Hump Day Round Up

As it has been slow at work and I am still a newbie, I have had the opportunity to do some internet adventuring

Here are a few of the fun/entertaining/delicious things I have found:

Courtesy of the Fontfeed , check out these amazing end credits

"With out a doubt one of the most beautiful title sequences ever, the intricate and sophis­ticated piece is a perfect marriage of art direction and design, motion graphics, music and typography."

This is my new favorite blog and I can't wait to try the chicken salad recipe, even though I have previously claimed to dislike said salad. 

And check out the purlbeehive for a great selection of creative blogs. It kept me busy for a few hours this week. 

For the designers out there, check out this blog. Full of tips and free vector graphics.

I will be trying this recipe out tomorrow night. Great for the summer weather that we are enjoying in Denver.

If you are feeling crafty this week check this DIY site or The Big Ass Book of Crafts, a book I picked up from the library this week.

What internet adventures have you been on lately?

Missing the Time

I am beginning my 2nd week of life on the job. It has been great to be working again, but I am missing the freedom of non-working life. The hardest part right now is that work is a bit slow and therefore there are not that many projects for me-as a newbie- to work on. I spend my days daydreaming about my old day to day schedule.

up by 8

breakfast and email

off to the gym

errands

home for late morning snack

home tasks-laundry, dishes etc

up in the studio

(gilmore girls)

dinner prep

My art has been selling well. In fact that last piece I dropped off sold in 8 days. This is great, except that I am preparing for my August show and therefore don't want to take any of the new pieces into the shop. The only answer is to create more work faster.

So I am feeling a bit overwhelming with all the things I must get done between the hours of 5:30pm and 8:30am. A time when I just want to relax after being at work all day. And make dinner and find time for the gym and now prepare for mom's arrival.

And it's summer so all I want to do is picnic in the park.

I have two 16x24 pieces started-the biggest so far- and I am feeling my usual artist's block and don't know how to continue. I must remember the mantra "whatever I make will sell." This may be a bit extreme, but seams to be surprisingly true. After 6 months one of the 3 frames I made finally sold-just when I was getting ready to pull them from the store. 

The scanner is coming with my mom this week so I will be able to scan my latest pieces and turn them into cards and prints and send those off to the printer. Maybe I will be able to get those into the shop before my show at least. 

Thanks to my blog searching today, I found this movie that looks great.

Settling In

The days of no work are winding down to an end. I did become more productive with a deadline for starting work. I finished my fourth piece of art last night. It is the third in a small series. I found that creating similar but different pieces of artwork is easy for the first two, but by the third one it becomes more of challenge. I wanted to do something different but not totally different that it didn't match the previous two. And of course there are no rules so I can do what I want. Once I realized this it made completing the third piece easier. It does not match exactly, but the size, background and flowers make the pieces go well enough together that someone may want to buy all three-which is what I was hoping for. But they still work well alone. 

I had used wax on the previous two pieces but for some reason I had more trouble with it this time around. I am looking forward to my mom coming to town at the end of the month because she will be bringing a hot plate to melt wax in. This means I won't have to travel down to the kitchen with my supplies anymore, I can just plug in and turn on and wax right in my studio. As a final touch I put one coat of varnish on the pieces to help protect the wax and brighten the pieces up a bit.

I am also excited to say that the 2nd bedroom/artroom/studio/guest bedroom is almost all set up. Last weekend the boyfriend and I went furniture shopping. We ended up with a new dining room table for downstairs and a shelf and click clack fold down couch for the 2nd bedroom. The room is definitely full but still maneuverable. Now there is a couch for sitting (or entertaining clients as the boyfriend suggested) and a bed for sleeping when guests come to visit. Plus, I was able to put all my books on a shelf and find a home for the knick knack items. I had hoped to put the photo albums on the shelf as well, but I must have 1000's of photos from my entire left and this would have taken up half the shelf. So the photos found a home on the shelf in the closet. Now I just need to get some stuff up on the walls, that for me is the hardest part to decide. I don't know what I'm going to do when I own a house and get to decorate it for real, I will never be able to decide on a paint color for the walls!