another postcard exchange??

Does anybody want to do a postcard exchange? Hand made, not store bought. If you want to participate, leave a comment here, and email me at monstertown at sbcglobal.net, and if there's enough interest I'll set up the details.

Walter

april 088, originally uploaded by monster town.

Walter will be my month of softies offering, unless I can come up with something better real quick-like. I made him a long time ago for my daughter. He's made from an old upholstery sample, some felt scraps, and embroidery thread. Everything is from thrift stores, or my stash of free upholstery samples. He has a t-shirt too, that I can't find, made from one of my son's old t-shirts, and Z wrote "I <3 Walter" on it in black sharpie.

I've been saving old clothes to make something from, if I have time maybe I'll do that. I have a red cashmere sweater that could make a pretty great stuffed monster!

sick and thinking

I'm sick. Some kind of sore throat thing that is making me slow and sleepy. The kids are kind of sick too, which is good because otherwise I'd feel guilty for not taking them out in this glorious spring weather.

It started yesterday around lunch time, and all of my aspirations for the day were crushed by a thick headed time-fog.

Today I've mostly been in bed. The kids and I ran a few errands so that S. could spend some of his birthday loot. He bought a lego set and a game cube game and some snacks at the grocery store. I bought him this cool skateboard thing, that's basically a plain maple deck that you paint yourself. He wants to ask all of his friends that are artists to draw or paint something on it. This makes me proud and happy. He's not sure about skateboarding though, because he doesn't already know how, he doesn't want to try. He was like that with his bike too.

I'll get to the "thinking" part of this post later. Too sleepy again.

cupcake locusts

DSC_2791, originally uploaded by ScottyJ.

I made so many cupcakes, that I didn't think there was any possible way they would all be eaten. I was so wrong! I didn't even get to have a single one. I didn't get any cake either. Damn!

I think I made nearly 45 cupcakes and a double layered chocolate cake!

so neat

DSC_2859, originally uploaded by ScottyJ.

The little pill angels and devils were my favorite part. There were so many of them and they were very intriguing.

angels and devils

DSC_2843, originally uploaded by ScottyJ.

more from the installation

Laurel and Andy's Installation

DSC_2837
Originally uploaded by ScottyJ.

This is a view of the hell bathroom installation that Laurel and Andy made for the open studios at the Headlands Center for the Arts this past weekend.

Embroidered pillow that I made a long time ago. 

serious doubts

I am starting to have serious doubts about the prints I made for the postcard exchange. I got the address list for the swap and it's pretty impressive. There are lots and lots of artists that I admire on that list. I didn't know that it was going to be like that.

At first I liked the prints I had made, but I was concerned that the cardstock was too thin, I wanted it to be able to be used as a real postcard. I went and got thicker card and the nice girl at the art supply store cut it for me into neat rectangles. I spent another $30 on gocco screens and bulbs (the down side of the gocco) and tried to make the same print on thicker paper and it didn't work, and now after working with the same image twice, I'm starting to think that it is awful.

I either need to make something new and make it quick, or I need to just go with the ones I made before.

Check out Brendan Monroe, if you haven't already, his work is really really good.

One of the things I made this past weekend...a pillow with an ink painting on it. 

lemons on a Heath platter 

I might sell these paintings on ebay this week  

Here's a really big painting of a bird, that usually hangs in my daughter's room. 

Here is my new thrift store tv cabinet and a shelf full of my little block paintings. 

Here's another view. The tablecloth is mine, and I love it dearly. 

Here's one photo of it all staged. A lot of this stuff isn't mine. 

stop stop!!!

Time to stop looking at everyone else's great artwork and get to work doing my own thing. It's so hard to stop when there are so many visual treats out there. I feel alternately inspired and dejected.

Okay, time to turn the computer off!

busy busy!!

I've been so busy, it's been pretty fun. Tomorrow, we finish the living room staging project. The room already looks so different. So grown up! It's kind of weird. Spring helped me find a super sweet 1950's era dining room thing, I think it's called a buffet. Anyways it's great and it has these sliding doors that are covered in woven grass paper, and it has inset handles that are black metal and shaped like stylized flowers. The paper was all gross and stained and I thought that I'd need to recover it, and paint the whole cabinet, but I just had to spraypaint the doors and it looks great! I'm using it for the tv, vcr, dvd player and game cube, and it makes me feel like a real adult because all the wires and everything fit inside of it, and aren't in a big tangled mass on the floor.

I made a ton of cute stuff for Moxie this weekend, but I didn't photograph it, because my camera was busy taking pictures of my neighbor's beautiful new baby girl, Avery Ophelia. Z calls her the peach baby.

I found out that I get to have a solo show at Moxie in October, so that is exciting.

Also, it was my son's birthday this week. He is 11 now!! 11!!!! He's as tall as me now and he's the best kid ever.

baby!!

L. is in labor, the baby is on her way!!!

box doodle

I've been really enjoying those online, flash drawing games like :


The Box Doodle Project

I think this game is my favorite


Keep in mind that I am somehow drawing all of these with a laptop touchpad and that is not easy!

