Daisy Art Journal

Here is journal #2, available here.

I recently bought this giant stack of scrapbook paper and I love all of the patterns! It will probably last a million years, haha. There are so many I want to use for the inside of the journal covers but I can't imagine making that many journals. Who knows?



Tomorrow is the pricing changeover and I'm still a little unsure about it. It seems unanimous that no one is ever really sure about it and that it's okay. There are many things I want to do, and perhaps I am a bit overwhelmed by the idea that everything could work out the way I've always wanted it to.

Some day.

Sweet Lady Ginkgo Journal

I really enjoyed putting this book together. Yellow and red is a popular colour combination for me. 

 

Available here.

 

You know, I haven't seen too many ladybugs out this year. Is it still too early?

Just Birds

If anyone wants to see my "Good Morning" chickadee painting in person, head on down to the "Just Birds" show next month!

"Just Birds" Juried exhibition
Newton Cultural Centre
13530 72 avenue
Surrey, BC

June 3 - 30 

I got some supplies to make five more journals. I can't wait!

Pretty New Website

Oh. My. Goodness.

After much tweaking, and deleting and nitpicking I've finished decorating my own personal internet home!



Eeeee! I'm way more excited about it than I need to be. I can't explain it. I guess it's kind of like... committing to a path in life.

It's kind of like deciding exactly who I want to be and what I want to do with myself.

And it's a really scary thing for me to do: pretending to know what I'm doing. There is SO MUCH out there for me to learn (as evidenced by my recent pricing screw-up) and there are lots of things that could go wrong.

I want to hold on to this feeling for as long as I can!

Cutest thing ever

I just couldn't NOT share this. Usually it feels like my sister and I have been butting heads since she first learned to speak (she's now 12), but then adorable things like this happen and then I'm all like "d'awwww!"



I opened the tightly folded piece of paper and it was a drawing of a pegasus. In the bottom corner it reads: "I bet you could draw this better!".

I can't tell if she's embarrassed, or trying to be modest... It said it was a "dare" so is she asking me to send a drawing back? I don't know.

(Tell me what you think in the comments!)




And so then she goes on to tell me that she did well in track-and-field and sent me her 3rd place ribbon. 

Sent it to me.

What.

I... I don't even know.

Maybe I'm looking too hard at this and seeing a lot of messages that aren't actually there, but it kind of feels like someone just handed me a pouch full of precious gems or something.

So What the Heck am I Doing Anyway?

It may seem like I am having a non-productive, lazy week, but the truth is I've been busy and excited about the idea of finally putting together a real website with my own domain name! I'm a little scattered all over the internet as you can probably tell from all the big links in the sidebar (portfolio here, shop there, videos somewhere else...).

I've been using my blog as my "central hub", but don't really want to have blogger links on my business cards, you know?

I'm currently trying out Weebly because it is popular and free, and so far I am getting a kick out of it. If you know CSS you will have an advantage. I don't, so it took me all day and a LOT of trial and error to get something I liked! The drag & drop feature is lovely, however limited. For the cost, it's quite fantastic as far as I can tell.



Okay, here's the other thing.

If you follow me on facebook,  you might have noticed that I have also had pricing on the mind this week. I have been in "research mode" (before the website play distracted me) because I was beginning to think my pricing is off.

It's not a good thing to stick out of a gallery show in terms of pricing, you kind of want to be in the same range as others in your group. Your "group" being artists who have similar work and similar experience as you.

I have to say that researching pricing has been one of the most frustrating searches I've had to do. There are no concrete answers, and sometimes it feels like nothing is correct... that's normal. But there are some straight forward guidelines out there that really help, even if they are just guidelines.


What does all this mean?

It means that I'm not pricing myself for the market, which does a disservice to my local artists and, of course myself.

It means that some time soon, I'm going to have to raise my prices on my original artworks (I haven't decided on the journals yet). I still want my work to be available to as many people as possible, so I will make more 8x10 reproductions available of recent work (I've been a little behind on that, sorry).  I won't be increasing the price of those.

I'm telling you this ahead of time just in case anyone is waiting to purchase later on. I haven't figured everything out yet, but I can agree not to make any changes until at least June 1.

...

Whew! Hopefully when I get all of this fun stuff settled I can go back to painting! And start a new art journal too. :)

Journal Post 5/22/12

 Just finishing up the Life Like Weeds journal! I had a weird nagging feeling the other night, like all of this stored energy was building up pressure inside of me and I had to get it out. So I ended up finishing the last few layouts of this journal.



When I fill them with words, I'll do a journal flip of it.

I'm kind of nervous about going back to the blank journals. I'm pretty sure I don't want to do the scrappy kind again because of how limiting it felt with the chosen surface materials. In short, glossy magazine pages don't work for much of anything. At all.

Have you ever tried the scrappy format? How did it work for you?

 

It was nice having a base to start out on (such as this cake photo on the last page), so that I could focus more on the journaling than the "art" so to speak, but I am itching to play with sprays and stencils again! I also have a canvas I'd like to "do-over". I'd like to make a few more journals maybe. 

Ever have a rush of desires and responsiblities all come out at once that you don't really know what to do at all?