The World from Above

I promised more photos from my photography trip to Belintash, and here they are. I though I'd post a few photos that I took while flying, just because it's really cool to see the world from above. In fact, I was so busy looking around in awe when I was up there, that I caught myself completely forgetting to take photos. It's not like I haven't flown in a plane before - I've done it many times while I was studying abroad, but it's not the same when there is no cabin. I would love to take some photos from a plane sometime, though. Next on the blog agenda are my customary fall botanical photos. 

Flying in the Fall

Since my last post that involved whining about the weather turning bad, we've had very nice weather. I went to a photography trip this weekend to the Rhodope mountains with a bunch of other photographers, and we had amazing weather. In fact, we got to fly on a motor hang glider and take photos from above. I mean, wow! Here is just a quick sneak peak; expect more photos later this week.
Oh and this is actually my 100th post! Yey me!

The Last Days of Summer

Summer ended quite abruptly this year. One day it was sizzling hot, and a second later it was rainy and 15 degrees colder. Not fun! I am a bit sad to see the summer go, partly because this year I didn't have many chances to enjoy it. I also just bought two folding lounge chairs for my backyard, but I didn't have a chance to sit in them because it was cloudy and rainy for the past week and a half. It's finally sunny again, but it is a little chilly - definitely fall weather. I would like more warm days, please!

In order to prolong the summer, if only in my mind, I decided to post some photos from my vacation in Greece. Blue skies, sparkling seas, boats, and white sand beaches...dreamy! This year I was really craving the beach, with its salty air and the sound of the waves. I needed to be outside for a whole week, sightseeing or relaxing with my Kindle and a good book.

The sea brings all of these beautiful marble and quartz rounded pebbles to the shore, like the ones that you can get in home decor stores for a ton of money, so I went crazy and brought back something like 10 kilos of stones in three colors. It spent quite some time laughing at myself for that, but it was worth it, because I put some of the pebbles in glass cylinder vases I got from IKEA and arranged them with my big glass cylinders of pine cones  to get a nice setup. It goes really well with the natural and chocolate and milk tones of my living room. And it was pretty much free :)

SOFIA BREATHES FESTIVAL PHOTOS

Lately it takes me forever to write a blog post. Scrambling to finish the summer quarter of my MBA (which means that I am actually done with half of the program), I pretty much spent most of my scarce free time sleeping :) I did, however, go to one of the Sofia Breathes festival days one Sunday after my exams. I really like street fairs and stands selling handmade stuff and street performers. I took s few photos, and here is a small selection of them - a cute colorful pixel painted chair, a line of linocuts featuring scenes from Bulgaria and a guy spray paining a gorgeous butterfly. Enjoy!

Abstract Painted Paper Collages

I was looking through some of my old, and some slightly less old, painted paper collages this weekend, just to see if I still like them. Turns out I do, and very much so. You know how sometimes you create something, really loving it at the time, only to look at it a year later and think to yourself "what was I thinking?" Well, this was not one of those moments.
I started making such collages for an assignment for one of my painting courses in college, and I was having a really hard time at first. I seemed to be doing the same thing over and over, and I was struggling with creating engaging compositions that were not representative. My professor encouraged me to try harder, to let go, to play around with the shapes and colors, and I ended up completely loving it. At the end of the class I told my professor that I see more of myself in these abstracts than in any of the other landscape or still life work that I did before. I still believe that.
Anyway, I have about twenty seven collages that I like, both new and old, and I think that's a good number. I am thinking of bringing that number up to 40 or 50; they will make a good collection for an art show along with something like 15 bigger oil pieces. So here are some sneak peaks of the collages I have so far:

And by the way, how annoying is it that there is no rubber cement in Europe - I mean, what's up with that?! Supposedly it's something to do with hazardous materials, but it just sucks. There's no other kind of glue better for making these collages than rubber cement.

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Pale Light Summer Abstract

Here is another abstract that I painted a few weeks ago, which turned out quite nicely, I think. I really like the colors in this one; they kind of remind me of a pale yellow beach with light blue and grey pebbles and clear water. I want to be in a place like that right about now, actually. So far this summer has been tough on me, and a vacation seems far away and uncertain. I'm trying to decompress whenever I can, but I'm still stressed from all the stuff I'm trying to juggle at the same time. Usually I find summers deliciously slow, with hot afternoons and iced tea, pale sunsets and warm nights, but this year I'm finding myself fast forwarding through the days like a crazy person. There's no time to stop and enjoy the season. I'm trying to work on slowing down a little, but, at the same time, I would like to finish my MBA as fast as possible. Then I'll be done with my education - yey! I'll just study fun stuff after that, like painting or photography :) Oh, I'm sooo looking forward to that time! In the meantime, enjoy my newest painting:

Red Abstract

I'm trying to find time in my insane schedule to paint more, but it doesn't always work out. Lately I've been spending most of my weekends sleeping - that's how exhausted I am at the end of the work week. Still, I am trying to work up to having enough paintings and collages for an art show and, perhaps, an Etsy shop. Here is one of my latest abstracts, very red and fiery. I'll be coming up with names when I have enough paintings, and that's always a very fun task for me.