Something new

I’m taking a four-week online workshop right now through SCAD that focuses on children’s book illustration. So far it’s been a blast! Last week we were supposed to do ten sketches of people, animals, and trees, and I randomly drew a little girl riding a turtle. We got individual emails with feedback, and the instructor said, “I want to know more about this!”

Our assignment this week was to come up with three characters (a hero/protagonist, friend of the hero, and villain/antagonist) and color them. Here are mine:

Meet Lise, Gerald, and Kim!

Lise is a little girl whose imaginary best friend is a giant tortoise named Gerald. Gerald is something of a philosopher and great thinker (and very much into Taoism); he can be slow to come to a point but when he has something to say it’s usually quite wise and well thought out. Lise is a quiet girl who’s often lost in her own imagination, likes reading and drawing, and is learning with Gerald’s help that speed isn’t everything. It’s very much a Tortoise and the Hare situation– her least favorite classmate is a girl named Kim; Kim very much personifies the hare in that story (and may actually have her own imaginary friend named Harvey), is very quick and impulsive, and is Lise’s opposite in every way. Plus she’s always first in line for the best playground stuff at recess– that wench.

(It’s kind of funny, because going into the class I already had a story and main character in mind. But it’s kind of a picture meets craft book, and there is no antagonist.)

I have this serious hangup where once I finish a pencil drawing I never ever want to ink over it. I really wanted to do this in watercolor, but it just didn’t work out that way. Long story short, I traced the sketch on vellum with pen and then used colored pencil. I have never done that before, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! :D

 

A new Treasury

 

Paints

I saw the neatest idea recently, somewhere on the internet. Probably on Amazon in some art book (I love that “look inside” feature!). The person was working with acrylics, and had organized his different colors into separate cells on those week-long pill organizers. Brilliant! So I went out and bought a bunch of pill boxes.

It turns out I have a lot of paint. Somewhere under all the colorful boxes is a 4-times a day, 7-day organizer. It is full. I have 24 different shades of brown.

I made a little swatch card for each box so that I know what every color looks like. I’m really happy with how it turned out– Now I have something that is quite compact and portable (probably going to find a soft-sided zippered lunch box to tote them around in (oh god maybe I can find one with Hello Kitty on!)), and much cheaper than regular palette boxes.

 

Hey remember how I make jewelry?

Last week I focused on taking pictures so I can have things on Etsy again. You know. So I can maybe sell some.

I’ve had this love/hate relationship with photographing my jewelry pretty much since I started on Etsy. My biggest issue is that I was making a lot of one-of-a-kind pieces, and it can get really tedious to take bunches of photos of everything you make. And then edit and crop and lighten photos of everything you make. Being able to reproduce items and use the same photos is a life saver, which is why for a long time I’ve only had my prints on there.

One of my goals for this year is to not let myself get into that backlog where I have a lot of work made which is basically unsaleable because it’s not photographed. So I tromped out to Joann’s and picked out some pretty fabric to match my packaging and display, and took a few hundred pictures.

I ended up doing it in my print studio. Home is too distracting, and has cat hair. I couldn’t really capitalize on the natural lighting as there was too much glare and the earrings are super shiny, but I’m assuming that’s why Photoshop has a Levels adjustment feature– for this situation exactly.

It’s kind of slow going– I got two pairs of earrings edited & listed tonight, as well as (finally!) my Gocco cards. I have a lot more to edit, and then way more to take pictures of, but it feels much more doable now that they’re turning out the way I want!

If you’d like to see what’s new you can visit my shop here.

 

A Girl and Her Panther

In progress! Have some ideas for color but need to do thumbnails first. One of my [many...] goals for the new year is to paint more.

I’ve never come up with a list of resolutions for the new year. Mostly ‘resolution’ just makes me think ‘dpi’. But it seems like I have a lot of new things I want to try out, or things I miss doing that I want to get back into. I want to do more painting and silkscreening. I want to try engraving and maybe even some mezzotint techniques. I want to do more work that sets a scene or creates a narrative, more like illustration.  On top of all that I want to get more organized– after Jarod and I get married I’ll be moving in with him, my mother will be selling the house and moving to California where her new husband is, and my printmaking studio can only hold so much. I need to figure out what things are living in which space and where it makes the most sense to work with them. AND THEN I have all the stuff I’m trying to get done for the wedding. O_o

Got any big exciting plans or resolutions or goals for the new year?

 

Yeh. Definitely hooked.

I’m getting a few last-minute presents made– I’ll share pictures after Christmas. :) How are you all doing with holiday preparations?

 

test print

A few weeks ago before everything went crazy getting ready for shows, I finished preliminary work on a new copper plate. I’m still figuring out how I want to proceed: if I want to add pattern and tone with soft ground and etch the plate further, or if I should let the linework alone and paint in the details with watercolor. I’m doing a series of three other plates the latter way and it’s pretty fun. Painting between the lines is amazingly soothing.

So today I hung up a show (see below) and did a little painting to test out my ideas.

I really like painting but don’t seem to get to do much of it. I love the way it contrasts with the bold lines of the print. I have another test print, which I will probably scan and mess with in Photoshop to decide if I like the soft ground idea better. In the mean time the plate has some scratches that are holding ink, so I still have a little more buffing to do.

 

About the show! My friend Jana (who is also my lovely and talented wedding photographer) arranges for artists to show work in her church’s community center and called me up to see if I’d like to hang some prints. God only knows where the things I did have framed have gone, so I found myself up late last night framing new things. Bloody framing, man. Glass, you’re a streaky jerk. Anyway, I got everything ready and met her there this morning and we got everything hung up. It looks really awesome! We were afraid my labels might take the paint off the wall so she advised me to get clear packing labels. I picked some up at Office Depot (along with a slew of other useful goodies, that place is an absolute trap!) and am really glad, they looked super posh once I reprinted them and went back to stick them up.

Unfortunately my photos were all crap, so you’ll just have to trust me on that. They’ll be up for about two months. If you’re around State College, stop by! It’s the Christ Community Church; it’s a really nice building, there’s a gym and cafe and also a daycare facility that, coincidentally, Jarod’s coworker’s son goes to! That made me happy.

 

I was reading Stasia Burrington’s blog and she featured another Gotye video. I’m hooked.

 

Trying something new

I finally broke down today and used Etsy’s Treasury feature. :) I’d never before, mostly because back in the olden days there were a limited number of Treasury spots (everyone would queue up at midnight to snag one) and they were only viewable for a short period of time; wanting something less stressful and fleeting I spent hours poring over work, saving and resizing photos, convo-ing sellers, and linking to everything possible. Then when they revamped the system I kept doing it my way because I liked it.

This was much faster. Hooray!

Through Rose-Colored Glasses

 

You guys I am so tired…

But here are some photos from the show this weekend! It’s because I love you.

12 x 8 corner booth! Unusual size and unexpected placement, but we made it work.

Made a window so people could see in and shop a little from the outside

Front edge of the display. Necklaces! Greeting cards! Post cards! Turquoise busts that other vendors asked about and were impressed to learn I spray painted! I'm painting everything turquoise these days.

Usually I put my big prints in a trunk (also turquoise) but wanted things to be a little more simple and open this time.

I brought along a test plate to help explain to people how I etch.