And then there is Typedrawing, which is a great one. This example isn't one of mine though. It would be so cool to have one of those computer drawing tablet thingies.

progress is made

We finished painting today (well I still need to do a second coat after the kids go to bed tonight). Tomorrow we're taking down the icky ceiling fan, cleaning it, and spray painting it. Then we need the carpet cleaner guy to come, and we need to arrange the furniture and hang the artwork, and whatever other designer magic they're going to do.

It's weird, I think there are less than 10 objects in my living room. Right now there is:
a loveseat
2 chairs
coffee table
tv/dvd player/game cube
rug
dining table and one chair
table with tv on it

I guess that's ten things.

It's odd to have no stacks of books and papers and no art supplies or toys or artwork. But it's kind of nice. I don't think I can become a permanent minimalist, but it feels nice in it's own way.

working on a building

I haven't posted much lately, or done my homework, or my ebay listings, because I am working full force on home improvement, with Justine. I think she is getting me organized!! Today we plowed through and sorted my fabrics and made a system for storing them. And she is doing this out of the kindness of her heart, and also her love for organization, and it's great. But she is a powerhouse and I am super tired.

Sunday, Scott and I worked on the garage, so that I could have space for all of the furniture that doesn't get to live in the living room anymore. Monday we worked all day on clearing stuff out of the living room and pulling everything out of the cupboards in my little orange room...oh, and we threw crap away. Good lord I have a lot of crap that I don't need.

So here are my before photos:


And from the other end of the room:


After pictures will probably be posted next week.

46 Best Freeware Programs

Here is a link to the "46 Best Freeware Programs" You might find something handy there, especially if you're not already running Firefox.

new favorite tool

I think of this as a more intuitive, more useful and more visual list making tool, and I absolutely love it and use it all the time now. It's called Free Mind, and it's a free, open source mind mapping tool. It's easy to use, and it's tiny, hardly takes up any space at all on your computer, and even great big mind maps that you make and save are only like 3kb.

powers of observation

Today I was reminded of how unobservant most adults are. I babysat my friend's kids for a few hours this morning and they played and did a lot of drawing on this beautiful gigantic paper that I got from my friends. (they used so much that I may have to ask for more!)

One of the things Z made was a set of rolled up paper "wings" that fit over her arms. Basically rolled paper tubes, open on one end, and folded closed in a triangular shape on the other end. They are more that a foot longer than her arms.

She and I went to the bookstore and she decided to wear one of her paper arms. She was excited about it, she said "I can't wait until people see it and laugh!" So we went into the bookstore in a mood of silly expectation, with me holding her super long "hand". We walked all through the store, browsed in the kids' section, and then bought a book. No one even noticed or looked twice at her!

Then we went into the cafe for a cookie, and she used her giant fake arm to push the cookie along the counter towards the cash register and again, nope.

I thought that it was very strange.

Illustration Friday----Travel

My scanner is not working well, it cuts off parts of my pictures, but here's my illustration for this week. 

just like on tv!

Woohoo! Justine and her partner Lauren came today to look at my house today to choose which room they want to stage, and to make a plan. It's just like one of those home decorating shows on tv. They're going to make over my living room. They're going to have my grotty carpets cleaned (if I wasn't a renter, I'd have torn them out long ago), paint the walls a pretty green, hang my artwork. I've never had an actually decorated room. I'm starting to really like my house, and soon I'll like it more I think.

Oh and they said lots of nice things about my paintings and that felt great. I think I'm going to work on a painting right now!!

confused

I am so unsure about which direction to go, and how to use my time and energies. It's hard to commit to one thing, and I don't know if I really have to. Do I paint, and work on building skills and a body of work and getting shows? Do I make things and try to sell them? What about textile design? Felt? Teaching classes? I feel like there is a lovely zeitgeist happening around handmade stuff and independent designers, and I've been making things for years and I don't want to miss out on it.

sigh

Is there someone who is doing some of these things who would be willing to talk with me about it?

lovely

All the cleaning that I did this week is really paying off. I did pretty much nothing but clean on Monday, my house and then my friend Erik's house, and then back to my house. I was exhausted and achey by the end of the day, but now my house looks great! My mind feels so much clearer also without the nagging household stuff squashing it down.

Spring (the person, not the season) came and helped me in the morning and painted the boards for my new shelves.

I still have piles of fabric and stuff that I need to figure out where to put, but basically I feel wonderful.

I think I'll paint today while the kids are at school!

spring and cleaning

It's been a bit of a busy week, but nice. The weather is spring-y and warm. My kids' best friends are back from their trip to Mexico and they played together for two days in a row, while I helped my friend (their mom) move her stuff out of her ex-boyfriend's house. Not a great fun job, but necessary.

It's one of the many things making me cast a critical eye on my own house. I need to get RID OF STUFF. Rid, rid rid, of stuff! Only keep what makes me happy, and what is useful.

My kids are with their grandma today, so I've had some time to work on things.

Tomorrow Scott and I are building shelves that he designed! Yay! I'll post photos.

The other news on my house, is that my friend Justine, the one with the great house who is starting a staging company, is possibly going to use one of the rooms in my house for a before and after photo. I'll post those too. I'm very excited about it.