pasticcio quartz

history of a life
published digital collage

i recently had one of my digital works (above) published in an artzine called pasticcio quartz. its a high-quality book with a great group of collage artists, both digital and cut and paste. "history of a life" appears in issue #3.

music i listen to while i work

forest goddess
new digital work

i'm obsessed with acoustic guitar. there is something so sexy about the slide of the hand on the strings...
on wednesday nights i often go listen to acoustic sets by local LA artists at king's road cafe. its so old school its new school.
i recently discovered playlist.com, where you can create your own playlist of music you love, and embed it into your website, or just listen to it in the background of your life. on the right, you can find mine...what i'm listening to in the studio these days.

hallelujah

i have been obsessed with jeff buckley's version of hallelujah lately. i downloaded it onto my computer a few days ago, and i'm playing it over and over again in the studio while i'm painting. in a moment of synchronicity, the rock and roll hall of fame was on vh1 last night, and if you didn't see it, you at least may have heard the fallout of madonna's speech and her plastic surgery in entertainment news today. i was really so sad that she has made the choice not to age naturally. she looks a bit deformed to me. i had a really hard time with it. anyway, i digress...
the class act of the evening was actually leonard cohen, who wrote hallelujah. what an amazing man. he is legendary in the music industry, and finally received his due honor by his induction into the hall of fame. after his poetic acceptance speech, damien rice performed hallelujah. i was once again moved by the song, and during it, i had a vision for this self portrait, which i drew tonight...

sketchbook page...self portrait

a new painting

portrait of ines
oil on canvas

i completed this painting today and i am submitting it to the national portrait gallery. it is shipping out to london on friday.

what a journey! two sittings during which i took several reference photos, and an impossible to count number of hours working on it in the studio. i just find ines dali to be so inspiring. she is also in the color and black and white photos i featured recently.

every year the national portrait gallery accepts submissions for the BP portrait award. 60 paintings are selected for exhibition and viewed by close to 200,000 visitors, including the royal family and other dignitaries, like madonna. how wonderful would it be to be chosen.

i am simultaneously working on a commissioned portrait of a beautiful little boy, (i will post it when its finished), and on a new series of paintings that i am preparing for a show. i am so grateful to be creating art!

magic

the past week was a convergence of fear and creativity, a confluence of thought and action. i invited ines dali to sit for a painting, and thought i would grab a few snapshots of her for reference. my car was broken into the night before, and the camera i anticipated using was stolen: an intervention of the universe that collided me with a new camera the morning of our meeting. i turned my living room into a studio, did hair and makeup on ines (yes... myself), and shot through 3 batteries.
magic and more magic.

going green?

by far, one of the greatest ideas i have seen for encouraging us all to go a little greener is change: a starter kit. partners melanie monroe and del harley, both accomplished musicians, met years ago in nashville. they now live on opposite coasts, but have remained friends. they believe that change CAN happen one person at a time, and their kit gives you a place to start. their recycled box contains a booklet, an arbor day plantable seedling, gratitude cards, sudoku booklet, recycled pencil, a funky tote bag for groceries with ghandi's quote "you must be the change you wish to see in the world," fair trade hot chocolate, a charity envelope, and a handmade journal made from shavings of a lotka bush, requiring no trees to be cut down.

subscribe to style pill

i have just added a new feature that allows you to now subscribe to style pill by email. on the right of the blog, type in your email address where prompted, and you will receive a style pill email each time i update or create a new post. feel free to leave a comment after you start receiving the emails. i would love to hear your feedback. subscribing to style pill is a completely free service. thanks for reading style pill!

your jupiter sign

my friend pam is so amazing. she is the woman that everyone wants to be. she has an awesome husband, a beautiful daughter, a great house, and she radiates beauty and love effortlessly to everyone she meets. her recent, as she puts it, "hilarious obsession" with astrology prompted her to bring me a book last week called madalyn aslan's jupiter signs. its a magical little book that gives you a guide for discovering your jupiter sign by your birth date, and then a detailed chapter illuminating how you can take advantage of your unique gifts and become your highest self, accessing your authentic and true nature. i am a "sadge" jupiter, as jupiter was in sagittarius when i was born. pam suggested i make a digital collage of my sadge jupiter self, as "queen of the universe" to help me connect with the ideals put forth in the reading. last night i created the collage, below. i can now do jupiter sign portrait readings for you too! with a birthdate and a portrait photo, i will create a jupiter sign portrait for you, and provide an intuitive reading to accompany it. please click on the email link below for details and pricing.

