March 2018 – Page 3 – L'ensemble du jour

February 26, 2018 – Snow More Snow Please (OOTD #232)

Published on March 4, 2018 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

Look! It’s finally sunny enough for me to have my sunglasses on again in these pictures!

Ever since I transitioned to doing some of my pictures in the evening rather than the afternoon (owing to needing to accommodate to the schedules of my friends who do my pictures), I’ve been trying to avoid wearing sunglasses in my photos so much, since it looks silly to have sunglasses on when the sun’s nearly down.

But now that winter’s nearly over (thank goodness), it’s staying lighter for longer, and I can feel less weird about slipping on my shades at 6pm.

As much as I love winter, I’m very much glad for it to be nearly over. It’s rather overstayed its welcome for me, even though it was more mild than usual here in Chicago-area. Or so I’ve heard – I’ve never lived in this part of the country before, so it was definitely colder than I had ever experienced in my Kentucky experience, but from what I’ve heard from Chicago locals, it was actually quite a fair winter.

A few weeks ago, we had several feet of snow accumulate over the course of several days, melting and freezing over several times before it finally all melted away, and that was pretty much the end of my tolerance for this season. I’m usually a big fan of snow in any form, but by the time it finally all melted away, it had pretty much all turned to grey slush and wasn’t really much to look at any more.

Spring break is in under a week for me, though, so I’m excited to head back to Kentucky and experience some of that lovely sunny weather my parents have told me they’ve been getting.

Assuming I can make it through the rest of these midterms though – one exam, three papers, and one project still to go! Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket: Thrifted

Skirt: Zara

Sweater: Kohl’s

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Let’s Gogh

Published on March 3, 2018 by lensembledujour4 Comments

Shoutout to Google for always being there for me when I need some kind of dumb pun to title one of these blogs with.

Getting back into art again after having pretty much done none at all during the entirety of last semester hasn’t been quite as easy as I had hoped. I wouldn’t really say it’s been difficult, by any means, but there is a little bit of extra thinking I’ve had to do when I draw. How would I accurately portray that? How do I get these two lines to be symmetrical? That sort of thing.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m considering a minor in studio art, and I think I’m going to keep with that intention for now, assuming I do alright grades-wise in this drawing class I’m in now.

I guess my biggest complaint about the class I’m in now is that there’s very little creativity in the work we’re doing. It’s an introductory course, so we’re starting with the basics – still lives, color wheels, gesture sketches, the like. The thing is, I was doing still lives and color wheels and gesture sketches way back in early high school and middle school – which isn’t to say I don’t still have a lot to learn about how to draw accurately, but I feel like I’m in a place where I can do that without having to draw the same apple again five times.

In one of our most recent sketchbook assignments, we were tasked with using colored pencils to portray simple objects in unnatural colors, which I found to be a lot of fun in that it offered a chance for more creativity than usual. Hopefully, as the class goes on, we’ll have more opportunities like this.

In the mean time, I’m just going to do my best to stop working in the art building so late into the night that I fall asleep there and have to be woken up by the cleaning lady who comes in at 7AM. That happened once, and it was quite awkward.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

February 25, 2018 – Styled By Riley (OOTD #233)

Published on March 2, 2018August 13, 2019 by lensembledujour3 Comments

A colorful door? At my Notre Dame? Most unorthodox!

Slowly but surely, the Riley art building is becoming my favorite building on campus.

No, it’s not the most beautiful building, or the most architecturally interesting, or the cleanest, or the comfiest, or the best lit – it’s not even really what I’d call charmingly dilapidated.

It’s a very strange building, I guess, is how I’d describe it. Because it needs a lot of large studio spaces for the various art classes, I suppose they had to get creative with the configuration of rooms to make space for the spaces they needed. There are hallways that lead you in circles, doors marked “Emergency Exit Only – Alarm Will Sound” that you’re required to use to get to certain parts of the building, and a mysterious locked door that prevents you from getting to the fourth floor. I think one of the strangest things is that there are certain classrooms that you have to walk through to access other parts of the floor. So sometimes, you’ll be sitting in class, working away at your piece or listening to your professor talk, and someone will just walk through because they’re trying to get to another section of the building.

I’m not sure if it’s artistic, or just really really bad design.

Since I’ve been spending so many late nights in the art building as a) a means of actually trying to get my art homework done and b) a way to get some time to myself, since it’s usually pretty empty at night, I’ve been able to go wandering around to find out what all there is. And the other night, I discovered a new studio in the basement for the installation art classes.

And get this – there’s a painted red door!

You might ask, what’s so off about that? Painted doors are hardly anything to get excited about. But the thing is, it is at this school. For as pretty as Notre Dame is, there are very few rooms, or buildings, or really just any indoor spaces at all that incorporate colors other than neutrals. If I had to describe Notre Dame in a single color, I’d have to go with beige, because I’m pretty sure that’s the color of a solid 3/4 of the buildings here, inside and out.

So yeah, I got excited for the photography possibilities that come with the discovery of this red door. Expect to see it again on this blog.

Dress: Kohl’s

Jacket: Thrifted

February 23, 2018 – Change of Plans (OOTD #232)

Published on March 1, 2018March 1, 2018 by lensembledujour3 Comments

Alright, so story time: I had a sponsored post to do for this outfit, and while (spoiler alert) it worked out, I wasn’t initially sure if it would.

So I’m a part of this app called Popular Pays, which helps connect bloggers with brands for paid collaborations (side note – Pop Pays is probably one of my favorite apps for finding collaborations, maybe I’ll write a blog on that one day). Through Pop Pays, I came across an opportunity to promote a contest Journey’s shoes is currently running by posting a picture of me and a friend in Converse.

Simple enough, right?

Not so much – first, I had to find a friend who owned Converse who’d be willing to appear in this set of pictures with me, and then I had to find another friend willing to take the actual pictures. Then, I had to coordinate a time for us to meet, all while trying to not sound demanding and remaining completely gracious to them for helping me in such a way.

It took me three tries to finally make it to the friend who actually appears next to me in these pictures, Emma. I first tried my roommate, Mariana, but she didn’t own Converse that she considered “nice” enough – which would not have at all bothered me, but I didn’t want to push. The next person I tried, Anna, actually initially agreed, but out schedules didn’t match up for a time to meet.

By this time, it was late afternoon/early evening, and I began to fear that I had gotten all cute and dressed up for nothing (well, not nothing – but not for the purpose I had originally intended). Finally, in desperation and with the light fading, I texted in the group message of my friends in my residence hall to see if anyone had a pair of Converse and could meet me in five minutes.

I didn’t expect it to work – but then it did! Emma just so happened to see the text, and was happy to help me out. I felt a little badly for how suddenly it all happened, but if she minded the short notice or the strange request. she didn’t let on.