Nibblefest Contest

On ebay, I like to participate in the Nibblefest Contest. It is a competition amongst ebay artists. All auctions start at 99 cents and run for a week. It started last night and will end on Monday April 27th in the evening between 6:00 PM and Midnight PST.

Each month there is a new theme for the contest. This month's theme is favorite childhood stories. Alice in Wonderland has always been a favorite of mine. Here's a pic of my entry. It's titled: 'Don't Grunt, That's Not a Proper Way of Expressing Yourself'

On the painting is a quote; 'If your going to turn into a pig, my dear,' said Alice seriously, 'I'll have nothing more to do with you. Mind now!'

Check out this auction, and you could even bid on it! ;-)

I'm Moving!

I am moving.... I have outgrown my little studio, a bedroom in my house that is 10 ft. x 12 ft.

I am so packed in that I can't seem to hardly function anymore. So I am moving downstairs to the basement, mostly unfinished except for one bedroom and a bathroom.

But it will be big! Around 20 ft x 20 ft. I will have everything in one area, my painting area which also will have my computer and printers near by, my sewing area, my mat cutting area, my shipping area and my photo taking area. There is a utility sink and my ironing board is setup all the time! Now maybe that doesn't sound too exciting to you, but I am so excited I could spit! (Well, not really ~ spit that is). And did I mention storage and bookshelves and places to put all my stuff? The only setback is that there are only two windows and they are quite small, so not a lot of natural light. I will string a bunch of lights up though, cause I really hate painting in poor light.

It's going to take a lot of work to get everything moved and organized, but once done, I think I will be in heaven.

I even plotted out the layout. The picture above is showing only part of the area but it is the main working area. What is showing is about 12 - 15 ft wide (at the widest part) and 20 ft long. I took some graph paper and measured the basement and then drew in the lines for the room. Then I took another piece of graph paper and drew all the furniture proportionally and colored and labeled all the pieces of furniture. Then I scanned both graph sheets in to my computer. Next I cropped each piece of furniture individually and saved it in it's own file. What worked out really well was that I could layer them on the scanned graph sheet of the room and could move each piece of furniture around til I found an arrangement I liked. Beats moving the real furniture all around!

Now I wish I could just wiggle my nose and it was all done.

It's Thursday... I thought it would never get here. Not that I am a big of fan of Thursday, it's just that it means I have my taxes done. Yipppeee. Yep I was one of those cars that was lined up at the post office drive thru about 11:00 PM last night.

Ok, so here's my resolution for next year... do my accounting each month, and then it won't be so hard when it's time to do taxes again.

This painting is called Bunny Among the Poppies. SOLD

Today was really a Monday. I had to do my taxes... no more putting it off. Not a fun thing to do.

I had to do something to cheer myself up, so of course I painted!

I did two little quilted wall hangings. The first one is 'Little Witch' and she can be seen in my ebay store.

The second one is 'Ewe Would Think it's Spring!' and it can be found in my etsy store.

(See both store links on the left side of my blog)

Very Early Morning, Easter Sunday

I just was browsing around on the computer and found that my art doll is featured on American Holiday Artist, today, or I mean yesterday... It's early the next morning now. Anyway thanks so much to Suzanne who posts all the wonderful artwork that members of AHA make.

It's been a week since I signed up on facebook. It's really kind of fun. I like seeing comments from all my friends and family too!

Oh hey, Happy Easter! Let me see if I have a bunny painting I can put on this post....

Today I have a piece featured on American Holiday Artist (see the link to the left in the the list of my favorite links). It's a Halloween pumpkin.

I am making little crazily quilted paintings the last few days. Today I am featuring 'Sweet for the Sweet', a cupcake quilted wall hanging. It goes on auction at ebay tonight and will end on April 17th in the evening.

I am just getting started on etsy and find that is such a nice community. I think I am really going to enjoy having a store there.

How was your Monday?

