Easily Distracted by Julie D'Arcy

Happy New Year!

2011-01-22T15:46:00.003-07:00

There's been so much stuff I've tried to finish for the New Year, including Sean's memory quilt, my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project, and getting together new prints to take over to The Wooden Cow. One relatively easy opportunity I decided I was not going to pass up was entering the Sunday Morning Sun Art Challenge from The Artist Challenge. Last year, the Sun Art challenge was featured on CBS Sunday Morning, and CBS even used one of the images on later features as a sort of splash image. This year, they are submitting the gallery of challenge items to CBS again, and I believe they have said they'll feature it on the show again! The Artist Challenge is an all volunteer website with monthly challenges, some of them free, some of them have a nominal cost. I truly haven't seen anything on the site that was amateurish or half-assed--these artists take this stuff very seriously!

So needless to say, I am excited to be a part of this challenge and to have my work be a part of the CBS Sunday Morning Sun Art Library! Please go check out the entire collection!

How Do You Decide What to Do Next When You Don't Know What to Do Next?

2010-12-13T18:27:00.009-07:00

My husband and I have been writing a book for a few years now and it is getting to the point that probably what needs to happen next is a thorough Roto-rooter-like edit/proofread by me and then find a publisher. Or do I find an agent? Or is it neither of those things? Am I deluding myself that I could actually do any of those things? I started down the garden path to find a literary agent, then looked at some stuff people had written about getting a book published, then started looking at the book to see what sample copy I could send out, then started writing a cover letter to no one, then I realized that my head was swimming and I had no idea what I was doing or what I needed to do next and I know what a run-on sentence this is, I'm just using it to give you the idea of what it feels like in my head. My head is one big run-on sentence, and as an editor, I should know better, but it just never stops. In addition to the book, I am an artist. I show my work in a gallery here in town and also in my Etsy Shop on the internet, so I'm also an internet marketer of some ghastly variety. Plus, and more importantly, I'm a housewife and stepmom (and dog-mom).

So what do I do first? Do I work on said book? No, not at all. Instead, I work on something that I know how to do, putting off the probably much more urgent thing (the book) that I have no fucking clue how to do.

One of the first things I have been trying to work on is a book cover illustration!

I rediscovered a former professor from college on Facebook, friended him, and discovered that in addition to being a brilliant physical chemist and concert cellist, he has written several novels! So upon mentioning my delight in this discovery as part of my Facebook friend request, he offered, "buy one of my books and I'll buy some of your artwork." So I bought one of his books (for Kindle, which I'm reading on my computer, since I don't have a Kindle) and waited to see what he would pick from my artwork. Better than picking something, instead he asked me to design the covers for his next three (I think he said three) books! I was flattered and excited and said 'yes' immediately, of course. So the first image in this post was the condition of the first cover, before I took it with me to the doctor with one of my kids and sat in the waiting room for 90 minutes. So that sketch is considerably further along than it appears in the photo.

Next...

As a consequence of being a stepmom and artist, I have volunteered to design my daughter's first tattoo, and her Dad is going to get (part of) the same tattoo with her. Fortunately for the creative process and unfortunately for my kid, said daughter had a terrible stomach ache on Saturday, sending us to Urgent Care, resulting in 4 hours trapped in a small, sterile room with a bitchy teenager. Needless to say, I got almost the entire drawing finished right there. Fairly excellent usage of a day I will never get back.

Next thing on the list, in no particular order, but that needs to be completed immediately along with everything else, is my Sketchbook Project sketchbook. I found one of the many, many links to The Sketchbook Project and thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to both do something creative and almost completely limitless in possibility and get some publicity by being part of this huge project that will be touring the country, then wind up as part of the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Art Library. Each artist chose from a wide variety of themes--I chose "Science project gone wrong" because, well, how perfect does that describe my scientific career. I can finally make a formal mockery of my own failings in scientific inquiry. Shown here is the back of the book. Those are the only marks on it thusfar. It must be postmarked by January 15th, 2011. Sigh.

Featured Inspiration--Natalya Sots Amazing Pots!

2010-12-12T10:09:00.005-07:00

Okay, she makes more than just pots, but I couldn't resist the rhyme. One thing I'm really loving about the new Etsy feature called "Activity Feed" (it's pretty much like the running status you get on your Facebook homepage) is how it keeps you up to date on everything any of your favorite sellers or people in you 'Circle' are doing--new listings, treasuries they made, items that they have added to their favorites, etc. This morning I had a couple of minutes so I checked it out. One of my long time favorites, Natalya Sots, had a new listing, and I was completely charmed by it! The Sunshine Girl teacup in the top picture is so adorable and has so many charming details, I was inspired to write about it. Click on the link to go to the listing, and be sure to look at all of her detail pictures, like the little braid going down her back and the tiny flowers! So sweet!

This blue cup (called Blue Cup with Pants) was the first item of hers I added to my favorites. It is truly charming and adorable. I wish I had the kind of home where something like this wouldn't get broken. Perhaps oneday.

