the somber month

So so so sorry for falling off the face of the earth! Between work, birthdays, lessons and volunteering I haven't seen my house during the daylight for a week it seems. And then yesterday was entirely devoted to catching up on sleep. Life is going at a whirlwind pace and shows few signs of slowing down.
Lack of daylight= lack of outfit pictures though I do have one to show soon.
Today it is pouring rain and these photos I took last weekend seem fitting. I do love November, the fog and rain, dark skies, thunderstorms that make the house shake, flannel comforters and layered knits. I feel like seeking solitude, letting the chill permeate my bones and late nights with only silence as my company. I want to find out what I want, for it seems necissary to determine that before I can even begin to contemplate how to get it. I feel lethargic, like time is slipping by and I'm not even attempting to slow it down. I need to find my groove again, find a way to make things matter to me again.
Have you ever been night swimming before? In a lake? When the water and the sky look the same and everything seems so still. And when you dive in off a dock the water is always colder than you expect, no matter how you prepare yourself. Every pore in your body screams and your chest shudders and suddenly you feel alive. But at the same time, you become terrified. Because you are lost, and surrounded by water that is all the same. You've been plunged into a place that has no map to guide you. And then, just as you break the surface, you hit this moment of pure serenity. You still feel cold, but there's this peacfulness, like you are floating, and the water is lifting you. And there is this huge sigh that cleanses your mind and it is almost as if you've had an epiphany about nothing in particular.
That's what I want right now, pure emotions coming up and giving me inspiration, not just in my art but in my life. A surge of alive-ness.

I went through the woods to take pictures of all of the glorious golden trees (pictures to come) but found the gloomy gray lake equally compelling The buildings in the park are incredibly beautiful, and in black and white,seemed to capture the kind of gothic feeling of November.
-indigo ( I promise I'll try to be better at posting! I have lots to share)

Autumn's Carpet

It gets dark so early now! I'm sorry if photo quality deteriorates as winter approaches, but it's really dim when I take photos.

Can you believe before this year I didn't own a pair of kneesocks? Now I'm addicted, knee socks, above the knee, and thigh highs, all of them are such a cozy alternative to my usual tights. Plus I'm not paranoid about them ripping all the time.

I'm kind of obsessesed with this belt, I think I've worn it for the past 4 days.

Skirt-UO, Tanks- Old Navy, Socks-Target, Belt- Thrifted, Scarf- the Gap, Sweater-?, Earrings- Hawaii, Shoes- UO

Somebody asked me if I was overaccesorized. I don't think so. Do socks even count as an accesory? And the belt is nessisary! Kind of... And earrings don't count, I wear them everyday, and am practically incomplete without them. So mabye there were a lot of pins. But it looked so drab without them! My friend got them for me at a craft fair. She knows me too well.

I need to refocus myself in school. It's come to my attention that I just can't float along like I've done in the past. Tangerine and I are going to do "Motivation Week" next week. Pretty much we are not allowed to sleep in class (so guilty of this!), doodle during class (will be so hard), daydream or zone out in general. We will pay rapt attention and actually take notes, and attempt to process the information presented to us. We will do our homework when we get home and at home (instead of during class before it's due, guilty once again). We will rely on each other to keep each other in check. Our reward if we complete this miraculous feat? Going to Rodarte for Target opening day. We are such silly creatures....

In our defense, we are not bad students, we are in the most rigorous acedemic program in our school and our getting decent to good grades. We've just lost the whole "love of learning" shindig and are just kind of drifting along everyday, with no real desire to commit ourselves in our education.

Wish us luck!
I leave you with this adorable video. Julie Andrews and Gene Kelley, what's not to love?

-indigo

ps. I'm ridiculously behind on movies, again, 11 to be exact. Expect a enormous movie post in the near future.

Prisoner

For one of our art projects we were given a title of another (unknown) piece and had to make our own artwork based on it. There was very little guidance and the end results were quite interesting. This was my painting, based on the title prisoner. My concept meaning wise was a bit cliche but I think the way i put it together made up for it. This is cardboard of varing thicknesses layered to creat dimension. I used acrylic paint with glue and pastel for extra texture. The layers are held up with pieces of cardboard, foamboard and pins. I wanted the woman to feel caged in and trapped behind the different layers

I rarely include detail shots of my art but I think it really needs them in order to capture the 3 dimensional aspect.

What do you think?

-indigo

your sweet moonbeam

Bonsoir! So currently in our art class, we are working on still lifes (or is it lives? it looks strange with a v when referring to artwork...or maybe that's just me) of eggs. Indigo's of course looks amazing. Being slightly less painterly than her, mine is still subpar but it's coming along fairly nice for one of my few tries with paint. Needless to say, while we were cleaning our work area, I had some fun with the leftover paint on my palette. With a quick fold down the middle and some mushing, quite a charming little design emerged. Indigo said that it looked part owl, I said a heart, but I've also gotten strawberry and butterfly. What do you think? Here are some photos. :)











Took a trip to Seattle a couple weekends ago and took some quick photos while I was there. The clouds were beautiful, but I couldn't seem to master the art of taking a non-crooked photo. I promise I'm not always this hopeless.







