Time Sure Flies

Looking over the posts from the last year I notice that I've been posting more and more on regular family things and not on being creative. This last year has been a challenge that way.

Most of our focus has been on the husband's pedal building, music playing and getting into school. Then there were bucket of other family matters. The last time I had a spurt of creativity was around the winter holidays. Until now that is. I'm getting myself busy getting ready for the holiday selling and craft show season. I have felt ready for sewing, birds sculpted and right now, between typing paragraphs (you know, to let the tips if my fingers recover in between) I'm working with wire to make bird feet to go in the sculpted birds.

There are a few things that I've been doing to stay creative this year. One is a daily photograph on Instagram (my instagram name is PeanutButterPie if you're interested in following my stream). I've been trying to incorporate a smallish diary type entry with each photograph and that is getting me to think labels and hashtags too. What I'd like, is to look at these together and see what patterns arise; what images really get me excited and happy and perhaps use them as a spring board for art projects or just to get my brain working.

I've also started to draw and paint again as you can see in the image below, there are a few of my quick watercolour sketches included on my instagram feed. And I'm gearing up for the Peanut's birthday party but this year it will be much more about baking than crafting as she's having a drama party at the ArtSpace for Children instead of a back yard party.

On top of that I've been working on a separate project that I have kept away from here. It's a guerrilla art project that you can read about on the blog; The Paper Heart Project which I've created just for it.

So I may not have been blogging here lately but I've been doing stuff. What have you been up to? anything you're doing that you are excited about? Share in the comments.

And Speaking of Something New

Last week I posted about working in a new medium. This week I tested some new waters myself.

When the husband quit his job he made the decision to apply for school and pursue Stomp Box making as a means of income. Since then we've been brainstorming about how to set him up to do just that. Part of that is setting up a blog for him to write and share YouTube videos of the boxes he makes. While we're getting that organized we've been pondering ways to decorate the boxes he makes. To add a little flair to them.

Getting the Peanut to put her super art skills to work has come up as had combining that idea with etching into the boxes. Both Ideas that I'm itching to get on. In the meantime I've transferred an already well used technique onto the boxes as well. On a test box I used one of my hand carved stamps to impress an image and a ghost print onto the sides of one of the enclosures the husband is working on. I quite like the effect and am pretty excited to keep on with the idea to see where we can go with it.

And Speaking of the husband's new endeavor he's written his very first blog post, Why not hop over and take a quick look?

Library, Laundry (like I'd not have any to do) and starting something new

As the title suggests I've got a library trip planned today, laundry and plans to start a new project.

What is this project you ask? Well it's one that I had on my list from last year and hopefully it's something that I can get done before the Bean makes her debut. Also it's going to allow me to brush up on my book binding since what I'm planning is to make a bedtime book for the Peanut of the Poem Wynken Blynken and Nod by Eugene Field.

It's a poem that my Dad used to recite to me when I was small and something that I want to pass on to the Peanut and the Bean. I've already done a painting for the Peanut's room but I wanted to also have a picture book that we could read and keep.

First on the list of things to get the book done is to decide the size of the book and decide how many pages so that I can cut the paper down to size. Not as simple as measuring and cutting since paper has a grain that makes folding along one side easier than the other, so I'll have to make sure that I keep that in mind when I pull out my paper. To decide on the number of pages for the book I'll be taking a copy of the poem and breaking it up into bite sized chunks, which will also break the poem up into illustrations for each page.

I'm excited about getting started on this in the new space and I'll be posting on my progress too.

What are you working on today?

and the hormones, they keep raging

Wow.

All the lovely comments on yesterday's post had my eyes welling up. Thank You.


Things are starting to come together in the workspace. The Husband spent a huge chunk of yesterday working on his stuff and I'm itching to get in and start doing some painting, even if the space isn't exactly how I want it to be it's set and ready for the creativity to flow.

That's one other side effect of being all with child, I'm feeling very creative and very much like I want to be exercising that creative muscle while I still have some wide awake brain cells. So today is all about getting my creativity on. Well that and having a nap...

Work in progress

There's been lots of stuff going on over here. Yesterday was a little on the crap-tastic side and I'm hoping that today makes up for it.