"married to the universe"

me, in all my sadge jupiter glory.
ask me to make one for you
email me

mercury retrograde

alot of things happened on that day
digital collage by trish moreno

ever have one of those days where nothing seems to go right? i had one of those today. after solving 3 unexplained computer crashes this morning, i left to pick up some supplies for a design project. when i returned, my cat had vomited on my work. i found it somehow amazing that out of all the places in the house to vomit, he chose my design notebook. my husband was having a similar day...first thing this morning, he put the video short he edited last night for the wga (writer's guild) speechless campaign onto a disc and delivered it. come to find out, the disc was unreadable, and had to be remade. when he went out to his car to deliver the new disc, he noticed his tires had been slashed. all this, and it was only 11am! there's only one explanation for a day like this, and that is mercury retrograde. when mercury goes retrograde, all kinds of things go wrong. communications go awry, confusion sets in, people misunderstand each other. a few rules of thumb are best applied during this planetary misalignment. from now until february 19th, its best to put your attention on things that start with re: as in, reorganize, redo, re-edit, repeat, relent. better for you to have a head's up that mercury is going retrograde, and to get all your important projects in forward motion before it hits. usually success may be had in those cases, even during the retrograde period. projects that begin during mercury retrograde have a tendency to be flawed and require repeated effort, often are fraught with miscommunication and anxiety. at least, knowing this, you will be less likely to over-react when things get dicey. just be aware in the midst of the craziness of the next couple weeks, that it is temporary. smoother waters are ahead. read up on your personal astrology to see how mercury retrograde is affecting your sign.

anti-aging?

reflections of the past
digital collage by trish moreno

3 years ago, a friend's sister came to visit from the UK. when i saw her, i was shocked at how great she looked. i could tell she didn't have any "work" done. that never looks quite right to me. she just looked more youthful. she had a glow. she looked more toned. never one to hold back my curiosity when it comes to things of beauty, i had to ask her what changed. had she been working out? was she in love? no, she said, she had started taking some extracts that were all the rage in london. as soon as she left i leapt at my laptop and googled green tea extract and grapeseed extract. wow. i read for hours. i'm not too keen on putting anything in my body without thorough research. i'm one of those people that gets a pang and thinks i must be dying. i would blame the extracts for the 50 strands of hair you lose every day if i wasn't sure it was good for me. so i read. and i read. and i decided to try it. funny enough, i had heard on the radio earlier that week that if you can just replace coffee and black tea with green tea for 21 days, you lose 10 pounds and get a more youthful glow. i was already primed to try it. i started with drinking the green tea for 21 days in place of my daily trip to king's road cafe ... literally, the absolute best, (read: strong), coffee in los angeles. i was loyal to the cause and lost about 8 pounds, not kidding. so i started taking the extracts. i lost another 8 pounds over the next few months. i have been taking them now for over 2 years, and i now drink mostly white tea which has apparently more antioxidants than the green. my weight has stabilized. i'm totally off coffee, but i do still treat myself to an occasional chai latte at kings road... even better than their coffee! i am leaner, more toned, doing yoga, and eating healthier- an unexpected side effect. people say all the time that i look years younger than my age. i'm just saying....
footnote: please do check with your doctor before taking any supplements. check out the little shop i constructed for antioxidant-rich supplements and topical treatments for your hair and skin. these are my picks for products that improve your quality of life.

pouf!

a friend asked me today how i got that little pouf in the back of my hair, that slight rise that gives your hair lift and subtle fullness. 60's mod, but underdone. well it's all about product. in this case, redken's workforce 09 volumizing finishing spray. just spray it at the roots behind your part, gently backcomb it...no rat's nest required, and poof! a pouf.
note: those of you who read this post earlier, redken's "inflate" has been renamed workforce 09. you can purchase on the link above.

polyvore

dreaming in baroque
digital collage by trish moreno

what better way to start my blog about fashion, beauty, home and art than to enlighten you to possibly the one thing i have found that combines them all- polyvore.

what started as an anonymous referral in my inbox from one of my favorite trend newsletters, trendcentral, has turned into a radical obsession, an addiction du jour, that has lasted many a "jour". polyvore is the place for budding fashion editors and stylists to create their own point of view, for fashion designers to explore new ideas, for fashion retailers to merchandise their mix, for interior designers to create space.

qualifying as both a fashionista and an interior designer, i could barely hold myself back from that fateful click. little did i know that polyvore would have such an impact on my life...or my family's. i have delayed numerous dinners for my poor hungry daughter..."just a minute honey, let me just finish this set" and stayed up well past the dissolve of midnight into morning on too many occasions to count. my husband somehow still sees the charm in that. i have created over 100 sets.

i am not really using polyvore for its intended use. i have used it to venture into the world of digital art, a long-veiled and secret club to me, one which i longed to be part of, but found cracking the photoshop code a bit too daunting a task. as a fine artist, i prefer charcoal pencil and oil paint, which is about as low tech as you can get. polyvore is photoshop made easy. it cuts to the quick, leaving out the unnecessary details, allowing you to layer various elements in a surprisingly simple way, and to create, create, create! hours go by and you're still doing it. polyvore is the zone, the crest of the creativity wave. i even created a piece that was voted by other users into first place, an honor for which i won a mac laptop from uber-cool sponsor, limelife. not a bad return on a spare-time addiction. for me, polyvore has been and continues to be a place for me to discover and inspire new reaches in my artwork. and its a place-holder in the artistic zone for anyone who wishes to add more creativity into their life.