Also, music! New single out by Train, called Hey Soul Sister! Quite a catchy tune and clever little video if you ask me! The paint idea is great and in some scenes you can even tell its actually painted (like on the newspaper guy). Listening to this song makes me so happy, even if it isn't quite what you would usually expect from Train. Neverthless, a catchy song indeed! Enjoy!

(Quality is a little lacking but couldn't find a HQ embeddable video so...)


Hey, Soul Sister - Train

Linking this (non-official) version of the video too. I love this.



Photos from my watercolor project to come!

-Tangerine

everyday sequins

This is going to be a really speedy post becuase I really should be getting to bed.
First of all, a happy belated halloween! A group of my friends and I dressed up as zombie children and stood creepily in the yard to scare trick or treaters. Unfortunetly I don't have pictures, you'll just have to take my word about how cool the fog machine was.

The middle pumpkin is mine. Once again I have no pictures of it properly lit up.
But on the the main purpose of this post!

I got this, as Tangerine puts it, "hideously fabulous" shirt at the thrift store the other day. What can I say? I watched Chicago once too many times and am attracted to all things shiny. I was planning on easing my way into sequins with something a bit classier (and in black) but when I saw this I couldn't resist.

Whipped it out for school today, in my opinion any day is worthy of getting dressed up for.

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After discovering that all of my thin patterened tights were running last week I stocked up on sturdier, and warmer knit tights at Target.

Shirt-thrifted, skirt- DIY, Tights- Target, Earrings- Street fair, Shoes-Sam Eldeman

-indigo

moments in a week

Sheesh! I keep on wanting to blog, but not have the time.
Today's outfit:

Very boy prep school. I just liked these colors together.

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The enormous hairclip strikes again, it's almost too big to stay in my hair.

Jeans- F21, Sweater- The Gap, Bow- hem of a tshirt I trimmed, shirt- Calvin Klein via my mom (it has a fantastically 90's shape), hairclip- F21, Earrings- Target, Shoes- Steve Madden

A few things that made me happy over the past week.
1. Going to the homecoming football game. I don't understand football at all and barely watched the game but our marching band is fantastic and they did a special homecoming show (with glowsticks!) And everybody went and was generally silly, following all the ridiculous cheers and eating candy.

2. At the game, one of my marching band friends gave me his glowstick glasses.

3. Going to this "haunted trail" with my friends. It's pretty much like a haunted house but in the woods, and though it wasn't very scary (I go every year) it was still fun. It was pouring rain and everyone kept slipping in these huge puddles.

4. Really pretty cupcakes at our big family dinner.

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5. The lady at Safeway giving me one of those super hard holiday sugar cookies for free because they only sold them in a box of about 16.

6. Getting my pumpkin!

7. A nice grade on my art project (which you will see in due time)

8. This song:

How Am I to Be by The Watson Twins (maybe hopefully seeing them this weekend avec Tangerine)

9. Going to the drugstore. Most of my impulse buys happen at the drugstore, I spend way too much money there, usually on a combination of magazines, lipstick, and sour candy. I love all the selection, sometimes finding a new shampoo can totally brighten my day. And it's cheaper than going to an actual store. Latest purchase: a bottle of Dove nectarine ginger bodywash that smells absolutely incredible
-indigo
ps. I'm so behind on all your blogs, sorry if I haven't been replying to your comments! Things look like they are calming down (for now)

All would live long, but none would be old.

A page out of my sketchbook. You'd be suprised by how little drawing is in it, it's primarily research, brainstorming and thumbnails.

These are of my grandmother, who is an amazing amazing woman.
She grew up in North Vietnam in the 20's. Her father was a polygamist and her mother was his first of 5 wives. The houshold had over 15 children and as one of the eldest, she took care of all of her siblings and half siblings. As political power shifted the goverment took a more communist viewing and condemmed the wealthy landowners such as her father. She herself was imprisoned
for a period for coming from an upperclass family and in jail, she met my grandfather.

After bieng released they fled to South Vietnam where they completely started over. They raised 5 children together. Then the Vietnam War happened. She had already managed to send her two eldest children to a French University, but knew that the rest of the family would need to flee the country. She bribed an orphanage to take her youngest son because she knew that the US was planning on flying them out. She sold the rest of her worldly possesions for gold leaf which would maintain value, and sewed them into her daughters skirts. She then bribed a fisherman and took her whole family onto a small fishing boat with 50 other people in the dead of night, headed to who know where.