On my to do list today:

Ornaments, we'll be soldering some of the newest tonight. Yesterday (before things got all wahoonie shaped) I used my newest hand carved stamp on a new batch of ornaments. As with all creative projects the brain starts working overtime and new project ideas have popped into my head. I've talked to the husband about one or two and we'll be working on some prototypes soonish. We've also been in contact with one of our favourite gift shops about possibly carrying our ornaments during the holiday season. It's a wholesale deal and I'll be working on packaging and display for that over the weekend; something that has the shop name attached...

Attacking the mess that is the Peanuts' arts and crafts corner; or you know, leaving it for another day. It's an avalanche waiting to happen and is in dire dire dire need of purging.

Laundry, or rewashing some of the laundry. One of our sheets blew up over the clothes line and collected a little extra dirt the other day.

What are you working in today?

Tickety -Boo

The Husband and I have set up a release date for our co-operative project. We have a handful of tree ornament/sun catchers in near completion and on the to do list is packaging, photographing and shipping research. Not to mention description writing, tagging and pricing that will cover all the photographing, packaging and shipping. On top of all that, I have the Peanut to occupy; unfortunately she's spending an obscene amount of time sitting in front of the TV. So wish me luck in the balancing act.

I'd like to say that things are going tickety-boo but I'll maybe save that phrase for once the release is all done and I'm adding things to the shop. I don't want to jinx myself.

Today I'm researching boxes for shipping. On my mind? buying boxes vs making my own. I've come across some excellent templates that I can adjust to make the size of box that would be perfect for shipping the ornaments, my fears are that they won't be sturdy enough and that making my own boxes will be too time consuming and expensive. If I buy boxes that takes a lot of work of my plate but the boxes will be slightly too big for the ornaments (not really a bad thing packing wise as the ornaments will have added cushion to keep them safe) and won't fit into the dreaded slot of doom at Canada Post (not such a good thing because that will raise shipping prices considerably which is something that I've wrestled with since day one on Etsy)

I'm also feeling a little guilty about all these photographless posts. I promise some images soon.

Going green

You know how it is when you're feeling overwhelmed, devoid of creative spark and in need of something new to think about, to get you excited and in the frame of mind to keep going, try something new or put a twist on what you've been doing to make it that much better? I have a great reading list of blogs that I follow where I can get inspiration and find new ideas to put me in that place. I also am lucky enough to be in a place that offers up some great inspiration whether it's my neighborhood, the Metro Vancouver Area or in my living room where the seeds we planted last month have sprouted and are now adding a degree of life to our living room I never realized we needed until the thought of taking them out to the garden to plant them.

I know that it's one of those cliches that growing a plant from a seed is a bit like a miracle. In fact it's one of those things that I have a habit of overlooking because of the cliche in a kind of yeah yeah yeah, miracle of life blah blah blah kind of way. But really, since we brought home the tomato seedlings we were given earlier this year, and we planted our own seeds; I have to say that I'm enthralled, I stop every time I go by the table they are sitting on to look and see how they are, to marvel at how tall the sprouts are to gasp at how big the pumpkin leaves seem to have grown each time I look at them. It's my next best thing to being pregnant again; something that gets less and less likely with each passing month. And another great side effect is that I'm feeling more and more in tune with the earth which is such a good thing.

So the seedlings will be headed out doors soon and I'm going to be missing the living green. Obviously we are going to have to remedy this situation. Did I mention that I have a lot of great blogs in my reading list that are a fantastic resource for me? Of course some of the ideas are less achievable than others; the living wall for instance. Oh how I would love, adore and am coveting a living wall after reading this post.
With my Student Loan interest relief coming to it's end this month little extras like a wally pocket are out of my price range but I'm thinking I might start small with a spider plant. Since I've had luck with them in the past, but wouldn't it be lovely to have a wall of living green to add inside your home?

A card a week for a year: week 2

One card a week for 52 weeks. Each card depicting a single word or phrase to be used in an affirmation deck at the end of the year. Once again; I'm willing to take any word or phrase suggestions that you all may have, send them in.

This was a troublesome week for the card. I started one that was very promising but then tanked halfway through the process. I had a vague idea in mind, but it just wasn't as strong as I would have liked and seeing as I'm a by the seat of your pants kind of girl, I just kept pushing it through because that's part of the art process, you push it until you've gone too far and then you bring it back in and then you push it again until you get the finished project. This time there was just no bringing it back. On the plus side I can use the techniques and Ideas that didn't work this time on another or some other cards in the future.

