On August 7th, 2019, at the Wakulla County Extension Office in Wakulla County, Florida, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for the unveiling of their courtyard mural. The mural was designed and painted by us here at Sacred Visions Studio, Arianna, Kai, and Avery Nakashima along with additional help from multiple volunteers.
Continue reading “The Creation of the Wakulla County Extension Office Courtyard Mural”
On behalf of the month of Avery’s birthday, I decided it would be cool to put together my collection of sci-fi poetry to celebrate, as he and I are big fans of sci-fi art. While I wrote all of the prose in this book, and showcased some of my best sci-fi scenes, Avery contributed his awesome digital art and design. The cover was his design and painting, and I think it turned out great!
This creative project is a lot different than the other digital books we have done, and I do warn you – some of it is a little scary! (Hence, a collection of weird and wicked poetry) But my hope is to bring different audiences together, to a place where sci-fi meets poetry! As I say in the introduction of this book, enjoy it – before it becomes a thing of reality!
-Kai
Hello again, every one! It’s time for my recycled craft project for February. This month I painted two glass bottles.These were fairly simple, and I’m using them decoratively, as the way they are made is not necessarily suited to functionality!
Both were reused apple cider vinegar bottles (washed and cleaned out very well!) and they were painted on the interior with acrylic paint. I do think they turned out nicely, and I’m looking forward to doing more of these in the future.
As pretty as they are, I do have to say, if you are painting glass, you really should use a paint that is designated for use on glass. These bottles work with how I did them, but they are strictly decorative, and I cannot let them get wet or put anything inside them, because the acrylic paint is too easily damaged. When I attempt this craft again, I will use a glass paint.
An interesting painting tool I wanted to mention is the cotton swab! It came in handy for filling in the paint on the curved edges close to the bottle’s neck. Just bend the swab and you can easily reach the rounded part of the bottle.
So that’s it for February’s craft project! Next month I will have something more complex I want to show you, and it also makes use of some natural materials from nature. Thanks for reading, and I wish you all the best in your artistic projects!
-Arianna
Celebrate Valentine’s day with I and Arianna’s new poetry book! A collection of love poems and beautiful photographs for lovers of all kinds. This book contains both rhymed and free-verse poetry by us, featuring photos I took here in Florida, and of course, the digital work was done by Avery.
We hope you all have a wonderful, meaningful valentine’s day full of love, togetherness, and a little bit of chocolate!
-Kai
As was stated in our New Year blog post, I am trying a new recycled craft project each month, and here it is! Sorry that I was this late, I have had other arts and crafts I’ve been in the process of finishing up.
The project for January ended up being this cute little box. I don’t know if you can classify all the materials as “recycled”, but as a rule, I am not buying any new materials for the creation of the project. Anything I used was already in my house! So the box itself was from a gift received at Christmas, and we’ve been trying to use up some older bottles of paint, so I used some of those for giving the box a new look. The flower design on top was crocheted with some black crochet string I had waiting around.
I really had no plan on how it was going to look, I just took some inventory on the available materials, and then let it come together.
I also thought you might enjoy seeing the collection of coffee cans I’ve painted. I did a blog post earlier on my first few, and I have painted many more since! Mostly I used acrylic paints and then sealed them with acrylic gloss, but I do notice the ones that I painted with multi-surface outdoor paint seems to have a better result, with less paint chipping off.
Not sure yet what I’m doing with all of these, I’ve kept a few for storing art supplies and jewelery. I’m sure there’s many other things they could be used for, and I’d love to hear if anyone has any other ideas on that!
So that’s it for my January post, and I’ll be back in February with a new craft!
-Arianna
Happy New Year!
Kai: I am very excited to present my new short story for the New Year! This short story/poetry novel is about a spirit who continues to live on no matter what troubles it faces in it’s many bird lives. It was of course inspired by the avians in my life, but the idea for the tale came to me when I was listening to the empowering song, “Fully Alive” by Flyleaf. With that, I added much of my awaiting poetry to the abstract story to make it complete. However, the birds did not seem to think it was complete – A day after finishing this book, a sparrow hit our window and perished in my hands (which I have never experienced before). This moment was somber, but surreal – I took it as a sign that this story will continue to craft me, and others who care to read it. That is my hope, anyway.
I am very proud to share this book, as it is more full-length than much of what I’ve shared so far. So I hope you too, will face your phoenix this year, and claim the kind of life that is rightfully yours.
In addition to kicking off the New Year with this new book, we at Sacred Visions Studio have many plans for this year. As I did last year, I would like to once again, release one digital book a month. Arianna plans to try one new recycled craft project each month, and share it with you all. And Avery continues to develop awesome new animations/film projects.
We of course have much more than just these plans going on, and we hope to share as much of it as we possibly can.
We wish everyone a beautiful new start, and a happy, healthy, inspiring, New Year!
Here’s to wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! Love and joy to all this holiday season, from Sacred Visions Studio!
Winters and Summers, the Beauty of Emotions captured in Poetry, is a collection of prose depicting the complexity of emotions. I’m very pleased to finally share these pieces, as some of them are many years old now.
The photography I picked to be featured in this book, was all shot in Florida.
Photos and poetry by Kai, digital designs by Avery.
