Presents!

Look at what I made today!! I made a few of these as birthday presents for some kids I know. I'm really happy with them. If it wasn't so last minute, I would have made a bunch of little needle felted food to feed them, but instead I just cut some simple fruits and veggies out of felt. They're also just cool little pouches for putting treasures in.

zombies are the new pirate

Zombies have a lot of popularity right now, at least where I live. Looks like there's going to be a zombie flash mob and picnic today in San Francisco, so watch out, San Francisco people!

(saw this on boing boing)

monster town, now on etsy too!

Since I've been making so many things lately, I've decided to go ahead and open a shop on etsy. I'm just starting to stock some things, it should grow more in the next week or so! Go and look!!!

etsy

Etsy looks neat. Here are some cute things I've seen there.

*Kitty Cat Hat
*yelling doll
*this one's for Laurel

I was wondering if anyone has had luck with selling on Etsy?

we saw a crazy dirigible

Neato!

kinda self portrait Tuesday

Well, it's kind of a self portrait. Here is Zelia wearing my sun hat, the glasses that I need to wear for driving, and a weird frown. (I promise I don't make that face!) We were out in the yard, and she was being my ebay photography assistant, helping to dress and undress our friend, the headless torso, she also took photos of the clothing for me, all from the interesting perspective of a person who is only 3.5 feet tall.

So, that's my first try at the "self portrait Tuesday", started by redcurrent. Which is a really great blog, if you haven't seen it yet.

questions about printing

Does anybody know anything about the process of having artwork printed by someone other than one's self?

I need recommendations for printers, advice about how not to sound like a dummy when talking to printers, that kind of thing. I want to have prints made of some of my artwork, prints that are archival and nice on good paper, but not too expensive. I also need to have postcards printed, maybe some greeting card type cards and business cards.

This place looks good, but I don't know....
Or this
Or maybe this place...

Or I could buy an epson archival quality printer (again) and print my own things, and stuff for other struggling artists on the cheap.

cool with possibilities of more coolness to come

Take a look at ifabricate.com ! Lots of interesting possibilities here. I think I might register and put up a little bookbinding project so that I can see how ifabricate works.

I found this link through Hobby Princess's list of what crafters want from social software developers.

**note-because it's superbeta, they aren't letting people join yet...dang...

a few things late at night

I have been crafting like mad and designing things for the fashion art show in August. I designed seven lines of clothing (which probably won't ever be made). It makes me happy, but is not good for the cleanliness of my house!

I'm learning how to use my serger thanks to some help from Spring and Anna, both talented seamstresses. The tip of the needle broke off and hit me directly in the eyeball, and then the thread got all wonky and the tension was off, so they fixed it up for me.

I'll post some photos here soon of some of the things I've made.

We finished Harry Potter, and the ending made me cry (even though I knew that it was coming). Also, I quit myspace yesterday after something like two years because Rupert Murdoch's company bought it and I just don't want to participate in anything even vaguely related to fox news. Myspace is super addictive and handy for contacting friends and stuff,almost everyone that I know in town is on it, but yeah, no more myspace for me.

Also, I didn't forget about the postcard exchange gallery I've promised. It's on my list of things to do this week!

hurry up garden!!!

The artichokes are ready.

The bees are here!

But the tomatoes are still green! Come on tomatoes!!

3 for a friend

This is an encaustic painting that I finished today for a friend. She is buying it as a baby shower gift for another friend who is due really soon. She requested a painting of three "uppies" (a creation of my daughter) because with this new baby, plus her four year old and her 4/5 year old stepson, she will have three kids.

Uppies are little creatures that always want up...kinda like a toddler.

I'm not sure that I'm entirely satisfied with it, but when she comes over to pick it up we'll talk about it.

busy

This weekend, while Scott was camping among friends and plague squirrels, the kids and I were busy. We are obsessively listening to the new Harry Potter book on cd. (we're almost done with it). We had dinner and mad libs with friends on Friday night. We were trying to stay up for the Harry Potter book release party, but we decided against it when we saw the crowds.