As fun as her pieces are to look at, some of them are useful too! While I'm not sure if I'd really risk using either of the two cups (they'd probably just sit on a shelf where everyone could see them) this third piece is a butter dish! Can't you picture having Sunday brunch or tea with scones and serve your butter in this? I love her choices of colors and whimsical faces. While I do not create art with any functional purpose, I might just get inspired to create some drawings inspired by her fun faces and flowery patterns!

I have barely scratched the surface of her talents, so go check out her other lovely ceramicware in her Etsy Shop.

Fine Art Friday--A Little Lowbrow from Mary Lundberg

2010-12-03T08:24:00.004-07:00

I do not often feature other artists on my blog because A) I do not often exhibit the same behavior twice in any aspect of my life, and 2) no one reads this blog anyway. However, in honor of Fine Art Friday, I decided to share an artist who has inspired me with her talent, humor, and honesty. Plus, no artist has ever inspired me to like Mobile Homes, so she gets kudos for that.

Her profile mentions that she has studied art all the way up to a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Memphis, has exhibited in both solo and group shows, and has been honored with awards for her work. AND YET I LIKE HER ANYWAY.

Her artwork all expresses a dark humor, reminiscent of Yves Tanguy or some of the more modern, hip, lowbrow surrealists that I'm not modern or hip enough to be able to cite. I'm seeing a bigtime Tanguy influence in this piece here:

In the Beginning, 18" x 24"

Aside from the immense talent, what drew me into her shop and made me check out every single category of art was, well, the categories she gave to her art. While other shops have categories like "Original Artwork", "ACEOs", and "Works Under $20", Mary has named her categories in a way that explains just what you're looking at, while the category titles make you laugh all by themselves. Her categories include "i use offshore banking"(works over $500), "lost my 401k but still love art" ($40-$65), and "art for the really poor" (<$12). The piece below ($50, since we're on the subject) is from a series of Trailer art, featuring bizarre and a little disturbing single-wide trailers. This mixed media piece I find awesome not just because it's a trailer and that the trailer appears to be walking, but that it appears to me to be wearing bellbottoms.

Single Wide Trailer #5, 4" x 4"

The artist is even honest enough to offer a category called "not my best work". It's nice to know that while I use my work from that category to give to people I don't like or to entertain my dog by letting her carry it around, Ms. Lundberg is at least trying to make a buck off of it. The work below, while not her best work, still cracked me up. Besides, the rest of that category I, um, didn't like. No offense, Mary, but it's not your best work. You said so yourself.

Poodle on Bob Ross's Hair, 5" x 7"

Last night, after checking out this shop, I thought about what categories I might use for my own shop. Using the same honest criterion, I was thinking, "papa needs a new roof", "mama needs a new dishwasher", "teenage daughter mascara fund" and "please buy this shit before I give it to my dogs to play with". It can't possibly be any less successful than what I've already got.

Cleaning Out the Closets--I Finally Came Up With a Good Christmas Gift Idea

2010-11-24T17:23:00.005-07:00

So, in case you haven't noticed from all of the Ebay listings and other rants, I've been trying to clean out all the old stuff in this house that nobody needs. While preparing a very large donation bag of clothes, I noticed we had a ridiculous number of old Little League baseball jerseys of all sizes and teams. My husband (and I, unofficially) have coached Little League since our oldest was about 12 or 13. He's 19 now and his younger brother is 15, also now too old for the regular season play of Little League. So we considered this past Spring season to be our last season as Little Leaguers. It was a pretty good time, lots of great baseball games, lots of great kids and great parents. My husband and I have now both served on the Board of Directors, but I am trying to remove that part of the experience from my mind and just remember all the good parts. In remembering the good parts, I wanted to do something sentimental and cool with all of these old jerseys rather than give them to Goodwill. I'm thinking I will make a little throw quilt out of them, backed in some nice solid fleece. I think it would make a great gift for my husband for Christmas (don't worry, my husband has never read my blog, I don't think, and even if he does, we're not that big on surprises anyway). Does anyone have any helpful suggestions on making a memory quilt? I can tell you that the regular seams between the shirt-fronts will be done with a zig-zag stitch (I don't have a Serger machine, just a Singer). Should I pick a contrast color, like red, and have the stitching show? What should I do about the edges? I made a fleece blanket once by taking two big pieces of fleece fabric and cutting fringe into the edges, then tying the fringe together, so I suppose I could do that. I should probably make a decision on these things so I can get it done before Christmas, along with all the other stuff I'd like to get done in time for Christmas. Not to mention, daughter's birthday is coming up, and she wants me to design her tattoo. More to come on that...

If You Buy All My Stuff on Ebay, I Can Go Back to Making Art

2010-11-18T13:20:00.004-07:00

As much as I would love to be able to produce beautiful artwork that you, my readers, will instantly buy, providing you with thoughtful Holiday gifts and me with holiday gift-buying money, that just doesn't appear to be happening quite as rapidly as I would like. I know, picky, picky.