Here's the process:

Materials:

• Card Stock
• Loose Page out of an Altered Book Project
• Nicholson's Peerless Transparent Watercolour
• Wax Crayon
• Pearl Ex interference pigment
• Water Colour Pencil
• Paint Brushes
• Glue Stick
• Tweezers
• Paper Trimmer
• X-acto Knife and Cutting Matt
• Ruler or Straight Edge


The Process:
I started out by scanning a bunch of loose pages from an altered book project I've started, (more on that in another post, don't let me forget) Looking for a suitable word.

As the book I'm altering is a Readers Digest hardcover and the pages I've removed so far are from a murder mystery the range of words were fairly limited, although I did come across a very good option; daydreaming, which could have been too froofy if not handled in the right way. I'm hoping that this is not the case with this card but time will tell. I then used the paper trimmer to cut card stock down to ATC size, 3.5"x2.5"

Using the x-acto blade and ruler I removed my chosen word. held the tiny rectangle onto scrap paper with the tweezers and rubbed glue from the glue stick onto the back. and then placed the word onto my card.

Using mauve peerless watercolour and macropearl Pearl-Ex pigment I applied a wash to the card then went in with a white wax crayon and drew some cursive lines. I wasn't too happy with them once they were put down (that whole pushing it and then pulling it back process) so to pull it back in, I went back in using a larger surface area on the crayon to make the marks more cloud-like.

I added a few more washes of colour and pearl, accidentally moving the previously glued down word. I liked the effect of the previously masked area being exposed in the middle of a misty cloud like atmosphere, so I went with it and it helped to illustrate the word daydreaming.

Finally I glued another piece of card stock onto the back to make the card a little sturdier. and went back into the illustration with a moistened watercolour pencil to add some detail.

I chose daydreaming because it's part of the creative process. I get ideas from a number of different places, books, magazines, art galleries and coffee houses and by letting my mind wander. For me daydreaming is kind like watching clouds in the sky to see what they remind you of, hence the cloud like atmosphere of the card.

A card a week for a year: Week 1

Before we begin a little housekeeping:

My Borealis Set Of 4 has been included in a Treasury on Etsy. It's a beautiful one and I'm so pleased to be a part of it. Go and check it out and make sure to click on any of the items that really catch your eye. there are some really striking images included there.

PeanutButterPie now has two new cards with more to come over the next few weeks Go check them out.

Now for what you came for:

One card a week for 52 weeks. Each card depicting a single word or phrase to be used in an affirmation deck at the end of the year.

This is the first posting in this series. I'll be posting the cards here each week with a list of the materials and the process I have used for each one and a short statement about the card. Please feel free to offer word and phrase suggestions if you have any. I'm a little worried that my well might run dry...

Here's the process:

Materials:

• ATC card (in this case Strathmore Acrylic)
• Nicholson's Peerless Transparent Watercolour
• Watercolour Tubes
• Pearl Ex interference pigment
• Brush pens
• Paint Brushes



The Process:
The process was a simple one, a wash of light green Peerless watercolour with further layers of Daniel Smith Under Sea Green and M Graham & Co. Quinacridone Rust with a tiny hit of pearlescent Pearl Ex pigment. Once the base was finished I went in with a Staedtler Mars Graphic 3000 duo marker and sketched in the tree and limbs, using a darker accent colour to add detail and texture.

An atmospheric landscape was brushed in, with the more distant hills painted in fainter than the foreground.

Finally, using the brush pens I added the word Ground.

I chose Ground as my first card to remind me that creativity has a firm foundation in nature. Becoming grounded allows me to refresh my mind in order to approach creative problems and refill my creative energy. Walking in the woods or along the beach is a good way to do this. Gardening is also a good exercise in grounding. Being in contact with nature is a grounding experience.

Grounding is also a technique that is used for ritual ceremonies to draw strength and support before a spiritual working. Often the image of a tree is used to reach this state, with your spiritual roots spreading out and down into the "earth" and trunk and branches growing tall and strong up into the sky.

When I am firmly grounded I feel more confident and creative. Hence the earthy tones and the growing tree.

Feeling a little edgy

I've been pretty good about getting stuff started and finished lately. Usually it's the finishing that comes back to bite me in the butt and then I end up with umpteen unfinished projects littering the computer hard drive and my work table, the bookshelves.....

I think you get the picture. Case in point, Miranda's baby book. I started early, during the pregnancy and collected images and some stories and then around the 10 month mark of her never boring always amazing little life I left off the entries and now it sits on my hard drive unfinished. I'll have to get it done I know, and I think I will, just not right now.

