This was one of the most fun family/porch sessions I've ever done. Not only is this family absolutely gorgeous, but they are hilarious, loving, and have the best yard with tons of places to take really pretty photos. A photographer's dream!

The girls had lots of ideas for photos, like this one of Momma and daughters laying on the ground... Love it!

Getting your photo taken while being pushed on a tire swing sure beats your usual school photo day! Due to the pandemic, the girls are going to school virtually this year so this Porch Portrait session doubled and tripled as a family photo session and school photos for each of the girls. 

Plus, some super romantic golden-hour shots for mom and dad too. They deserve it!

Scroll through for some of my favorites from the shoot below to see how fun and fabulous this family is! There's some bonus shots of their gorgeous pup and cat too!

If you're interested in getting photos of your kids taken this year from the comfort and safety of your own home/front or back yard... shoot me a message! When kids can play and pose on their home turf, you can get so much more of their personality to come out in the photos. Also, the holidays are coming up soon and I'd love to create some more family photos and holiday cards!

When I was in my early twenties, I lived in Los Angeles and was working as a background actor in movies and TV shows. On one of those sets is where I first heard my friend Anthony casually and with great authority break down the various zodiac signs and guess with great accuracy our signs. I was fascinated. I didn't "believe" any of it, but I enjoyed it with a speculative interest. Over the years, I pretty much stayed in that state of quiet curiosity, checking my horoscope periodically for a laugh.

Then, a few years ago, I started checking the romantic compatibility between signs for people I dated, and people who friends were dating and I started to notice a lot of accuracy. My girlfriend and I are Cancer and Taurus respectively and everything I've read about the match between these two signs is exactly, for us, right on. We are extremely compatible. A great match. And my previous relationships (before I was checking astrology compatibility) ended up ending due to exactly the kinds of issues astrology says those two signs matched up would have. It's crazy! And hey, I still take it all with a large grain of salt, and I'm not going to make any decisions based solely off astrology, but I do enjoy it as a fun lens to look at things through and a perspective to consider.

I've been wanting to do a zodiac sign illustration series for a while now. To create these, I pulled up information about each sign and then took a couple different aspects of each description and sourced some images to put together to create my scene and then illustrated it. I use ProCreate to illustrate and I love all the different layers you can use and the variety of brushes available. Then, I used the Template app to add the border and text.

I held a custom illustration giveaway contest on social media (if you aren't following me on Instagram & Facebook--get on that!) Mandy won and she asked for an illustration of her brother and her as kids in a field of daisies--because daisies are her Mom's favorite flowers and a "field of daisies" is her Mom's happy place. She wanted to gift her Mother with the illustration for her birthday. 

I loved this idea. I planned on working on this project today and tomorrow, but a bout of insomnia had me crack it out last night (less than a day turnaround time!). I used the photo she sent and found some reference photos for the field of daisies. Next, I put the images together in Procreate on my iPad and got the proportions how I wanted. Then, I started drawing. I love how it turned out! And hopefully Mandy's Mom does too! *fingers crossed*

If you are interested in ordering a custom illustration, shoot me an email at DesigningIndie (at) gmail (dot) com

This was such a fun project! I created some promo photos for Ivy a few years ago and was super excited to work with her again. She was working on creating her new brand as a solo artist and getting ready to release her first song, "City Girl." She needed a logo design, some promo photos to use to promote upcoming shows, an album cover design, and a stylist for her upcoming music video. And, get this, when I asked her what her aesthetic vision was for this, she said a mix of 70's & 90's! Talk about a dream job! Plus, I LOVE her music!

Ivy had already created a pinterest board with some inspiration for the direction she wanted to take. To give us a color palette that we could use to make sure everything tied together, I went through all the photos and created color swatches of the most commonly used colors. As you'll see below, we used a couple of the colors and didn't use others as we found what worked best for this project. Then, I created an online wishlist of possible wardrobe and props which we could both add to and edit as we narrowed down the looks. 

While doing this, I got started on her logo design. She had a rough idea of what she wanted (small "i" with a dot and a v--maybe a glittery disco ball). When we started it was just going to be "i.V" but after I sent over the few two rounds of logo designs and she decided which two she liked best... I got a text saying she was going to change her name to i.V KiNG. I love her reasoning for it--for one, is more memorable and distinct. Also, her wife had taken her name when they got married, so she wanted to take her wife's name artistically. Such an awesome idea! And thus, queer royalty was born: i.V KiNG! I did a few different redesigns with this adjustment and we landed on the logo above. I love how it turned out.

We did three different looks for this so she would have plenty of images to choose from for all the things she was promoting in the upcoming year. We knew we wanted a more dressed up look with fun, vibrant make-up and lots of 70's disco vibes, as well as a more casual, natural look with fun, chill 90's vibes. 

I made this "disco hat" with hot-glued on mini disco balls and lots of sparkly tinsel... I am super happy with how it turned out and even more with how magically it photographed in the wind. Fun, right? 

