amanda leilani

Creating, painting, and making white Sangria with Marissa!  :)

a weekend of film.  this needs to happen more often.  seriously.  just feed me film.  

A photo-documentation of my day:  tilapia tacos, painting, and re-potting my cactus garden!  Only one more week until I start at PHEAA, so I feel a need, now more than ever, to let my face get some sun, and let my brushes do some painting.  Next on the agenda?  Baked oatmeal with strawberries and bananas.  Oh yeah.  You heard correctly.  Now let the drooling commence.

A little taste of what Spring has to come, since I (once again) have my hands on Final Cut Studio! :)  Ahhh….It makes me happy in pants to be back cutting and mixing video with legit software.  I have a pile of inspiration for the upcoming months, but I don’t think I’ll be able to wait for warmer days, I NEED spring NOW!

Today is either a great day for the stomach flu, or finding out you’re allergic to something. What this means for me? couch, pepto, icewater, sunny reruns, selling stuff on ebay with maddie, and editing old pictures from the summer like this one! blargh :/  Cheers to a healthy day tomorrow!

The only way that waking up at 4:00 in the morning is justifiable is if you’re watching the sunrise and you have access to an espresso machine.  But when a day with virtually no sleep results in pictures like these, I can finally rest my little insomniac head down on my pillow at the end of the day and not even care.  So much for regular sleep patterns, but what else is new?  

Literally, just a little “taste” of what I’ve been diving into lately.  Been a couple weeks since I’ve posted anything new, so I thought I’d dish some of this out.  I think I’m steadily progressing in the land of Foodography.  It’s always beneficial when you have someone who knows what the hell they’re doing in a kitchen  :)  But it would be nice to add a new strobe or softbox into my collection of camera thingamajigs….Sadly over the summer one of my strobe’s said it’s final goodbyes via the bottom of a cardboard box when it got smooshed underneath junk.  But I think I’m managing just fine with the simple set up I’ve got goin’.  At least I can say it tastes even better than it looks.  

Never forget that to be an artist is, above everything else, to be a truth-teller, one of the few left in a culture seized in a death-grip by media-induced fictions and journalistic clichés. You speak secrets. You exist to share your most private feelings and personal observations with others. They are where truth lies. Don’t be afraid of being too personal, too private. Your most secret fears, your private doubts and uncertainties are everyone’s.

The sun is barely in the sky this morning, yet life feels astoundingly productive today.  Received an email this morning that between all of the artists who donated commissions from the last gallery walk, we raised somewhere close to $1000 towards World Bicycle Relief!  Thats enough for about 300 bikes!

Just saying hello  :) 

Despite the ho-hum weather, which usually tends to fog up my mood, life is getting exponentially better, rain or shine.  New ideas for projects are pouring out of my noggin every second.  A mind swirling with colors, images, words, thoughts, voices, sounds…I’ve been making notes of it all in attempt to keep some sort of cohesive order.  It’s a good kind of overwhemling stress.  The best kind. 

Even while in the midst of memorizing obnoxious GRE vocabulary words that have no actual relevance to what I’m pursuing in life, I’m still experiencing copious amounts of awesomeness.  Just added a new lens to my growing collection of camera equipment:  a 10-20mm super wide angle.  I’m absolutely THRILLED to work with this lens.  I have so many plans that I’m just itching to put into action.  Just one more week!

I guess what I’m getting at is, it doesn’t matter where you are, just put a good thought in your mind and smile…hence the picture  :)

Had an amazing outcome from the shoot with the Rosamilia’s this week.  Their smiles were absolutely electric that day, and completely contagious  :)  Trying to fill up my plate with the outdoors these past few weeks; I can start to feel myself slipping into a Fall state of mind, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to let go of summer just yet.  Why can’t life be like “On Demand” so I can just freeze frame it when I want to?

old school photo booth.

Nothing like a good ole’ fashioned photo booth to bring out the best in a person.  Found a TON of old random snippets just like this, and I plan on posting more of the hilarity very soon.  Obnoxious expressions courtesy of us  :)  Currently on a mission to find more old school black and white photo booths like this.  If you know of any super totally rad ones like this, let me know!  

I’ve been playing around with film burns and light leak textures all day.  Lets face the facts:  film is too pricy for my starving artist budget.  A girls gotta eat afterall!  So this is like the next best thing, which I’m perfectly fine with.  

Been listening to Andrew Bird all day.  I am slowly turning into a world class whistler…..Thank you, Andrew Bird  :) 

Editing like crazy lately.  This is my excuse for being MIA the past week…I have the glazed over squared-eyes and cluttered desktop to prove it!  *Attempting* to clean out all the junk in my computer to make room for new junk, and found these little slices of my summer in the cracks.  This sort of lull period, right before summer comes to an end, where evenings appear just a little more hazy and the sounds from nature have this hypnotic-like ring to them…..This is when I always get into an Elvis Perkins state of mind.

Every. Time.  It’s like his music was perfectly crafted for this time of the year.  If you have no idea what the hell I’m rambling about, listen to Elvis Perkins in Dearland outside during dusk on your ipod, and you’ll know what I mean.

I’m thinking that it’s a pita chip and hummus kind of day  :)  Come down by the river and visit me later!   Oh yes, one more thing….Katie turns 20 today and this is what I helped Madison do last night at 1:00 in the AM.  Post-it noting people’s cars….The things I do for people.  Life is just too hard sometimes  ;-)

Still editing the rest of the batch from yesterday.  We began at golden hour out in a field of trees and by a small bridge.  Then we meandered our way into the city for that urban feel.  Topped it all off with a little bit of fire hooping at the end of the night, because a day isn’t complete until you’ve played with fire.

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