They smelled of moss in your hand...

 

 

I'm working--I promise! And I also promise that there *will* be a shop update soonish (I know I keep saying that--it'll happen, guys!). I somehow got slammed these past two weeks with midterms, lab practicals, presentations, and deadlines for research symposium applications. But there's definitely a light at the end of the tunnel, and I can see it. Whew! School and sciencey stuff aside, I really just have to do the nitty gritty scanning and photo session and then I can finally list the goods in the shop. That's always my least favorite thing to do.

I thought I'd share some more pages from my small art journal with you. These were done towards the end of last year (kinda behind in posting them on the bloggity blog). From top to bottom: a brief review of a book I read at the time on the geoduck poaching trade (Shell Games: Rogues, Smugglers, and the Hunt for Nature's Bounty), plans for my contribution to a handmade ornament swap (I made peanut shell gnomes with spun cotton mushrooms), and a couple quotes that really stuck with me from another book (The Road, by Cormac McCarthy--I can't believe I waited so long to read it--so good!).

"The soft black talc blew through the streets like squid ink uncoiling along a sea floor and the cold crept down and the dark came early and the scavengers passing down the steep canyons with their torches trod silky holes in the drifted ash that closed behind them as silently as eyes."

"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains...They smelled of moss in your hand...In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."

August Wrap-Up

Oh my goodness. My blog has been so quiet, I can hear the crickets.

What a month August was! I thought I'd do a little wrap-up post about my August in list form:

*Went blackberry & plum picking, and now have a freezer stuffed to the gills with frozen fruit

*Made jam with said plums (the berries will go into pies!) and also a ton of zucchini bread, utilizing the zucchini from my garden*Collected acorns, the start of a wasp's nest, and a most wonderful twin oyster shell for my "Cabinet of Curiosities"*Started a new painting and made lots of sketches/plans for a Seattle show I'll have in early January

*Got a part-time job to help with the bills as well as my sanity (yay for steady paychecks and a schedule once again!)

*Visited my favorite local seashell/natural history museum (I see many days of sketching there in my near future) {above pics from their site}

*Attended a couple art openings, wedding ceremonies, and the dentist...though, not necessarily in that order...

*And read like a fool: Wind in the Willows, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Interview With A Vampire, the Twilight saga, Water for Elephants (absolutely *loved* this one!), and am currently enjoying my way through Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

All in all, a rather delightedly packed month. And now it's September and I couldn't be more pleased (because, as we all know, it's one of the best months of the year). Lots of things on the horizon, and a whole lot of art ideas are filling up my sketchbook and keeping me quite busy. I'm hoping to do a nice Fall online update complete with some sketches, a few new paintings, and even some swanky ornaments (both of the printed and one-of-a-kind sort), so do stay tuned for more little news.

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the last bits of summer too!

Inspiration and an Emperor's Portrait

Hello, sweets.

Holy cats, how time does fly. This is shaping up to be a rather hectic (in a good way!) month, so I do apologize for the silence on my end. I've been painting painting painting, as well as contacting a lot of galleries and all sorts of boring but necessary promotional-artist-stuff.

The good news is the polar series is coming together so smoothly and is looking awesome...

"Emperor of Cold Lands"

acrylic on wood laminate tag

3.5 x 5"

{ Sold }

I'm still planning on having an online shop update soon to unveil the entire collection, so I'm busily cranking out more work and doing lots of all-night painting sessions.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd stroll through my "Inspiration" folder on my computer's desktop and share some recent images that have been sparking my creativity lately...Design*Sponge recently did an amazing little sneak peek into artist Ann Wood's apartment (do check it out if you haven't already--it's fab) and I was so taken with her space and the all-out mad-artist-genius feel of it. {above image from Design*Sponge}I love helter-skelter displays and collections of old things, and get so inspired by natural history objects from ages long past. {above images from Vintage French Interiors book}Yay for things in jars! {above image from Vintage Vavoom book} {above image from Easy Country Style book}{above image from Flea Market Style book}

Enough dreaming--back to work I must go. As always, thank you *so* much for your kind words, peeps. I hope you're all feeling inspired, happy, and at peace!

Constructing Mother Nature

Thanks to a large book trade-in through Powells, I recently was awarded with nearly $100 worth of book buying credit. Sa-weet. And so, a book buying frenzy ensued. I was able to get a lot of good ones, but by far the *best* one that came in the mail was this gem:

I love animals and nature and taxidermy and natural history museums. So a book entirely devoted to the creation of the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History is sorta like a big cake with ice cream and fudge and sprinkles poured all over it. Yummy.
It's filled to the brim with enlightening text and the most amazing photos of artists and craftsmen constructing the various models and scenes.This guy is living my dream job (only, hopefully it would entail a bit more than painting just bird droppings...).

In other news, I had a dream last night that after 3 years of diligently slaving away on a painting, I finally finished it. And it was the best piece I had ever done. So, naturally, I went to the roller skating rink to celebrate, which is weird because a) I haven't been skating in years, and b) I don't even like roller skating. For some unexplainable reason, I brought the painting with me to the rink and left it on a bench nearby while skating. When I was done skating my heart out, I went to grab my painting and go--only to realize that when I touched the painting's surface, the varnish peeled off, taking the paint with it. I was horrified. The people around me were horrified. I think screaming was involved.

And then I woke up and nervously checked the status of my current works-in-progress to make sure that I had dreamed the whole thing.

Damn. Art nightmares are the *worst*.