Saturday was the Girls Girls Girls show at Free Mind, which I already talked about, and Sunday, while they were with their dad, I went to my friend Art's art show in Sebastopol. I love his stuff. He's the most prolific artist that I know. Maybe it's a tie between him and Todd.



Today I was all spun around with so many ideas to work on. Discipline is a definite problem of mine. Monday is my major work day, the kids are with their dad until 8pm, so I have all day long with no other responsibilities. Sometimes it's tricky to decide what to concentrate on because I have so many things going on.

First there is survival income which I get by selling things on ebay. Lately it's boring designer clothing. And then comes producing art for my two October shows, keeping the house clean, and starting my business, and figuring stuff out regarding my "career" as an artist (yikes). Not to mention parenting my sweet children.

I've also decided to try for a grant that my friend Krista told me about, and I'm making stuff for Martina's upcoming fashion themed art show at Moxie. I'll be making jewelry and bags and accessories and also painted shoes! Art had the idea to make painted shoes and do a group show, he made some shoes that are completely incredible. I wish that I had taken a photo of them. I made one pair of them today.



I don't think that these are finished yet. I might do some more work on them tomorrow. I should have taken a before photo! They were gold lame' high heels. So yeah, lots going on, but it's all good.

free mind

The show at Free Mind Media last night was great. The space is small, but they got everything hung nicely, and the place was packed! There was music and food and a shadow puppet show. Free Mind is a really nice project for the community. I'm glad they finally have a space.

This is Spring's beautiful charcoal drawing.

Here are my pieces from the show. The top one is embroidery on linen, and the three on the bottom are encaustic. I'll get some better pictures after the show comes down.

no camping for me

I'm skipping the camping trip this weekend, and I'm kind of regretting it already. Scott and I have never done anything like that before, and it would have been nice.

I am working today to finish up my pieces for the "Girls, Girls Girls" show at Free Mind. They're hanging it tonight, and I procrastinated.

magic bike

Take a look at magicbike, it's very neat!

business

I've decided to go ahead with starting my small business (details to be revealed soon), so I'm busy this week with setting things up more. Bookkeeping system, ordering supplies, taking photos for the website, redesigning the logo I did before, talking with my web designer. I wish that I had the money to start it with everything I'll need, but instead I'm doing it on a shoestring. I wish that I could hire a graphic designer, or an illustrator. I'm spending hours and hours on my logo and I'm stuck on one idea and getting nowhere!

I'm thinking of color, typography, how to create an identity that communicates what I want it to communicate, and I'm realizing that I am just not a graphic designer.

1" buttons

If anybody wants some made, let me know. I've started making them for local bands, and I'm making some with my own artwork too. I charge the same price as everyone, maybe a bit less, because full color or black and white, makes no difference to me! $20 for 100.

you can email monstertown at sbcglobal.net for details if you're interested.

wabi sabi

This is one of my new encaustic paintings for the Wabi Sabi show at the O'Hanlon Center.

home again

The camping trip was lovely. The kids loved swimming all day long, the campfire, the mad libs. The lake was pretty, the campground was pretty good. Our spot under the manzanitas was really nice.

Next weekend's camping is a more serious endeavor, and I hope we're up for it. This time we're going over the Sierras to Grover Hot Springs where they have actual bears and weather conditions.

going camping

The kids and I are going camping for the weekend. We're leaving in just a few hours. We're going camping next weekend too! They are so excited.

I have to pack some projects for myself for the weekend. I'm really looking forward to just sitting in the woods and at the beach, working on things. I think I'll bring some business stuff, some embroidery, drawing materials and some feltmaking stuff.

Postcards from the exchange are still rolling in and they are beautiful! I have been bad, and am very late in sending them out! So sorry! They are done now and will be in the mail right away. Anyone else who is late, don't feel bad. Next week I'm going to scan them all and make a flickr gallery.

tool roundup

Here are some productivity tools that I am really enjoying. Most, if not all of these were found through 43folders.com.

Backpack is a bigger and more useful version of the tadalist I posted about a few months ago. Scott's been using this for a while and is thinking of upgrading from the free version. I think that it will be very useful, there is a lot that you can do with this. I'm currently using it to manage my thinking on my major projects.

