Over the past week, I had the opportunity to attend the NAEA Conference in Ft. Worth Texas. If you aren’t familiar, it is the National Art Educator’s Conference and its where a bunch of art people get together to discuss like things, make new stuff and be inspired. To sum up my experience in a couple words………Light Bulb!!!!!!

The few days spent there were crazy and very packed as I sprinted from seminar to seminar. What pulled me thru the marathon was the fact that every time I turned around, a little more light was filtering thru my visual tunnel.

You see, I had forgotten that I am an artist and sharer (yes, I talk that way) of my talents first, and teacher second. I had forgotten how to be fun and had become more of a cat herder mentality and couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. And if I’m going to be honest, I am NOT a good cat herder. I had gotten in a rut in my job. (And to think I almost didn’t go for multiple reasons, cost, behind at my job, didn’t feel good, shall I make a few more excuses?)

Highlights for the week: (Drum Roll Please…..)
Meeting Mr. E, a great blogger and funny man.
Taking a brushwork workshop from Nan Liu….. with All I can say is Zen.
Exploring new techniques and materials in the Vendor area with stores like Michael’s Arts and Crafts, and Liquitex’s New Spray Paint (Yea!),
31 Nights of Self-Portraiture with Michael Bell.
Running into old friends and made some new ones standing in a Starbucks line and having great conversation with both.

I had to be reminded that my purpose here on this big round ball is to create with eyes wide open, that artists are to be challenging and expressive, not just pushing thru the day.  And even cat herding can be done creatively.

I came back inspired, back to what I was before the budget cuts and the political demands of the job.  I’m not saying I’m not going to educate, or push papers when told to,  I’m saying now papers may be purple with doodles  and students are going to have to wonder if I’m really as crazy as I seem.  Let the artwork begin!

Flower holders!

Who doesn’t love flowers?  Why not display them in unique and interesting ways?  Well, those were the questions swimming through my head when I began making various kinds of flower holders.

Here are a few of my creations:

Abandoned doors

old doors and shutters

They’re just begging to be repurposed!

Besides the many that I have cut up to make various pieces of art, I also transformed this beaut by attaching brackets to the bottom to make a free-standing display piece.

From door to display piece

Priceless.

Recognize the backdrop?

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed to Beldoe, who was in the hall with the kids. “My shop has had like 50 new favourites in the last 3 hrs!?!” (because we’re notorious night owls – kids are too – and thus this had all been going down since 11AM!) I spent the next few hours trying to figure out where this was coming from. I even FB status’ed it, in shock! I deduced it had something to do with this listing:

Mingo, the cat, a custom creation I did back in September, loosely Keck inspired.

And was getting conversations left & right about my creations (which is always awe-some!) But then I just came out & replied to my first conversation as to how my creations had been seen. Because I kept thinking “Front page of Etsy? Is this an admin? Was I on the blog? Am I a Spring/St. Paddy’s/Easter promoted item?” . . .  See, in my enthusiasm to jump straight into my orders, I totally missed “My Daily Etsy shopping guide” email! And voila – mystery solved:

Oh.Em.Gee indeed!!!  What an honour — a truly humbling experience — to be showcased amongst so many exquisite artists! You better believe I wrote Gillian a personalized thank you for hand selecting me.  This is the stuff I’ve been dreaming about, since opening shop. Okay, actually, I never dreamt even that big (hah!) But wow. Thank you so so soooooo much, Gillian & Etsy!!!!

Pretty much made my day – week – and maybe my Etsy year! Haha. XD

How’s that for a hump day HAPPY?!

However, within minutes, actually under 5 minutes, I received a phone call from a friend, calling to talk to me about what I had posted. It’s always good to hear from her, I think I surprised her when I answered the phone, I surprise anyone when I answer the phone, (talking on the phone is one of my anxiety triggers, I text a lot to compensate) We had a great talk, it was good to talk and share. I learn a lot from her and she is very comforting, and a lot wiser than I.

After my phone call with her I also was pleasantly surprised with a video call from a dear friend, who now lives further away than I wish, but it was really great to just catch up and talk about how we’re each doing, to see her new baby, and talk art. There was a lot of giggling too, I feel a little bit dorky seeing myself on camera, it might be a photographer thing, I “know” I should be behind the camera, not in view of one!

