Mrs. Julz Nally

Hello! I'm happy to be back to my blog, now as Mrs. Julz Nally! I haven't really started getting everything changed over to my new name - it's quite a process to start changing your name after you been known as that person for 31 years! For now, I wanted to share a few of the details from our lovely wedding - the happiest day of my life so far! The first picture below is the result of our first design collaboration together. We love the art of screen printing. So, how better to announce our wedding than with a genuine concert poster! They are one of our favorite design vehicles ever and a quick way to get a message across. We spent a good chunk of time putting together this concept and design and then sent if off to our good friends over at Cricket Press to have them printed. We also designed a piece that guests could bring along on the trip. The RSVP was a postcard that we designed and printed onto cardboard. We made weekend fun bags! Our friends & family received this wonderful coffee by Coffee City USA which each made a pot of brian's daily coffee and my daily coffee. Brian & I got hitched in the Mt. Hood National Forest! This beautiful photo was taken by our friend & photographer, Kim. Our friend Paul took this photo of the chandelier above our alter. I love cupcakes! Thank you Anne!

Please excuse the absence

I'm getting married in 4 weeks!

2 weeks (+ still counting!) in the Sunshine State

Greetings! As most of you know, I've been traveling around Florida for the past 2 weeks and I'll be here for another 7 days. I wanted to share a few pictures and experiences from my trip so far. I left Austin, Tx on May 15 and headed to Destin, Florida with 8 other girls for a 4 day bachelorette party. This sign greeted us as we entered the state. The weekend in Destin was perfect. We had a fun group of girls and we definitely brought the party to rosemary beach! A few of my favorite moments (that i can share) were the golf cart rides, every moment on the beach, jello shots, the mustaches we found hidden with the tupperware in the house (picture below of Cara, the bachelorette and myself), and "Snack Jesus" we spotted airbrushed on a building. My mom picked me up from there on Monday, the 19th, and we drove over to Panama City for a night. The next morning, we drove across the upper handle of the state and around the curve all the way down to St. Petersburg for the night. There wasn't much to mention about that part of Florida, but we did see a wild boar run across the road which was unexpected. We made one stop along the way in Tarpon Springs, a small Greek fishing village with historic sponge-diving boats and authentic restaurants. We thought about buying a sea sponge, until we watched the video and learned that the sponges are actually skeletons of a living creature. I'm really not sure what I thought they were before, I guess I have never thought about it. Needless to say, after the video, we didn't purchase a sponge but we did leave the city with a piece of bahklava and the most delectable cannoli I've ever tasted! We had time for some beach time the next day. I thought this cute little birdie was going to join me on my blanket! I spotted this sign in Sarasota where we stopped for a bite to eat. My last name is Briggs so we had to go back so I could take a picture. I loved that it was paired with Fruitville Rd. Thursday morning, May 22, we awoke at 5:30am to drive to Sanibel + Captiva Islands 30 mins from our hotel. Sanibel island is the 3rd best place in the world for finding shells, behind Australia and the Phillipines, and we wanted to make sure we were on the beach when the sun was rising! I'll take a picture of all of my finds to show you later, but here is just a little of what we had to search through. We spent 3 hours searching and then had to drive on. My mom and I being the dorks we are took this picture with a couple of our shells. Thursday night we drove over to West Palm Beach where my little brother and his wife live. They are expecting a baby girl in August, so we helped throw them a baby shower on Saturday. Below is a picture of the cutest (and tastiest) baby shower cake I've ever seen and my brother and his wife, Melissa. Memorial day Monday, my mom, step dad and me made our way down to the Keys. We've been staying in Islamorada for the past 3 nights. The water is so nice to look out into, this was a view walking out onto the fishing pier at our hotel. I had to include a palm tree. It's been windy here if you can't tell. It has been blowing at us from the northeast at almost 20 mph! I've enjoyed having the constant breeze while laying out in the hot sun. Yesterday we went to feed the tarpon. They were all next to a dock, waiting to be fed and were enormous fish each weighing about 30-50 lbs. There were some feisty pelicans hanging out on the dock too. One almost ran off with my sunglasses I had down by my side. I'll post another update soon. We'll be leaving here tomorrow and mom and I plan to start heading up the eastern coast of Florida on friday. We're planning on being in Titusville saturday night to be directly across the water for the shuttle launch which would certainly be a wonderous site to see.

