yay friends!

Hey!

2011 is becoming the most social year of my life. I feel like I've had breakfast dates, coffee dates, and dinner dates every week so far. well, I guess we are only in the 2nd-going into the 3rd, week....but still! I never get out this much.

I must say it does get easier the more I do it!
I had a lovely breakfast meeting with the always lovely Ryan of Littleputbooks, and then met up with the also lovely Leigh of noisydogstudio. It was just what I needed to end my weekend of solitude in my studio.

yay!

I also got a new illustration up and here are the photos of the work I did yesterday. Go me!

New Work!

So here are the paintings I've been working on today.
It wasn't the best day at the studio...

I couldn't get into being there. I really felt like I had to go, so I went, and didn't stay long. I wanted to come home and snuggle under the covers with a cup of tea.

I'm liking the bird painting so far, and I did something a little different with the typewriter painting. I painted the typewriter first, then did the collage around it. I like how it worked out, and I'm thinking I might start doing this with other paintings.

Sigh.

It started out such a lovely morning.

I went for a nice run, the forecast predicted sun and 60 degree weather!
I was already to head down to the studio to start my work day. Then, when I went to start my car, it wouldn't start...

Dead.

So, I put Chloe back in the house, and rode my bike...
Granted, I love riding my bike, but I also really love taking Chloe with me. I miss her when she's not here with me.

and now I have car worries...
yuck. I think car worries are some of the worse worries to have. almost up there with relationship worries.

This, on top of the fact that my art sales have been non-existent. I feel like I did so well last year, and this year has just been awful. I don't want to blame the economy or the fact that there are at least 100,000 new Etsy sellers every month. I need to look at what I am doing, or what I need to do differently.

I need a new plan of attack. I think I need to get into some local shops. I also need to look into making some note cards, and maybe some little pinback buttons. The problem with cards and buttons is that they require some money to get made. Something I have very little of right now...

The wheels are turning in my head...

Well, I'm almost done with the work for my show. It's a beautiful day outside and I still have my health, and so does Chloe. So these are all good things I should focus on :)
Hope everyone is having a good Wednesday!

Friday

It's a rainy gray day in Portland and I'm celebrating by drinking a hot cup of tea and making art.

I didn't spend nearly as much time as I had hoped to in my studio today...there are just so many other things in life that need to be taken care of.

However, I did start on a very large painting, and that's great. It's 2'x4' and it's been awhile since I worked this big. It feels pretty damn good.

I'm getting worried that I won't be finished on time....we shall see....

Chloe and Bebo have been playing hard the last couple of days. Chloe was so tired last night she didn't even bother to get up when she heard me getting the cheese out of the refrigerator last night. :) Sleepy girl.

Well, hope everyone has a great weekend!
I'll be in my studio. Fingers crossed!

Studio. Tomorrow.

I'm heading into the studio tomorrow.
I'm so excited.

I've been looking forward to this all week.

I'm hoping I can post some new things tomorrow. We'll see.
Okay, back to work...

I'll leave you with this for now.

It's True

I loved all the responses that I received with my last blog post.
Thank you.

I'm glad I'm not alone with this. I often wonder, as most bloggers do, how much is too much to show? How much do I really want people to know? I don't have an answer, but I guess that's okay too. I'm just happy that other people were able to identify with what I wrote. Thank you.

Yesterday was really good. I was so busy I didn't have a chance to write a post. So I'm doing it tonight. I got two new paintings started! Woot woot! Little typewriters. Chloe joined me in the studio. We have some shared space heaters now, so I grabbed one and set it up next to a little bed that I made for Chloe. She seemed to love it and napped most of the day.

I then went to the grocery store and bought food! Food to make stuff with! Yes! It's true.
I made coconut rice with honey marinated egg plant and some lime cilantro chicken. Whew! It was quite a task. Everything was going really well until I realized that I slightly under cooked the rice...while trying to fix the rice things just kind of fell apart. I over cooked the chicken and the egg plant and I don't think I fully recovered the rice....

BUT! I tried. That is the important thing. Yes.

and of course, by certain miracle, I photographed it all! The picture quality is not great, I need to invest in a nice camera, but you get the idea ;)

Well, it's late. It's been a long day and Chloe is ready for snuggles.
Hope you all are well. xo

Fall and Loving it

It was a lovely fall day today.
I love it.

Not a whole lot of news. Just getting work done. It took me a long time to get motivated today.

This song helped.



Thanksgiving is next week and I find that so unbelievable. Really? Is it really that soon?
Wow, and then Christmas...

wow!
Ok.

Time to get back to work!

More Work!

I'm hoping to get these finished and listed this week.

Things have been going really well in the studio these days. These aren't the best photos, but you can get an idea.

I'm really hoping to start working on some larger pieces soon.

It's summer time, so things have slowed down a lot on Etsy.
There also seems to be some issues with Etsy and their meta tags, so I am hoping it gets resolved quickly. I was hoping to participate in a couple of up coming craft fairs, but unfortunately the dates just haven't been working out for me.

I did just book a show with Tilde in October! Yay! So I am starting to plan and think about that a little bit. I am hoping to get some more shows locally too.
Just a matter of doing some homework...

anyway, hope you all are having a good Tuesday!