The day was a long one for me, I really have been feeling spent emotionally, and after baring my emotions to the world, blogging seems like you could talk to the world, I had been running on little sleep and an energy deficit. However, I was so surprised and buoyed up by the responses from family and friends via email, texts, and Facebook that I my planned afternoon of hiding under the covers in nap mode was forgotten and perhaps I survived on adrenaline or maybe just positive vibes.

Thank you, everyone, for sharing those good vibes, from making me forgo the nap and stretch my mind! I know I described a little of the details about two conversations, but every conversation, whether just a “like” on my blog or Facebook, a “hang in there”, or something longer, was so important to me and I want all of you to know that. Even if I don’t list each and every one, your reaching out made a difference. I went from just throwing the net out there, to finding out there are fish… strange analogy for me, but I’m still tired… but what I am really trying to say is that I I felt like I was alone, and even when I know I’m not alone, sometimes, just feeling it, makes it start to happen… you don’t realize it but you cut yourself off from people, and sometimes you have to throw yourself hard back in the game and hope someone is there to help you up if you fall.

I’ve been thinking about how to describe this concept, of reaching out, in words, or visually, of how much it can mean to a person (like me), when sometimes when you feel so alone, and you reach out… When someone reaches back, it’s like a door opens… my chair is moved from it’s post of holding open that door, and a friend steps in it’s place. A friend gives me someone to talk to, and then my perspective changes, I’m no longer alone, staring at a door, at a chair, I’m back in the world, not just surviving but starting to find my way out of that lonely room, back on the path to where I have renewed hope, and a destination. I know I may encounter this room again, and you may hear this again, but I write this publicly so I can look back and see that I can move past it… that sometimes it’s a few steps back, then a few forward… but the important part forward…

I want to thank each and everyone of you that reached back. Some of you are my family, some are my friends, and each one of you made a difference.

This picture is a combination of three Artist Trading Cards (ATC’s) that I made for a trade in February. These are three that didn’t get picked and I like to believe that they were waiting for me to really notice them. Even though my hands made them, my mind assigned a different meaning to them during their creation. Now, they are holding a new message for me, related to my recent experiences… the words are literal, “It’s OK Really”, it will be OK for me, I just have to remember it. I know that today I feel better, I may not tomorrow, but I will try to keep remembering that “It’s OK Really”. Also now is the time for me to “Be Patient”, with others, with things that I’m trying to accomplish, and especially myself. Then “Recharge”, which is something that I tend to forget. I need to take more time to just sit and be quiet, to relax, to make art, to pet my dogs, and hold my husband’s hand.

So “It’s OK Really”, I’m not perfect, I’m not at 100%, but I will get through it, with a little help from my friends, family, my sweet loving husband, and two lovable smoochy pooches ;)

Nancy

ATC’s made with acrylic paint, collage, gloss medium, and my fingers!

Baby of light

Baby of light

With a hurting lower part

Of the body

Baby of light with a red hand

Baby blue

Baby sad

Baby with water

Murmuring in springs

Underground

Baby with new wings

And soft plumage

Growing.

We only have to assist everything that comes from inside of us in going its way out. It will go if we let it go.

It is all so simple.

So here is what I am letting go of today, this morning, after a night and after a day and after a night and a day and a week and a month and two month and seven years of pain that crawls on you at night and crawls on you in the day and makes you tremble, and makes your nervous system shake day and night, and who makes your body tense, even as you sleep. There is not much that I can do directly with the pain, I have learned this already. I can work at it as we work on changing the direction of a rowboat in the water. We stop rowing in the way we did. We start rowing in the direction we want to go. The boat will still go some more in the direction it was going before, because of the momentum. But eventually, at some point, and it is hard to know exactly where this point is, the boat will be going in the new direction. Not exactly as we planned, but still, in the direction that you want to go. Maybe it will turn out to be even better than you thought?

And how do we let go of things? How do we let go of the old direction?

We just see them from a deeper state. That’s all we have to do. A deeper state means that it is the energy of the truth of who we are. The endless love, the endless joy.

And how do we start rowing in the direction we want to go?

We just stay more in the energy of who we are.

All is a play.

And what a wonderful playing it is.

Go ask Gaugin 

I

With the beliefs that I have made

With the trees in me

With the beauty and craziness of it all

In me

I

Take the trees for example

Growing from the hard earth

Like habits

Drinking the blood of the fields

I

Look at the grimace on my face

It is coming out now

From memories

Of colors in the past

I.

