Project 365: Day 191-193: Cooking, Cleaning, and Flying Pandas

Day 191 – Pork chops and cauliflower

Day 192 – House cleaning.. wonderful.

Cooking.. cleaning.. I am totally winning at this housekeeping thing! Course I failed at actually finishing at cleaning up, but.. you know.. I’ll get there. (Also, vinegar and water is amazing at removing carpet stains! High five!)

Day 193 – Matte prints.. huzzah!

I’ve always sold my prints using luster paper, which has this subtle sheen to it. I found it’s wonderful to get those really black blacks and vibrant colours, but I started to offer matte paper as an option to listings now. I’ve experimented a few times with matte paper, and the black tends to be a bit softer than on luster paper, but otherwise the prints came out really well. I’ve also had a few inquiries for larger sized prints, and I’m looking to offer 11×14 prints next – I have the right paper for it now … but I just need the right packaging supplies now. That to-do list just likes to get longer and longer!

Project 365: Day 90 – 92: Etsy Symposium, Lights Out, and little Giant Pandas

Day 90 - Etsy Success Symposium

I spent most of Day 90 watching the entire Etsy Success Symposium, which was a live all day event featuring different speakers. I toughed it out and watched it all (had a lot of coffee and tea that day!) All in all, it was a great refresher course on selling on Etsy, plus a lot of things to add to that to-do list, such as the importance of really personalizing your listings (definitely a challenge for me.) Sadly it really made me miss the Etsy Chat. (RIP)

Day 91 - Earth Hour

 

Day 92 I got together with family and we had some fantastic food at WVRST. We randomly happened to be there during Earth Hour and got to dine by candlelight which was pretty spiffy. Afterwards was a night of karaoke – my first time! That was a ton of fun. I think I lost track of how many Backstreet Boys songs were sung that night..

Day 92 - Business cards

More business cards! The bonus of printing business cards at home is that I can quickly edit them and remake them as often as I want.. well, that and I can fix typos that I somehow didn’t even see until recently (*palmface*) I thought I’d see how the cards would look with some of my illustrations and the giant panda looks just as cute in business card form (:

Hermit Tarot Card – No Crabs Allowed!

I had hit the wall. The tarot card wall, that is.

I had no idea which animal would be my hermit in my hermit card. The most obvious choice was the hermit crab, but the most obvious choice is not necessarily the perfect choice, right? So I was stuck with this card and my mystery hermit for over a week or two. I even thought of maybe skipping this card and working on the next card on my list because it seemed to be that hard to decide on.

 

But then I started seeing this as a challenge that I couldn’t back down from. I decided to stop over thinking this card. Instead, I tried to relax and started sketching out the animals that would look and feel ‘right’.  I had a list of animals that were potential Hermits: the fox, cougar, mountain goat, even the Arctic Tern. I tried to pick out more solitary animals to suit this tarot, but the red panda ended up winning this one. I liked that instead of this dark kinda dreary coloured hermit card, I got to work on this card with a bright coloured animal. In the usual hermit card, he is standing and looking down, holding a staff in one hand and a lantern in the other. I tend to not make my illustrations look anything like the original cards, but to me, these elements were important; so I took the staff and it became a tree supporting my red panda, and the shining light from the lantern became a firefly.

 

The hermit has taken himself away from the company of others and is on this journey of discovery, without outside distractions. To me, the hermit speaks about introspection, finding solace in solitude, and the journey. Creating this card was definitely a journey and now I’m glad that it’s finally finished. Now I have the next couple of cards planned out and I’m hoping they’ll be a breeze compared to this one. The next card on the list? Death. (Dun dunnn.)

 

Project 365: Day 76-78: Weeds and a Giant Giant Panda

Day 76 - Weeds

I am addicted to Weeds. I remember watching maybe 5 or so episodes years ago and loving the show, and then for whatever reason I never got back into it again. But now it’s back in my life, huzzah! I love the nutty characters, crazy situations and the laughs. Now to catch up with this show.. along with all the other shows I really need to catch up on. I don’t know how people cram so much tv in their life. It’s exhausting!

Day 77 - Giant Panda

Day 78 - Scanning

 

Here are some work in progress shots of a giant panda from a while back. I wanted this panda super giant and added a tiny girl perched on its giant ear. I thought I’d try painting on card stock (which I did before with the painting of a goat for a greeting card) but yeah, not so smart; the card stock wrinkled like crazy this time around. Thankfully it scanned perfectly fine and Photoshop fixes (just about) everything.

I wanted to do a series of giant animals but I’m not sure when I’ll do another.. that to-do list just keeps getting longer!

That’s it for me today. My hands have been really achy the last few days and are crying for some time away from the computer, urg.

