This week I started my new job as a graphic designer for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. I absolutely love it and I thought I’d share a picture of my desk. I’ve been using CS5 all week which is such a treat and now I’m thinking of ways to save and buy it for myself! I plan to keep blogging regularly but I am going to discontinue the “Meet” series for a bit while I can contact a new set of artists and maybe make a few changes. I’d love your feedback so let me know if there’s something you’d like me to blog about!

Just popping in to let you know that I’m on a 5 day break from blogging. I had a busy weekend. I am now 23 years old and today I started my new job. While I adjust to the changes, enjoy your week and we’ll chat on Friday.

Happy Weekend. From me and my pal Desh. I’m taking a break this weekend to enjoy family, friends, blessings and life. My birthday is Sunday and I start my new job on Monday! Have a good one.

Well, all of my orders are sent out and I feel accomplished in the fact that I had my first experience in paper goods. I realize now that I will always love print design more than anything designed for web and I’m okay with that. There’s something really great about holding what you created in your own hands. All-in-all it was fun and the cards that I still have in stock are already running low so I’m having a difficult time figuring out how many more to get printed. Feel free to leave your advice or if you’re still interested in buying a set for Mother’s Day, it’s possible that I can have then on her doorstep by Saturday!

*Pardon my horrid photography, all I have is my iPhone!

This week’s couple is very dear to me. Megan and Joshua were married last August in the Indianapolis area and I was blessed to be Megan’s matron of honor. I met Megan when I was fourteen and her and her husband are two of the greatest people I know. You may have seen either of them featured here or here on my blog. Their wedding was a beautiful red, black and white affair so enjoy some of their thoughts and photographs!

1. Now that it has been over 6 months since your wedding day, what do you remember most about the day? What I remember the most is realizing that we had everyone that we loved and cared about in one room, supporting us — and it was overwhelming. It’s such a unique situation, and it will never happen again. Realizing that was a humbling experience, and we felt so incredibly blessed.

2. What was the vision for your wedding day before you started planning? My favorite color is actually blue, but I decided that I wanted something classic and timeless — even though a rose can be cliche, I wanted a red wedding with red roses. I love fresh flowers, so I was hoping to have a lot of bouquets and arrangements everywhere. I wanted to really create an atmosphere and a whole environment that revolved around this theme of classic, romantic red.

3. How did that vision change by the time you were finished with the planning? Well, fresh flowers are expensive, and turns out roses are the most expensive! Hah. I ended up using many different types of silk flowers, and many different shades of red. I had to give up a lot of the “atmosphere” and “environment” ideas, but I found that it is the people that create these things — I didn’t need a bunch of decorations, my guests made the environment wonderful and warm.

4. What difficulties did you face while planning a wedding that was out of town? Oye. Planning out of town requires a lot of internet searching, and a lot of networking. Certain resources aren’t online, so I had to do some trips over to Indianapolis to research. However, when people find out I was planning a wedding, they were always excited and willing to help.

5. What was your least favorite part of wedding planning? Budgeting! Yuck. But you gotta, and in the end it is worth it.

6. What was your favorite part of wedding planning? I have a lot of favorite parts, but I’ll list just three: One, my bridesmaids. I could not have asked for a better group of girls to stand with me — I felt so loved and supported. They kept me smiling and relaxed.

Three, my music man, Jim Cerone. He was our entertainer at the reception, and we were over-the-top pleased with him. We’ve gotten countless compliments about him. Jim was a true host, classy and fun.

7. If you could go back in time – what would “married Megan” tell “engaged Megan” before the wedding planning started? I am a designer and I, by nature, care about all the details — but I think sometimes the bigger picture can be forgotten inside all those tiny details. All I mean is that I would reassure myself that a few of those small things can be forfeited, in order to better enjoy the moment. Married Megan would say, “Engaged Megan, don’t sweat the small stuff: less is more. At the end of the night, all that matters is that you are surrounded by family and loved ones — the most important of those being your husband.”

8. How did Josh (the groom) fit into the wedding planning process? Joshua and I actually designed our wedding invitations together!

