This week, just like the last one, turned out to be very busy for me. I’ve been working hard on several projects and I might even have some results to show next week :)

But, before that would you fancy taking a stroll around Zagreb center with me?

fićo

Hey, look! There’s a little Fićo, how retro and cute that car is? This particular one looks really loved and cared about.

my tram

For some reason, I love taking pics of trams.

street musician

Street musician taking a break and checking his messages.

hipster spotting

Hipster spotting on Main square!

for bob

Here is a photo for Bob: Scottish tourists in Zagreb!

for isidora

…and here is one photo for Isidora. When I saw this old sign in Obrtnički prolaz I instantly thought of her and her lovely pics of old (and often funny) signs in Varaždin. This one says: Institute for decontamination of apartments and selling products.

Also, Isidora is currently having a GIVEAWAY on her blog. She’s giving away one of her crocheted hats, so hurry and check it out!

dirty zagreb

I discovered that behind every fancy, recently restored facade in Zagreb there is an old, unloved often deteriorating backyard . Here are examples of few prettier ones.

blue details

Zagreb city blues.

urban colors and shapes

big e

Urban shapes and (mostly warm) colors.

shoes

Hanging glittery shoe display in front of Ulični ormar (Street Closet ), a second hand shop.

ulični ormar

A detail of front of the said shop. I like the white picket fence.

spring flowers

Spring is here! Flowers on Cvjetni trg.

trojan horse

Somebody dragged a Trojan horse on Cvjetni trg. I wonder who’s hiding inside of it.

green table

Decoration on one of the outside tables of one of the restaurants.When I downloaded this photo from my camera it reminded me of Ines Perković photography. Her work is beautiful, check it out if you haven’t yet.

orange chairsOrange chairs are photogenic!

us in a ball

An obligatory selfie in a shiny silver ball.

amazing art

 And, for the last photo of this week’s photo diary I saved something special for you, a capture of  an awesome art piece displayed in one of the photo studio windows :)

I hope you’ve enjoyed our stroll around Zg downtown. I wish you great weekend!

 

Last week I offered some of my things in exchange for handmade jewelry I can use as props in a photo series I ‘m currently working on (and still keeping it all mysterious and secretive but it will be revealed soon hehe). I was very lucky since some very talented and kind ladies agreed to trade my goods for their own wonderful creations!

One of those ladies was Isidora who sent me a crocheted hat, a necklace, lovely bracelet, set of little crayons and a couple of cards.

package

I’m always fascinated with original, thoughtful way Isidora wraps her creations. This package was wrapped into old (I assume Burda) sewing pattern. Very unique and eco-friendly! I also love her use of charming washi tape.

content of package

isidora necklace

Necklace Isidora sent me is absolutely gorgeous and elegant! My photo doesn’t do it justice at all. Isidora truly marvels at simple yet sophisticated design and she totally nailed it with  combination of soft satin ribbon and painted wooden beads. I have no idea which brand of paints  she used for pastel blue beads but they look so creamy and delicious.

little things

I really loved bracelet she sent me. I almost never wear bracelets because I have really thin wrists (yea, too much info I know) but her knot really fits me making me super happy. It’s not only versatile piece of jewelry that can go with literally  anything but also practical and perfect for someone who, like myself does a lot of manual work (if drawing can fall into that category.)

hat

Hat is also lovely and flawlessly crocheted.

for asja

…and not to forget this lovely watercolor card she sent :) How cute is that!

You can find Isidora here:

BLOG      FACEBOOK

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tina's brooch

Tina sent me this lovely brooch called Plavičak. I’m already proud owner of one of her brooches and I am amazed by quality of her products. It also seems that her personality reflects in all of her creations making them fun, colorful, happy and joyful. I really love the combination of plaids, stripes and polka dots on this particular brooch making it both playful and elegant piece at the same time. It reminds me of sea, sailing and  holidays!

plavičak

You can find Tina here:

BLOG   FACEBOOK   WOOHOO SHOP

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necklace

Lilla Indigo (Sabina) was kind enough to make me both custom flower necklace and two beautiful, vibrant flower brooches. Her jewelry is made of felt and looks beautiful! Colors of both necklace and brooches are gorgeous, saturated and bright. Wearing them would make anyone happy even on the gloomiest day.

flower necklace

Looking at this delightful assortment of flowers makes me think of Spring! Yay, can’t wait for beautiful, warm, sunny weather.

necklace detail

two yellow brooches

These brooches remind me of dandelions and I can’t wait to use them in photo shoots.

