Ceremony

I'm drinking my morning green tea (yes, I've switched to tea in the mornings and drink a cup of coffee when I get to work) and listening to Joy Division's "Ceremony" at this very moment. Megan Chapman posted it on her Facebook yesterday and I really love the version she linked. So here it is. Thank you Megan! You have such great taste in music.



Okay, I bet you're wondering what's up with the who green tea business. I am too, kinda.

The truth is, I am terrible at making coffee.

There, I said it and now you know my secret.

So, until I get better at it, it's green tea. It's healthy for you, right? It's got some good stuff in it. Plus it wakes me up and it's easy to make. I'm not giving up coffee. No, no, no. I love it too much. But....for now....it's green tea.

New Work

It's Monday!

I had a good weekend. We got to see a double rainbow! Now we're even luckier than before :)

Yeah. Monday.
Not a lot going on here in Pontiac, Michigan...
Listening to Jet's to Brazil's Orange Rhyming Dictionary, doing some laundry, making some work.

I really like how these new paintings are coming along.

Very nice.
Well, that's about it.

Remember to visit Megan Chapman's Etsy shop :)
20% of proceeds go to helping out a sick friend!

Saturday Night Blog?!

Hmmmm???

Yeah. It's Saturday. It's Saturday Night. And I am writing a blog.

Two things I feel are really important RIGHT NOW!

1. 20% of Megan Chapman's sales are going to help her friend in need!
Here is what she has to say about it :)
During the entire month of October I will be donating 20% of all my Etsy sales to my friend and art lover, Will Boyd who is dealing with a major health crisis with little funds and maxed out health insurance. That means every time you purchase a $25.00 painting I will donate $5.00 and every time you purchase a $40.00 painting I will donate $8.00 to my friend's health fund. Read more below to find out more about Will's situation.

Will has been critically ill with Lupus since he was 18. He contracted pneumonia during this time and the doctors consequently directed most of their attention to his lungs. However, they failed to notice the amount of trauma to his heart due to the Lupus. The latest biopsy tests show that his heart is in such a weakened state that it would not be able to be revived if he has a massive heart attack. They say his heart could simply stop beating at any moment unless something changes.

Will has already racked up over $50,000 in medical debts and he does not have that kind of money. He has maxed out his insurance and can't get any more because he has pre-existing conditions (Lupus).

Will has spent most of his life serving others selflessly. He continues to inspire thousands through his work for Invisible Children (film that showed the plight of child soldiers and night commuters in northern Uganda).

If you would like more information about my friend Will Boyd or other ways you can help- please don't hesitate to contact me and I can direct you to the proper channels.

You can also check out her AWESOME blog here:
www.meganchapman.blogspot.com

Go here to help out :)

2. I saw this article in the storque this evening:
http://www.etsy.com/storque/craftivism/700-billion-bail-out-cramping-your-style-2667/

Help support artists this holiday season, not big corporations....
Even Chloe agrees with this!
Hope you're all having a great weekend :)

It's So Quiet

It's really quiet around here today.

The last few weeks all I have heard is hammering, and sawing, and drilling. Now that everyone is moved in, it's really quiet. It's nice.

Fall is definitely in the air today. It's dry, and cool, and it's awesome.

So I have just been working on some works on paper the last few days. I haven't really felt like painting lately. I really like working on paper...so I think I will be continuing that for awhile.

Speaking of works on paper...I was so self involved yesterday that I totally forgot to mention that my friend Megan has an Etsy shop now! Yay! Check it out.

So that's about all I got today... just hanging in there...working things out...

Running Out of Blog Titles

Yeah I just can't think if a title today.
I think I am getting a cold. I have a scratchy throat and I feel very tired.

Anyway...here is a picture of me working. At my desk.
I really like painting at my desk.

Um, yeah. Not a lot to say today either. Things are pretty quiet around here last night.
Michael and I are pretty much bored out of our skulls. He actually started packing up some books, and shipped some home today. Wow. That's a really good feeling :)

I think we are going to try and go down to Indiana to see my grandmother next week. So that will give us something to do.

We're planning on going to the farmer's market and Ikea! I need some frames for some illustrations I am sending to Papercuts and Gluesticks!
I'll post those new paintings sooooooooooon!

Alright. I'll stop wasting your time with this endless babble.
If you want to read something actually worth reading you should check out Megan Chapman's weekly blog. She posted an awesome blog today about what goes into being a working artist.
Yay Megan!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Friday!