Sometimes it’s about recognising when we are putting off doing some art and trying to figure out why. One of the main things that puts me off is when I am about to do a tricky patch. One of my Bfs was painting a portrait, [of my husband as it happens]. She did most of it really quickly, over the course of a couple of days. But she stopped for a rest before she did the eyes. When I next came to see her it was looking great: such an accurate and sympathetic portrait. She was reworking the background which she said she was no longer keen on and she also did one eye. But I think he has stayed with no second eye for about a year now. LOL. She is a really good painter but she still has times when she gets a bit stuck on something. Is it the innate trickiness of an eye and its expression? After all its the place we will focus our gaze when its finished. Or is it because its the last thing to do….

At the moment I have been working on a clay bust [head and shoulders] of my child.I have wanted to do this piece for a while, but I put off starting it because [this is what I told myself anyway] these clay  pieces are a big commitment. They take up lots of space in the house, they make a big mess, I probably won’t be able to do any other art while it’s on the go….. all these things are true actually but probably not the reason I have put it off.  I think I put it off because I want it to be good. [There's that good concept again screwing with my mind! See my previous post on this if you are interested].

But I have started the bust now and I used a few of my favourites methods to overcome my hesitation and get into the right headspace.

1. First I snuck up on it. I did this by taking photos of my child from various angles, to refer to when she is too wriggly to model for me. See ? Sneak up: you’re not really making anything just planning it.
2. Then I prepared my equipment and materials. My house is way too small for a dedicated making a mess space so I keep my clay stuff in the shed. I brought in my tools and my turntable. I kneaded all my clay and had it all ready to go.
3. I collected images of my previous clay heads, in order to see this one as part of a continuum of learning. I tell myself: this one doesn’t have to be perfect, I am still learning how to do heads.  This head is actually number five. Its fairly easy to do an imaginary person:  it doesn’t matter if it has a long face or a short one. A fine nose or a bulky one. So my aim this time is to try to create a portrait of an actual person.

Above: a previous head. Believe it or not this head is pretty accurate. The model had a massive skull and quite a regal look.

It’s still not proving the easiest piece even though I am half way through it. I kind of have to get into the headpsace over and over. The clay I am using is very hard work. It’s porcelain paper clay and has a difficult putty like texture, that seems to dry out unevenly. compared to other clays it is not very elastic. I don’t find it that fun to work with, but I picked it because it has a beautiful hard white surface when fired. Its beautiful even without glaze. Most of my previous work has been done in terracotta paperclay which has a lovely feel when you work with it. As it dries, the surface becomes almost waxy and it is super for smooth detail. So I will use it again next time. There is no point using a medium or technique if it really does put you off.

Above: the roughed in neck and shoulders. Usually you would use an armature and do the head and shoulders all in one. But one of the joys of paper clay is that you can join it up quite late in the drying process. So I will hollow out the sections separately then join them up.

Above: the half finished head. I have put in basic versions of her features. Next  I check the proportions and refine the features to really make it look like her. At the moment she looks more like a sleepy old lady. I will post an update when she is finished.

It’s funny whan I read this post back, its like I have to be my own psychiatrist!  Leading myself gently to where I need to be. But that’s ok. It doesn’t mean I am nuts, it just highlights the fact that it’s not always easy to start working on our art. The phenomenon of the writer’s block is well know, but artists suffer from just as many difficulties.

So after all of this what are my top tips for getting into a creative head space?

1. Sneak up on your self. Dont make a big deal of it, just start doodling ideas and collecting inspiration. 
2. Get your equipment out. Have it sitting on the table/easel ready to go. If you have a studio or dedicated room, open the door so you can see it. Visible reminders will get you thinking about it.
3. Sit down and look at your doodlings on the idea. Start to imagine how you would make the piece.
4. Choose work you enjoy. I have often made something that wasn’t fun to make because I want the final piece, and slogged my way through it, but its a pile easier if you enjoy the process.
5. Tell yourself, this doesn’t have to be the final version, but you will give it a go.
6. It’s a bit like exercise. It’s good if you set a particular time of the day to do it. ‘ I will start this on Saturday morning’. Tell other people you will be busy then. If your art is important to you it’s worth making time for it.