So I'm going through this massive collection of stuff that everyone in this house (especially me) has collected and now does not need. I have clothes that used to belong to my daughter before she decided she was too good for them, clothes I bought for myself, only to realize that either A) cute as they are, I don't look good in them, or B) have been sitting in my closet since the '80s and they are now in style again. There's also some diecast metal car models that no one in the house ever claimed to have wanted to collect. Jaguars? Nascar pickup truck? For real?

There are a million websites and late-night infomercials out there that will tell you how easy it is to list your stuff on Ebay. It is easy--to create a crap listing. To create a listing that people will look at and bid on, you need the same criterion as other online marketplaces. High quality pictures (yes, the skirt I'm wearing in the picture is for sale, and I used that picture because it sucks trying to take a picture of a plain black skirt, and Cassie wanted to be a part of it, so I thought that would be as likely to get someone to click on the listing as anything else), detailed descriptions, accurate measurements, and whatever in each of our brains passes for advertising and marketing. For the possible $50 or so I could get paid, I have spent ridiculous hours with the tripod taking pictures, editing pictures, measuring things, writing decent descriptions, checking on my listings, TWEETING (I couldn't believe it, but that actually got people to click on the listings), posting annoying pleas on Facebook... ugh! I must be doing it wrong. Maybe I need to market my goods the way these ladies have (NSFW). I appear to be stuck in that limbo between pathetic-but-getting-paid and dignified-with-no-Christmas-money.

So go check out my Ebay listings so I can get back to making some art. I've still got a book cover (or three, I think) to create, proofreading I could be doing, and daughter's tattoo to design (okay, that one I don't get paid for, but I told her I'd design it in time for her birthday in a couple weeks). Please someone come yell at me if one of my links doesn't work (but don't yell at me about the Regretsy listing, 'cos that's just funny shit, I don't care who you are).

Two Mo Bros for Movember

2010-11-12T09:12:00.005-07:00

Well since October, Breast Cancer Awareness month, has come and gone (and I never got my baseline mammogram performed), we're done saving the ta-tas. Instead, now, for November, we are saving the... um, testes? Sorry, that was bad. Anyway, November is Men's Health Awareness month, and just to jazz it up and give people something to do, in addition to donating money, the month has been renamed Movember. The 'Mo' is short for 'moustache' (one of two proper spellings of the word, I'd have to ask my friends at Scribendi.com if one is British English and one is American. I do know that the fine wordsmiths at Scribendi are participating in Movember!) and to raise people's awareness of men's health issues, men (Mo Bros) are supposed to grow out their moustaches for the whole month of November, and us gals (Mo Sistas) are supposed to cheer them on, assist with grooming, measuring, possibly braiding, and there will no doubt be moustache rides involved in there somewhere, but I'm trying to keep this blog above board, so we're no going to talk about that part. In addition to the growing of hair, there are opportunities to donate and promote donation by others at the Movember website. Since I am thus far unable to grow a moustache myself, I am supporting the cause by creating some Mo Bros of my own.

The first fellow came out decidedly sinister looking, and since he is the first, I have named him"Mo". He has been created in pen and ink, as well as some brushed inks, including the new colors I bought at Langell's the other day. "Mo", the original, is currently for sale in my Etsy Shop, and the full sale amount (not shipping) will be donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation via Movember.com. (The other major charity organization featured on movember.com is the Livestrong Foundation, and while I'm sure it has probably done some good in its day, Lance Armstrong is a douchebag and I'm not giving him my money. Hey, it's my blog and my opinion, and for the record, it's not just my opinion.) Moving on... I will probably make some Mo prints (get it, mo' prints, mo' money, mo' Mo?) and sell them for a more reasonable price, that way everyone can share in the love of Mo-ness.

My second Mo Bro is the as-yet-unnamed walrus-y moustachioed dude shown here. He is also done in pen and ink as well as brushed ink and colored pencil. I scanned him yesterday, then added a bit more colored pencil to the face area, but when I went to scan it again, suddenly my awesome-if-geriatric HP scanner has decided to utterly fail. Now I need to start a fundraiser to buy a new scanner/copier/printer. The second Mo Bro is not available for sale yet, but I will probably put him up for sale the same way, with all proceeds going to the PCF. If I do manage to get a decent scan of him, I will probably print some out as prints as well. While offering prints at a lower price than the original is a good idea, I will probably need to subtract out a certain percentage to offset the cost of printing them. Making an original costs very little, and I consider my creative time a donation, but making digital prints is rather expensive. Plus there's the whole scanner issue. Time to go join my compadres at Scribendi and start earning some Christmas money. (Yes, I know, it's hard to believe that the same person who writes this spew of a blog is also a proofreader and editor. Consider this 'getting it out of my system'.) Please enjoy these Mo Bros, be on the lookout for more of them before the month's end, and, should you feel so inclined, go to my Mo Space (yes, they're really calling it that) and donate!