Ok nothing exciting happened at all today.

Aside from a random guy down the street asking me to have lunch with him, and an impromptu dance party with Michael (music courtesy of Megan Chapman's myspace play list) nothing remotely exciting happened.

That being said.

Have a great weekend! :)

8:30 on a Sunday Night

So...it's Sunday.

My four days of solitude are up!
I had a good time. I handled it very well. It's funny...Michael went to China for 1o days 2 years ago, and I thought I was going to fall apart. My poor room mates didn't know what to do with me...
I think having to work at a crummy job didn't make my situation any better either.

It's nice to see how much I have grown. I think I called him...maybe once? Twice? I don't know.
Yay! I am all grown up :)

So it was really nice spending time alone. I got some work done. Not as much as I would have liked, but you know...that's the way creativity works sometimes.

I'd like to say a big thanks to Megan Chapman! I listened to her play list on her myspace the last two days. It's awesome. I really needed some new music, and I really enjoyed it. I also got a very good mixed cd from a fellow Etisan and I have been listening to that quite a bit :)

I was going to write a blog about music, and how important it is to me and my work, but I didn't really feel like writing a small novel tonight, so maybe some other blog. I will say that music is really important to me. I don't have a television, or even a radio, and I have to have some kind of noise in the house while I am working. So music is played all day. All day...so most of the music I have is memorized to the point where all I have to hear is the first few notes and I can tell you what artist and what song. If they still had Name That Tune on TV I would be a champ!

So that was my weekend. It was good.

Glasses are Hott

I got new glasses this weekend.

They are awesome. I also got sunglasses. I have wanted a pair of prescription sunglasses for...um..I don't know...5 years....and I now have a pair.

Funny story about how I started wearing glasses.

When I was young, maybe 7 or 8, I thought glasses were really cool, and I wanted a pair. I even went as far as asking my parents, at this age, for an eye exam. I passed it, but I was determined to wear glasses.

I don't know why I wanted to wear glasses. I just thought they were really cool. I think a part of me wanted people to think I was really smart. Sure, I wanted people to think I was pretty, or cute, but if I just had a pair of glasses people would think that I was really smart. Right? I mean, all the smart girls on t.v. wore glasses...

So, I think in the third grade they started having yearly eye exams in classrooms. I passed every year...until the fifth grade. I still really wanted a pair of glasses by this time, and I had been passing the eye exams with what seemed like flying colors. How was I ever going to get to wear glasses if my eyes were fine?

So, I did what every reasonable kid in my shoes would do when they really want something they can't have...I lied. Just a little! I told the eye exam lady that I couldn't really see a couple of letters...yeah. :)

But!! I went to a real eye doctor...after the school eye exam, and he did an exam, and I actually did kinda need to wear glasses.

So I got my glasses. I loved them...and I still love them. And as the years went by my eye sight got worse worse, and now I can't see 2 feet past my nose.

My mom and or step dad are going to read this and:

a) will think it's really funny

b) be really mad at me.

Either way I think I am going to get a phone call later....

So I had a great weekend.

I tried to stay away from the computer and working...
It's funny that when you work for yourself, at home, you forget that you can take a day off.
So I tried...

I also got two awesome things in the mail!
Friday I received two piece from Megan Chapman!
She holds a contest every few weeks, on her blog, and you can win original art from her :)
You should check it out. I think she is having a little give away right now!
So check it out. Plus she writes great blogs, with wonderful advice and perspectives, on being an artist.

Then on Saturday I received some very tasty coffee from BrainScan coffee, which can be bought on Etsy! It is really good...really good.
Between her coffee, and the Stumptown coffee...I am set!

Alright. This is a long post, but I guess I had a little catching up to do. :)
Have a good Monday.

Morning Post

It's a blustery, rainy, wet day outside and I am loving it. It feels like home. I wanted to write a little bit early today because I have a lot of work to do before class tonight.
So I thought I would drink my coffee and post a little blog....

I did an interview for a fellow Etsy artist Jessica Torrent of LiveFunky.

You can read all about my incredibly interesting life, and how to stay young forever here:
http://lookseesaw.blogspot.com/2008/03/art-of-michele-maule.html

Also, Megan Chapman came across this the other day, and sent me a message
http://www.crack-hotel.com/
(Why it's called Crack Hotel, we don't know, but she promised it was safe, and it is.)
Her blog, Six Amazing Artists You Should Know, is there, with my name :) , on the left hand side under the Art Asides...