Ultimately though we have to make the decision that if we want to make some art we might just have to do it amongst a lack of romance. We may not feel that inspired when we start but if we can just begin, we can enjoy the making journey and for me that’s what it’s really about. That special space where I am lost in my work and the piece before me starts to come to life.

Chicken 1, 8 x 10 Pastel

I finished this pastel of a chicken today.  She was one of the ladies who lived next door for a few years.  I cared for them for a few months in the winter a few years ago, which was a lot of fun (story).

But if you step back and gain some perspective on your life you can see that what you learn is more than just the major you picked in college. Anyone can be a student of any subject they chose. When you leave the cocoon of undergraduate study, if you have the ware-with-all, you can see that all of the “courses” are available. Just pick up a book and read, or visit a site and learn; find documentary and watch.

Learning is something innate and can be done anywhere and at any time. And being an artist affords an interesting advantage in this pursuit of every “course”, because when you’re an artist the expectations on you are open for interpretation. In a traditional career, your superiors will tell you what skills you need and what knowledge you should seek. But when you are your own supervisor and the only people you are beholden to is the market, then the specifics of your personal studies are left to you to iron out.

I once heard someone liken the creative process to a lottery drawing, where each ball in the bin is an idea, emotion, or experience, and our mind tumble the balls around constantly. And when we imagine, we are just drawing the balls and make connecting between the disparate ideas. This often leaves me feeling very limited by what I know. I find myself wishing that I could tap into some kind of universal repository of knowledge, and just know everything, and make everything connect and make sense. This desire is ever becoming a more realistic option with the development of the internet. As we strive to make the internet a more productive place and not just a time waster and focus distractor,we make it more and more a place to find inspiration and interesting perspectives that may be very different to our own.

Now more than ever the previous archetype of a single career path is becoming obsolete, we are becoming a generation of renaissance men that the masters of classical Italy  we we all be entrepreneurs, creating art, sharing news, and educating our peers across all media. We will all become artists in our own right, and as such we will seek out our muses wherever they might be found. If you find inspiration in the molecular structure of water then that is what you should study. If feel you need to everything about the sea turtle to better sculpt your next piece then that’s what you’ll learn about. You define your own skill requirements, and you determine that next set of trainings to undertake. And the only tests required certifying your proficiency is the next sale or gallery showing.

And maybe none of this will pan out as I imagine, the next generation may rebel against this trend and make strides back toward specialization and the single career track. And it’s impossible to predict game changers that come from left field. For instance, maybe we finally create an artificial intelligence capable of real creativity and the artists of the day make a retreat and begin making static undynamic and completely uniform artwork and that become the prevailing taste of the populace at large. I doubt this eventuality, but even great minds of the past cast doubt on the potential of computers, automobiles, and no one in the Forties and Fifties saw the advent of the Graphical User Interface (GUI; Windows, Mac OS, Linux).

What will always be true, since it is inherent to the very definition of the field, is that entrepreneurs, of all types including artists, will always be responsible for their own education and training, they decide what is important to learn to complete the next project. There is no extraneous information, because at the end of the day when you sell a piece of artwork what you are selling is a piece of your self, a representation of who you are and what is important to you, you skill and you experience and all the nuances therein.

So if you find yourself doubting your decision to become an artist, just remember that you are in charge of your voice and direction, if you decide that you need to learn a new language and move to a new country to express the ideas that are important to you than that is what is necessary. If you decide that you need you become and expert in electrical engineering to make an idea work for you, then pursue with the mad passion that is so typical of our professional and critics be damned. The image of the flighty, empty headed artist is a fallacy, you are as  skilled and knowledgeable as you decide to be and the only thing keeping you from that “course” you never took it yourself. Pick up that book, find that mentor, discover that documentary, heck you could even just take that course, you don’t need a diploma to tell you that you know you history, or that you know physics, just learn it. Pick your sources carefully and go.

And that’s my take on being and artist.