Find Lilla Indigo here:

BLOG     FACEBOOK    ETSY SHOP

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Once again, a big THANK YOU to everyone who took part in my trade. I can’t wait to use all of the pieces in my photos and of course wear them :)

I wish you all  an awesome week!

 

collage photo diary

 I’ve been very busy last week and couldn’t  find time for taking personal photos as I usual do for the love of photography and for the love of documenting my life :)

However, I did find a little time on Tuesday to take a walk in Zagreb downtown and take a few shots, casual impressions and details some of which you can see above and they officially make this week’s installment of photo diary.

I wish you all fun, exciting weekend!

 

Wow! I can’t believe it’s Friday already! Time flies so fast, I’m almost ready to believe in all that “2012. time is speeding up phenomena”, hehe. Anyway, here is a second installment of my photo diary:

small red fence

small pine tree
Last weekend Winter was still in full force, it was freezing cold and snowing like mad. Walking outside felt like taking a stroll inside of a snow globe. It was so beautiful!

doodles 01

card01

Even though everything looked so pretty covered with snow, a true Winter Wonderland, it was also extremely cold so a lot of time was spent inside. I worked  on some more demanding drawings  but also did some casual doodling in my Moleskine and on card paper which you can see above.

sunshine outside

At the beginning of the week sunshine lured me out. Again, it was so beautiful, surface of snow sparkled like millions tiny crystals! I love this kind of weather and as you can guess I don’t  mind the cold much :)

winter 01

We went into the nearby woods to do a little photo shoot that you can see in my previous post!

harry octane chapman

Yesterday I got super happy to get this amazing package in mail! Last  year Christian Papazoglakis asked me if he could use some of my textures on his upcoming comic book project and of course I said yes. He promised to credit me in the book and to send me copies when they’re out and he stayed true to his word. He sent me copies of  Harry Octane and Chapman, both of which you can see above.

P2156972

P2156968

…and how awesome is the way he autographed the books for me? Seriously awesome, I’d say! It really made my day!

You can see more of his work here:

Xtian’s Illustration Friday

studio pakap

www.papazoglakis.net

I wish you all wonderful weekend! I will spend my weekend drawing, shooting, photo editing and generally being crazy busy (but in a good way!!). What are your plans?

 

Last Summer, while taking a walk with Mr Dean  near where I live  I noticed an area of woods going through some sort of woodland maintenance (uh, I’m sure there’s better expression for that, but I can’t really think of one now). Lots of old trees were trimmed,  new paths were made, there were big piles of old, cut down branches everywhere. Air was filled with heavy dust and  whole scenery looked a bit sad and unloved but I felt I need to shoot there.

This could be a good location for a photo shoot“, I said. “I’d love to shoot some selfies here. But I need something, a prop maybe, something to be in contrast with this dirty, dusty environment.” So I decided I need a simple, feminine, white dress, maybe a bit old-fashioned or romantic. Since that’s not something I’d wear in “real” life and generally  don’t own  anything white  I started  searching for it.  It turned out it’s not easy finding such a simple piece of clothing but after almost two weeks I found my perfect white dress at a flea market.

The photo shoot was about to happen! I asked Mr Dean to help me and we took a collaborative series of photos. Some of them I edited shortly after and posted on my flickr yet I wasn’t satisfied. I felt there were a part of a some visual story and that  still haven’t been finished. So, this weekend sitting in my cozy, warm living room watching a blizzard outside I said “It would be great to wear my white dress again, in the snow.” I shared my idea with Mr Dean and he suggested that we shoot at the very same location as last Summer. It was a deal!