Getting Inspired by Ink

2010-11-03T16:37:00.005-07:00

So today I made the excuse of having to pay my shop fees to The Wooden Cow Gallery in order to drive by Langell's Art Supply. I live on the west side of Albuquerque, which has much newer houses and development than the east side, but as such can be severely deficient in certain things. We have no traditional old diners, there are few really nice restaurants, and no real art supply stores. Yes, we have Michael's and Hobby Lobby, but no place where you can go for specialty goods, like high quality liquid inks. Once I got to Langell's today, I walked up and down every aisle to make sure I really didn't need anything else, and wound up with a roll of framing tape (the brown stuff you put on the backs of framed artwork) and several bottles of ink. I also got to get real advice on a product I had never tried from someone who had used it, and could even show me what he'd done with it--you can't get that at Michael's either. I wound up taking his advice and choosing 3 luscious colors of Dr. Ph Martin's Bombay India Ink--Teal, Cherry Red, and Terra Cotta. I also got a bottle of Koh-I-Noor black India Ink, as it is recommended for my Rapidograph pens. I am guilty of having used whatever ink I had on hand in the past, and we'll see if this ink is less susceptible to clogging.

My final bottle was Higgins Red Violet, to replace a bottle I'd just used up, part way through the project photographed above. It is a waist cincher that I found on Ebay for a steal because the pretty lace all over the front of it was orange and yellow. I've worn it once or twice as it was, but I seriously almost broke out in a chorus of Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves while wearing it. So the other day, I got out the waterproof red + red violet and brushed it onto the lace. Much to my delight, it came out a juicy deep red, though a bit uneven, as the different shades of yellow and orange soaked up different amounts of ink. After going over most of it with one coat, I decided it really needed another one to even it out a bit more. It may not be painting on a canvas or paper, but it's a start, and was a successful artistic project that was worth sharing.

Now it's time to go take down the Halloween decorations before it gets dark.

Everybody's a Photographer--Except Me

2010-10-14T13:12:00.004-06:00

Today's seemingly meaningless rambling is brought to you by Behr Ultra Exterior Semigloss Paint with built-in primer. Next time I'm sweating out what the magic formula was for this paint trim color, one of you fine readers be sure to chime in with, "Hey, dumbass, check your blog." Okay, this isn't the original paint color I chose, because I left the last part of the remaining bucket of paint out in the sun, which ruined the label, then, apparently, left it not quite sealed, which then got rained in. So the color below is the color of the stick that I stirred up the watery paint with to bring to the guy at Home Depot. After Tuesday's work dried, I realized that the new color is slightly darker than the old color, so, hey, I was going to put on two coats anyway. That "primer built right in so it only takes one coat" thing is bullshit anyway.

I've been trying to get the exterior surface of my house repainted for about, um, 4 years now, I think. Maybe longer. Considering the exterior surface is primarily NON-PAINTABLE BRICK, it doesn't, in theory, seem like that big of a job. Besides, it's a one-story ranch, so quit your whining, right?

So here you can see part of the painted trim, along with the old color, the sort of pinkish, pukey beige off to the right (there's just a little of it left above the furthest-right window). Can't imagine why I'd want to get rid of that.
As you can see, there's lots of trim right next to main body color (the light yellow) and plenty of opportunities to smear the one color into the other. I keep going to smaller and smaller brushes and getting less and less accomplished in each session. That back room, trim only, took two days. I'd get my kids to do it, but a) they'd demand compensation, whereas I'm free, and 2) they'd wind up getting paint everywhere but where I want it and I'd have to do it over again anyway. Or have bluish-greenish dogs. Speaking of dogs...Cassie said I should take some pictures of her and post it on my blog because I'm such a good photographer. Can I state for the record that I am the one person left on this planet who owns a nice digital camera, knows how to use it, but does not think nor say she's a photographer? One of my friends posted this humorous bit on Facebook the other day about a poor wedding photographer trying to negotiate with a new client about what she wants for her wedding versus what she's willing to pay, versus her uncle who owns a fancy digital camera. It's truly sad that even while I get that I (like everybody else) don't know Jack about photography, I (probably like everybody else) also don't really know how to appreciate a well-done photograph. Just like any type of artistic expression, most photographers out there have a body of work that they have solely created to impress other photographers. Painters do it, other visual artists do it, musicians do it. Regardless of the fact that those of us outside of your area of expertise don't give a crap. The rest of us just want to see your pretty pictures or hear your beautiful music. Probably writers do it too. Writers who know they can write will write these remarkably complicated story lines with sophisticated characters with complex lives and the deepest souls you can imagine, if only you can get past how darn sophisticated and chock full of context and meaning the writing is. That's why I write this blog in the style that I do. It entertains me a little bit, and I comprise about 33-50% of my audience. It's liberating to know that almost no one reads my blog, and then, every now and again someone stops by and leaves a comment, and it's a nice little surprise. Please enjoy my utterly non-professional snapshots and my own personal way of writing about it. Time to get back to the real world.