GTD TiddlyWiki has a super funny name but it's really neat and handy. I've been using it a lot, but now it's got competition from Backpack. I'm using this version. The original, non GTD focused TiddlyWiki is here.

I believe I've mentioned this one before, but it's really neat, and it hardly takes any space on your computer. It's for making "mind maps" when thinking through a project. It's called Free Mind, which is also the name of the new infoshop here in town, run by some friends of Scott and I. I'm going to have artwork hanging there next week in a show called "Girls Girls Girls".

I'm on the lookout for a new digital camera, as mine is slowly dying and making my ebay photos look terrible. Sometimes it works fine and sometimes it takes photos that are blurry, dark and noisy with lines of dropped pixels. It's only 3.2 megapixels anyway, so it's probably time for a new one. For work I frequently take photos of boring clothes on headless mannequins, and also close up views of things, so I'll need macro. I'm considering the Nikon D50 ( the slightly less expensive sister to the D70), or some kind of point and shoot Canon.

really hot

It's really hot here today. Around 95 degrees. I don't do well in the heat. Zelia and I are lying in my darkened, slightly cooler bedroom. She is reading aloud to me as I work and that is just so thrilling, even if it is Captain Underpants.

The kids and I also worked on a long list of things we need to get/do/find for our camping trip this weekend.

They spent the night last night at a friend's amazing house. They have 40 gorgeous wooded acres that back up to 3000 uninhabited acres(more specifically, the infamous Bohemian Grove). It was such a gorgeous place. We took a hike to the top of the ridge and it looked out over a valley of redwoods that stretched out to the ocean. A nesting osprey was circling around our heads. They had a great time and had a campfire and played hide and seek in the woods and swung in rope swings under the shade of a big fig tree, and picked and ate almost ripe peaches. Zelia came home with a case of poison oak, but she had a great time.

I wish that I could provide something like that for them. It was so cool to see them running about like little forest creatures.

Also, all three of my paintings got accepted for the Wabi Sabi show at the O'Hanlon Center. It will be hanging until the end of July.

spree

hmmm....I just bought way too many books.

I think they'll be useful, but if feels weird to spend money.

happy 4th

I love it when Scott has a Monday off. It's a rare and wonderful thing.

That's all.

funny

I was reading gawker this morning, and I found out that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner got married on the same beach on the same obscure island that I did. Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands. They were at some "exclusive resort" and I was at a bright pink french hotel with concrete bathrooms. The island was great,the pink french hotel was great and the beach was stunning. It really looks like the photo above. Better maybe.

Hope it works out better for them than it did for me!

nyfa.org

There are some good and informative articles on art as a career here at nyfa.org This website seems to have lots of resources, especially for NY based artists. Thers is a lot of content to explore here!

little update

I'm driving down today to drop off my artwork, and my friend Art's as well. I hope that it all gets accepted!

The hardest things is the biography and the artist's statement. Does anyone have any tips for that?

yay!

They did it. They made it through "Brother Sister Day" harmoniously and well! I am so proud. They are great kids and I love them so much.

joy!!!

My kids have had a problem this summer, and it's called constant bickering and fighting!! The classic sibling pattern, the deadly pester--->annoy---->hurt---> triangle. I must say that it is beyond annoying.

I've told them again and again like a broken record mom "In this family we treat each other kindly" "Please stop pestering/annoying/hurting your brother/sister!" "We could have a lot more fun if you two would remember that you can be friends" or my friend Dani's classic, "Stop that right now or I will scoop out your eyeballs with a tiny tiny spoon!"

Siblings must get something from that special relationship though, because jeez, they wouldn't stop!

Today though, a miracle has occured, and my sweet intelligent children, all on their own have declared today (and every Friday, thank you lord!) to be "Brother and Sister Day". Sylvan says, I won't hurt her and she won't bug me! They have been kind to each other, talked and played and even hugged! We're all hanging out and having a nice time. I'm going to have to think of some reinforcing activities, and special things to go along with this. Brother and Sister day could become a nice family tradition that they will always remember. My secret hope is that their whole way of being with each other will shift because of it.

Happy Brother and Sister Day everyone!!!