But in other areas I'm getting down right follow through-ish. I have a small stack of cards finished, right down to the last little details (I'm posting new cards on PeanutButterPie over the next week) and I'm wanting to get started on some new projects too.

One of my amazing holiday gifts this year was a copy of Somerset Studio Magazine. The art featured within these lushly photographed pages is for the most part not what I create and I think a small part of me wishes that I did that kind of art, but I love to flip through the pages and I get a little inspired while I'm at it.

This copy had an article about a creative round-robin by Susan Tuttle who happens have a blog called Ilkasattic which I will now be following. The object of this round-robin was to create a pack of spirit cards illustrating one positive word that could be pondered and used as positive affirmation throughout the day. I like this idea, so much so that I'm planning on doing a weekly challenge to myself. Create a pack of affirmation cards for personal use. 52 weeks in a year, 52 cards in a deck.

So in addition to my new 5 question feature that starts tomorrow I'll be posting a card of the week for my affirmation deck. Watch this Blog for updates. Oh yeah and if you can get on my but about making sure I'm keeping up with the challenge that would be great.

How much?

I've been busy renewing items in TMCPhoto on Etsy and making new things for PeanutButterPie. And then there's the shopping and browsing that has started to take over my time too. One thing I 'm noticing on Etsy is the serious under pricing of photographs in some shops. There are some very beautiful images out there for a fraction of the price that they could or should be selling for.

I guess it's the same old story played out everywhere. Someone under values their work and then the value of the whole market seems to plummet. I've so far kept my prices at what I feel my work is worth, mainly because I feel that up until now I've really undervalued myself in general and don't want to continue the bad habit. Equally, the whole point of selling my art was to make money at it. If I factor in the costs of printing, camera and equipment maintenance, my time and talent as well as the materials used for packaging, the marketing and promotion work put in and costs for listing items and the percentage that goes to the website the prices I'm listing at allow me to make a little profit that I can in turn use to make more photographs and other art pieces.

When I see $10 8x10 photographs listed, I always wonder how much these artists are losing by selling so low.

Making that first sale

At least I know that I'm not all alone out there. I've been on Etsy for a little over 4 months now and not a sale in sight for me. Not that I'm complaining. I'm not, really. I know it will happen soon. I'm confident in my products and in my marketing plan, low key as it is so far.

At the moment I’m just pleased to gain another heart for my shops or individual items and ecstatic for the increase in traffic to my shops. It helps that there are others out there in Etsyland (like the creator of the Etsy Item That caught my Eye, Amethyst Bonsai Pendant) waiting for their first sale. Reading entries in the Forums from these talented artists and participating in Newbie Labs, gives me the feeling that I’m not alone out there.

Plus each new view of the Lady Bug ATC or the Electric 3rd in series Photograph in my two shops; brings me one view closer to that fateful first sale.

Am I aiming too low? Should I be more worried about being sale-less? With the holiday season in the crosshairs should I be more active in my marketing strategies more of a barracuda with flogging my stuff? I guess I’ll be more capable of answering that question next year. I have grand plans for the next holiday season and expansions in my creative output all mapped out…

OK there aren’t any maps, just a light pencil sketch on the back of a take out menu. Ok I wrote them on the palm of my hand in ballpoint (stupid sweaty hands!) but I have plans. Holiday ornaments, 3D decorative items, stacks and stacks of holiday greeting cards all hand stitched or embellished with seed beads for that unique touch. Yup, big, big plans, and I’ll even follow through on some of them too.

This year my inventory is a little on the small side. My plans for holiday ornaments were derailed by lack of funds (who knew that having a baby would be so expensive? And do they really need to grow like that? I mean all of her pants just keep shrinking up past the ankles and she’s too young to be made fun of for wearing floods….) again I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah, lack of funds. And finding a reasonable supplier for some of the brainstorms I’ve had, turned out to be more difficult than expected. And the health scare at the end of August kind pf put a damper on things too.

Health scare you ask? Nothing to get worked up about. It turned out to be nothing serious but that’s a topic for another day.

So with one thing and another I’m moving slow, working on climbing up the learning curve and putting myself out there a little at a time. As I get more comfortable and confident I’ll increase the effort, but this year is all about the seeing what’s what and tucking that knowledge away for next year. For now I’m just moving one view at a time until I make that first sale.

Oh look someone new just hearted my shop!

