Exhibition Season

Well, exhibition season has started in earnest, and I have been preparing work to go out into the world, and hopefully return magically changed into cheques... fingers crossed. First is a local 'Flowers and Gardens' exhibition at the new Gallery 47, swiftly followed by the Rotary club exhibition in the big church, St Peters. Several recent pieces have gone out, including, just finished today, a new mosaic:

In my new Folksy print shop, I continued to add products, and in order to get some initial sales, and some valuable feedback to encourage more, I made some little ACEO's. These are artists trading cards, always 3.5 by 2.5 inches, hand-made and collected by artists and enthusiasts worldwide. Luckily as well as being fun, this resulted in my first Folksy sale:

This one was made by monoprinting, using real dried hydrangea petals to resist the ink, then layering with collage, and mounting on Watercolour paper.


At home we have had a trying couple of weeks. This started with boyfriend accidently de-frosting the entire freezer contents whilst on a late night ice cream mission. What could I say? I have done it myself in the past. Luckily the kitchen and oven are so appalling that all attemps at home cooking have been suspended, and we mainly lost cornetto's and pizza.


Then there was the phone call, received when I was in the middle of teaching a private student. An irrate local dress shop owner, telling tales of my daughter reserving an expensive prom dress, which I needed to pay for. I explained to her that a) I knew nothing about it, and b) taking reservations without deposits from 15 year olds is perhaps not smart business sense. Then I yelled at the teen. A lot.


To be honest, the teen was probably just getting revenge. Boyfriend did steal her shoes whilst we were at the zoo:

 And I really shouldn't have told her that Lithuania was near Ipswich. That was very wrong of me.


Tomorrow, after a period of very hard work I am going to take a day off. But I will probably still end up in the studio, the big table is perfect for dressmaking!

 

Multi-Tasking

Usually my studio is pretty tidy, but last week it looked like this! Massive illustration project nearing completion, deadline looming, panic setting in. Plus I had bought my new monoprints home from the print workshop a little early, meaning that they needed to be spread out to dry. 

So every area that wasn't covered in illustration work, paperwork and half drunk cups of tea had prints drying, but they did look quite nice!

The illustrations were 49 small pen and watercolour pictures of Cardiff: people, places, vehicles and even a fish for the river. I am being subcontracted on this one, so I will share the product with you when work is completed by all parties concerned, and I have a copy of the finished item... but it is all quite exciting. I have never been to Cardiff, but now could confidently choose it as my specialist subject on Mastermind.

The illustrations look like this:

The finished Monoprints are much bigger, and look like this:

This meant that I was finally able to set up my latest project... a shop on Folksy. If you haven't heard of Folksy it is the British version of (American) Etsy. If you haven't heard of either, basically they are a way for crafters, designers and artists to sell direct to the public. Want a one off, hand-made bag, some vegan soap, or hand-crafted gold ring? Find it on Folksy! The main worry is that I will spend more than I earn, as the site is full of such beautiful stuff, and sellers tend to also buy from each other. So now you can...

Finally, that crazy cat has done it again; bird bothering that is. I came back from teaching my Saturday art class to find boyfriend with the hoover out. Yes Gimlet has not only learned to use the cat flap, he has learned to drag living things through it. (Actually this one got away, but left a big mess behind, we can only hope it lived.)

A 'Liberator' collar has been ordered from ebay, it beeps as the cat pounces, so fingers crossed, his murderous ways are soon to be a little under control, although apparently it only works for birds, not rodents... we shall see.

Quick link

Just a quick link today: I was kindly interviewed by fellow Zazzle store owner and artist   Christina Mekvold for her new blog, which features some of her favourite Zazzle stores. If you don't know Zazzle it is a US print on demand store similar to Cafepress or Redbubble; artists upload images for sale on a variety of quality products and stationery. It's certainly not a get rich quick scheme, but has added a few pounds (or dollars I should say!) to my income...

Christina's blog featuring my interview