The landscaping and stonework business goes quiet during the winter months, and so, one might think, that I’d be blogging away, casting pearls of wisdom regarding garden planning, maintenance and all things horticultural. Sadly, no. One might even think that since this blog is about our homestead here in Killingworth, CT, that I’d be writing about food, art, projects, etc… Again, sadly, no. These Persephone months are those that generate the most anxiety and pressure for me, and, at the same time,provide the most promising block of time to do what I am trained and compelled and desirous to do ,to which is to make art. This is my only yearly chance to get into the studio and work on painting and design projects that have occupied my mind for months, if not years. I largely abandon cooking, cleaning, and most things related to homekeeping. Asides from the necessary activities of bringing in firewood and venturing forth through deep snow to help Andrew collect sap from Sugar Maples on the Welter Farm, a project that he is engaged in, my time is spent in my studio.  We do like to entertain but this is a rare occurrence during these winter months. And so, I extend my apologies to all who may have looked for gardening wisdom. I will say that this is the time to start many of the cole crops and onions as seedlings.  These are cool weather crops that benefit from an early start. Don’t be seduced into starting tomatoes too early. Let that go until late March; you’ll have healthier seedlings.

I’ll be posting some images and updates of what I’m doing in the studio very soon. Until then, be well, be safe, be inquisitive.

Cheers,

Michelle

Lupito 3, 6 x 6 Pastel

I finished this quick pastel today.  It’s done on some scrap pink 6 x 6 mattboard I had leftover from framing my pigs.  It’s about life size for the dog!  I’ll be submitting it to the Rochester Contemporary Art 6×6 Exhibition.

Anyone from around the world can participate.  Maybe you have a larger piece you don’t like which could be cropped down?  It’s also fun to look at the thousands of miniature artworks.  My friend pointed out that my kids and I are in the background of the promotional video at the 6 x 6 site, as we were looking at the pieces last year.

… hanging out can be marvellous. But hanging out does not make one an artist. And secondhand wardrobe does not make one an artist. Neither do a hair-trigger temper, melancholic nature, propensity for tears, hating your parents, nor even HIV—I hate to say it—none of these make one an artist. They can help, but just as being gay does not make one witty (you can suck a mile of cock, as my friend Sarah Thyre puts it, it still won’t make you Oscar Wilde, believe me), the only thing that makes one an artist is making art. And that requires the precise opposite of hanging out; a deeply lonely and unglamorous task of tolerating yourself long enough to push something out.

Also:

The Myth of the Bohemian persists with good reason. Given the choice between a day spent giving oneself over to oil painting, or one spent in the confining grid of office cubicles, most folks would opt for the old fantasy of the carnal chaos of drop cloths, easels, turpentine, raffia wrapped Chianti bottles holding drippy candle ends, and cavorting nude models, forgetting momentarily the lack of financial security and the necessary hours and hours of solitude spent fucking up over and over again.

I never met David Rakoff in person but we did exchange a few emails after I wrote to tell him how much I enjoyed his book. In that note, I also sent him my hopes and best wishes for recovery from his cancer that he talked about in Half Empty. (Yes, he could be funny about that too.) He wrote back, which I didn’t expect. He even called me a mensch for writing him and saying what I did, and the memory of that can still make me feel good. But it also makes me feel sad because David Rakoff died not long after, on August 9th, 2012. He was 48 years old.

There’s lots of good stuff in Half Empty but what I remember most are those passages about making art. Rakoff reminded us that being an artist is a lot less about being something than it is about doing a bunch of things. If you really want to make this thing called art—and you don’t have to want that, there are plenty of other things worth wanting, but if you do—don’t be seduced by the metric tons of bullshit and distraction that befoul the path.

Work hard. Fuck up. Then fuck up again. Stay as still as you can in the face of confusion and failure and discouragement, and work some more. Occasionally you might try going away for a little while—not too long though—but then you get back to work, and do it all over again. And one day, after you’ve emptied your trash bin for the gazillionth time and learned how to curse in seven languages, it’s possible, just possible, that you step back and look at this thing—this thing you made, a picture, a paragraph, a lyric—and you hear a voice in your head saying, wow, I made this.

And, by the way, if you come across some fellow traveler also doing the art grind and they happen to have pushed out something pretty cool, why not give them a shout and let them know how much you like it. It breaks the solitude (theirs, yours, who knows?). For a little while anyway. And it might mean more than you think.

She’s real. She’s present. She’s fun. She’s right here, right now.

Charlotte lives in Portland and wears quite a few hats: Writer. Author. Writing Teacher and Mentor. Writing Coach. Blogger who writes about everything from how to use semicolons to the intersection of creativity and spirituality.

Oh, and she knits too!

