make something day ten

Today I made: a painting for my mother. It's kind of a late christmas present, but more just an idea that I wanted to create for her. I'm not overly excited about the finished product, but decided to call it finished before messing it up any more than I already did. But!, there is a story behind it. It's called Ave Maria, and is from a scene in Fantasia where a bunch of robed beings are seen walking down a path carrying torches and singing the chorus to Ave Maria. While watching Fantasia together, she went on about how much she loved this scene and how it was the one of the songs played during her mothers funeral. Though sad, I know that this song holds importance in her heart, so I took my memory of the visual scene and recreated it. It didn't exactly come out as good as I intended it too, mostly because of my few mess ups that I had to cover up, but the important part is that she likes it!

winter welcomes

It's the rainy days like these that remind me to breathe in and enjoy life. Though I may mostly stay indoors there's nothing stopping me from changing my state completely and going out to run in the rain. Whenever I go outside I always find myself looking up the sky to see how it's changed since I last saw it. When you look straight up in the rain it's as if you're looking up into the infinite. Raindrops fall from a vortex above you and the sky, grey, glows beautifully as if there is no sun but instead some sort of mystical place beyond your daily imaginations. The cloud cover is a dreamland, reminding us to step back and relax for just a moment.

Maybe it's the clean air or the calming winter chill, I don't know, but seasons greetings always seem to ease my mind. That is until the holidays get closer. I look forward to the busy-ness though, especially since most of it will be creating gifts for people. One thing that I desperately need to do is get my sleep schedule back to normal and start waking up earlier! It doesn't help that I always stay up til 2 in the morning but getting out of bed at noon is starting to become a real drag. 

 xo neena noel

j o y

So I dropped my phone in the toilet last night. That's the second time I've done that but luckily this time it fell before I had peed...

Apparently it's $49 to get replaced, thank you Apple Care, even though that's $49 that I would have rather saved. Oh well, accidents happen and I've learned my lesson, electronics and liquids do not mix well. I've had phones drop out of my hands several times and continue working without flaws, but the second one hits the water it's lights out. I broke my last laptop that way too. (My advice, try to keep your beer as far away from your keyboard as possible, but still within a reachable distance. :p)

Anyways, yeah, blah, blah, blah. Now that I don't have to worry about any phone calls for the day, I'm going to go make some food to go along with my iced coffee and read a book. :) It always takes me months to finally a book because I never make the time to read even though I would like to more often. It keeps me edumacated.

Currently reading: Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey

Koi fish from Maui, summer of 2011. 

And here's a verse from Hurt by Nine Inch Nails

that I typed up in photoshop this morning.

Good song.

with love, neena noel

*click on any of my pictures to reblog :)

recent inspirations

A few photos that I've come across in the past week or so that have been an inspiration to me. I feel like these photos together describe my mood lately. Most of these photos are linked to their rightful owners, however, some are just randoms from tumblr with unknown sources. Unfortunately too many photos have lost their photographers credit on the internet.

Someday..

there are a bunch more pics on my tumblr blog :)

with love,

neena noel

dream a dream

sleepless night til early morning, dream a dream. imagine, restless, all the things, that come to be, a part of me. slow down, silence, rest in peace. dream a dream, sleep now for me. 

I've been up all night so far looking through archives and albums of photos. I find peoples lives so interesting seeing what they see through through their lenses. Photography is such a beautiful art to me, I love learning more and more about it. I am definitely an amateur, never took a photo class but I know how to read a manual at least. I don't mind being an amateur either, experimenting with something is the best way to learn more about it.

I'm thinking about a perfectly happy life, the one I'll have when I've settled into my artistic style. I'm very unorganized right now it seems, and though I can run my shop well I haven't quite figured out what it is that I'm going to continue to sell and how it's all going to appear to the public. And though photography is just a hobby, a way for me to document my life, I would really like to learn more about it and maybe possibly make a job out of it. For now I'm just having fun with everything and trying not to stress out. I imagine a life full of good, healthy food, organized workplaces, lots of books, time to study on my own, and varieties of hot teas. :)

flowers from 2010

with love,

neena noel

happy weekend

We can all thank my friend, Torrie, for the above picture. Thanks Torrie <3. In case you didn't know, Torrie is a very talented young woman with an already excellent collection of artwork and you can discover her here: torrieanneart. I had a great weekend with this lady down in the LBC and even got a chance to explore around town to take some pictures. This weekend has been a nice break, but I'm excited to get back to work on some of my projects as soon as the sun comes up tomorrow.

I was, however, a little bummed to find out today that my free Flickr account has run it's course and I'll have to upgrade to a Pro account to continue to share all of the photos that I'd like to share. You got me there, Flickr. Until I upgrade only some of my photos will be viewable, so I'll be holding off on adding too much to my album. It may seem like a silly concern but I am definitely looking forward to the day when I can afford to upgrade my account. I would love to continue creating albums where people can look at my photos without having to read all of my ramblings or scroll through my piles of webpages. Buy me a Pro Account?  Maybe? (click here to see my photo album.) Hey it's worth a try, and I know I would be eternally grateful for such generosity. $24.00 is too much to ask for, but you can cover me for three months for $7.00 if you click "Buy Now." I'm patient though and willing to wait until I have some extra money to expand my photo album.

All of that aside, I appreciate everyone who has supported me with my shop and my other projects, and to all of the people that are reading, advertising and following my blog, thank you all so much. Every little bit helps and I'm happy to know that I already have so many supporters in the beginning stages of a long term goal. I promise I will not disappoint! Much love, now here are some things to look at:

That was quite the large handful of pictures, 

and I just had to include the cute little animal piñatas too. :)

with love from, 

neena noel

green tea for me

So much of my life consists of being a homebody, wandering around outside, drinking iced, unsweetened, delicious tea and crafting. I'm finally getting back into using my camera more, having a good phone camera has been so convenient that my other cameras have been missing out on some good shots. I have two awesome digital cameras thanks to my father, and the one that I've been using more and more recently is his old Canon Rebel XSi. I also have some film cameras that my dad has passed down to me including an old Nikon, a Hasselblad and a Polaroid camera that I would really love a chance to use. I've never really used many cameras so I'll need some time to learn the basics first, but nothing needs to be perfect so I think I'll like my random, flawed shots all the same. Film, please?
Well, I've really been enjoying sitting here writing when there's nothing else on my list of things to do about just as much as I enjoy taking little pictures about my life. So, here are some random pictures to go along with my random ramblings.

with love, 

neena noel