Well winter has officially arrived with the freezing temps and the loads of snow, though right about now I am glad to be in Minneapolis where the crazy snow storm is going to be over by the time it gets here. None the less there is still a decent amount of snow outside, good thing I’m going to be stuck in the basement for the next week and a half doing finals work. Thought I’d give you a sneak peak at some stuff I’m working on for my environmental science class… these posters are part of a package deal that will contain “eco-friendly” items in a reusable bag. I’m sure I’ll be posting more of my work as the week progresses, as for now, have  lovely snowy evening <3

First, I hope all your thanksgiving’s were amazing! Mine sure was. It was nice to just spend lots of time with the fam. and not run around trying to see everyone from home like I normally do. I did get to see one of my best friends Ann, whom I’ve known my entire life, which was AWESOME! It’s been awhile since we’ve gotten together, and sadly we go to school less than an hour away from eachother. I also went to see a movie with my best friend Walt, and that was about all I did! Oh, I also took a trip to the Dick Blick Outlet store with my dad, which leads me into my next part.

I got new canvas’ and this new sand texture detail stuff. So yesterdsay amid my HOURS of staring at my computer doing homework I needed a break so I wanted to play with this sand stuff, so I put some on a canvas’ I had left over from a PACE event and then just let it dry to see what happens. haha. Then a few hours later, I decided I wanted to try painting text with a paint brush and just experiment with that. So thus, this tiny painting, Its kind of hard to see the texture but that’s okay. It’s nothing special, but painting the text was a lot easier than I thought it would be, now I just need more practice!

Sorry for the poor picture. I chose to paint Isaiah 41:9-10 because I’ve had it stuck in my head for a few days now and love it, and that’s, that. Just thought I’d share quick!

I’d love to hear what you think!

Love!

Poster design is probably my favorite thing to do so far. Here’s a poster I did for my print production class. We had to pick a state or national park and make an advertisement type poster for them. I chose Fort. Snelling because I had my own pictures from there that I could use. Naturally this looks kind of bad on here because it was made for print, not web, but hopefully you get the idea The man in the photo is my brother, he has a pretty rad blog too, Check it out.

Most people get excited because this time of the year means the Holidays, I get excited because this time of the year means WRESTLING SEASON! Wrestling season has always carried some of my best memories for me. I was a manager from 7th grade til I graduated. I met some awesome people who had a huge impact on my life, and had a freaking BLAST!  There is a extremely special place for wrestling in my heart. It really REALLY sucks being in Minneapolis right about now. lol. Last year I only made it to one meet and didn’t get to go to state because of my class schedule. This year will be MUCH different. Especially since one of my best friends is a senior.

Yesterday I was working on clearing out one of my External Hard-drives which is full and spent some good time looking at old wrestling photos… lets look at this, what I think is hilarious, photo. 1) check out how long my hair is! 2) I’m not sure why I look like I’m going to murder someone, I swear I don’t hate the world. ANYWAYS! other fun photos! that’s me, second from the left, in my sophomore year, with two of the greatest coaches  I’ve work with, I’ve worked with 9 or 10 different coaches over the years.

But there is one coach, who made the biggest difference…  Justin Dean, who now coaches for North Scott, but was a coach at Central my fresh and soph year. Justin is one fierce coach, I will admit, he scared the living daylights out of me for about the first year I knew him, but he is also a Pastor. A great Pastor at that. Had I not transferred from Durant to Davenport Central for high school, I probably would have never met him and would definitely not be the same person I am today. I have now known Justin for 6 years, I have not only had the pleasure of working with him during wrestling season, but also directly under him as his assistant at church. I have so many good memories with Justin from wrestling season alone, for one, I introduced him to Jack Johnson. With which he quickly became hooked and would ask to listen to my iPod all the time. haha  I could write an entire blog post, or maybe a couple, on what this man has done for me.

ANYWAYS. Here are some more photos that I took for your viewing pleasure! Let’s get this season started people!

Well… if you read my previous post you would know that I was SO excited about the way this project was going… then I added the text and it went all down hill. I will spare you of the details, but lets just say this have NOT been my week. I used a oil-based pen to apply the text. I didn’t trust myself with a paint brush AT ALL, so I went with the pen… part of me wishes I would have risked the paint brush. Anyways. Here’s what it looked like. The text is just to shiny, and so it stands out to much. You can’t really tell in this picture because I moved the light so it wouldn’t be shiny. lol. The text also bothers me because I think the handwriting is bad, but it should be, because if it was perfect it wouldn’t fit with what it was saying. I just have always not liked my handwriting so that’s all that is about. SO, I took a trip to blick and the scrapbooking store and bought some stuff to hopefully help me salvage it. So I added these cute little brown squares, some blue and green buttons and some flowers. I def think it helps. The big flower in the middle is the biggest part, that empty space was really bothering me so that makes it look so much better. I like it better now, but part of me wishes I would have never added the text… but hey, there’s a reason I’m in school right?