And now, she has a novel out: Emma Jean’s Bad Behavior

Charlotte and I had a grand time chatting about the book and the journey that both she and Emma Jean took to get here.

As our conversation unfolded we touched on many different topics:

• Embracing multipotentiality and a variety of creative processes
• Crossing thresholds and claiming/making space for new or expanded creative roles
• Allowing the muse free reign (within reason) even when she wants to create something that pushes boundaries and maybe even scares people a little
• The mystery and wonder of how our creative and intuitive powers can tap into what’s already there when we can’t yet see it or name it
• Dark nights of the soul and learning to live in the place between certainty and uncertainty
• The Quiet Knowing That’s Always Been Present: what it is, what gets in the way, and how we turn toward it

You’re going to love getting to know Charlotte and hearing her wise words. You can click below to listen now:

If you’d like to download an mp3 of our conversation, right-click on this link and save linked file as: PattyBechtoldCharlotteRainsDixon

Learn more about Charlotte right here and get to know Emma Jean right here.

Thanks for listening!

* * * * *

If you’d like monthly resources for Living Deep delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe here. You can also follow me on twitter: @pattybechtold.

A year ago I starting working on a performance piece libretto [I dare not call it opera as I detest that format...] dealing with our making of things, like baskets, knifes, houses and operas, and thus our specialness as a species, which may not lie in the making of things, so much as in the specialness we make.

Here is a crude mind map of that twitter stream.

Mind map of a twitter stream as I read What is Art For? By Ellen Dissanayake

The thought “Formats and genres are rituals” occured at the end of mapping out the tweets.

I am using a very simple mind mapper that doesn’t even use arrows, thus it is a very unstructured mind map. However as a first draft of an ontology of making, if not an ontogeny of special, I like it.

Baby of ideas

He is

Playful

Funny

And shimmering

He is 

An angel

A light being

The baby of ideas

Always free

You called me

He says

Do you want to play

Together?

He is loving like a child

How can I resist?

How things are formed

How things are formed

In the All

With a dance

With a dream

With roots

And with connections.

This year, the Chinese New Year fell on February 10th, 2013, bringing us into the year of the water snake. Being a sucker for holidays, even ones outside of my own cultural traditions, I had a personal celebration. I decided to honor water snake by making a small painting, and I cooked up a bit of Buddha’s delight, a traditional vegetarian dish typically served during the Chinese New Year.

For my water snake illustration, I did an ink-blob sketch in my art journal. First, I dropped a bit of Dr. Ph. Martin’s liquid watercolor onto one side of the page. Next, I folded the page in half and pressed evenly in order to create somewhat symmetrical ink blobs. Then, I took out a black ink pen and let intuition guide me as a doodled a water snake.

Water Snake © 2013, Juniper Stokes

I never really know what I’m going to end up with ink blobs and doodles, but I find the process so meditative, and I was happy to have a theme to inspire me.

For the Buddha’s Delight, I used a traditional recipe for inspiration but changed it up a bit to use what I had on hand and add a little health boost. First, I fried up some firm tofu in coconut oil and turmeric and set it aside. Then, I stir fried mixed veggies in coconut oil with garlic and ginger. For my veggies, I used shredded carrot, chopped celery, broccoli, rehydrated black forest mushrooms, mung beans, purple cabbage, and leeks. Yum. I used a wok on high heat to cook the veggies quickly and leave them a bit of crispness. While the veggies were cooking, I sprinkled on a bit of rice wine vinegar, tamari, white wine, sugar, and toasted sesame seeds. To serve, I topped everything with bit more tamari and toasted sesame oil. Toasted sesame oil isn’t a traditional addition to this dish, but I love its flavor and tend to add it to everything. The dish tastes perfectly good without it, too.

Buddha’s Delight © 2013, Juniper Stokes

For more detailed instructions, check out the following recipes:

• Buddha’s Delight – Chinese New Year Recipes – Vegetarian Recipe.
• Buddha’s Delight Recipe at Epicurious.com.
• Buddha’s Delight Recipe | Vegetarian Times.

Happy New Year!

two kinds of muslin fabric

cotton upholstery fabric

rust colored cotton thread

found buttons

old buttons

shell buttons

one of a kind

]]> http://custompopportraits.com/2013/02/21/portrait-a-week-3/ Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:05:51 +0000 Shaylen Maxwell http://custompopportraits.com/2013/02/21/portrait-a-week-3/ Okay, maybe I’m just a little obsessed with chevron currently.