After sailing for a few days they were picked up by a cargo ship and taken to Guam where they spent some time at a refugee camp before immigrating to the United States. They managed to find the youngest son and once again the family started from scratch. None of them could speak English (though they were fluent in French) but they all graduated from highschool and went on to graduate from college.

To this day she remains fiercly independant, living in her own apartment and insisting on taking care of herself. She will always be an incredible inspiration to me as a living reminder of strength and resiliance.

This is in chalk pastels (the colors turned out a bit too vibrant, I didn't have a very good blending shade, but that's why it's in my sketchbook) Overall I am pleased with the results though.
What do you guys think?

-indigo

(the quote in the title is Benjamin Franklin)
ps. 77 followers! You guys are so awesome!

changing colors

So much to blog about so little time! Tangerine and I have hung out the last too weekends and have loads to tell about, but that really deserves it's own post. And I have a portrait done that I've been meaning to share, but that too, deserves it's own post.
So you get an outfit post today. Isn't our japanese maple spectacular?

This dress is suprisingly versatile and has such neat little details. The cooler weather is inspiring me to pull out my richer, jewel tone tights.

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Dress- California, Shirt- Split, Vest and Tights- F21, Earrings-H&M, Shoes- Steve Madden

-indigo

pistachio

It was my dad's birthday last week. Why does birthday cake always taste better than normal cake?

For my june birthday we always have chocolate cake covered in berries, but by October, berry season is long past. The solution? Crushed pistachios of course!

My mother is a truly amazing baker. Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, pistachios with a dark chocolate ganache drizzle. SO GOOD.

I donned some pistachio colored tights as well yesterday. I was really excited when I got these, then my passion faded. However, it relighted again, they really are such a nice light green.

We are back to the fence again... I'll find a new photo location soon hopefully. I'm really liking the whole jumper concept right now. I think I'll be layering all my sleevless dresses over slouchy tees and button downs this fall. It reminds me of hopscotch during 2nd grade recess.

A necklace made from a charm my grandmother gave me years ago. It has a secret compartment about the size of a tic tac.

I really like this color combo:

Shirt- my mom, Dress- Wet Seal (I know, craziness! I'm actually kind of terrified of the clothing quality there), Tights- HUE, Shoes- UO, Necklace- DIY (gifted charm)

Go ahead and drool.
-indigo

the trick to being cheated is to learn how to cheat

Regular readers will know that I watch too many movies to dedicate more than a few sentences to each one. So when a movie gets an entire post to itself, you know it has to be pretty spectacular.

And The Brothers Bloom is definitely deserving of it’s own post.
Charming and beautiful, it combined all of the elements of a great movie effortlessly. Two brothers discover the con business at a young age and quickly grow to become incredibly successful con-men. The elder, Stephen, writes cons “like the Russians write novels,” incredibly complex, with symbolism and character growth.

The main character is his more reserved brother Bloom, who always threatens to quit the business. Bloom himself admits that Stephen always makes him the vulnerable anti-hero. For their final con they Stephen decides that they should rob a reclusive, naïve heiress, Penelope, giving her the adventure of her life at the same time. As Stephen puts it, a perfect con gives everyone what they want. But the con gets messy as Bloom falls for Penelope and tries to figure out how to prevent her from getting hurt.

The plot is terrific, clean and easy to follow, despite the twist and turns. You can never tell what is real and what is part of the con. The cast is superb as well. Mark Ruffalo shows a talent I would have never guessed he possessed, as Stephen, the scheming but loving older brother to Adrien Brody’s Bloom. I don’t think I’d ever seen one of Brody’s films before (aside from King Kong, which I barely remember as I didn’t particularly enjoy it) but had heard so many good things about him. After seeing this, the compliments were well deserved, he gave so much depth to the character and was utterly endearing.

Rachel Weisz dazzled as usual as the childlike Penelope (she is always so gorgeous) and Rinko Kikuchi was perfect as Bang Bang, a silently fierce sidekick with a penchant for explosives.

The story takes you around the world, each place more beautiful than the last. The cinematography was breath taking, each shot coming together to get the perfect mood for each scene. They could have turned it into a generic action flick but instead kept it a surreal fantastical story, full of bright colors and charmingly silly moments.

And the costumes were fantastical as well. The brothers donned the olden style, trim fitting suits I’m so fond of topped off with bowler hats. Bang Bang is decked out in fur and red leather, and Penelope brightens everything up with her colorful shift jackets and dresses. Her whole wardrobe reminds me a lot of Permanent Vacation and Rachel Antononoff.

And the music, oh the music, I haven’t heard a score this good since Amelie or Pushing Daisies. Just listen:

I want to buy the whole soundtrack

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And I will say, I definitely cried at the end. Easily one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. Rian Johnson, I salute you.
-indigo
(almost all screenshots via aceshowbiz.com)