ALL PHOTOGRAPHY BY JANIE ALANNA.

This week I’d like to introduce Elizabeth Schuppe. Elizabeth is fine artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. I have always been a huge fan of her paintings and so when she agreed to participate in this series, I was floored. Here is an excerpt from her site :

“Color, line, shape, texture, and light are the media that express the emotion in my work. Rather than creating a recognizable object, I use the elements of painting itself to allow the story to unfold. There is no plan in my painting, yet there is process. I let a color, a line, a shadow dictate what comes next.

The purpose is to create expression and emotion strictly out of shape and color – completely abstract. My best works are the ones that just happen, when I allow myself to be surprised.”

1. How long have you been painting? I have been painting since I was a kid but I really didn’t learn how to paint seriously until I was in college. I’ve been professionally painting for about 5 years.

2. Have you always painted abstractly or have you ever painted realistically? I only painted realistically when I was in school. As soon as I was allowed to paint freely – I went abstract. Even my realistic pieces were on the abstract side – it as just in my nature.

3. You mention on your site that there is not a plan in your paintings but can you expand on what your process includes? I always start with a color that I’m into at the moment. Once I put down a color and shape, that tells me what to do next. I just keep building from there – more colors and more shapes, always responding to the mark I made before.

4. A lot of the work on your website was created on a larger surface. Do you ever work on smaller canvases or paper? I haven’t worked on paper, or small, in a long, long time. Up until now. I had to give up my studio and have been forced to work at home so I started to work on small blocks of wood. But mostly my style of painting works better larger.

5. How do you spend your time painting? How long can the process take from start to finish? It’s really hard to say how long the process can take. It depends on so many (primarily) internal factors. Sometimes I can finish a piece in a week, other times it will take a month or two. I usually get to the studio in the morning. I work much better then. I’ll often work for four or five hours without much of a break except for a coffee or lunch. Once I’m into something I don’t want to stop. Things outside are so distracting and I always listen to music. Always. It keeps me company in an otherwise lonely profession.

6. How is the process different when creating a mixed media piece (compared to a painting)? I tend to be more careful when doing a mixed media piece. Maybe it’s because of the reactions that different materials have to each other, or maybe it’s because I feel less free with different materials. Other than that the process is quite the same.

7. How influential was your time in school compared to your time after school? I learned so much in school about how to paint the “right” way. How to mix colors, to see proportions but it wasn’t until I got out of school that I found my own voice. It’s a hard question to answer but I think I’d have to say my time out of school shaped more of who I am as a painter.

8. Do you sell the work that has already been created or do you take custom commissions? I only sell work that I’ve already created. I’ve done commissions in the past and they never have turned out how I wanted them to. I hate to make paintings that I’m not proud of at some point. It’s really hard when you don’t have control over the decisions.

9. If you could give one piece of advice to a fine art student, what would it be? Sometimes you need to take what professors say with a grain of salt. I once had a painting teacher that told me “never use white.” I didn’t listen and that was the right choice.

^Photo of a windmill farm that I passed on a recent trip to Chicago. Something about windmills always stops me in my tracks.

- I’ve recently found a lot of blogs posting AMAZING invitations lately. It motivates me to always be thinking of new ways to interpret an invitation. Check out these, and these, and these, and these, ohhh and lastly these.

- I like the monochromatic cover along with the use of stamps in this little book.

- Letterheads are SO difficult to design (solely my opinion) and I absolutely love this one.

- Another cute book.

- Seth Godin on “When a Stranger Reads Your Blog.”

- I love this ring so much I “starred” it twice in Google Reader without realizing it. Growing up, I always wanted turquoise in my wedding band but I never thought it could be done well.

- My husband and I painted a wall in our old apartment with chalkboard paint but I think the first photo is a much better alternative.

- Loving the work of AFOM and Charming Baker.

It’s like a got an email from my boyfriend and he thinks we should break up before the summer starts. And that he’s giving me back some of the CDs that I bought him. It hurts, you know?