Zombie Blog

Good gravy.

I had absolutely no intention of taking such a long blog land siesta. There's been so much going on 'round here this summer, plus a lot of settling into a routine (or trying to, at least) that I just haven't had a lot of spare time. But, zombie blog, I hereby resurrect thee! Live! Live, damn you!

So, what have I been up to as of late? Well, for starters, there have been a few lovely little day and overnight trips to local wonders. For the first time, I took a day trip to the nearby Hoh Rainforest and it was...incredible. It was actually very hard for me to leave. It's such a surreal, majestic, and eery place. I can't believe I've lived in Washington all my life and never been there until now! I spend a lot of time at the coast, but I always forget that the Rainforest is just a few hours away.I took so many photos that I'll need to devote an entire blog post to them.

My 26th birthday (eek!) was way back in June and I spent it with my dear mom up at Mt. Rainier for an overnight trip. It was wonderfully relaxing and inspiring, and there was so much wildlife out and about--I even saw 4 foxes and a sweet litter of fox kits! The mountain can be rather unpredictable, especially in the spring months, so I only glimpsed the summit briefly on the second day but never got a good shot of it (though, on clear days, I'm lucky enough to see it from where I live).

I loved how moody the various mountain peaks looked in between the dark clouds and fog... There are so many gorgeous hikes up there as well. The streams and rivers were gushing with the spring snow melts.

I'm also still busily volunteering at the wildlife shelter. There's never a dull day there! I've handled everything from bald eagles and barred owls, to coyote pups and weasels, baby hummingbirds and blue herons, fauns and raccoon kits, and so many baby birds that I now have their constant calls for food permanently etched in my brain. I wish I had pictures of all the animals I feed and take care of there, but it's always so busy that there's never any time to grab the camera.

As with any rehab shelter, there's always the sad cases mixed in with the good (thankfully, more good than sad). My favorite juvenile bald eagle I fondly and secretly named Sir Charles had to be put down last month due to his wing injury (he had originally fallen from his nest in the wild), which was very sad indeed. He was a feisty character, with a very holier-than-thou attitude and I still kinda miss the dude. But on the other hand, a baby Rufous hummingbird I helped rehab was released a week ago and I couldn't be more thrilled and proud (hummingbirds generally have a pretty poor success rate).

Speaking of hummingbirds, last month I completed on a wedding invite commission donning the little buggers. I don't normally tackle commissions (largely due to time constraints and there's just way too many less-than-fond memories from my graphic design days) but this one was for a very dear friend who probably gives me more creative freedom than I deserve when it comes to these sorts of things.

I do love how these turned out. I went pretty crazy with the insides, which were also custom drawn and custom lettered with all of the reception details.

In other news, I'm still busily plowing through science and math prep courses for my Environmental Science major. It's exciting, interesting, fresh and new--and I love when I'm able to combine both my art background and expertise with my newly found science path. Drawing lab specimens is a helluva lot of fun.

Now that I've been able to sort of settle into a routine a bit better, I'm digging into the sketchbook a lot more and slowly getting back into the paints. I'm rather embarrassed I don't have a fully finished painting to share yet, but I'm hoping to remedy that soon! And I *do* have a new batch of original sketch brooches that I'm terribly excited about. Today I had a little photoshoot with the "Aviary Collection", as I've been dubbing them, and I think they may be my favorites to date.

Inspired by natural history museum collections, each one is a labor of love and dons an original drawing, red velvet ribbon, fabric snippets, gold enamel edges, 30s newspaper on the back, and even a miniature handwritten tea-dyed specimen identification tag that can be left on or easily removed as you fancy. They also each come in small decorative gift boxes.
The amount of time I put into these is borderline ridiculous, but I love them each so much (the turkey vulture and egret are my faves). Each one will run $25 and will be available in the shop on Monday!I think it's high time I work out some painting details. Thank you for sticking with my uneventful blog, gang! I'll try to be better about the updates. :)

A Painting Sale!

I have a little special announcement...

Next week, from the 22nd through the 25th, I'm hosting a big Painting Sale in the store! This is, officially, the very first sale I've ever done on original art....and it's a doozie of one.