My First Successful Tatting Pattern Creation

2010-09-29T22:49:00.004-06:00

I just finished the second half of this tonight, which was the real kicker as to whether I did it right or not. I wanted to invent something with a little crisscross in the middle, but have never tatted anything where I had to measure my picots (the long loopy things that I have crossed over in the middle). This is my second attempt--the first time I just eyeballed it and the picots were much too long, they wouldn't have laid flat once crossed over. I think maybe this pattern might make a nice bracelet or a Gothic choker with a cameo dangling from it. For now, I'm proud of myself for having figured out the fuzzy geometry well enough for it to work. It reminds me of a club from a deck of cards--perhaps this one will be called 'The Queen of Clubs'.

Back to proofreading now. I think my next few blog posts will have something to do with my husband's and my book. Stay tuned...

If They're Not Goat Heads, What Are They?

2010-09-25T19:47:00.007-06:00

When we last met here at the Easily Distracted Blog, I was profoundly expounding on the freaky-looking weeds in my back yard that I did not know the name of. As it turns out, I did know the name (Goat Heads) , I was just using it to refer to a different plant, these bastards:

I know these look kind of like regular crabgrass from the first picture, and they are clearly related to crabgrass, but these are crabgrass with deadly spikey seeds coming off of the ends in clusters.

You can see from the branching of the blades and the root structure how much they look like normal crabgrass. The first time you bend down and attempt to yank one of these out of the ground you will think it's crabgrass, until you grab hold of it and get a whole palm-full of spikes in your hand. Check out the ends with the seeds themselves.

(Okay, also check out my awesome nails. I feel like I painted them with a flannel suit.) Each individual seed has (I think) 12 spikes coming out of it, and the seeds pop off one at a time and will lodge themselves into just about anything. The little spikes seem to have barbs on them, as they are difficult to get back out once they are stuck in your skin. After removal, the skin is irritated for a little while. I can only say that's true for humans, my dogs, once they stand there and refuse to move until I risk my own safety and pull them out, seem to get over it pretty quickly. As a further side note, Cassie, the Aussie Shepherd, won some serious respect from me the first time I saw her walk through a patch of it. Let's face it, she's walking Velcro, so ten or so of them lodged in the spaces between her toes as soon as she stepped near them. She sat down, turned that paw over and chewed each sticker out with her teeth and spit them out. It was like some old war movie where the hero chews the bullet out of his own flesh and spits it out like he's John Wayne or something.

As summer goes on, the older seeds dry into little brown, hard versions of the same thing, which is when they become truly indestructible and can lodge themselves in your flesh with wood-splinter-like tenacity. Even after the spikes break off (like after they've punctured your bicycle tire) the core of the seed is still rock hard, getting lodged in tire and shoe tread grooves everywhere, thus furthering they're dissemination throughout the Westside of Albuquerque. I'm not sure why these haven't completely taken over the world yet, as they seem to come back all up and down our street with the slightest rain. If any of my Southwest-savvy readers have any idea what these are called, I'd love to know. Now that I know what a goat head really is, I have discovered that there's actually a fairly specific weevil that eats them. I'd love to know what, short of Godzilla, eats these.

Funky Spaceship Weeds in my Back Yard!

2010-09-22T20:00:00.010-06:00

I just pulled up a bunch of weeds in my yard yesterday and decided to take some pictures of them because they are so bizarre looking. The plant has a woody, rather fragile tap root and the plant sprawls out in all directions with pinnately compound leaves (each leaf has a stem off of which come several leaflets, like a fern), little yellow flowers and these green

seeds with spikes on them.

It is the seeds that take this plant over the top from "hey, that's a kind of cool looking weed, I think I'll let it live," to "WTF!!?? Tiny invaders from another planet are here to violate our housepets (and possibly explain the origins of Velcro)!"

There is an artist named Kathleen Dustin who creates purses and other decorative, functional objects from polymer clay in the style of strange seed pods and whatnot. She came to The Wooden Cow and gave a talk about her work. I need to send her these pictures because I totally need a purse like that seed. Don't you think? Nobody would f**k with me in line at the bank, that's for sure.

In fact, it reminds me of an illustration by Patrick Woodroffe that I have in a book somewhere... I think the one I was thinking of was from his book "Mythopoeikon" and is called "The Thorn Apple Tree." Here's a snapshot of it from my book.

It is a beautiful book, by the way. You can go buy a copy of this fantastic art book on Amazon here.

Win a $20 Gift Certificate Towards Lovely Handmade Jewelry!

2010-09-19T18:49:00.004-06:00

One of my favorite jewelry makers, Bits 'n Beads by Gilliauna, is having a promotional blog contest on a blog called IndieSpotting. I just clicked out a bunch of entries for myself, but now you can too! Gilliauna makes some lovely jewelry with semiprecious stones, silver and gold. Go check out her lovely shop and perhaps you will find something you would like to spend your $20 gift certificate on.

Here's the link to the contest:

http://www.indiespotting.com/giveaways-sales/win-bits-n-beads-by-gilliauna-giveaway/

Trying to create a new tatting design!

