Old Is New Again

I recently did a little studio purge and cleaning and happened to re-discover a couple older unframed paintings that never made it online for sale. Time to remedy that whole situation! "New" in the shop, but at a discount off their original gallery prices, I give you:

"Bats Loom Among Us"

acrylic on hardboard

16x20"

And also...

"The Last Bride"

acrylic and gold composite leaf on illustration board and vintage record sleeve

10.25 x 9.75" on 13.5 x 13.5" white backing board

You may remember seeing these two as they made brief appearances before their shows. Once I got them back from the galleries, they went into dark corners of the studio never to see the light of day again. I'm hoping that by listing them online, they'll eventually find new homes to fly off to...

Happy weekend plans to you all, whatever they may be! I'll be working at the wildlife shelter, going on a couple day hikes in the mountains, and perhaps doing some mad patchwork sewing in the evenings. I'll be back on Tuesday to show some of those quilt glimpses.

A Robin's Requiem

Hello, gang! I finally listed the painting I was hinting at before...

"A Robin's Requiem"

acrylic on cradled hardboard

6x6"

I'm really happy with the outcome! This piece originally started out as something entirely different (in fact, it was going to be a painting/commentary on the disappearance of bees...go figure), but I soon realized that I was trying to fit way too much detail into such a small painting. Fast-forward over a year later when I rediscovered the half-finished piece and tack on some extra days and voila! This painting is born.

Two separate, and rather unfortunate bird patients at the shelter inspired this one. The first being a sick juvenile robin that was with us for a week before choking to death in my hands. It was sad, and there was nothing I could do to help. The second patient was a baby junco who had the misfortune of being born without eyes. Not even eye sockets. He came to the shelter because he was apparently abandoned by his parents in the wild (likely due to his birth defect). Needles to say, a bird without eyes is a lost cause in Nature. We ended up having to put him down.

While sad, I also couldn't help but feel a little relief for these two birds who were suffering while alive and are thankfully now in a better place.Moving on, I have some pages to show you from a new art journal I've been keeping! I picked up this square spiral bound sketchbook last month and recovered it because I hate spiral bound sketchbooks. Which begs the question: why did I get one to begin with? Well, the paper was perfect for paint washes and I was too impatient to order a book bound one. So far it seems to be working out quite nicely though...I used to be an avid journal-er, but over the years that gave way. I wanted to pick it back up--but instead of meticulously writing about my day, I wanted it to be a sort of look into what I'm currently thinking about. A mishmash of watercolor paintings and words...Also, as if I weren't already busy enough, I started another quilt. I have about 1/4 of the quilt top stitched together and I'm really happy with the outcome thus far. Unlike my last one, I'm doing the new quilt in a helter-skelter improv fashion. There's no pattern and a lot of warped edges which gives it a carefree look and feel like the early American work quilts of yonder days. You can see some of the fabrics in the below journal pages:I'm also hand-stitching and hand-quilting the entire thing again. I must be crazy...

An Ode To Typography

A while back I bought a nice little bundle of antique carte de vista photo cards. I love old photographs, but I also love old calligraphy and type--and that's precisely why I got these. So I can stare and then promptly nerd out at the simplistic layouts and lettering designs.
The portraits on the fronts are fine, albeit common and nothing spectacular. But I think the backs are even better. In my studio there's whole pile of them arranged on a board for design inspiration. It's really amazing how many different carte de vista designs there are out there--thousands upon thousands!And my favorite one is nestled on the wall above my painting table, perfectly at home with other antique ephemera scraps...

Le sigh...Some times I really do feel like I was born in the wrong era.

Of Millipedes and Mantises

Hello, hello! I hope every one's week is going well. The ocean-themed pieces of this past update were all successfully listed and are now available in the shop--hooray!

I just listed another "Hall of Mystics" piece as well:

The Do Gooder

acrylic and gold composite leaf

6x4" on 7x5" wood plaque
sold

I don't paint a lot of insects, and yet, they litter the pages of my sketchbook. This piece was on my work table for quite a long time and was almost scrapped. If I get stuck on a piece long enough I have to fight the urge to paint over the whole thing and start anew.
I'm glad I saw this one through to the end though. The mantises were the last to be added and the whole reason that this painting was finished. It's funny when that happens.

Off to do the finishing touches on another painting! I'll share that one with you in just a few days. Happy Wednesday, gang!

Surfacing

I'm back! Finally!

Scout's honor, I really did not mean to take such a long blogland siesta. Truly. Life sorta fell in my lap and had me in its clutches these past months. Mostly, I've just been so crazily busy with my science classes that any blog/art updates were out of the question. Also, somewhere along the way a computer died--I may have wept.

It took a while to get back into the school routine (it's been years since I've taken any college courses) and a lot of dedication and late nights studying to get myself caught up in math, chemistry, and biology coursework. I'm happy to announce, however, that I was officially accepted into the University of Washington Environmental Science program! I'm excited. And seriously looking forward to taking entire classes devoted to marine invertebrate study. Yes, please.Other than my long days in school, long weekends volunteering at the wildlife shelter, and nights having chemistry nightmares (this happened far too often), I've also had snippets of time to draw and paint. My work table is covered in finished and unfinished pieces alike. And I now have a decent enough pile of goodies to entail a shop update! Mark your calendars: I know that after such a long hiatus it's pretty short notice, but I do hope you'll check in to see and perhaps purchase a little piece of art. This particular melange of work is all ocean-themed (surprise, surprise), though there really isn't any overarching theme other than the ocean in this particular update.There will be a couple brooches...

...a series of fish head drawings....

...a new mini painting series of sea stars...
...and also a limited edition handmade accordion book.I'm particularly excited about the book, as it's a first for me to offer something like that in the shop. It turned out so good. As both book and art piece, it looks and feels like a collectible. And with only 8 copies (7 available for sale), I guess it really is one.

I have a few other paintings that need to be unveiled as well, but because they aren't ocean related, I'll wait until after this update to show and list them. One in particular is another "Hall of Mystics" piece. Yay!

I guess that's all for now! Thanks guys for hanging in there, being patient with my crummy unpredictable blogging, and for just being all around good eggs. :) I couldn't do this without your support and for that I am so very thankful.