Your thoughts? Am I crazy and it really looks fine? Is it still horrible? (hehe) I wanna hear it all! <3 .

I’m not really on a kick… I LOVE to paint, I just finally have a bunch of assignments that give me the excuse to paint! Which makes me very happy! My next project is well underway. I’m going home this weekend (YAY!) so I had to get a head-start on it since I wont be able to work on it this weekend. I’m really loving the way this one is turning out as well So here’s a sneak peak into the first 3-4 steps.

Again, the quality is kind of paint because the lighting sucks in my apartment, but you get the gist The next step is to add the text which will read “to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting” by e.e. cummings. I haven’t totally figured out how I’m going to apply this yet… whether I’m going to tough it out with a paint brush, use a paint marker or something else… We shall see.

I hope you all have fantastic weekends! I can’t wait to be home and relax (and see some pretty fantastic people too!)

So I just finished my Design History project and I LOVE IT! It’s probably my favorite project I’ve ever done, especially painting speaking.

We had to take an idea from a specific time period and re-create or create a project with that theme. I took my inspiration from a page in the “grammar of ornament”. I have always loved the ornate look. It’s amazing the things people come up with. So I took this original… I added color to it. So first I had to find my colors, and tape everything off to get the perfect squares and paint the first layer on. This took awhile painting perfect lines and I had to apply two coats. Then I sketched on the designs, some are these originals, some are modified, and some are new. Then I used an oil based paint marker. This was the longest part. I bet it took me about 10 hours to paint in all the designs. I had to be really careful not to mess up or get it on my hands because I don’t have the stuff to clean oil based paint (which can’t be washed away with water and soap) so it was all of drawing and waiting to dry etc. etc. So enough of my rambling… Here’s the final product… the picture is kind of bad, but just as I was going to take a different one my camera died So when I take a new one I’ll fix it. seriously, I love it.

WELP. Today I spent about 4 hours working on my logo and getting the vector version.. just right.. it’s harder than you would think. BUT I think I finally have a logo I love. We’ll see how it all goes down on Monday at my final critique, but for now I want to hear what you guys think!

The middle three are really just example of what I could do with it for fun situations. The top and bottom are the ones I’m debating on. Do I want to always use the bottom one? Or maybe use both of them depending on the situation. For now I’m leaning towards the bottom one, I just feel like it looks cleaner and more finished.

But what do you guys think? Also, Do you like the “JennMann Design” part of it as well?

Also, If you would like to see a larger version of it, Click on the flickr photo on the right. It’s kind of crappy quality, it being a jpeg and all but it gets the job done for now.

SO, after a much need lllllooooonnnnnggggg convo with my teacher about my previous *horrendous* logo designs, I have a new idea. Now I was going to show you the process and all my scribble sketches, but well I didn’t feel like scanning all of those in AND its not the interesting to look at. lol. Anyways, if you have ever seen my sign my name I put this little weird design on the inside of my “J”. I started going it a long time ago because I’ve always thought the letter “J” was ugly (sorry mom & dad) and I wanted to make it unique. This is a spin off of that… well actually… when I first started writing my “J” like that like it looked more like this with an “M” shape in the middle… not its just a lazy, fast squiggle.

Obviously this is just the sketch and I need to take it into Illustrator and make the real deal, but I thought I would show you guys this before that’s done. It is, of course, part of the process hehe. ANYWAYS where it says “JennMann Design ////” that’s just showing an option of laying out my info with my logo the “/////” would be where my phone number and/or email would go but obviously I’m not going to plaster those across the internet. Once I get this into illustrator and start messing with it some things might change a little, I realize the “M” kind of looks like a heart, maybe to much, although my last name is “mannhardt” pronouched man-heart. So, some people say its fitting, we’ll see, its not done yet but its MUCH closer than my previous ones.

Now for the important part… WHAT DO YOU THINK?!

Dear [Creepy] Men [of all ages] in Minneapolis,

I know you’re looking at my butt, and I don’t find it flattering.  You are the reason I want to wear nothing but extremely baggy sweatpants and sweatshirts, like I did in high school, for that reason. I also don’t think it is an effective way to hit on me. If you think by looking me up and down and winking or licking your lips I’m going to go weak in the knees and instantly fall in love with you, you are extremely mistaken. I find it disgusting and I want to run as far away from you as possible. Secondly, If you think by staring at my chest some how *magically* cleavage will appear you are also wrong. At no point in time will you ever be able to view my cleavage, so please stop staring, this also is not flattering. In case you haven’t figured this out both of these are extremely ineffective ways to pick up women, especially women like me. So please give up and find a more respectable way to pick up women on the street.

Sincerely,

Jennifer

P.S. If you’re going to sag your pants, please wear underwear. No one wants to see that on the bus in the morning, or ever really.