When we took another series of photos, this time in snowy environment I felt a story of a white dress is now complete. Here is the entire photo story including both photos from this week and re-edited photos from last Summer:

 

woods in the summer small
summer white dress
white dress summer 01 small
tree of life small
in circles
circle

snow mask
snow mask small
snow mask
sitting in snow
sitting in snow
in snow
snow

 

after the rain

Sometimes I feel an inexplicable sense of longing. An unexplainable, irrational longing for something (or someone), elusive and mysterious that continually slips away from me, always keeping me a step behind from feeling entirely satisfied, complete and centered in present moment even though I am generally happy person and love my life.

This sense of longing is hard to define. Sometimes it manifests itself as a feeling that “something is missing in my life”, a piece of a puzzle, so to speak that, if found would make my life more meaningful.

Often this irrational longing makes me pick my camera and take hundreds of random pictures as if some secret knowledge is locked within my camera and it can only be discovered by pressing a shutter button over and over again.

flowery dream

Every once in a while, a feeling of longing, this subtle yet persistent force makes me go outside to wander and photograph the world as if whatever is I’m looking for will reveal itself to me through images of misty roads, Autumn leaves, parks, beautiful afternoon light…

Often it makes me take self-portraits and look at them as mirrors reflecting back to me insights into my own psyche showing me that answers to my longings already lay within me just waiting to be discovered.

5:40 am

This feeling of longing can at times be described as an insatiable desire, a constant restlessness of spirit, a need for change just for the sake of it but sometimes it can be very motivating, pushing me to create, learn and explore the world through camera lens. Even though I might never feel fully satisfied or complete, on one level I am grateful for it :)

 

Since I take a lot of snapshots of my daily life, I thought it would be appropriate to post some of them here every Friday, in a “this was my week in pictures” manner. Here is the first installment of my photo diary (after all this is my personal blog):

pug

This week cutest dog in the neighborhood came to visit!
snow in zapresic

It snowed. A lot. But I didn’t mind. Everything looks nicer cover with virginal white blanket, to say it poetically :)
snow in zapresic mr d

It got cold. Extremely cold. I did mind it and I wasn’t the only one.
coffee time

Hot coffee was necessary for my well being this week, but it seems it usually is.
arlnolta

Mr Dean who came to visit  recently(!!), among other things brought a Minolta and a role of expired film with him. After walking around in crazy cold weather for 2 days in a row we finally purchased matching batteries for the camera and started shooting. Can’t wait to get the film developed.

novi dvori snow

Sunshine+snow=a perfect reason to go out for a walk and take pics.

How was your week?

 

So far 2012. has been very good to me. I spent December 2011. mostly planning, setting goals and writing so seeing my plans turning into reality so fast feels great! I’ve been very busy last couple of weeks enjoying new work opportunities, setting foundations for personal art project and redecorating my apartment.
I didn’t actually plan to redecorate my place, it happened quite spontaneously. On Monday I had a little incident involving spilled ink and pinkish wall which propelled me into some sort of redecorating frenzy and resulted with repainting walls (and some pieces of furniture) bright white, painting flowers on closets, cleaning like a mad person and rearranging art pieces.

redecorating01
As I mentioned before, on Monday night I spilled some ink on orange/pinkish wall in my computer nook and  naively wanted to wash it out with water making an ever bigger stain. You know how it goes, the more you try to clean it the bigger the stain so I thought well, I might just remove all the paint and repaint the wall.

