Exploring Chicago Photography Course

I bit the bullet today, spent my $200 and signed up for another course at Lill Street Art Center!

Remember back in January, when I pondered which course I should take? Well, I'm glad that I waited to decide, because they are offering a great new course this summer called Exploring Chicago -- a 7-week digital photography course offered as part of their new Digital Arts and Photography Department.

Here's the description. I'm getting giddy just reading it again...

What's a better way to spend your summer than getting outdoors to new places and learning to make better photographs? This class will meet on location in different Chicago neighborhoods. We'll learn about the history of each place, the major features, and then explore each with our cameras. Each class will culminate with lunch at a great neighborhood restaurant. This is a terrific way to hone your travel photography skills while getting to know Chicago better, and eating some good food!

This class combines three of my favorite things: photography, food and exploring local neighborhoods. So how could I pass it up? I will miss the first class due to an out-of-town wedding, but I hope to make the most out of the other six weeks and walk away with a great visual narrative of our city. Maybe I'll even make my own custom Chicago coffee table book with the images using blurb.

I have two long months to wait for the class to begin, but I'll be sure to make a weekly post about each neighborhood once I do. And if I've inspired any other Chicago-area shutterbugs to join in the fun, let me know. I'd love to meet you :-)

A lil' bit of Lill for my Lull

It's that time of year again. The time of year that I will fall into a drastic post-holiday, missing-my-busy-season-CPA hubby, windy-city-winter LULL if not otherwise thwarted by a bright, shiny & new creative outlet. Luckily, my sister was kind enough to get me a gift card to the Lill Street Art Center which I can put towards a new class again this year!

Last year I took a First-Time Screen-Printing for Paper class there and made a few, fun prints. But I'm torn if I should continue in the screen-printing route or if I should try something new?

I could take the First-Time Screen-Printing for Fabric class and learn how to replicate these pillow cases I have been most recently coveting, among other cool fabric crafts.

Or I could jump on either the Sewing or Knitting bandwagon, but unfortunately I just don't think I can make it there by 6:30pm on a work night for the sewing sessions so the knitting course is probably more feasible.

Or I could really splurge for this 10-week course, Introduction to Letterpress Image And Text.

I think my hold-up with Letterpress and Screen-printing is that they are both very interesting to me, but I lack the at-home-studio space to put my new found skills into action once class is dismissed. And while knitting is a bit less interesting to me, it might be a more useful skill to have down the road and a more affordable, maybe even therapeutic, hobby to take up.

Decisions, decisions. What would you do in my shoes?

Leave a comment to vote for the next Lill Street class I should enroll in!

Snow. Sunday Brunch. Screwed Tire. Screen-printing.

What a Sunday! To start out, we woke up to a snow storm this morning and then hubby surprised me by saying we had reservations for Sunday Brunch at The Signature Room on the 95th floor of the John Hancock center downtown! This is a big surprise because 1) Dave never plans things and 2) He hates going to brunch. So this was a very special, and greatly appreciated gesture. 

The weather made the visibility sparse, but we still had a lovely view, scrumptious mimosas and I ate more snow crab claws than one should ever eat in one sitting.

Next, we headed into the overpriced parking garage to find our tire on our car was completely flat :-( We got out and found a large screw protruding out of the tire.

 

Great. Luckily, our Volvo came with free roadside assistance, so we dialed the number and found out it was a THREE HOUR wait due to the snow warning in Chicago. Boo. So we decided that I would take a cab home and Dave would work from his office downtown until they called to say they were on the way to fix it.

I feel so bad that the weather and the flat tire put a damper in Dave's whole little morning date he planned for us, but I still had a great time. And while I wait for him to get home with the car, I am now mentally preparing for my first screen-printing class tonight at the Lill Street Art Center, that I first mentioned here. It says to "dress for mess" but I'm still not sure how messy I want to show up on the first day. I think jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt will suffice.

I'll let you all know how it goes!

I think I got my mojo back.

It has been almost 2 weeks since my last post, and honestly... I thought I had lost my creative mojo. I have been uninspired, a little stressed and somewhat mopey. It's been a combination of work, lousy weather, missing my hubby since it's his "busy season" and really just a bit of a general funk.

So, I decided I needed to get off my booty, get inspired and get another creative outlet! Last night, I went on the search for a class to keep me occupied & otherwise inspired, and I ended up enrolling in a beginner course called First-Time Screen-Printing for Paper at the Lill Street Art Center.

I. CANNOT. WAIT.

No, I have never done anything like this before. I consider myself to have a good "eye" for art & design, and I am crafty in my own right, but I hesitate to consider myself a hands-on artist. But that's about to change! I figure I spend so much of my time searching for awesome artwork to adorn our place on Etsy and other sites, that I might as well try my hand at creating my own!

Wish me luck! The class starts Sunday, March 29th, so I hope to come out of the 5 weeks with some inky hands and maybe even a piece that we can frame.