20% off *every* original painting--including pieces from my latest "Endangered" series! On some of the larger and more expensive paintings, 20% off is a whopper of a discount. Truly.

Special sales are a bit rare in my neck of the woods, so I hope that everyone who's had a keen eye on a painting for a while will be able to come and check it out. All the prices will be changed early Tuesday morning to reflect the sale, so you won't have to wait for a new invoice or any of that time-wasting mumbo jumbo to snag your treasure.

Alrighty, that ends the "official self promotion broadcast". In other, random news...

A couple years ago, I was wearing a white skirt while doing some window painting at work and, as any smart individual could have predicted, I managed to drip paint on it. Permanent, hot pink, window marker paint. I washed and bleached it to no avail and promptly threw it in the "mend" pile to fix at a later date.

Well, some fabric scraps from my quilt project, tiny colored beads, and steady handstitches were all it took to transform it into a wearable article of clothing once again. Hoorah for crafty cleverness!With the beautiful Spring weather, I'm looking forward to wearing it out and about on my coffee runs.Happy Sunday, everyone!

The Drawing Closet

After more than a week of rather uncooperative and stormy weather, at last the clouds lifted for a bit today. No sign of the sun, but I'll take whatever light I can get. So, I grabbed my camera and had a nice photo shoot session with a few little drawings I did the other day. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to get any new paintings listed online before the holidays as I'm just too busy working on pieces for the Seattle show.

But!

These drawings (and some others I'm digging away at in-between the painting sessions) are going up for grabs online. They're each originals, so once they're gone...they're gone.

"Birds Of A Feather..."
graphite on paper
4.5 x 9.5"

{detail}

"Nudibranch"
graphite on paper
3.5 x 2.5" ACEO {sold}

"Good Tidings"
graphite on paper
2.5 x 3.5" ACEO

Alrighty! Back to the drawing table I sneak (literally). All you stateside peeps, can you believe Thanksgiving is this week? Me neither.

New Stuff (finally!)

Man. I really have fallen off the blog wagon. I do apologize.

So, what have I been up to? I've been thoroughly enjoying the Fall season. Lots of crisp walks, antique store explorations, late-night movies, good food, and sketching sessions. The only bummer so far is that I'm still trying to find the best way for my painting schedule and day job schedule to coexist peacefully. I was so used to staying up into the late night (early morning) hours with the paints, but it's just not feasible right now with my work schedule. Trying to retrain my brain to paint during daylight hours is hard...but we're getting there.

"Eye For An Eye" Original Sketch Brooch { sold }

"Dandy Bird" Original Sketch Brooch { Sold }

And look! New brooches! I've been working on these on-and-off for the past month and finally got them all photographed and listed in the shop. They were originally supposed to be ornaments, but I'm such a sucker for brooches and badges. Each one is completely one-of-a-kind, with an original sketch and painted details.

"Whalesong" Original Sketch Brooch { sold }

I'm utterly smitten with the little whale one.

"Tentacular" Original Sketch Brooch

In my head, the whale brooch and squid brooch are pinned on the same jacket, playing out a tragic life-or-death deep sea battle amongst the wool and tweed. I picked up this amazing old suitcase from the antique store the other day (and prompty used it in my brooch photoshoot). I've been hunting for one for a long time, but they're usually priced too high or the locks are damaged and you can't open them. This one is perfectly sized for plane or train, opens/locks just fine, has a pristine interior, and was only $8. Score!I also hung all the paintings still in my possession on one wall in my studio. Before, they were spread about all over my living room or propped against random walls. It got a little overwhelming. Having them all living in one happy little spot is a great deal better.

Thank you everyone for your sweet words! Happy fallish thoughts to you all!

Shop Update

A date has been settled on for the "Oceanic Explorations" online update! At last, at last. It's a bit last minute, but this coming Monday, April 6th at 2pm PST (5pm EST) the shop will be teeming with my newest paintings for sale from my most recent show. Huzzah! Quite a few in all shapes and sizes.

Like this one...

Or this one...And yup, even this one...
I hope to see you then!