All things sleep

I've been having crazy dreams lately. My dreams are pretty weird to begin with; with strange twists and turns and engaging story lines, but lately these have an added anxiety component. There's also the increase in activity at my work table lately. I've been making cards, paintings, and ATC's and I think a part of me wants to keep at it past my bedtime. The drive to make things and post them on Etsy is giving me a bit of the looming deadline for that big art history paper feeling, hence the increased anxiety.

Despite all my best efforts I've been unable to make it through a full nights sleep without having to get up for one thing or another. Last night was particularly bad. The Peanut fell out of bed and was pretty freaked out about it around 1:30. At 3:30 she woke up again. Not too much sleep for me last night. Good thing yesterday was my day to sleep in.

In anticipation for the time change we'd been altering The Peanut's bedtime so that we wouldn't have to be awake at 5:30 in the morning with the switch. To my chagrin I found that 9 times out of 10 during the last week, she was still getting up at 6 instead of 7 as our plan had called for. As October passed and her bedtime grew later and later and her wake up time stayed pretty much the same we've decided that next year we'd do what we did last year; grin and bear it for a few days until she gets on track.

In the meantime I'm posting some of the things I've been working on lately to pretty this entry up, seeing as how I'm unable to photograph my dreams with the considerable lack of technology.

Time's passing

So my daughter woke from her nap yesterday in a bad mood. She didn't want to dress up she didn't want to be a ladybug anymore. What to do what to do? I asked her what she wanted to be; thinking there was a possibility that I could improvise. As luck would have it she wanted to be a ladybug punk princess.

So we had the Ladybug T-shirt, a princess skirt with pretty purple tights and an old necklace I'd gotten at Lilith Fair in '98. That's some good improvising.

We had a busy night: Trick or Treating at the Lonsdale Quay, Party at the JBCC, Dinner at Memphis Blues more trick or treating in the hood and a night walk in the Community Gardens.

All that and I've been able to keep up with posting new items to PeanutButterPie.etsy.com

I've started a new line in the shop of Artist Trading Cards.

Why I love creating Etsy Treauries

Ultimately I want to drive traffic to my Etsy Shops TMCPhoto.etsy.com and PeanutButterPie.Etsy.com but with the Esty Treasury's the idea is not to showcase your own items, so why do I like posting treasuries on Etsy when my own work isn't on the menu?




Well it's one ways I get to be all arty and creative. Each treasury is like a tiny little art show which I've been the curator of. It's ind of a rush. I also like to see items I really love get looked at and possible sold . When I post an Etsy treasury I keep track of the number of clicks each of my chosen artworks receives and if one of those items gets sold I feel pretty excited about that.



I have a treasury up right now. Its called gray skies a comin' and it's full of stormy imagery in honour of the electric series I've posted in TMCPhoto.etsy.com (did you see how I've tied my own work into the mix there?)

Go visit this link and check it out.
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=18068

My current workspace.

If there's one thing I struggled with during my stint in art school it was the idea of doing hundreds of sketches in a sketchbook of an idea before executing the final work.

I'm not saying that I disagree with the practice, because I don't, I was just never able to keep it up. I liked the idea of keeping a sketchbook and filling it with a bazillion ideas. In fact I loved the idea. in theory. For this practicing artist at least, it's a wonderful thing and one I wish I was able to execute.

I have exact images in mind of what I want to make or I just wing it see what comes out. It's the getting the idea down onto paper in the form of a sketch that always puts a snag in my process. I guess that's why I like working in photography. The sketch pad is wrapped up in the photographic process. I point the lens and open the shutter and the image either works or it doesn't and for every 50 shots that don't quite do it there's always one or two that fit the bill.

With my paintings and drawings, I do make preliminary sketches; but not too many. If I fill up lots of pages with different versions of a painting I get bored and the painting isn't fresh to me anymore. This was the case with the painting I did for my daughter's bedroom: Wynkin Blynkin and Nodd. One or two pencil sketches to get the angle of the shoe just right, a few to get the feel for the waves and some colour sketches to get the palette right. And then I spent 4 weeks painting the actual canvas.

So what do I use my sketch books for? As well as being a visual person I'm also a word person. I jot down ideas, poetry, to do lists, Grocery lists, and notes about things I need to learn about or keep track of like shipping costs for my Etsy shops, and plans for birthday, hallowe'en and holiday parties. And I also scrawl the odd little bit here and there to get my ideas down for future reference.

Do you keep a sketchbook? Let me know how!