Good Ol' Texas

Texas o Texas! It's always nice to come back for a visit. I'm on day 7 of a month long vacation away from home and away from brian. It's all been a beautiful time so far. I was in dallas celebrating mother's day, my aunt's birthday and catching up friends that we've missed seeing as often now since we moved away. I have been hanging out in Austin for the past few days. Austin is where I spent most of my days in college. South Austin folks in particular live by the motto "Keep Austin Weird" and yesterday was no exception for one man that I saw strolling down the sidewalk in nothing but a little white thong! Portland lives by the same motto, but I've yet to see a man walking down the street like that! I love it! I didn't get a picture of him, I'm sorry, but here's a lovely picture of lots of boots that I saw at New Bohemia while shopping on South Congress. Tonight at 3am, I'll be departing Austin with 8 other girls for a road trip down to Destin, Florida for my friend Cara's bachelorette party! Super excited! After the bachelorette party, my mom will be picking me up in Florida and we'll be doing some traveling in Florida for awhile ;) I am so ready for the beach, sun, sand, and sunsets!

I love color!

Brian and I went camping on the Oregon Coast this weekend. Although the beach was only a few minutes walk from our campsite, it was quite an interesting journey to get there. We walked over a small wooden bridge, thru a tunnel which was under a bridge under construction and then under the old highway bridge still in use and finally over piles of rocks to the tranquility of the ocean waves. Brian took the photo of me above as we exited the tunnel. A few of my favorite rocks we gathered from the evening and arranged for a photoshoot at sunset. ;) New images just added last week! I must have had the beach and a sunny location on the mind. Perhaps because I'll be vacationing in florida may 9 - june 10. I'll still be selling thru my etsy shop and shipping once or twice a week, but custom orders will be on hold starting May 2.

Nautical Chic

I'm happy to see anchors + stripes make another come back. And I was even happier yesterday to see one of my adjustable nautical bracelets in the ETSY Storque Trend Spotlight : Nautical Chic! You can find great articles to read daily in Etsy's Storque!

Screenprinted creatures

Here they are! My first limited edition series of screenprints using my illustrations. I will only be creating 150 of each. Every print is hand-printed onto a recycled, acid-free paper and painted with watercolors to get the solid color behind each creature. The final print size is 4 x 5.5 on an 8.5 x 11 size paper. I'll be adding them to my etsy shop next week.

Transformation

I have always been drawn to butterflies. Lately, they've been present in my life in several forms. It wasn't until today that I actually did a little research on their symbolism. I liked what this site in particular had to say. I found that butterflies symbolize transformation and metamorphosis. They represent a need for change and greater freedom and at the same time represent courage. Butterflies are also a symbol of joy and are a reminder that life is a dance and not take things so seriously. They have long maintained their standing as a symbol of the soul and rebirth.

I feel that I am on the verge of exciting transformations in my life, both for myself personally and with my love, Brian. I've not shared this in my writings here on my little blog, but i suppose now is an appropriate time to share the happy news. ;) I'm engaged! Brian designed this amazing wedding ring for me too! one of my favorite details is our initials that he drew to create a butterfly and had engraved on the inside of the ring. My mom loves butterflies too! I created this painting last week to give her after surgery that she actually had yesterday. She's recovering really well and we'll already be going home tonight. I'll be here in the great state of texas til monday visiting my wonderful family and getting my fix of tex mex and sunshine! I stayed at the hospital last night and was happy to discover that we had internet access in the room! I was up late reading some of my favorite blogs and came across an interesting post at Creative Thursday about Oprah's new book club. I've heard a lot of talk lately about the book, A New Earth : Awakening to your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle, but I hadn't yet taken the time to look more into it. Last night seemed like the perfect time. I watched Oprah + Eckhart's discussion about Chapter 6 online and it got me really excited about reading more of Eckhardt's teachings. I feel that I've really been searching for something like this in the past few months (or maybe it's just been adjusting to the winters in portland?) but no time is beter than the present for a litle soul searching!

2 more of 4 sea creatures

A jellyfish + octopus! These were created in the same way the previous post explained. I've got more surprises to share using the same sea creature illustrations that I'll post those in the next day or two.

2 of 4 : Sea Creatures

I've been busy on a few new projects over the last month. I wanted to share 2 in the series of 4 sea creatures that I just finished painting. I feel like this was the first time that I've created a painted 'series'. They wouldn't look even half as good without brian helping me out with the backgrounds ;) I illustrated the different coral varieties and the seahorse + fish with a very fine tip pen. Then to create the paintings Brian added layers + textures and the most beautiful colors to my black and white drawings. And last, I painted my illustrations onto the wood surface to end up with these beauties! I have lots of ideas for these 4 creatures. Next step, preparing the paintings to make into jewelry. I'll post the other 2 paintings tomorrow!