Avian

Good day, ladies and gents!

In celebration of reaching 400 sales in my Etsy shop, anticipation for the Spring season, and anxiousness for the inevitable upcoming tax session (oi vey), I'm hosting a print sale!

Yup--'tis true. Purchase any 2 prints (except for Ltd. Editions) and get a 3rd totally free. Just let me know in the "Message to Seller" box when you checkout which free print you'd like. I'm hosting the sale until the end of the month--that is to say, March 31st (Tuesday).

I also right this very second added a new original painting to the shop that I finished last night:

"From Across His Lake Kingdom, He Called To Her" acrylic and old sheet music on hardboard, painting is 4x6", framed is 5x8.5" {sold}

The colors on this piece are so rich and vibrant, that my camera and I had a brief battle trying to get that teal to look right. It still looks considerably more greenish-teal-peacock in person though. Little badges and medals seem to be adorning a lot of my animals and figures lately...

Completely unrelated, other than the fact that it's also bird-themed, I took some snapshots of a dead bird near my door last week.
Despite being a good 2 days dead, he provided a nice sketching session for me and then promptly disappeared the next morning (I assume by a desperately hungry raccoon).
Well, I have some more work to plug away at. Enjoy your weekends! I'm hoping for a glimpse of sunshine...

Mail Art For The Masses

Last week, I snagged a blank watercolor paper postcard block and have been doing little acrylic quicky illustrations on them just about daily.
After all the long hours painting and doing show prep for the Auburn gig, I can't get myself back on the serious painting wagon just yet, so this has been the perfect creative solution.
Super fun, a great way to experiment, easy to do while watching movies at the same time, and then when you're all done you have a neato painting-postcard to mail off to a special someone. This one is for me though...

Also, the shop is absolutely teeming with fresh faces and new prints galore. All things oceanic, Victorian, dark, and lovely alike, so feel free to have a gander.

Hooray for newness!

Deep Sea Merit Badges

I'm really excited about these little goodies that have just been uploaded into the online shop...
Deep sea merit badges! The image is a cropped print of a starfish from "Stella's Dive". It's housed under a glass bauble and surrounded by a pretty spiffy porthole I sculpted by hand, treated with copper paint, and gave a soft verdigris for a loved-but-aged appearance.Add a smashing bit of red corduroy (recovered from an out-of-print upholstery fabric book headed for the trash) and you have a pretty swell little brooch for your best jacket.
These are super limited edition--I only made 3--and are in the shop as I type. I'm so tempted to keep one for myself, but will (try to) refrain from doing so. {update: all sold now}

In other news, I spent the past two days helping a dear artist friend of mine with her own art show. It was so fun--and held in the *coolest* house (which is actually a haunted old Victorian that's been vacant for many, many years). I wish I had remembered my camera because the inside was so old and decrepit that I suffered massive sensory and artistic overload. You could actually feel the eeriness oozing from the stairs--pretty wild. And I guess they just wrapped up filming an upcoming zombie movie there (various rooms still had fake blood splatters on parts of the walls!). Gosh, it was so neat.

Have a splendid weekend, guys!

New Prints

I just loaded some new prints into the online shop (finally):

"Nesting Possibilities"

"The Black Sheep"

"The White Rabbit"

"The Forest Floor In Grandma's Room"

I'm so far behind in print production that it's embarrassing. It's pretty obvious that I'd much rather be painting new pieces than color correct scans for printing. But I'm making a dent in the workload! And the new work for the upcoming show is turning out marvelous. I'm hoping to do some photography of the paintings tomorrow, so stay tuned for more sneak peeks at the new work.

And, just as a gentle reminder out there for my fellow artsy peeps, be sure and watch that posture while working. A few weeks ago I did something wretched to my sciatic nerve/lower back and the consequences were extremely painful for 3 days (completely bed ridden with pain killers) and then painful-but-bearable for the following three weeks. I admit I tend to hunch over while painting, and often go for long uninterrupted hours without a break. This lesson has taught me *not* to keep doing that.

Happy Monday, friends! Can you believe this is the last week of February? Man, the month has just flown right by.