Sad Pandas, Kitties, and Nerds

I made a new small batch of pendants not long ago that I plan to list in the new year.. some are actual prints (finally) while others are hand painted. I have a soft spot for the Sad Panda ones and plan to make more.. Sad Pandas are SAD! ..it’s been a tough month.

I think the holiday sales have slowed down for me on Etsy; so my plan for this month has been to paint more and prep more listings so that the next month will be easier. It’s been a really hard month mentally for me so I really hope the new year will bring some promise.

It’s funny that painting Sad Pandas kinda helps.

I hope everyone’s having a nice safe December so far ❤

Umbrella Pandas And Nerdy Beavers – Progress Shots

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I managed to get some more painting in before the barbecue we had on Saturday. It’s also been rainy the past week.. and temperatures are dropping quickly so I have a feeling the beach won’t be in my future again this year ):

Here are some progress shots of some new art:

What Can I Say? Nerds Are Cute!

To make up for a slow week of blogging, here’s a fluffy cute, nerdy – but cute – owl.

 

 

 

I went to choose a new pair of glasses today and it was actually really exciting! Having a rainbow of potential accessories to choose from is a ball. It’s funny because when I was a kid, I refused to wear my first pair of glasses. I HATED them. Who wants to look different from all the other kids? I sure didn’t.

Of course, now it’s funny because present me doesn’t like blending into the crowd at all. Who wants to look like everyone else? I sure don’t. Now I embrace my glasses. They’re fun. They’re functional. And they up your cute factor tenfold!

I decided on a cute pair of purple frames, and will go for a second pair when the store has some new stock in. Multiple colours? Heck yes!

Animals in Trees. It makes sense.

I’ve talked about before how I work, but here’s another example of how I work on new items..

Once upon a very random time, my brain decided that hey, I really want to paint a beaver.  (Being Canadian and all, it just made sense.) But my beaver couldn’t just be a regular old beaver.  My painting just couldn’t have a beaver sitting there all by his lonesome. It had to be an Awesome Beaver. So I asked my brain, how should I paint this Beaver of Awesomeness?

My brain immediately replied with “in a tree, of course.”

Hm. That’s.. kind of random. “Any other ideas?” I asked my brain.

“No. Listen to your brain. Put your beaver in a tree. But not just one; put several beavers in a tree. It makes sense. They’ll be much happier there.”

So I listened to my brain and painted some beavers in a tree.

Beaver Tree

 

I mean, I had already painted a whole bunch of animals wearing a whole bunch of silly hats. So this next step naturally made the most sense to me…

“It’s logical,” said my brain..

“Animals = Awesome

Trees = Awesome

Animals in Trees = Even more Awesome”

So my Beaver Tree was painted, and my brain was right: they looked very content in their tree. They looked pleased. I was pleased! I was glad I listened to my brain.

True story.

.. no, really, that is actually exactly how it happened.

 

 

Red Panda Tree

Wild Dog Tree

Soon red pandas found their willow tree, and a pack of wild dogs nested in their baobab tree. I haven’t painted any trees in a while; but today I dug up one that I was working on that was put on hold for a while. I’m excited to see how this one will turn out.. it’s already looking strange with the bizarre looking tree. I kind of want to call it a fiddlehead tree.

New Tree, Yay!

How to Make a Painting. Sort of. But Not Really.

Most of the time, if you ever see any kind of art tutorial, you see the artist roughly blocking out the image as a whole, then working on the finer details later. Well I think I might be a bit of a strange one. I tend to start with one or two areas in a painting and slowly work my way out. I don’t really have a rhyme or reason to the order that I paint things. Sometimes I’ll paint the background first; sometimes I won’t. Sometimes I’ll start with an eye.. sometimes I’ll start on the face and work my way out, or start with a foot or tail. I don’t know why, but it works for me.

Unfortunately if I were to make a tutorial, it might look something like this..

HOW TO MAKE A PAINTING. Or… HOW I MAKE A PAINTING.

1. Have a great idea for a painting.
2. Get distracted – I’m sure there’s a whole new batch of great youtube videos to watch! Just kidding, they’re all probably crap, but lets look anyway. OH CUTE KITTEN-ON-A-TURTLE VIDEO!
3. Well crap – now what time is it? Now that great idea from earlier is now a slightly fuzzy smear of what it started out as.
4. Quickly sketch ideas out in Photoshop. Pout. Select all. Delete. Redraw.
5. Repeat Step 4 a few times.
6. Actually start sketching out on paper, and start painting.
7. Keep painting till you think you’re done.
8. And, you’re done!

Helpful, right?

I know I’m not the greatest at tutorials; so here’s some work-in-progress photos of some of my paintings instead.

Animals with Hats