What I have been up to as of late....

Hello there loverly folks!
Its been awhile since my last post and so I have lots to share.
I am still in awe over my trip to the WolfCreek Sanctuary. A few hours before we left i made my way down to the creek and found the most magical spot. It was a little ways past the community kitchen and down a few mossy slopes toward a little opening mouth at the side of a clear water creek. It was just bursting with life: the rocks within it covered in moss, wild flowers and ferns, little tadpoles lulling along the algae, a baby otter darted past to hide in bush, the trees curved like halves of hearts along the sides creating a refreshing canopy of shade....ahhh it was so tranquil. So In reflection i drew this illustration last weekend and I called it "the River Spirit."

It felt great to draw her.

.....also, last week i released an older illustration from 2008:

Im hoping to get off my freakin butt sometime this week and offer these two illustrations of mine as prints for sale....so stay tuned if interested.
And here is an older mixed media art piece of mine that i just finally made a scan of and released:

The base of this mixed media piece is a very old self portrait photograph of mine that i took while still in highschool.
So the picture was printed black and white on some matte photo paper that i then colored using watercolor, pen and ink and even acrylic paint( Lumiere gold acrylic paint).
This piece is up for sale in my etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=24902631 if you dont have an etsy account feel free to email me to reserve the item: chelsea@lucidopticlab.com
On to other news, my wild flowers are really sprouting now...i do hope to see some blossoms soon:

so many of them! also i believe the bulbs have begun too and they are the ones that look like giant blades of grass....i have two pots like this one.
and in this pot( that my mother gave me) i originally planted two types of flower seed( got packets from a nursery but forgot what i planted). It seems that the dominate flower snuffed out the other kind of flower i planted. I fear there isnt enough room for all the sprouts....so i am hoping their growth isnt stunted and that they will still produce some flowers for me. I really wish i had some dirt to play in...a yard would be lovely so that i can experiment with growing things more. im such a newbie with it. Id love to grow some carrots and tomatoes and strawberries and lettuce and whatever else and have some home grown produce for a change. Someday, hopefully i will get the chance because i think its important to at least strive to be a little more self reliant.
...and its time for a Dready Journey update: ( please click to full view!)

so far i have gone through 3 distinct physical dread phases.
1. Day one of my dready journey, a few hours after sectioning my hair off/backcombing and putting on rubber bands.
2. couple weeks after initial backcombing. took all the rubber bands out and used the crocheting method to finish each lock.
3. About three months after the inital crocheting session
the crocheting really advanced my dread's maturity.i think my most favorite locks are the ones with lots of loopies...they are so much fun! i certainly have a halo of frizz...crocheting really helps tame that but i worry about over crocheting and ripping/thinning hair so I try to do it sparingly. My routine has been to wash my hair at the end of each week with residue free shampoo( adding a few drops of tea tree oil for the refreshing fragrance and to fight dryness/dandruff, then air dry( 20 minutes in sunlight after 10 minutes of being pressed in a clean towel). crochet if the washing created too much loose hair. but lately with each wash I can feel them tightening an strengthening! Danny's dreads are doing super as well....hopefully i can get a picture soon to show their progress.

....its strange to realize i have already had my dreads for 4 months now!
As for this past weekend...Danny and I made the most of it...did a lot of relaxing and some exploring: went and checked out Astoria and some more of Cannon beach. On Saturday we randomly decided that we were going to paint all our kitchen Cabinets. The cabinets were looking really bad since they were originally this ugly dirty cream color...but we made it look worse by streaking them with all sorts of tie-dye and cooking stains. So we ended up going to the store and purchasing some "Forest Green" which is a darker/deeper green. Now the kitchen feels a lot more fresh and inviting. I wish we could paint more of our place but since its an apartment i figure its better not to go too crazy because who knows how long we will be living here anyway.
Now its Monday and im sitting at work drinking some chamomile tea, remindimg myself to take deep breaths and stay positive. When i get home i have lots of laundry to do, and i hope to list a bunch of stuff on etsy since our lil shop seems to be in a lull.
Before i leave off on this post i thought i would share a baby picture of mine that i stumbled across over the weekend:

Peace and Love, always!
-Chelsea Rose