Removing the paint was pretty tedious and messy but, I believe, totally worth it because white suits my little corner so much better and makes it lot brighter.I also rearranged art pieces and put them above my desk, I have quite an Alkaline collection, 6 original pieces by Alkaline Samurai, photo print by Isidora and two of my own pieces.

redecorating02

Also, I repainted my little cabinet white and painted some pink flowers on it, now I call it  sakura cabinet hehe.

redecorating03

Recently I made a little drawing of a bear on a round piece of wood so I thought it would be appropriate to display it as well.

redecorating bear drawing

Once I refreshed my computer corner I moved on to the living room and repainted my old wooden wall white. The whole room seems bigger, much brighter and more pleasant to be in.

redecorating04

I have a big, really old closet in my living room that I plan on kicking out very soon so I thought it would be fun to paint on it before it gets moved out. Years ago, on one part of the closet my Mom applied some flowery decoupage that I never liked so I decided to remove it. And I learned a valuable lesson, decoupage is hard and messy impossible to remove but also nothing that 4 coats of white paint and strategically painted blue flowers can’t cover up.

redecorating05

The rest of the closet got some new, blue flowers as well.

redecorating06

After that I painted my kitchen cabinets white as well and did A LOT of cleaning and I’m still in the process of cleaning and rearranging stuff just at a slower pace (it’s weekend after all).

Last weekend I felt like doing something fun yet simple so I played a bit with white watercolor and blue, lined paper getting subtle and understated drawings.

blue and white

Before that I experimented with dying plain, white paper with coffee and spices to get interesting textures to scan and use as textures for layers in PS. I found my old high school biology homework and though I might scan it as well to get some “objects” to use as PS layers as well.

making textures

I also made some simple notebooks to fill with photo ideas, I’ve been writing and sketching so much I already have 4 little notebooks overflowing with ideas!

precious ideas notebook

I rediscover how fun it is to paint on brown paper!

it's raining ideas

Other great things happened as well in first 2 weeks of new year. I got great news, my partner in crime art and all things awesome is coming to visit in early February and we’re planning to have amazing time together as always. I started looking for props for my soon-to-happen photo shoots and scouted some very inspiring locations. I went to much needed shopping for clothes as I realized my sartorial choices could be described by this. I started working on a wonderful commission and even though I’ve been seriously sleep deprived I’m having a blast! I have a feeling 2012. will be the BEST YEAR EVER!

How did your year start?

 

blog on holiday

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you have amazing Christmas! I’m taking a little blogging break until next week or so, until then I’m sending you loads of xoxoxoxox… :)

glitter texture

 

wide angle me
While browsing through my archives the photo (a self portrait taken in 2009.) you see above caught my attention. At first I wasn’t quite sure why but after starting to analyze it I realized that this picture reminds me of one thing I love about photographing  the most: making mistakes!
Ok, let me explain that a bit. This photo is full of obvious mistakes: first of all it’s a  selfie taken with hand held camera , a somewhat dilettante thing to do, it’s taken with ultra wide angle lens that is commonly used to shoot landscapes (it makes object at the edges of photo appear bigger), third, there is a shadow covering my chest and shoulder, background of the picture is non-interesting old wall and my face expression is less than delightful. So, technically this photo is actually really bad but that’s why I like it.

You see, the photos I find most inspiring are not technically perfect, polished, carefully crafted images but the ones that push boundaries of conventions, bring new and refreshing points of view, flirt with kitsch and cliches, the ones that make you wonder if they are brilliant or just plain terrible.

(I’m not suggesting that SP you see above is any of that, that’s just bad photo but it triggered this line of thought, so I’m  grateful for that :) )

So, one of my art projects for 2012. will be to create series of photos (mostly portraits and self-portraits) with emphasis on experimenting and  making  fabulous, magnificent delicious mistakes! Yay, party time!

I’ll start shooting in January 2012. and continue all through the year allowing myself as much time as I need to make pics I’ll be happy with.

My other plan is to shoot more videos. I got a new video camera few moths ago but  still didn’t find time to start playing with it. I would love to shoot short videos of everything and anything,  just have fun. I haven’t had a working camera  in years and when it comes to video making I’m very rusty so I’d like to change that.

I will continue drawing, doing illustrations and blogging but my main goal for 2012. is to spend as much time possible behind camera(s) as I can, hehe.

Do you have any creative plans for 2012.?

wide angle lurking

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