2010-09-12T11:01:00.004-06:00

Okay, yes, I know I really need to get back to drawing, which is what I do, right? But in the meanwhile, tatting has become a fun distraction. I think between that and the shrink plastic stuff and the limited amount of wire-wrapping I've tried, I could open a new shop with jewelry, almost as scatter-brained in focus as my art shop!

My latest project is an attempt to design my own pattern simply based on ideas from others' works that I have seen. The flower motif that is stained with purple around the edges was my first attempt, and while I think it looks pretty, it doesn't lay flat and the petals of the outer flower motif overlap, which wasn't what I wanted. Still pretty though, so I was going to use it as an experimental piece and perhaps add that pretty crystal sitting next to it, maybe as a dangle coming out of the middle. The piece that is still white is my second attempt and only has a couple of mistakes. It seems to lay flat a little better, and I think it looks like a pansy, so I will probably stain the middle yellow and put some purple and blue around the edges.

I wish I knew someone in the area who also needle tatted; it would be nice to be able to look over someone's shoulder or ask questions at key points to see if there is a tidier way to do certain things. Without that benefit, I will just have to continue combing the internet for advice.

Tatting--Another Distraction

2010-09-09T11:51:00.012-06:00

Tatting is a form of lacemaking that dates back to the early 19th century, and, according to Wikipedia, is inexplicably thought to be derived from the French word frivolité, reflecting its complete lack of usefulness. The only other remotely interesting thing Wikipedia had to say about it was that it has been used for occupational therapy, to give recovering patients something to do with their hands. I totally get that.

I learned shuttle tatting as a bored kid from some old craft instruction booklet my Mom had, and that method of lacemaking is a fairly annoying tangle of Cat's Cradle-like knots and holding your hands and fingers just so and getting lots of knots that were not part of the instructions that

require a magnifying glass and a needle to undo (if you aren't willing to simply throw the piece away and start over). This pastime was quickly and wisely set aside for crochet and knitting and, well, art.

When I started selling my fine art on Etsy, I wandered randomly through all the categories of

handmade stuff to see what was there, and amongst all that stuff, I found

people who did tatting.

They made the usual useless doilies and lace collars, but then some of them made jewelry--really hot, Goth, steampunk, kick-ass jewelry. So I looked up some of these artists to see how they did it, and they mentioned this term called "needle tatting". I bought some tatting needles (long, straight needles with no points on the ends), procrastinated a while longer, then finally hunkered down, read the instructions, and figured it out. I had had this idea rattling around in my head that this type of lace might look really cool hand-dyed with permanent inks, so, after finding some patterns I liked, I tried my idea. Apparently, it was a fairly good one, or at least I think so. I'm not sure if I am going to sell these items in my same store or if I'm going to take them over to The Wooden Cow here in Albuquerque to see if they sell, but I'm building up quite a collection, so I guess I'd better share it. With that thought in mind, I'm sharing it here to see how it does. This last photo is the first set I made, a choker and earring set, hand dyed with turquoise ink to make a gradient going across each piece. My husband also thought it was a really nice picture, despite Mimi having her tongue stuck out.

I Guess I Should Get Back To My Blog

2010-09-08T19:07:00.007-06:00

I just purchased my second batch of Moo Mini cards with about a jillion different images on them. They are so fun and eye-catching and cute that people should want to take them. I intend on leaving them in conspicuous places for people to take and then perhaps maybe check out my website once they realize it is a business card.

As I was looking at them today, it occurred to me that the web address for this damn blog of mine is on them. Well crap. Now, I love to blather on about myself and my own selfish interests and pretend someone else cares as much as the next person, but I really can't stand blogging. That's not to say that I don't read my friends' blogs because I want to read about some contest they're sponsoring or about their personal dysfunction for my own entertainment (Yes, I mean you, Erin), but as far as my own desire to waste time in THIS PARTICULAR WAY, it's just not my thing. I'm sure I'm interesting to some people, but let's face it, part of the reason I am a visual artist is because visual art doesn't necessarily need an explanation. You either like it or you don't.

But I understand that part of being an artist is letting people know who they are buying the image from. Something that helps the viewer connect with what they are buying and (hopefully) hanging up in their own home or office. Something they can relate to, or laugh about, or feel sorry for, or be proud of, or whatever.

So here's your little tidbit for today to get to know me by. My artwork is not usually chock full of meaning, I probably just created it because I thought it was a good idea at the time. Sometimes I think of a great title for an image before I've even imagined the image. For instance, the drawing "Redheads Just Aren't For Me" is, well, a portrait in effigy, and, well, the title pretty much captures the full scope and give-a-fuck-ness (yes, I know there's a real word for that, but it's my blog and I just made it up and I like it) of how I felt about a particular person at the time. Granted, I'm

pretty much over it now, but the picture came out, IMHO, pretty f***ing awesome (I hate cussing more than once in a single blog post) so I'm still pretty proud of how I used my own snarky sarcasm to mock my own pain and create it.

