blue 1959 Chevy truck that they wanted incorporated into the design, so I made the truck from scratch and used the same color in the overhead text.

Earrings earrings earrings...

I've been really busy lately making earrings. It's crazy to see how my designs have improved so much! I bought most of my the stones and ornate beads from local places, which is more expensive than ordering online but at least you know what you are getting. I've had too many wholesale purchases that I didn't measure out the dimensions beforehand, only to find out the beads might as well be microscopic. Oh the foolery of cameras. Anyways, here are the latest batch, with a few in the previous post as well.

Earrings earrings earrings

Rasta the dog

We went to spend Christmas at the cabin, and although it didn't snow on Christmas day, it snowed on the 26th, which is alright with me. These are pictures of my parent's dog Rasta who loves to catch snow. The pictures were taken at a 1/750" or 1/1000" exposure.

Water Cycle Poster

Here is something I am working on for the Geography Dept. at Chico State. It's for their display case in the foyer of Butte Hall. They wanted the theme to be water. I still have to do one more poster, and I am waiting for feedback on this one... but I like it so far.

Mark Herrera for City Council campaign poster

I entered a poster design contest for Mark Herrera's campaign for City Council. It is a poster contest being judged completely on Facebook. The poster with the most "likes" wins the contest, and also the designer gets an award. The poster contest meant to reach young voters and the CSU Chico student population. My design was meant to imitate the whole hipster/vintage trend. It originally after a few edits looked somewhat like a carnival poster, which I scaled down and changed the colors.

Here is what I submitted:

Here is the Facebook Poster Contest Link to my design.
Here is his campaign website.

Earrings

I've been making more earrings lately. There are about 4 from this summer and the rest are all ones I made today.