I'm just starting on my second week of writing morning pages, and reading the Artist's way. One thing you are supposed to do once a week is to have an artist's date. One all by yourself, you do something that you want to do. So I went to one of my favorite boutiquey store Paisley Pomegranite, that sells cute things for your house, art, cool shoes and just fun stuff. There is so much creative-ness going on there. Then I went to Barnes and Noble and browsed through my favorite magazines that I haven't already bought. I didn't spend anything, I just indulged myself looking at creative things.

I made cupcakes today! They have zero calories and lots of thick white fluffy frosting. I painted them. I also painted a country sheep.

Sleepy Sunday

I think I stayed up too late last night! I finally forced myself to look into the mysteries of face book, and that led to getting links on my blog. The problem was that I had an old template and it took some doing to figure out how to post links. Then I had a aha moment about 3:00 am and found I could update the template and now posting links are are just a snap! Oh and here's big news! I have an etsy account I opened November 25th 2007 to sell on and I listed something (finally!) Wooo hooo!

I started doing my taxes today and that would put anybody to sleep. While doing that, I did have a great idea to make a video to put on my auctions (see how my artist brain doesn't want to be saddled down to doing taxes?) Anyhoo, I will be doing the video in the next week or so, I think. It will really be fun!

I hope everyone else is having a very pleasant Sunday. I need to go cook some asparagus, it was on sale yesterday. Hmmm... must be spring!

Class Reunion

This year is my class reunion and I won't be able to go!! I am so sad to miss it. My dad just remarried and they have set a reception for the very same day and the exact time. I certainly can't miss my Dad's reception. Isn't life like that... you can go along for months at a time and nothing out of the ordinary happens, and then two important things are scheduled to happen on the very same day.
About two years ago we had a reunion for the whole school, from the time it started to the most recent graduating class. It was so fun to see old friends.
I have a picture here of my art class that was taken for the yearbook. I am the one with the circle and the star. We dressed up in old clothes and it was really fun. (I bet you thought those were our real school clothes ~ we're not that old!!!)
My friend posted my blog link on our class reunion blog, so if anyone drops by be sure to say hi!!

Sheep Time Featured on EBSQ

I belong to a group of online artists called EBSQ Self Representing Artists. It's a wonderful well-developed support for online artists. They have auction templates for the artists to use and group shows on the website as well as the usual discussion boards ect. I have belonged to the group since 2001.

Anyway on the front page of the website, each day they feature an artist. Through the week they pick a theme and this week's theme is 'Time'. They are featuring a little aceo that I did last summer called Time Sheep.

Here's the link if you are interested in checking EBSQ out. http://www.ebsqart.com/

Remember my image will only be up for the day. Thanks EBSQ!

Speaking of ACEO's or ATC whichever you want to call them (artist trading cards), it got me in the mood to paint an aceo. So I did. I did a lady in watercolor. I am not sure if I will put it on ebay or in a gallery I am in... or maybe I could put it on etsy... I opened an account last year and haven't used it yet, but it's my goal to start using it this month. Anyway, back to this aceo, I decided to brush up on my watercolors and I think I will do a series of them. This is not my traditional folk art that I normally sell on ebay, it's my version of fine art.

Liberty Angel

This is a painting on a wood plank. It has a crackle glazed background. I wrote a quote on it from Thomas Jefferson that reads "The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

She is on auction this week. Check her out!

Poppy and Morning Pages

Today I made a new doll, Poppy! She is a wall doll and ready to hang. She is 15" long.

About three days ago I decided to read the book 'The Artist's Way' by Julia Cameron. Actually I decided to read it several years ago but didn't quite follow through. So I pulled it off the shelf and started reading.

Are you familiar with the book? Its about unblocking your creativity. Even if you don't think your creativity is blocked, the exercises in it are wonderful to get the most out of your creativity. One exercise, writing morning pages is a great way to start your day. You just start writing and don't stop til you have written 3 pages. It doesn't matter what you write about, what matters is that you write. It's a great way to get out stress or bring forth creative ideas. By just writing, without trying to direct your thoughts, it seems whatever is most on your mind comes forth. Then you free yourself up to be more creative for the day. I guess you just need to get the book to understand, becuase I can't begin to explain it all here, it would make too long of a blog! Anyhoo, I am working on being more creative. :-)