Then on the other hand, sometimes I imagine a picture, either in part or in its entirety, and never think of a great title and that always really bugs me. I look at it and think the image is awesome, and I show it to my friends and

family and random people on the street in the hopes that they can do my job for me and help me come up with something besides "Untitled". I wind up just using whatever lame title I can think of and running with it, like "Purple Cat", "Weedy Study" or "The Seer". "The Seer" bugs me the most, because the title really makes it seem like it should mean something, but it's just a cool picture.

So there's some insight about me, and I will try to get better about writing shorter, more interesting posts about myself and the wacky sh!t I do. I promise not to blog about ironing shirts.

Tomorrow's topic, all this crazy lace I've been making, and how I feel about tatting! Sounds pretty all-encompassing, I know, but try and hold out until tomorrow.

Selling Artwork is a Marketing Conundrum

2010-05-15T15:00:00.004-06:00

Something I just cannot seem to figure out is how to market my artwork and get people to come and buy it. I've read many a blog post and a helpful Etsy Forum discussion, and I have even purchased someone's pdf about how to increase traffic and sales to my shop. I spend what I consider to be large amounts of time generating interest and getting feedback on my work via Facebook, Etsy Forums, twitter. I write clear, detailed descriptions and try to use properly enticing and search engine optimizing words in my titles and descriptions. I offer works that anyone could afford if they wanted to. Yet, my sales are few and far between. Plus, when the sales do come, it seems completely arbitrary. I love that a bunch of my sales have been from total strangers all the way across the country or the world, but that leaves me with no clue how they found me, nor how to find more customers like that.

Now granted, I know my shop probably has issues. No two items in my shop look like they were created by the same person. There is no unified 'look' to the shop, no prints offered in multiple sizes, no color schemes, no theme. I do not blog every week to keep people interested. Most of my work is purely art for art's sake, it serves no other function, save the few greeting cards I sell and a couple of pieces of jewelry. I'm sure I am neglecting other opportunities to make money, either by the narrow focus of products I sell or my own inability to get the word out.

Yet, there is so much advice out there, free as well as for money, one person could not possibly do everything and create new products at the same time.

For the past few weeks, I've been trying to simply generate new works, finish some old ones that have been almost finished for too long, and market by way of generating interest by showing works in progress and asking for critiques. This approach has resulted in lots of great feedback, many gushing compliments, a couple of requests for custom work (which is awesome and don't think I'm not flattered and grateful) but utterly no sales.

So I am taking a step back to try to see what I can do to focus my approach. For a long time I have been considering opening a second shop for jewelry and wearables. There'd be some polymer clay jewelry, some simple shrink plastic jewelry, some non-precious-metal wire wrapped jewelry, some altered thrift-store finds, perhaps some hand-painted shoes and purses.

Alternatively, I have thought about doing more with paper, but making it something useful. I already make a few greeting cards, but I could offer some of my digital prints as mini cards, plus make some new styles geared exclusively towards card giving. I was also considering making some hand-drawn or hand-painted notebooks and journals. I have even been offered the suggestion of making coloring books for adults from some of my images.

So I am asking advice of my readers: Which of these suggestions sound good to you? Is there stuff I haven't thought of yet? Do I have the wrong take on something? Straighten me out!

Back to Work...Well, Sort of

2010-04-19T10:12:00.008-06:00

This weekend was full of Little League Baseball games, cleaning up the yard, rain (not a good combination), and a little bit of drawing. I took my sketchpad to the ball field (Usually when it's my own kid's game, my husband is the coach and I'm official scorekeeper. This Saturday, my kid was pool-playing for another team because they were short.) and started in on this idea I had after being inspired by some other people's work. My husband accused me of making this little creature to resemble someone from Little League, but if I did, it was subconsciously influenced only.

He was only about half-way finished by the time that game was over, and a brief jaunt to Taco Cabana later, I was back at our home field acting as Field Monitor (exactly as interesting as it sounds). After finally getting to consume my Taco Cabana burrito, I was sitting on the bleachers at a girls' softball game, finishing him up. Despite the home team's designated Chihuahua's best attempt to pose as my model, I finished him all up and put the book away to avoid any damage or criticism.

Yesterday morning, I scanned him in and got him all digitally gussied up. I switched up his colors, started with some color in his main body, then thought better of it and just left his main body white. Overall, I really like the way it turned out!

I guess it's time for me to get back to all of my other work, now. I have quite the list of responsibilities I've got to take care of today.

"Mister Softee" is now available for sale as a 6" x 8" archival print here.

Digitally Enhancing Sub-Par Drawings Works!

2010-04-02T16:22:00.004-07:00

I was never a huge proponent of digital manipulation in and of itself, but I've been using it more and more to clean up drawings and, better yet, to add color to them! My last blog entry about Eric and the Fake Beard was an example of one that I never would have wanted to add the color with a brush, and it turned out to be a great combination of natural-looking drawn lines and the crisp perfection of digital color.

I did a similar thing a couple weeks ago with "The Frog Princess." She was a relatively simple ink drawing who simply needed a little polish by way of digital color. For that one, I even got a regular laser mouse to use left-handed, as opposed to the track ball mouse, which must be used right-handed and has less control (to me in my hands). Here she is:

I like how you can give something a subtle gradient from one color to another, or just one color to white.

