R.I.P.

My mom's old sewing machine that she passed down to me has died.  I was told that it would cost more to repair than to replace.  So long old friend.  Your ability to sew through jean material like it was soft butter will be missed.

P.S.  Mom, I'm holding it's old table hostage in hopes that at some point, another machine might sit there.

Nothing new but ...

I do have a little something old.  When I was originally hired to work at the bookstore where I am currently employed, I was sweet talked into doing some murals for both of the stores.  These are the four murals at the store I work in.  My employer surprised me with some professionally taken photographs of my work!

I thought that they might be worthy of sharing.

Here and There and Back Again

JAFAX is over -- the event was a great success!  Once again our attendee numbers crossed over the threshold of three thousand people!  The biggest fear of the JAFAX staff now is that in a few years, we will be much too large for Grand Valley State University campus!!

With that done and over with and life returning back to normal-ish (as normal as my life ever gets), free time has been restored to me ... which means art time!

And I have bad news and good news.  I'll start with the bad news first because I much rather end this little post on an up swing.

Bad News.  I have no promised tee shirts from JAFAX with the mascot design that I drew to do a give-away with on my blog.  Sadness.

Good News.  I have no promised tee shirts from JAFAX because my design SOLD OUT!  I believe we ordered some where around 260 (which is the most we have ordered before) and they are ALL GONE!  I am the second ever JAFAX tee shirt artist to sell out.  The only other is our guest Doug Smith who is a fairly well known and popular artist in the anime con circle.  Who would have thought!  My art is marketable!

JAFAX 15 Art Sneak Peek!

Late Night Crafting

For some reason, I seem to be at my best creatively leaning toward those later hours when most decent folk are in bed.  Lately I've been feeling very overwhelmed by just how cluttered my life is with stuff.  I've developed this theory that if I uncluttered my environment that it will help me to organize other aspects of my life.  Slowly I've been tossing things out, including those that just sit in boxes forgotten and unloved.  If they were special to me, I'd be proud to show them off.  Right?

I know I'm not the only woman out there that has boxes of tangled jewelry that I just refuse to get rid of but have not worn in the longest time and likely never will.  And I've been seeing these pictures in magazines and on etsy of these beautifully decorated frames displaying jewelry.  Well heck, I figured I could make one myself!  I have an old frame laying around unused.  Some fabric.  So guess what.  I made one!

All the pieces that I wear and love the most on display!  And now that I can see them, it will be a whole lot easier to coordinate them with my outfits and never again say, "Oh yeah!  I forgot that I owned this beauty!".

P.S.  Dear readers, that spiral necklace and earring set you see on that board?  I made.  The jewelry instructor at school attempted to steal me from the illustration department for herself.

P.P.S.  I am sorry for the huge gap in an update, for emails that should have been sent out but have not.  It has been a hugely busy month for me and June shall only be worse!  JAFAX is just around the corner and I have so much work to do for that!  I shall try to throw tidbits but I can not make a promise until July.  Well.  Maybe I can squeeze in a certain tee shirt design once completed. 

The Rise of a Mascot!

Just in need of some color and then Ringo shall be ready for her website debut!  I'm giving myself a weekend deadline -- Monday at the very very latest.

And the winner is ...

My good friend Ross!  I know, I know.  A very long over due announcement for the drawing for the goldfish wood block print!  I apologize!!  I have a print here with your name on it, Ross!  I have it on white and on cream paper so you pick!  A big thank you for everyone that participated!!  Lots of love to you all!

I haven't been posting here very regularly but I haven't been idle either.  I've actually been pretty productive considering that allergies have actually managed to lay me down low a couple of times this year!  Usually I don't feel them until the fall when the right pollen hits the air.

 Chisels have been placed to wood.  The photo might be a work in progress shot but the block is actually fully carved now.  However, I'm not happy enough with it to even bother printing it.  It ended up being a huge slab of practice for me and it wasn't until the end that I was happy with my marks I was leaving behind.  Honestly though, I'm more than happy to do the giraffe again!  I'm just going to flip the board over, sketch him out and away I'll go!

There has also been some sketching going on, long over do mascot artwork for the anime convention JAFAX.  The first sketch I did of Ringo is on the left -- cute but not quite there.  Boring.  The second one, on the right, I think will look smashing on a tee-shirt.  Tonight there will be more sketching to see if any better ideas pop up and tomorrow the final versions will begin so that once those are done ... it will be back to the giraffe for me.

And knitting.  There has been a whole lot of knitting going on lately as well.  In a few days about two feet worth of shawl has been cranked out.  Taught myself two whole new decrease stitches and everything for it too!

Time for tea.  And sketching.  But tea first.