Woodland Sprites and Sugar Plum Fairies

It's that time of year again! As I sit here on my couch with a cup of tea in one hand, sketchbook in the other, and a warm cuddly cat on my legs I feel most content and happy. Life is pretty grand, indeed. I hope you have a cozy and pleasant Christmas and holiday season!

Thank you so much for your support and kind words, folks.

Cheers,
Michelle

On The Interwebs

My grand plans of updating the blog while away on my 3-month research adventure up in the San Juan Islands sorta, well, failed. Miserably so. I was so busy in the lab, out in the field, meeting new folks, doing/writing/presenting my research, and all-around having one of the most amazing experiences of my life that I had little to no time for the internet. Which is a pretty blissful state to be in, frankly.

However! I am here to announce that a) the shop is open and taking orders again and b) I now have a facebook page for my art! Finally! You can find me here:

Eggman Studios on Facebook

I've held out for so long primarily because I'm terrible with social media and find it all sorta confusing. But it's time to enter the modern era and all that jazz. I'll still be keeping the blog alive and updated when new things are made, but I'm hoping the post-and-run nature of Facebook will make it easier for me to post and update regularly.

For the remainder of the night, I'll be working on some paintings and plans for new pieces, but I also thought I'd share a few pictures from my time at Friday Harbor Labs on San Juan Island (which I am already aching to go back to)...

I spent most of my time there conducting research on the effects of warming ocean temperatures on byssal thread production in a cold-tolerant, native species of mussel. Here you can see one of my mussel test subjects in the flow tank, sticking out his "foot" to make byssal threads (the hair-like threads mussels create to tether themselves to rocks).

 

I also got to catch and play with lots of different intertidal invertebrates as well as various fishes, such as this teeny Pacific spiny lumpsucker (known as one of the cutest fish alive--I can see why!).

Thanks to my Ichthyology class at Friday Harbor Labs, I am now able to identify by scientific name over 50 species of local fishes (meet Agnopsis vulsa, also known as the "Northern spearnose poacher"). 
 

Every morning I'd wake up to the foghorns of passing ferries and I'd get to see this out my door. Heavenly.

 

I also met so many amazing people and made a lot of wonderful friends. So happy to have had the opportunity to go!

The Incoming Tide

 

Goodness, this summer has completely flown by. I was hoping to get so much more down, but lots of projects (some related, some not) have dropped into my lap. But I'm really excited about them! One is an album cover design for a local Seattle rock band named Service Animal. This will be their first EP and all (band mates and myself included) are stoked to get the album released to the public. It's been a while since I've tackled a design project--and never have I done an album--but this has been an utter joy to work on. The release date will be later in the year, and I'll link to it for you to check out (their music is really good!).

Second up, I was notified last month that I was accepted into a very well-known marine research program with a scholarship up at the UW's Friday Harbor Laboratories in the San Juan Islands. It's one quarter long and I'll be living in the blissful idyllic environs of Friday Harbor on San Juan Island  for 2.5 months until December. Part of my time will be spent conducting intertidal marine research and part will be spent in a class/lab setting with courses on fish (which will be a nice change in between my studies on marine invertebrates) and also ocean physics. Needless to say, I am very, very excited. And nervous. But mostly excited. I'm frantically packing things away and getting ready to move there in less than two weeks.

What this also means is that I'll need to put the shop on "vacation mode" while I'm away, as I won't have easy post office access. The shop will close Sept. 23rd won't reopen until mid-December, so if there's something in there that you've had an eye on for Christmas, now's the time to get it!

Up above are some more spreads of paintings and souvenirs from my art journal. Included are: a favorite quote by Rachel Carson from her book "Edge of the Sea" (which I read and loved); a painted crab wallpaper design; lichen I collected while snowshoeing earlier in the year; a ticket stub for Moonrise Kingdom (saw it twice in July and was completely smitten); a polaroid I took on top of my unfinished 2nd quilt; and a painting of a cedar waxwing I came across while on a walk over the summer (first time seeing one in the wild!).

While these next couple of months will likely see more marine science material on the blog while I'm away doing research,  I hope you'll stick around! Learning about and researching our salty sea friends is my biggest artistic inspiration.

Cheers!

Art Journal Part IV: Ice World

Some day, I'd really like to visit Antarctica (preferably to do research). I realized a month or two ago that my "list of places I most want to see" is dominated by cold-climate locales. Antarctica, Iceland, Northern Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands... Then again, my closet is also dominated by sweaters and coats (I don't even own a pair of shorts). Guess that says a lot.

I hope to have a finished painting or two to share with you soon--just need to do the final layers. Happy weekend, gang!

Halloween Mail

New in the shop! I'm really excited to be offering these. Halloween faux postage stamp sticker packs!

I actually drew and designed these last year when I was frustrated with the serious lack of spooky themed postage (really USPS, what gives? The Poe stamps were amazing and are still among my faves...but why don't you come up with a new slightly-Halloweenish stamp design every year?) and used them on my outgoing Halloween mail (with real stamps too, of course). They were quite the hit. I tweaked them just a smidge this year with a thinner paper to replicate the look and feel of "real" stamps and used a pair of stamp edge perforating scissors for the finishing touch. So happy with the outcome!

Each pack contains 8 of these 1x1.25" stamp stickers (2 of each design). They're entirely handmade by me in the studio (drawn, designed, printed, cut, and stickerized with a Xyron machine). Right now I only have 3 packs available, as I'm testing the waters to see how these do before spending an all-out day in production mode.

I love mail and stamps and Halloween and mail art. When all combine together, it's like hot caramel sauce and ice cream: complete and utter happiness.