Creative Every Day

Entries from: June 2008

Language

June 14th, 2008, Comments (10)

New piece I've been working on, "Language" built up from layers of acrylic, ink, colored pencil, and paper on 11" x 14" watercolor paper. Again, thinking about memory, losing words and their meaning, the way trees are shaped like the pathways in our brains, and also family trees. Finishing it was timely considering my grandmother's entrance into a nursing home this week due to the progression of her Alzheimer's disease. It's been really tough for my mom. And just sad in general. And scary. I do hope that no one else in my family is headed for that fate.

I'd been itching to see a movie this week, so last night the hubster and I went to see "The Happening." Wow. It was awful. Do not go see it. Seriously.

Anyways, its' a beautiful day and I need to run some art to the post office! I hope your weekend is a wonderfully creative one!

Views from the Sketchbook

June 12th, 2008, Comments (8)

I've had a minor case of the blahs this week, perhaps brought on by feeling a bit over-cooked in the heat. But I'm ready to snap on out of of it.

I've got one art piece that is frustrating me and may be headed to a future of torn up collage material. So I'll leave that piece alone and share some sketchbook pages from the past couple days with you instead. The first one above is an intuitive scribble drawing. I started out with a big scribble on the page (without looking) and then found forms in it to bring out a drawing. Below, another intuitive drawing, this one came from marker bleeding through from another page which suggested the form of fish and a mermaid tail.

And lastly, I've had bees on the brain lately. Perhaps inspired by a couple bee visitors in our apartment and the happy bees outside my window in the tall hydrangea bush, I've got these little sketches born of my bee-brain below.

The sun is out and the heat less oppressive, so I've got a full afternoon of things to get to. Toodaloo!

A Plum Daffy Adventure

June 9th, 2008, Comments (14)

I didn't want to let too much time go by without writing about my fantastic weekend! We had tried organizing another mini-art retreat weekend like we had last year at Jes's home, but none of the dates were working for everyone, so I ended up doing a brief, but inspiring 24 hours with Jes and Tammy. I met the girls up in Kennebunkport, Maine and we headed out immediately for some flea-marketing. I'm not sure where there are flea markets like this around me, but it seems like there are a plethora in Maine, so I was excited to look for some fun stuff. Jes has some pictures of this part of the day because I was too excited and forgot about my camera. I found some pretty aqua bottles that caught my eye, a diary of poetry written in German from the 1890's, and some other fun ephemera.

We had some lunch and some good chats during the day, sharing some thoughts on art and whatnot. In the afternoon we shopped around Kennebunkport and I was nearly tempted by a beautiful Orla Kiely bag that was on sale, but I held back. I wasn't one hundred percent and those bags are too pricey for an impulse buy unless I'm totally in love. We saw some cute shops and some super touristy ones and then in the early evening we had the best time wandering around town with our cameras taking pictures of each other taking pictures.

We attended an art opening where we were inspired by a mermaid statue which we're all going to paint this summer. So there was lots of picture taking of the lovely mermaid. We had a great dinner and then I pretty much crashed directly afterwards. In the morning I visited the garden center where Tammy works and gleefully wandered the rows of flowers taking pictures of everything. Garden centers and greenhouses are so inspiring to me and I was glad to have my camera to capture the amazing shapes that flowers create along with all the stunning color.

The drive home wasn't too bad. It felt too hot to do any antiquing on the way home and I was happy to get back to the hubster, run a few errands, and then take a nap in our air conditioned bedroom. Unfortunately, I can't spend 24 hours in the bedroom, so today the heat was monstrous again and I feel like a wilted tulip.

So I'm glad I have these pretty flowers to make me smile while I sweat all over my laptop. Hee. More of my pics from the weekend are here. Got some drawings to share later. Hope your weekend was a wonderfully creative one!