This week’s portrait – line drawing (even the eyes are done with one line) & your choice of background & additional banner! & send me the photo & text you’d like! & voila! : D

Forgotten how this works? I’m selling a CUSTOM digital portrait to FB & blog fans only (a design not currently listed in my shop) for $17 (that’s over 50% off!) Be the first to comment SOLD on the portrait and the style’s yours! Leave your email, I’ll send a paypal invoice, and then you can send me your photo(s) to shaylenmaxwell@gmail.com and your CUSTOM portrait will be to you within 24 hrs!

You receive three high resolution files: PDF, PNG, and JPEG. You choose the size. Print your portrait as often as you want, wherever you want (canvas, posters, cards). All art comes signed and dated by the artist.

Portrait of my sweet Tacey girl, who is no longer with us. Our last & longest living bunny,who I modeled Magenta on (lead character in my bunny novel in progress). This started out as a text portrait, but I fell in love with the lines and voila! Kinda reminds me of those wire sculptures we made in grade 12 art class.

Missing you, Pwn Queen :’)

I’m making art, packing like a mad woman, and preparing for my next round of edits with my editor for the novel. Moving is a great exercise in letting go, of what you don’t need/use/want to bring along with you. It’s also about finding new things to make your house a home. I’m pleased to report that while we didn’t end up with a finished basement, we did end up with a fully fenced yard. I’m simply thrilled by this. It was my near only stipulation – having had no place to play with the kids since Sneaky was born. Now we can hang outside in the summer, read on blankets, Sneaky is big into picnics on blankets. And May birthday parties outdoors. I’m a happy Momma.

And there will be space for a reading nook! Sneaky loves books. He always has. And we’ve amassed too many (like closets and closets of books). So shelves are a must. And these are on my list:

We can stack them. Move them. Carry them about doubling as bins. I think we might need a truck full of them. But we’ll start small. And Meekly, perhaps from all the modelling, is almost as smitten as he is. He regularly reads to her too, which is incredible to watch. Which is why we definitely need a nook.

And I’ve had my heart set on one of these, for too long. We’ll decide on colors later. But I’m leaning toward black & white chevron, or rainbow. Swoon. (I totally decided on the black&white, since composing this post. It’s in the making & what I’m calling the belated shared Christmas gift my kiddos should have gotten from us this past Xmas).

And I want this sign. For the nook.

My workspace will again be doubling as our playroom, so keeping it fun will be top priority. And kid safe. This clock will be mine.

Is it not perfect? And I don’t really tell time. I don’t like clocks (unless I have to be somewhere). They distract me. I like to let time slip away in flow. I like to let my kids work on their own schedules. Read cues rather than short hands. So I may never put batteries in it. ; )

And these curtains.

Can I just say, I love ikea, yes I do. I just hate that I can’t order online. But ebay resellers, oh how I heart you.

And this tablecloth. I just love this seller, and since I pretty much detest the cookie cutter tablecloths I come across in stores around here, I plan to buy several.

And I totally plan to DIY my bookshelves with fabric backings. This one calls out for me.

I confess Sneaky inherited my love for rainbow everything. Le sigh.

And bath curtains. Is this one not spectacular?

Rainbow-riffic but also complete geekery.

If I could afford the expense, I’d also buy this:

So in my imagination, this lovely rhino will reside.

And I vow, I VOW, we’ll frame those DaVinci sketches of flying machines I bought Beldoe for his birthday before Sneaky was born, and set them up on the mantle where they’ve belonged for far too long.

There’s something so oddly surreal about seeing it like that. Inspiring. Humbling. I feel so honoured every time, that someone selected me to make them such a personal, meaningful piece of art for their wall!

Well, anyway, a few months back I got one of the craziest requests I’d had yet. For FIVE(!) 4 colour Warhol portraits. I get pretty amped up when I get an order for two, let alone five! I joked she’d have my first gallery showing in her house by the time we were through. And my gosh, does she! She sent photos:

They look just incredible in her exquisite home! I love the color contrast against the clean white lines. Amazing! Her boys were so adorable & to date, the Budweiser box portrait is still one of my favourites in that style!

Thanks again, Chenoa! And for agreeing to let me share these lovelies on my blog. <3