Monday, May 26, 2008

BRING Recycle Fair


Yesterday I worked the BRING Recycle Fair with some fellow Eugene Etsy artists. This was only the second month that this event has been going on so the scant dozen vendors was quite a showing to last months four! I believe that at least half, if not more, of the vendors are on Etsy. My favorite part was the networking. I enjoyed chatting with artists I had not yet met and am crossing my fingers that a little something comes of the business card and email addresses I passed out. We shall see!

Our little vendor lane:
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Pam with a customer who bought one of her wrist cuffs.
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Same customer with a traveler in their pack!
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Pam's booth:
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Susan's little hidey-hole:
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Novena's record table:
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My table with my other-wise unadvertised upcycled bags.
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Susie with the MECCA display.
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This was Mari's stand. I fell in love with her "Things With Wings."
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* I know nothing about html... as you see I can't get it to stop underlining! And... I was unable to upload smaller photos this time. Even after I shrank them they uploaded too big to show everything on those that were taken horizontally. Please forgive me! I may try to fix it some day but for now I'm tired of playing with this thing!

Caricatures This Weekend

We lucked out this past Saturday and had our best location yet. It certainly helped that the weather was bearable this time around! Here are a couple of caricatures I did this Saturday. I actually drew two separate couples in the wedding theme. Why I didn't take a picture of the first one, I'm not sure. It was so much fun though. They had requested that the groom-to-be be wearing a kilt! I love customizing the pictures to make them a little more personal.

Monday, May 19, 2008

This week in art!


I love these two caricatures! I drew them this past Saturday while sitting in the insanely hot sun at the market. I am having so much fun drawing caricatures again. I am breaking out of my box and the boxes that were put upon me years ago when I began my training. I loved when this girl requested to be riding an orca whale. Fortunately I painted one a few years ago and remembered quite a bit of their anatomy. I am working on a custom order at home of a little girl who will be riding a phoenix! Her name coincidentally is Phoenyx so it will be super adorable. I will post it when it is finished.


I love the idea of the reusable shopping bag but have not been able to find one that tickled my fancy. They've been too small, too plasticy (new word!), to gimmicky, too touristy... etc. So... with a pile of fabric in my studio I dove in and came out with these! The main body of the bags are from old curtain displays that were going to be tossed in trash by a local major retailer while the flannel details on the side were purchased new. This is part of the batch of product that I will be bringing to the BRING recycle fair at the end of this month. Fortunately they only take between an hour and a half and two and a half hours to make so I should be able to add a few to the stash.



My Tickled Pink and Blue etsy site has been doing well lately. By well I mean that I've sold two super baby onesies. They are so cute! They come with a little red cape attached to the back and a "super" emblem on the front with the baby's initial in it. I love taking my son out in his. He always gets smiles and comments. Of course he doesn't have a clue how cute he is! But I have hordes of pictures to show him some day.

Here is a customized onesie I made a couple of weeks ago. The woman who ordered it said that her husband always called their daughter Madeleine "Rad Mad". She intends to put the outfit on little Mad for Father's Day.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Green At Home...

I am currently living with some people who are not terribly earth-aware. They go through paper towels and paper plates by the truck loads it seems. I have tried to push for earth conscience ways, but they are old and set in their ways and just smile at me. ARGH! So, a have begun creating my own re-usable items at home. These are fabric napkins. They are sewn together with old pieces of my sons receiving blankets and pieces of cotton remnants I have around my studio. Since I've taken these pictures I've made at least a dozen more! I keep them in a stack in the kitchen and use them for everything. From drying my hands, to wiping the counter, to toting with my lunch and even out the door with me in my purse. Pick up some fabric napkins today! I don't sell them but there are etsy shops that do.


My son, modeling a napkin for me! I have also recently made some really great canvas shopping bags. But those photos will have to come later.

I know this is a little late from Earth Day. It's never too late to help out a little. Recycle what you can, reuse what you can and be smart about what you're throwing away.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

A Couple More Caricatures

Here are just a few more examples of some of the caricatures I offer:



The Business of Caricatures

I first learned to draw caricatures six years ago while living in Las Vegas. I worked for a very prestigious company there, Art Enterprises Inc. I had the opportunity to work in the Mandalay Bay Resort Casinos which included, Circus Circus, Monte Carlo, Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay of course. I worked with them full time for two years before finally needing to move back to the beautiful northwest. I have drawn caricatures off and on since then but only recently have picked them up again with a gusto I haven't known since the beginning!

This month Tony and I got our business incorporated, Synchronicity Arts, Inc. It's pretty exciting and opens doors for us for so many things in our future. We are in the process of applying to local festivals and events to get our name out there as awesome local artists!

These three caricatures I did from photos I got on the Faerie Worlds site of patrons who were there last year. I had fun drawing the variety of costumes and look forward to the chance to draw at the festival this year.







The following caricatures are a selection of bodies from my everyday list that you can choose to have whether or not you are dressed like this.





Sunday, May 11, 2008

Balloons at the Saturday Market

The Saturday Market has been running for a month and a half now and we are having a blast! Here is a fellow vendor who purchased a customized fairy for his sister-in-law.
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This little girl was just tickled to have our entire butterfly princess package that includes a crown, wings and a matching butterfly wand. Her sister was just as happy with a little unicorn!

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The mermaid is one of our most popular designs (behind our Spiderman parody of course!) The dragon to follow is just something that I came up with at home to see what would happen!



Monday, May 5, 2008

Kitten Update






The kittens are now about a week and a half old and their eyes are beginning to open. The little ginger (orange) kitten now has a home to go to when he's old enough and I have been informed that his name is Hobbs.

River Otter Jester

Finally, this sweet little fella is finished and ready for his new home. This river otter was a custom order through my etsy shop. The sky is the limit! I am always thrilled with custom orders because they often point me in a direction that I have not been before. The creation of this little fella help land a month-long gallery showing this fall with the promise of more spirit-animal related items! So I certainly have my work cut out for me this summer!

I have never made a little beret before, so that was a fun challenge. This otter is sporting a lush blue velvet beret with a little gold leaf. His stick is covered in matching velvet and wrapped in gold metallic thread. He sports a cream colored ruffled collar and one of golden netting. His jingle collar is made with the same cream material matched with a light checkered sage. The diamond-shaped panels are edged in an elegant gold trim. Gold bells jingle off the end of each panel. He is painted with a little gold tint in his eyes and the entire head is covered in a glaze to protect it. The mono-filament whiskers are trimmed to closely match a wild river otter. I love working with whiskers. They add so much to each piece. If you look closely, there is a little smile underneath those whiskers! And finally he bears a braided loop for convenient hanging on the wall.

Here are a few pictures of this little guy. Enjoy them here because this item won't be in the gallery showing as it's off to live across the country!









Friday, May 2, 2008

Black Goblin Mask



Here is the finished mask from my post back in February. If you look closely you can see it in the February post off to the right of my desk, naked and waiting. It was a lot of fun, but certainly more time consuming than I remember paper mache to have been. Although perhaps I wasn't quite the perfectionist then that I am today!

I apologize for the lack of quality in the photograph. I took the picture practically on a whim and didn't bother to bring the thing into better lighting. I was just pleased that it was finished and snapped the shot. This mask was not created to be used. If you notice, there isn't anything attached to it for wearing. It really was meant to be a test piece. I had an idea in my mind and needed to get it out. Et voila!

Little Loss

One of the little black kittens didn't quite make it to one week old. So sad. Nature knows best I suppose.