Creative Every Day: June 9th – June 15th, 2008

June 9th, 2008, Comments (15)

Lucy and the Elephant

June 6th, 2008, Comments (21)

I did some drawing last night, one of them resulted in "Lucy and the Elephant" above which was done with ink and acrylic on paper. He looks like such a friendly elephant, no? He makes me smile.

Oh, this gloomy weather is making me sleepy. Yawn! This weekend we're in for a major switcheroo in New England, going from the 60's to the 90's in one day. Woohoo! I hope you all have a beautiful weekend!!

One of a Kind

June 5th, 2008, Comments (10)

This afternoon, I dropped off a whole bunch of art at Oak, a new store in Boston. It's in such a great location, on Gloucester Street right off Newbury Street (prime time shopping area.) I got to meet Keara, the owner, at the shop and she was super sweet. I love the way she had her shop set up, it had a very cool vibe to it, lots of great stuff with out being stuffy, if you know what I mean. I knew the store was all about handmade crafts, but I didn't realize the name, Oak, came from their theme of "one of a kind" items. Too cool! At any rate, if you're in the area, I'd definitely recommend checking it out. It was a gloomy day today in Boston, but the weekend is supposed to be beautiful. I bet it'd be great for doing some shopping and people watching in the Back Bay neighborhood. If you can't get to the shop, Keara has some of the store's items for sale online too. Check it out here.

After the trip into town and watching my brother overnight last night, I'm zonked and have a headache. Business has been great this week and I'm thrilled about that. I'll be able to relax and have some extra spending cash for thrifting this weekend!

Lots of links to share, where to begin?

- My friend, Jennifer, has put together an e-book all about creating a right-brained business plan. This sounds incredibly appealing to me and I think it would synthesize well with I'd Rather Be in the Studio and The Boss of You, a book that I'm reading. Great work, Jen. It looks awesome!

- Another friend, Melba has been working away on her own self-published book, Creating in the Midst which you can pick up here. Melba is planning to lead a group through the 12 week process this summer. Congrats, Melba on all your hard work coming to fruition!

- And even more congrats are due! The sweet and talented, Jes has her beautiful jewelry and writing in a magazine and two books this year. I'm so excited for her! Yay, Jes!

- With all this business talk, it feels relevant to mention the slow economy and its effect on artists and craftspeople. I've felt some effect, but I'm not really a big enough business at this point to be taking a major hit. It doesn't have to be all negative though. A downturn in the economy can mean a time to explore other avenues or beef up your business in other ways. I enjoyed reading this article from craft:boom (cool site, by the way!) about running your craft business when times are lean. I think it applies to any small business. And after you read that, check out the rest of the site for interviews with inspiring business women like Amy Butler.

- Speaking of Amy Butler, Holly at Decor8 is hosting a mood board contest with the opportunity to win great Amy Butler related prizes. Check out all the details here. Even if you don't participate, check in after the due date to see all the amazing creations people put together!

- Check out this interview with the ever inspiring Christine Mason Miller at art and letter webzine. And if you need some more inspiration after that, go visit Christine's other site, Sparkletopia.

Holy guacamole! I didn't realize I had built up so many links  to share. I could keep going, but my big orange cat is telling me to stop typing by laying across my arms. Hehe.

Memories and Other Business

June 4th, 2008, Comments (7)

Tonight I'm staying at my mom's and watching my youngest brother. It was weird driving back through the town I grew up in (my parents live in different, but close by towns now.) It sent me through a fast wave of memories: playing in that playground, first dates, the bar in next town, the woods that I trekked through so many times that I knew them like a second language. It was a weird sense of nostalgia along with a feeling of having moved on. Back at the house, little brother showed off his drumming skills, which I could hear quite well from the basement, where he played, to the kitchen where I cooked up some dinner.

Last night I had a friend over for dinner and wine and we sat out on the porch with the hubster and chatted about weddings (mine, eight months ago now and I'm just getting around to picking the pictures for our album) and hers coming up in two months, old roommates, family, and life in general. It was lovely, but by the end of the night I was completely spent. This week is turning out to be fairly busy, one thing after another, and an exciting getaway weekend to visit a couple gal pals coming up. Life is good.