The other two looks were more dressed up with  fun geometric make-up.  Also, you should know Ivy was talking about hard boiled eggs this entire shoot (if you know, you know) and there were lots of disco dance breaks between wardrobe, hair and make-up changes. 

Then, I started working on the album cover design. She initially wanted a mix of photo and illustration... after working on it, I ended up doing some that were just photo and some that were just illustrated. Below were some of the options I sent her... I love so many of them!

I loved this project! Now, hurry and go pre-save i.V KiNG's single "City Girl" out September 18th, 2020 ---> www.ivkingmusic.com/

Mandy wanted to do a photoshoot based around the fantasy of hitchhiking to Woodstock. She had been going through a rough period of time and I, for one, truly believe in embracing a sense of play and self-love through the pampering of one's body, spirit, and mind when making your way through the valley's of life. It is my hope that we were able to do just that through this shoot.

For this little shoot, Mandy styled herself and did her own hair; I just assisted with some natural, subtle make-up. We shot as it was nearing golden-hour outside, near my studio.

​I was inspired to try a sort of crazy idea--some months earlier I had saved a bunch of vintage camera's that my best friend Jonathan was going to throw away when moving. I gifted all but one to my girlfriend for her birthday as she had been saying for a while that she wanted to start a collection of vintage cameras. As I was thinking how I wanted to create these vintage-looking images... I got curious about what it would look like if I could shoot through the viewfinder of one of the vintage cameras. I would love to have actually used one of them--but I don't have film and I don't know if they work yet, so this seemed like an exciting (if unconventional) alternative.

I ended up shooting half of the images with my regular, professional camera and half using that camera but shooting through the viewfinder of a vintage Canon film camera. For reference, the images below were all taken through the viewfinder. It created this dreamy, soft look that I think worked really well for what we were going for!

What do you think? Was it a successful experiment?

I looked up a lot of 60's and 70's photos of style and hair and make-up for references. My models, Jacki & Sheristen brought some of their own retro items and we pooled our clothing resources to create these looks featuring the Culture Flock t-shirts. 

This was my first in-studio photoshoot since the Covid pandemic began, so I made sure to do everything I could to keep everyone safe. I kept a mask on the whole time, wore gloves and used disposable tools to do make-up, etc. I checked in often with the models (both before and during the shoot) to make sure everyone was comfortable with everything. I am happy to report the shoot when smoothly and safely. It's certainly a strange time... and I think we all felt the giddiness of getting to play and create together after months of solitude and uncertainty. 

For props, I used an old 8mm camera and some film, a retro rotary phone, my touch-screen make-up mirror, and an "Oscar" my mom sent me when I was trying to be an actor in LA (hehe awww). 

This was a super fun shoot and the ladies killed it. Sheristen had us cracking up improvising the whole time, and Jacki is an old pro by now--she was my own little barbie doll/muse for every creative photo idea I had for the first few years after I moved to Springfield before I started my business. 

Pretty cool--this shoot was all women-powered with T-shirts made by the two incredible women at Culture Flock, images created by me, and modeled by two gorgeous ladies. 

Don't forget to go check out all Culture Flock has to offer at https://cultureflock.com/

Thanks for coming to my little corner of the internet! I'm so glad you're here! 

I launched Designing Indie in October 2018 and from then until now it has been an exciting  journey of discovering, defining, and redefining the services I provide, my workflow, and everything in between. As we all twiddle our thumbs in the absence of public events and outings due to the coronavirus pandemic, it seemed like the right time to update my website to reflect those refinements. I also wanted to include a blog that could give people more insight into the work I do and a sneak behind the scenes at the process of creation. 

Since this is the first blog on this new website, I thought I would give a little of my background and some facts about me:

Background:

• I spent my senior year of High School as an exchange student in Italy where I attended an Art School
• After High School, I attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City where I studied Acting
• Upon graduation from AADA, I moved across the country to Los Angeles to pursue a career in Film/TV/Theatre
• 6 years after moving to LA, I moved back to Springfield, MO and decided to put down roots
• In Oct of 2018 I launched Designing Indie 

Facts:

• I love creating in all forms (acting, music, dance, art, design, inventing games, etc.) You can learn more about my other forms of creativity at www.andiebottrell.com
• My studio space is in the very retro 1970's basement of the split-level townhouse I share with my girlfriend, Kimber, and our two dogs Olive & Nate
• When I am not working for Designing Indie, or volunteering as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate for kids in Foster Care), I work part time as the Client Relations Manager at Piatchek & Associates
• I love traveling to new places, kayaking, hiking, all animals (but especially dogs & deer), binge watching TV shows, learning languages, playing dress up, games with friends, food, and changing my hair ;)  

Thanks so much for taking a little time out of your day to get to know me better. If you read this, I would love if you left a comment below introducing yourself (or follow me on Facebook or Instagram so we can be internet friends!). I look forward to sharing more. 

Until then, be well!

​-Andie