The Magical Place

Welcome to the place where reality takes its leave, and soft light and music fill the atmosphere, the one place where I always feel like I belong. Affectionately dubbed "the Magical Place, " this small slice of campus seems mundane by day. Once darkness falls though, the stars dance across the velvety black sky and a sense of calmness and serenity prevails. Natural beauty reigns supreme here, and all of life's little problems cease to exist. With the whole of my heart, I love the Magical Place. It truly is aptly named.

Ye Olde Wall of Athens Music Posters

Well, ok. Technically, this isn't my art... However, I decided to do another joint picture post to show off the beginnings of my wall of Athens music posters. I feel like the pirate flag and the butterfly in the corner add a bit of personality to the white expanse, but the true stars are the posters themselves. I obtained each of them at a memorable concert where one of my top five favorite Athens bands performed. Soon, I hope to add a whole lot more posters to the wall including a few from Venice is Sinking, some from my two Atlanta favorites (Stellate and the Constellations), and several from other local bands that I enjoy. Maybe one day I'll truly have a whole wall of music!

To read about all of the bands mentioned on the posters, check out http://echoreynofathens.blogspot.com!

Dimensional Life

In order to apologize for my completely unacceptable month-long lack of posts and in order to celebrate back-to-school week, I give you one of my very favorite light creations. Like many of the others, this was derived from a small section of one of the pictures I took at Walt Disney World a few years ago. I love the way the light bends to make it look almost three-dimensional. It appears that the glowing strands are actively flowing through tubes of clear, tangible air. The colors, too, are so vivid that all of the other light pictures pale in comparison beside this creation. Ah, I love it so much, and I hope you will too!

P.S. If you're reading this, and your name is Sheila, please call me!

Silver Lining

Over the past weekend, while at Athfest in Athens, Georgia, I took a picture of a large sign with some gorgeous clouds in the background. On a whim, I decided to see if these clouds could be used to design another, quite unique patterned picture. Looking at it now, I'm very pleased with my success. Because of its soft and subtle light changes and colors, this is certainly the most original and quite possibly the most beautiful light pattern I've created. It makes me think of Heaven, endless and eternal.

40 Watt Lights

In anticipation of Athfest 2009, I decided to post a light pattern that I created from the colorful lights that hang in Athens' famous club, the 40 Watt. I took the original picture at the very first Venice is Sinking show that I attended, and then I edited my favorite section of the lights in Paint. I can't wait to see them again at Athfest this weekend!

Echoreyn of Athens logo

Once again, I've got a nonstandard art piece here. This time, I decided to post the new video logo I made for the Echoreyn of Athens YouTube channel. At first, I intended to just layer the dark red and the brick backgrounds and add the words in black with my picture nailed underneath. However, when I finished that, it looked too polished, too serious. My channel is about the downtown scene, the music scene, where eternal youth reigns supreme! I needed more.

I thought back to the last time I was in Athens, and a picture flashed in my mind. I remembered a wall beside a doorway just behind Tasty World with graffiti that read "Witch". Now that just wouldn't do, but the graffiti idea intrigued me. I began to think about the bathrooms in all of the clubs and bars I'd been to in Athens - their walls were covered in graffiti as well, and often times these words were about bands and songs and music. Perfect! As you can see, the idea solved my problem quite wonderfully. The graffitied brick wall looks just like something I might find in Athens, the famous music scene.

I chose the words specifically to convey positive messages about music. Also, all but one of the little sayings represents a favorite Athens or Atlanta band of mine. If you could guess which words refer to which band, I'd be incredibly impressed. If no one can, though, I'm content to keep it my little secret.

Basically, this is exactly the logo I was looking for.

The Whale and the Arches

In November of last year, three of my friends and I traveled to Atlanta to see a Crumbling Arches show. During the journey there and back, I filmed a four-part vlog series about our excitement at seeing them perform.

I created this little animated intro for the vlogs using the program Paint. It took me several days to perfect it, but I'm rather proud of the way it turned out. In the intro, I attempted to depict a whale submerging, representing the Whale of Time so often referred to in their music and their art. I also chose to use an anchor to pull the arches apart much like the anchor they mention in many of their lyrics. I drew the lettering in Paint as well based on the lettering shown on the cover of their CD, The Somnambulist. My favorite part of the intro, however, is the wave that crashes against the arches. It doesn't necessarily represent anything specific, but I love how it interrupts the steady stream of similar-looking waves hitting the shore.

I finished the intro by putting the track "Phantom" by Crumbling Arches over the video. Although the whole intro only lasts a few seconds, I certainly think it's one of my more creative artistic pieces.