shadows on the wall

This week has been a hot one in southern California (finally? haha).

the vyne

wow...it's been a while! I've been busy, what with finals, packing up my room/putting things in storage for the while, vacation at home in England, and then traveling back to California and getting ready for work (starting on Monday).

So just a quick post for now.  Picture of the day - from the walled garden at The Vyne, a 500-year-old house in Hampshire.

my shadow/london near wigmore st

imelda

a few more pictures, just because I'm obsessed like that.

Actually - it turns out that I actually write better when I use a typewriter.  It makes every work so much more deliberate and important.  It makes me think so much more carefully before you put something down.  And then if I do change my mind about wording, I'll always see the old wording...and think about it more when I look back on it.

(ick - i really need to finish cleaning the keys!)

tourist pictures - la sagrada familia; exterior

tourist pictures - la sagrada familia; interior

i do realize this is completely random...but the weather here is starting to get nice, it makes me happy...and this is one of those places that makes me...well, happy is not exactly the word, but a positive thing, for sure.

 (the people - some context)

violin part 2

more experimentation with camera settings...

me and my violin

 somehow became fascinated by my shiny fingernails during symphony practice.  (well, what else am i supposed to do?).  and then i decided to mess around with the color settings on my camera...

'tis the season of chinese new year

...and this is what it looked like outside my window less than 2 days ago! (it still looks like that now....except the streets have been plowed).  not very festive, is it?  oh well, i'm really enjoying my classes so far, so there's something good!

feeling uninspired.

last day of classes today.

william henry fox talbot

inventor of the calotype (patented 1841) - this involved a new concept of negative, from which multiple positive images could be made (unlike the daguerreotype, which was a one-off deal).

Fox Talbot was born/lived/died at Lacock Abbey (now a National Trust property).  A lovely place (including Lacock Village) - I hope I can go back and spend more time there soon!

latticed window at Lacock Abbey, 1835

1844

Lacock Abbey - the cloisters - now (er, a year and a half ago...).  The parts that were in Harry Potter.

Speaking of Harry Potter...

it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

First of all, happy Veterans/Remembrance Day and may I say that this is an excellent song!



Second - no morning MFA trip for me :(  Turns out, the Americans Abroad exhibition that I was so excited to see is not open yet.  Earlier the website had said it was opening on 11 Nov; now it says it's opening on the 20th.  So that's when I will be going!  Still annoyed about that bit....but at least when I go, I will be seeing the NEW MFA, in its entirety!  Their Art of the Americas Wing opens to members tomorrow, but not to the public until...also, 20 Nov. (Oh my goodness, it's going to be absolutely MANIC there!!!).  Until then, I shall be in anticipation!  53 new galleries, and over 5,000 works of art displayed.

So, instead of a museum trip, I had a little shopping outing this morning.  Grocery shopping, that is.  A 35 minute walk to Chinatown, where they have the freshest and cheapest produce that I know.  Oh, and I was going to take the T on the way back, but it was such a lovely day, I needed the exercise, and....well, you see so much more walking than you do taking trains underground.

Speaking of seeing things - not one, not two, but FOUR Vespas on the way back (totally made my morning) - two yellow ones (both within a block of each other), a red one, and a very luxe cream one.  I couldn't resist stopping to take a picture (groceries and all) of the first yellow one.....a bad picture, but a picture all the same.

oh, and how the autumn-y morning walk looked down Boyleston St -

Well, the brownies in the oven are calling me - off to get my chocolate fix of the day!

eggshell fascination...

Well, I've rediscovered my liking for hard boiled eggs (something definitely related to the minimal amount of clean-up that making hard boiled eggs entails).

I also developed a sort of fascination for eggshells along the way.  Not only because they have a lovely shape (which they do), but also because when you break them, the jagged edges are so awesome!  (Plus, I had fun peeling off the eggshell membrane stuff...which, surprisingly, dries kind of leathery like).  Oh, and I love all the different tonal values in a 'white' eggshell.

in honor of halloween :)

No dressing up this year, but at least we carved a pumpkin...so that's one quarter of my Halloween completed.  There was a pumpkin carving contest at my dorm, and we just went down to eat pie and harvest pumpkin seeds from a pumpkin...but once we finished carving our pumpkin, what the heck, we may as well enter it into the contest.  And we won.  For most artistic.  HA! (i.e. most "special" because we didn't use a stencil...).

A basic design, consisting of two eyes and a raised eyebrow.  And very large ears.  The ironic pumpkin, I like to say.  But the pumpkin isn't really that ironic.  I just like that word.  Point is, let me present Hugo Rupertson the Elder.

 innards + the planning stages

 A bright future of yummy pumpkin seeds!

 part II complete.

part III, the first ear.

 And another...

Hello Hugo, welcome to this world!!

shadows on the wall

passing bells and sculpted angels

Pictures from my outing a few weeks ago - Nichols House Museum.

It was quite cheery in that little courtyard in the sun, but I always find those little cupid-like statues (yes, I realize that they are not all actually statues of Cupid, but it's the same sort of kitschy Victorian sort of idea, isn't it?) rather strange/intriguing/sometimes beautiful, sometimes creepy.

I'm having a lot of fun experimenting with the coloring effects on iPhoto.

baby's head.

three-day weekend...and i'm feeling antsy!  it's like spring fever...but it's autumn.  celtic thunder yesterday, apple pie baking today, and i want to go somewhere tomorrow (so not going to happen...darn essays and studying).

picture from an outing maybe a month ago...

there's two matching, giant heads outside one of the entrances to the mfa.  i only took a picture of one...

birdmobile @ 12.47 am

yesterday my still-incomplete bird-mobile caught my attention when the birds started moving and twirling around.

apparently they had turned on the heat in the dorm, and the vent was blowing air at it.

heat, in october, when it's still warm outside.  really?

sometimes nighttime camera fail is good?

Last night we went on a boat cruise (the sailboat kind) of the Boston Harbor - at sunset!  The views were lovely...and as I am still familiarizing myself with all the buttons on my camera, I did not find the nighttime landscape mode until about five minutes before we were going to dock.  The resulting squiggle light lines were kind of interesting, though.

Rather dizzying too, I think.

(Norwegian Cruise Lines - I didn't know cruise ships docked out of Boston harbor...)

(Boston skyline)