Wednesday, March 2, 2011

New Shop Banner!

The other day I had a new banner made for me by naiveglow on Etsy. I was really pleased with the results, she took images from a few of my items and mixed them together to make a banner.

Her shop is here:

She also provides a variety of other services: business cards, invitations, as well as makes cute keychains & charms.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Spring Sale and movie watching, works-in-progress photos


Happy Family everyone in Alberta! Spending a relaxing day at home on the computer. :P

Watched a very interesting Japanese movie last night, called "Departures". Its about a man whose dream it was to play in an orchestra finds himself out of work. He returns home to look for a job, to come across an ad for a job as an "encoffiner", which isn't a highly respected job by his fellow citizens, much less wife. Basically he prepares bodies for funerals.

As the movie progresses, he gains an appreciation for assisting people on their departure from life. It was a really lovely movie and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys watching foreign films.

In celebration of spring I decided to have a sale on Etsy. Until March 31 everything will be 15% off, using the coupon code SpringSale.

2021 update: Just added some images. They don't really have anything to do with the above story, but I wanted to share a sketch and some work-in-progress photos I took that I made of a bus stop on an early spring day. The people waiting for the bus were mostly students, but nicely line up. It was raining, and the road was shiny and reflective of the light sources from the street lamps and I could see the reflections of the people on the road.

What really struck me about the image was the pigeons that were perched on the overhead wires. With the people huddling in the cold and wet, it was a eerily beautiful but stark image of city life.

The last image is still a work-in-progress photo. I looked through my archives but couldn't find a photo of the final image with the pigeons added in.
 

Friday, February 11, 2011

Friday afternoon - clumsiness and damaging paintings - how to fix a painting

Spending a quiet day at home. Haven't been up to too much art-wise, but I ended up in a BNR on Etsy today: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4d473a58e1416d91ce37690b/open-open-open-bnr-round-2-no-minimum-1#4d558da368de8eef1dc8a783

Was a little frustrated that I poked a hole in one of my paintings while adding picture wire a couple of days ago. Can't believe I was so clumsy. Hopefully I can either fix it, or use the remaining painting in some sort of collage or something.


Update 2021: I'm not sure what a BNR is anymore so please don't ask. 😅 I think it might have been some sort of promotional group activity where we post items and then check it out. The whole idea was to generate sales.

As for the painting with the damage, I managed to repair it decently, and it's currently hanging in a community centre in northern Edmonton. I'll probably forget it there if we move.

It was another learning experience to fix it. I patched it with a small piece of scrap canvas, glued it in place I think with just white glue, and then matched the paint on the other side to hide the hole and make it look natural.


You can kind of see the little raised area in the wing. I was pleased with the final colour matching.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Been a while... And Cat Art!

Been a while since I've last blogged. What have I been up to? Not much, been working, and enjoying the drive out to Wetaskiwin every day, even in spite of the winter road conditions & loads of snow that seems to fall every week. I am glad to see the sun slowly coming back.

So lately I've been delving into watercolour pencil crayons. After some experiments last summer that didn't really work out, I think I've finally figured out how to use these and get some nice results.

Not really aboriginal artwork, but they're cute. I added two kitties to my Etsy page, the grateful kitty is here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/66345763/grateful-kitty-original

I plan to list more, & am thinking of turning them into small cards.

Update 2021: I still have these paintings. If you are interested, they are available. They also led to a few commissions of people's pet cats, so if you'd like to have me create a piece for you, send me a note.