I forgot to bring my camera out here with me, so for now I've shared a picture of "Memory Cycles", which is on sale for the month of June. You can buy the original or prints right here. And while you're there, sign up for the newsletter and you'll be eligible to win a free print every month!

While I'm on the subject of business, I've started to delve into The Boss of You (great so far) and it has me thinking a lot about the direction of my art which is feeling a bit all over the place and unfocused at the moment. Or rather, it's not my art that is this way, but me. Doing the exercises in the book, and writing out my vision has been helpful, but I'm a bit unsure about where to direct my energies. So the book has me thinking and lots of questions are bubbling up: Should I focus my energy on one area? Do I need a niche? What would it be? Along with all this, I'm still working on the book on creativity that I began during the winter. It's been changing form slightly which has me writing a lot and re-thinking, but I've not yet developed how I want it to come together. It's progressing though.

Tomorrow I drop off some work at Oak in Boston and I'm very excited to see this new space. I've felt oddly nervous about dropping off my artwork there. Actually, whenever I drop off my work somewhere, I have this feeling of wanting to drop it and run for the hills. Need to take a breath and get past my introverted ways for things like this. Goodness, this is part of the reason I love blogging. Such a great thing for all the introverts of the world. But I really do need to find some way of networking/socializing with other creative types that feels good for me. Some kind of small support group for other women business owners would be fabulous. That might be a fabulous way to get some focus. I'll put the intention to find this group out there and see what comes.

Update: Forgot to mention, the authors of The Boss of You have a blog. And today they provided a link to the Trans-Canadian Etsy Team blog where they're hosting a giveaway of the book (for residents of Canada and the U.S. only.) Sweet deal!

Busy, Busy Weekend

June 2nd, 2008, Comments (11)

It was a busy, full, fun weekend and I found myself quite energy-less this morning. The energy is returning thanks to a gorgeous day. So, what was I up to this weekend? I should have brought my camera. Friday afternoon, the hubster and I hit the road and drove down to the new MGM hotel/casino at Foxwoods. It was the hubster's brother's b-day, so we met him and his wife there and treated them to tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld stand-up. Seinfeld was fabulous, so funny and amazingly energetic. We had great seats and was definitely the best comedy stand-up I've ever seen.

Afterwards we had dinner and then spent the night at the new hotel, very shmancy with a phenomenal view from the 16th floor. I didn't gamble any because that's not really my thing, but I did get a great pair of new shoes.

My dad will be out of town on father's day weekend (his second trip out of the country, this time to see Italy and Spain!), so my brother and his wife came up from NYC, my sister came down from New Hampshire, and the hubster and I drove up to celebrate an early Dad's Day with my dad and step-mom. It was super hot out and eating out on the porch, I got a bit of a burn on my super white shoulders. Ouch. My dad requested we go to the driving range where my dad showed off his skills and the rest of us showed our lack of. Then were overfed by my step-mom (homemade mac& cheese, lamb, spinach salad, and brownie sundaes!) before driving my brother and his sister back to the train. I'm not sure if it was the sun, all the driving, all the eating,  all the socializing, or some combo, but I was totally zonked last night and today.

Friday afternoon, I brought my sketchbook to the hotel and drew this image. I like the idea of a cloud of intuitive thoughts. I was also thinking about the way we pick out shapes in the clouds sometimes. In this case, there's a Red Riding Hood theme going on.

Just found out that I'll have three images in the Calyx journal this summer! The journal is all about the fiction, essays, poetry, and artwork of women and I'm thrilled to have my art in it. This will be my second journal appearance this year and it's so satisfying to check that goal off my list. I'd like to apply to some magazines like Cloth, Paper Scissors next.

Creative Every Day: June 2nd – June 8th, 2008

June 2nd, 2008, Comments (14)

 

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