Tag: lifestyle

DIY Quick and Easy Photo Printing Process Using Blender Pens!

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kyototransfer

A new art technique I have been experimenting with lately has been photo transfers using colorless blender pens. Blender pens are my new favorite tool as they make the process of photo transfers quick and easy. The process only takes about 5 minutes and the prints come out with a cool vintage look. I’ve tried this process a couple of times using prints I’ve taken of places I’ve been to like the photo above taken in Kyoto, Japan and they have all turned out looking really pretty.

To create your own print all you need are the following materials:

  1. A laser jet print of a photo (it MUST be a laser photo print or it won’t transfer)
  2. Scissors
  3. Blender pens (I use Chartpak colorless blender pens)
  4. A wood panel or matte paper
  5. Tape

Directions:

  1. Take your laser jet photo print and cut your print with scissors so that you have at least a one inch border around your print.
  2. Tape your photo down face down onto a wood panel or a matte paper making sure to only put tape on the one inch border around the photo. Try to center it as much as possible so that you will have even borders.
  3. Using your blender pen, color the back of the photo print until it’s fully saturated
  4. Peel off the tape and BOOM! You have your new print!

It’s literally that easy and fast. You could literally eat a sandwich during the time it takes to make a print! It’s that quick! I swear! On the real don’t eat a sandwich while actually making the print though because the blender pens have a strong chemical scent that might make you feel a little light-headed. When completing a print make sure you are working in a highly ventilated area and maybe wear like a a SARS mask so you don’t die or something like that.You won’t really die but just be safe and take the proper precautions.

Here are some amazing examples of ones some of my students have made on wood panels:

priscillalamptransfer

jesusstreetstransfer

When the students were working on this transfers, all of them loved the results of their completed works. They said the best part of the whole process was taking the saturated photo prints off the wood panels for the big reveal because they were anxious to see how their transfer turned out. Many of them were also very surprised at how much of their original photo the transfer picked up. Lastly, they loved how fast the process took and some even mentioned that they wanted to use the same process at home to make Valentine’s Day cards for their friends and family. Overall, they all had fun making their prints and I think you will too!

Note: Do not try this process on canvas because it simply will not work. I tried and it looked like poop. Not literal poop but yeah…the photos didn’t transfer well so stick with the matte paper (Bristol board or mixed media paper) or wood panels. You don’t want to waste costly canvases…I did and it made me really sad so just don’t do it!

Late Night Movie Review of Breakfast at Tiffany’s

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breakfastattiffanys

The iconic character of Holly Golightly, made popular by Audrey Hepburn, will be in theatres once again for Breakfast at Tiffany’s 55th anniversary on November 30th. Audrey Hepburn is one of my favorite actresses and I love watching her play the stylish Holly. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one of my all-time favorite romantic, rainy day movies and after watching this movie, you too will want to eat pastries outside of Tiffany’s for breakfast while wearing a chic, black gown. I know I did.

audreypastries

For those unfamiliar with the premise of the movie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, directed by Blake Edwards, is about Holly Golighty, an escort who is aspiring to attain a lavish lifestyle. She runs away from her past as country girl and moves to New York to live the city life. While in New York, she tries to find happiness in luxury and searches for a rich man to marry. Throughout Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Holly hides under a façade to accommodate her new lifestyle. She dresses in a stylish manner and throws posh and sometimes wild parties to help her meet a wealthy man of her dreams. However, in the process she ends up prostituting herself to pay for all her expenses.

Holly’s life changes though when she meets Paul Varjak, played by George Peppard, a novelist who moves into her apartment building and leads a lifestyle comparable to Holly’s. To help pay for his novels to get published, he basically prostitutes himself to a rich married women who pays for all his things. Since Holly lives a similar lifestyle, Paul and Holly end up connecting as both are striving for their own version of success and will do anything to get it. As Paul begins to spend more time with Holly, he eventually falls in love with her.

Though Holly ends up loving Paul back, her selfish ambitions interfere with her relationship with Paul. For example, she continues to push Paul away throughout the movie because in almost all her relationships, real love has never entered into the equation as she would only use men to fund her lifestyle and pay for dates. Furthermore, she longs to marry a rich man to provide financial stability and a glamorous lifestyle and with Paul, the only thing he could offer her is his love. As a result, Holly is reluctant to take it because she would have to stop hiding under a façade and face the reality that she could love someone more for just their money.

One of my favorite scenes in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is when Paul wakes up to hear Holly singing Moon River outside Paul’s bedroom window. Audrey Hepburn sings the song with such honesty that she brings truth to the lyrics of the song. The lyrics describe Holly and Paul’s relationship with one another and how they are alike. The song fits the scene perfectly because her singing the song is like a wake up call to Paul telling him that Holly is the one for him.

moonriver

One of the most memorable sequences in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is when Holly Golightly and Paul Varjak spend a day in the city together taking turns doing things that they have both never done before. In the first scene, Paul takes Holly to the library because she’s never been there where he signs one of his own novels. In the second scene, Holly takes Paul to Tiffany’s where he has never been where she receives an engraved Cracker Jack that Paul gets her. In the third scene, Holly takes Paul go to a discount store where they steal masks and run away from the store without getting caught. Previous to these scenes, Paul and Holly have a strictly platonic relationship. However, through these scenes, it is evident that their relationship is becoming much more. At the end of these scenes, Paul and Holly share a kiss symbolizing that though they were both hiding under facades, their love for each other is the only thing that’s genuinely real in their lives.

masks

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a cute love story that keeps the audience captivated as anyone watching will want to continue in order to find out if Holly and Paul end up together. Overall, I love this film and I feel like Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard do an outstanding job playing the leads, making the characters seem very real and relatable. Both characters are dreamers trying to find happiness with material successes but maybe all they need is just love and each other.