Our Secret

Jen Gotch (Flickr, Blogger) has done this amazing series of scribbled on Polaroids. I think a lot of people might think, What's so great about scribbled on pictures?, but I think there's a lot of great things about them. I think what I really like is the idea of injecting commentary into an image: merging thoughts and words and visuals. At first, the act of writing seems concrete, like you're adding a definitive tag to the photo, but I think it really just opens it up more & adds another blurry level of meaning.

Here's how Jen describes the inspiration behind her project:

It started very innocently. I was just trying to take a self portrait, and when I saw what my face looked like I said to myself (out loud) "I don't like my face today." So I grabbed a sharpie and scribbled it out. "There, much better. Hmmmmm. This feels kind of good." Ok, let me stop you right there. I don't hate myself, or my face for that matter, I just didn't like it yesterday. It happens, right? Then I remembered that I had another photo of myself where I didn't like the way my mouth looked, so I scribbled on that one, too. And then it hit me. Finally, something to do with all those "reject" polaroids I've been holding onto for years. The ones that got jammed in the camera, or yellowed in certain places, or the ones where I just didn't like my face. So I dug them up and just started writing the first thing that came to my mind. As if I was explaining the photo to someone else. Well, I couldn't stop. I even dipped into a couple of non-rejects. And, since I wasn't liking my face, I took some more self portraits and scribbled on them. Defacing is fun, and it brings some emotion to photos that weren't very, well, emotional. I hope you like what I have done so far.

When Andrew came home last night and saw what I was doing he said,
"Why did you draw all over your face?"
I said,
"I didn't like, uh, you wouldn't understand."
He probably would understand, but I think he likes my face everyday (as husbands should), so maybe he wouldn't.

My friend Chris emailed me. I think he thought I might be suicidal because of how blue I have been feeling. I told him that wasn't the case, I was just inspired. He's a good friend.

There are more of Jen's photos ( under the cut )

I also made these images into icons. If you take any icons, please credit oursecret & Jen Gotch in your keywords/comments.

I'm going to be honest, I really like skateboarding. I know, some people think that skateboarding is best left to rebellious 14 year old boys who want to smash the state after study hall, but it's fun and liberating and a good way to get the 4 blocks from my house to the library without breaking a sweat. Plus, I can carry my skateboard under my arm and you just can't do that with a bike. Anyway, this isn't a post about skateboards, this is a post about Kris Chau. While looking for a new deck, I saw the above beauty and was blown away, so I just had to check out Kris' website for more work and, you guys, I was blown away. There are certain motifs that I love in illustration - rabbits, foxes, bikes, wistful looking girls - and Kris does them all and she does them so well.

So, here's a selection of my favorite images from Kris' site. This is a very image heavy post (over 20 images), so it's not very dial-up friendly. Sorry! Believe me, it was hard enough to limit myself to 25 or so pictures. Please check out Kris' site for more.



( 20+ more! )

If you're interested in getting one of Kris' decks, check out Foundation Skateboards.

I really loved Kris' work, so I made a few quick icons of some of my favorite pieces:





If you take an icon, please credit