Be Lured has a new url --> http://be-lured.com

Attention friends!

Be Lured has moved! All new posts will no longer end up here, so please click the link below to move to the new location.

http://be-lured.com

All old posts have been imported to the new website! Yay! However, the old posts will still be here also. And all new posts will be at http://be-lured.com.

See you there!

<3 Kara

Tutorial Tuesday: Vote!

Good evening everyone and happy Election Day!

I had a tutorial planned for today but my computer is under the weather and is not working :( that with my busy schedule today means there's not art tutorial for today, and I apologize.

So now that you guys understand why there is not true Tutorial Tuesday on Be Lured today, I shall do a tutorial of another nature. This tutorial is to honor Election Day. It's simple, and this is what you have to do: vote. I hope that you all exercised your right to vote today if you are eligible, as I have. Those who haven't voted, and are eligible to vote, there is very little room for them to be upset if the results did not turn out the way they wanted. 

The image on the left is from Khmerican, an "online platform that encourages public engagement, discussion and connection of Khmer communities across the US and abroad" (Khmerican.com, 2012). We were encouraged to show our patriotism for Khmer-America in voting by sharing this image. I am so happy to see such engagement from our Khmer community and so I am displaying this logo on my site proudly.

Check out all these Khmericans who are proudly saying "I'm Khmer-American and I voted!" by clicking here http://vote2012.khmer-i-can.com.

So about my computer (not to change the topic abruptly or anything) I think I have a virus or something. I keep getting a booting errors, as in my computer cannot start, every other time I try to start my computer. And when I do manage to start, I am not able to run any programs, nor can I view documents. I can, fortunately, copy and paste files! So I have been backing up my documents, images and videos all day. I actually had to go purchase a new external hard drive because I didn't have sufficient storage space. Ooops! So hopefully I finish backing everything up tonight so that tomorrow I can try to figure out what's wrong and fix it without chances of destroying my files, mainly my images! I take so many photographs to document our lives, and a couple photo shoots for other people, so losing that would be quite devastating, since that has happened before to both my and my husband. But as of now, things are on track.

Take care everyone!

<3 Kara

My First Giclee Print: Girl and Dragon

Hey everyone!

I couldn't wait to share with you all some exciting news! As you know I have ordered my very first giclee print and I finally picked it up today! There were some complications with the printer (as in it broke) so I had to wait an extra week for them to order a new special printer before it was ready. I'm so happy with the results and so I took some pictures for you :)

Here is me with the unveiling of the amazing print! It's the the first time I've seen it though, since I had to see it at the print shop to confirm, but still, that sounds way more dramatic. In any case, I was still happy to see it again. The owner of the print shop (River City Digital Graphics), Jim commented that he liked the painting and that I did a great job with it :) That was so great to hear, especially since he has been painting for a very long time. He also said that I did a great job with the digital image as it looks as good as if it were scanned (I took a picture with my camera with strategic lighting). That also was amazing to hear; it's always good to get confirmation that you are doing a good job.

Now that I have an archival quality print of this painting, I will be happy to share both with Andi and have him pick which ever one he wants to have. After all, this painting wouldn't have existed without him.

So that was my exciting news for today. That makes two posts in one day! Yowza :) Until next time!

<3 Kara

"Sundae" Surprise! ... on Sunday!

Good evening Lured Ones!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!
As you can see, I am implementing a new feature to this blog called Sunday Surprise! This means that every Sunday I will post on something of my choice. Sometimes it will be about a finished piece or project that I am currently working on and sometimes it will be something not related to my works at all. Since it is supposed to be a surprise, I won't elaborate too much on what Sunday Surprises will feature; you will just have to wait and see!

This Sunday, there are two surprises to kick off the start of this series. The first Sunday Surprise is a sundae! This piece on the left is called "Her Sundae Best" by artist Jacqui Faye. Although she paints contemporary portraits she is best known for her figurative works called the Red Shoe Dailies. In these "red shoe stories," anonymous subjects are portrayed from the shoulders, waist, or knees down and always with red shoes to "paint a story often interpreted by viewers who relate to the artwork through anonymity." To learn more about Jacqui Faye, please visit her site at http://jacquifaye.blogspot.com/

But wait! There's more! Moar!!!!! The second surprise this Sunday is that there are more surprises. In addition to Sunday Surprise, there will also be other days scheduled for posts so that the blog gets a consistent flow of content. Are you ready? Drum roll please.... There will be Tutorial Tuesdays, and also Factual Fridays.

For Tutorial Tuesdays I will take pictures or record a video of myself performing a technique or tutorial from a book, magazine or website for you all to see! So that way we are both learning something new together every week. I'm actually really excited about this because not only is it a forcing mechanism for consistent flow of content, but also it's challenging me to learn something new each week. Yay!

Since we have a day dedicated to techniques I thought a day set aside for learning about art would be appropriate. For Factual Fridays (hehe F to the third), it will be less about techniques and more about art facts. Although the day is called Factual Fridays, I will not post solely short random art facts but rather information regarding art in various categories such facts, art history, current events, notable artists, museums and other research.

I am super excited about Tutorial Tuesdays, Factual Fridays and Sunday Surprises! I hope you are too. I can't wait for Tuesday's post. What tutorial shall I do, I wonder? You'll have to check back and see! Until next time,

<3 Kara

Visiting my old high school's IB Art class

Good afternoon everyone!

September was a busy month and I wasn't able to post as often as I'd like. However, I was doing things that I could blog about all the while - just didn't have time to sit down and gather photos and edit video clips for uploading. Now that I am back and have some time to myself, I can slowly but surely update you on what I've been up to.

Two weeks ago, I visited my high school teacher and she invited me to return the following day during her IB art class and meet the new kids and see what they were working on. This was such a trip down memory lane because they were working on their self portraits and I was at this point in the class years ago. I was able to speak to some students and learn about some ideas and messages behind their pieces. It was very insightful and I felt so honored that one student shared a particularly personal story behind her piece.

The students were great and so was their work. Here are some works done by students in Ms. Drum's IB art class. I will also share the self portrait I painted at the end. So make sure to scroll all the way down, and enjoy!

 

Now here's what I did 5 years ago when I was at this point in the class:

I intended for this post to be about my visit to the class, so I shall give further insight to to this painting in my next post :)

Until next time!

<3 Kara

What a hectic week!

Good evening Lured Ones!

If you are following and wonder what happened to Kara, I must tell you that I was abducted by a white rabbit and he took me to a tea party where I partied with the Queen of Hearts...

Just kidding ;)

To be honest, I have been extremely busy with some personal things. As you know, I am in Seattle to take care of my sister for the month while my parents are out of town. So the situation, along with some other factors have kept be really busy! Plus! I've been trying to see some family and close friends, so my time has been stretched pretty thin. However, I do make my sister a priority because that's what I came here for :)

If you are asking, "Well, Kara! What about your art? How will you continue to paint and give us updates?" my response is that I have brought my tiny sketch book and some nice colored pencils. Hopefully I will be able to do something. But knowing how busy I am and will continue to be, I have a back up plan. I have been compiling a folder with some of my older works and plan on blogging about those in the meanwhile. It should give you a sense of my theme and visions (or lack thereof) in the past and see a bit of my development. Hopefully that's enough to keep you interested!

On another note, my sister is a big fan of drawing and painting, so I would like to do a sister art activity where we make something together. It may have some craft element, but who knows. We will decide together and I'll keep you posted about it!

Until next time,

<3 Kara