Rediscovery

My first experiences with formal art lessons began with watercolors. When I was in 5th grade, I took weekly private lessons from an artist in her home. One memory that I have was painting a large panda based on a national geographic photo. I recall making a grid on the photo in the magazine and then making a grid of 1" squares on my watercolor paper. Next, I painted that panda square by square. I'm sure that it took weeks to finish, but i don't remember that part. So last month I decided it would be fun to give the watercolors another try. I've been thinking about them for quite awhile, but you know how that goes. I illustrated these 2 owls, drew them out in ink and then tried out my paints. I think the hardest thing for me was adding water. And now that I'm thinking about it, I do recall having that same problem in my lessons. I would often daintily dip my brush into the water and be told not to be 'scared' of it. I've got a lot more experimenting to do, but here's my first painting after the rediscovery. It's for sale in my etsy shop, It can be yours if you'd like it.

Work in Progress

I've been working on new artwork and wanted to share. They are taking longer than expected, but I'm excited with the outcome so far. Brian took my black + white drawings and created these beautiful paintings for me! I love him ;) Next step will be painting my creatures. 1 down, 3 to go! I can't wait for you to see the finished pieces...next week.

Easter Fun

Easter was full of wonderful surprises. Our friend's family was kind enough to invite us into their home for the day. One of my favorite surprises were all of the cute little canaries. Last time we visited there were 4 birds, now there are 10 big birds, 2 babies, and 5 eggs. I learned that the male canaries are the ones that make all of the beautiful chirping. They have favorite songs they like to sing to as well. There were also all of these adorable cookies! I've never eaten such cute and yummy cookies. I enjoyed the frosting tail with coconut most of all. Their yard is full of all sorts of plants and flowers that I had never seen. I love this purple. Thanks for all the Easter fun!

Renegade Handmade

I sent out 30 lovely pairs of earrings yesterday to a new stockist Renegade Handmade in Chicago. If you're in the area you can stop by 1924 W. Division St. Open daily 11 AM - 7PM. Also, applications are being accepted for Renegade's First Annual San Francisco Craft Fair! The event will be held Saturday and Sunday July 12 + 13 from 11am - 7pm at the Fort Mason Festival Pavilion!

A hike at the gorge

This morning a friend and I went for a nice hike in the Columbia River Gorge. Thought I'd share the beauty!

I joined Flickr

It's so hard to keep up with all of these sites that are now available for marketing yourself and your business. I love it! I have an account with myspace, etsy, indie public, lov.li and most recently Flickr. I went ahead and got a pro account so I would be able to upload photos into more than 3 sets. So far I have 11 sets. It's so great being able to see all of my photos in one place. Last night I decided to add my design portfolio in with all of my handmade julz photos. This set represents my work as a designer in dallas, tx. from 2000~07.



This was the first poster that I created, while at my first job as a designer. I had no idea how to even begin thinking about how to design a poster and I'm really not even sure I had an illustration style at the time. I just know that I've always been drawn to lots of color and texture. To illustrate my idea I took black and white construction paper and literally cut circles that were about 1.5" out of the black paper and then cut out the shapes of all of the different food from the white paper. I then taped the 'food' onto the 'plate' and proceeded to the copy machine with my 16 circles. Next I shrunk and enlarged the circles to get the rough look that you see. The final step was coloring everything on the computer. After all of that, and the client didn't pick this concept, but it's still one of my favorites.



I created this logo for the Dallas Museum of Art's annual fundraiser while at my second job in Dallas. I was pleased with this logo that the client chose as I feel it sophisticated, yet playful and a party that anyone would have liked to attend. To illustrate this I drew everything on the computer in Illustrator.



My last job in Dallas was an art director for women's apparel graphics. I remember being so excited at the thought of my artwork being translated into artwork for apparel. This was the very first shirt that I designed, of course using every technique that I knew at the time, embroidery, applique, and screenprint.

Octavine Illustation Treasury

I am so excited about being included in my first treasury on etsy I just had to share! The treasury title is : S E A F O A M. See it here for yourself. Many thank yous to Cara of Octavine Illustration for the inclusion. She illustrates the most beautiful art deco inspired art that I have seen out there. This is my current favorite. I love reading her daily blog posts on the Octavine Illustration blog where she shares her artwork or latest custom work and a story to go along with it. Her words are so poetic they bring a smile to my face. You can also visit the Octavine Illustration Etsy Shop. Prints of her beautiful illustrations like the one shown below are available for $25.