So that's what I got this morning...lots of links for you to check out.

Have a terrific Tuesday.

Kim Caught Me

I was supposed to be writing a blog, but I wasn't. I was on Etsy.

I am truly addicted to it.

San Diego has been fun. Things are crazy busy, but we are having fun in between the craziness.
I ate my FatDaddy Cupcake last night. All of it. In practically one sitting. It was so good. I want more. I am addicted.

The wedding is tomorrow, and hopefully Sunday will be nice and relaxing.
I had my first pedicure yesterday. It was really fun. I have always had a fear about having my toes done. And I guess I always feel bad for people having to scrub and clean my feet. This place was different. It was really cute, and the girls were really sweet.

Anyway, things are going well and I am having fun.

I wanted to make a quick note about some recent blogs that have been nice enough to include me!

Go visit Megan Chapman's blog on "Six Amazing Artists You Should Now."
There are some truly amazing artists to check out.

Also, Amy from Pikaland wrote a sweet little piece about my work on her website pikaland.com.
She features some really great illustrated work from some awesome artists as well.

Alright. It's getting late, and I need to eat some Girl Scout cookies. Trinks likes to stock up on them and eat them through out the year. She is a true planner.

Cloudy Grey Skies

Ouch.
My body hates me after my work out yesterday. Most notably my arms. I am in pain. It hurts to buckle my safety belt. It hurts to turn the wheel of my truck. Ouch. Other than that I am good. I think I'm getting a cold. It doesn't help that the heat in the apartment building is not working. It is either 90 degrees in here, or what feels like 45 degrees right now. It's not freezing, but it's not warm and toasty either. Hopefully someone will be here tomorrow to fix it.

I am trying to get up the motivation and inspiration to work right now. I have several panels that I am priming right now, but no ideas to get me started. This is the hardest part of being an artist. Finding inspiration and motivation to get working.

A fellow artist, Megan Chapman, has a great blog that I just read this morning on this very topic. Her blog deals with living and working as an artist. The ups and downs and she has a lot of good advice for artists starting out and ways to promote yourself. I love reading her blog. It reminds me that there are artists out there that have the same issues that I do. As painter/printmaker almost all of my work is done solo, as with most artists. You tend to spend most of your time by yourself and if you're an artist like me you tend to shut yourself in. Yeah, I don't get out much...

Anyway, Megan's blog is awesome, especially if you are looking for some inspiration. She is an amazing painter and I would love to her work in person one day :) I don't know how to paste pictures from other websites right now. Hopefully I can figure it out so that I can post some of her images here. But you can see some of her work on her blog.

http://meganchapman.blogspot.com/

On a side note. For those of you interested in my wedding plans...mostly Kim and Angie.....
I have decided to start a wedding blog. I haven't started it yet, but that is one of my goals for today. I have a lot of really good ideas, but I would love to hear any ideas from you two. I'll keep you posted! Don't you just love the internet?

Alright. Mikey is done in the studio and I need to go pick him up.

So Very Sleepy...

I feel so tired...
Not really in the mood for writing.
Chloe has really stinky farts right now...yuck. I wonder if dogs are embarrassed of tooting.
Lucy, my neighbors Bulldog is embarrassed to poo in front if people. She goes way out, and turns around so you can't see.

Anyway, it's freakin cold out. The low is going to be 19 degrees tonight. Ouch. I am so glad I have a nice toasty apartment, and that I am not homeless.

There is 10 inches of snow on the ground right now. I just want to hibernate until March. I wish I was a bear, or possibly a squirrel or something that hibernates all winter.

Oh!
I got the best feedback ever today on my Etsy! She's a wonderful artist and customer! Her name is Megan Chapman. I'll do a special post later about her. I have to get Chloe's Dinner ready, and mine too. I think I'll attempt chicken tacos tonight. Mike's mom sent us a three pack of Tillimook cheese this weekend! One of the flavors is Pepper Jack. I am personally not a huge fam of pepper jack, but Tillimook has THE best. I still can't believe you can't get Tillimook cheese here. Well, actually I can...

Here's a picture of lemons. Lemons remind me of Southern California, warm weather, and Kim's back yard when we were in high school.

Alright. Happy Monday!