So as I was perusing some of my Etsy Favorites, I came across a pen and ink artist who puts different colored backgrounds behind her botanical drawings, and even lets her customers choose which color they prefer. Her name is Jodi Davies, and she goes by jodidoodles, if you would care to check her out. (Since everyone's tastes in art are different and every artist has a different style, I don't really feel all that competitive about pointing out other awesome artists.) I thought that the different colored backgrounds with a black and white foreground was a cool idea, so I tried it on one of the drawings I finished this week (okay, the only drawing I finished this week, shhhh!).

Not only did I add the colored background, but this was the first drawing I can honestly say that I completely altered on the computer. While I was fairly happy with the flowers and leaves around the face in the middle, the face itself just looked awful. And awful in ink is a fairly permanent type of awful. But not letting a little temporary lack of drawing talent hold me back, I scanned it in and proceeded to rip the face to shreds on the computer. There was much too much crosshatching on the eyelids and the face itself was not in the middle of the circle where it should have been. I was just having an off day. It happens. But through the wonders of the digital age, I fixed most of what I disliked about it, tried not to go completely crazy fixing blemishes (kind of like putting your makeup on in the magnifying mirror, cleaning up images on the computer can get a little OCD). Then I added a square of color behind it, and picked three colors to start with as the background. Here is the result:

Clicking on the image above will take you to the listing for the green one, but I made a listing for each of the three colors, in case one caught someone's eye more than the others. Also noted in each listing, if any of my readers would like it in another color, all you have to do is ask! I'm not sure if I will do any more like these, but it was certainly fun and a good exercise in digital manipulation. Please let me know what you think!

New Print! Eric and the Fake Beard

2010-03-11T18:58:00.003-07:00

Eric and the Fake Beard

Most of the rest of the family was used to Eric’s flippant “one-eyed salute”, but tonight he seemed in an especially jovial mood. He bounced down to the dinner table wearing what appeared to be the remains of Aunt Edna’s favorite orange mohair sweater (quite honestly, everyone else hated the thing) tied by two strings around Eric’s neck.

“That better not be my favorite mohair sweater, boy,” snorted Aunt Edna as she came around the corner from the kitchen, wielding a plate of steamed vegetables and squinting at him suspiciously through the steam that had collected on her bifocals.

“You look like that wino that hangs out down the street under the bridge,” commented his sister, Juniper. “Only he bathes more!”

“June! Stop picking on your brother and go get me a serving spoon,” snapped a now-visually-acute Aunt Edna, having cleared the steam from her glasses. “I sure wish you’d ‘a asked me before you went and tore up that sweater,” she continued. “Though, I reckon it was getting a little long in the tooth.”

“Edna,” Eric’s Dad interrupted, “that sweater could have been the wino who lives under the bridge.” Everyone laughed at that, even Aunt Edna. Eric, lapping up the spirit of good humor at the table, continued to dance around, wiggling his homemade fake beard.
“Check it out,” he giggled, “I’m Brad Pitt!”

This print was inspired by the humorous illustrations of my Facebook friend, Erik Bergstrom (I modified the spelling of his name to protect whatever innocence he may have, plus I forgot to look to see how he spelled it). Okay, I guess it was also a little inspired by Brad Pitt, thought I hate to admit that, since I've never thought he was a handsome man in the slightest, so him growing some ridiculous homeless-wino-hippie beard has had no other effect on me except to make me chuckle. I actually got up in the middle of the night to draw this thing, and couldn't go to bed until I was mostly finished with it. The next day I finished it, scanned it in and added the color in The Gimp. The most difficult part was writing the story that went with it, since I'm much more of an editor than a writer (now watch me litter this post with typos...). So I hope my readers (both of them) don't think my story is too lame, it was the best I could do.
The print is for sale in my Etsy Shop here.

The Year of the Tiger!

2010-02-16T12:08:00.005-07:00

Happy Lunar New Year! The New Year in the lunar calendar started on February 14th, and this year is the Year of the Tiger! To commemorate, I drew this tiger in black and red-orange ink yesterday! I had some fun with the contour-y, swirly, maybe a little mokume gane looking orange ink pattern. The black ink is waterproof Black Magic that was applied with a brush, and the orange ink was drawn on using my 0.50 Rapidograph drafting pen.

The lunar new year is celebrated in many Asian countries, and there are many shared traditions as well as ones unique to each country. The calendar is based on the Lunar (or Chinese) Zodiac. Similar to the Western zodiac, the Chinese zodiac has 12 different attributes, but each sign is given to a year, a month and an hour of the day, thereby creating the possibility of three different signs that lend attributes to a person's persona, based on when they were born. For instance, if you were born yesterday, February 15th, 2010, at 5 in the morning, you were born in the year of the Tiger, the month of the Tiger (your inner animal), and the hour of the Tiger (your secret animal). However, if you were born on, say, July 11, 1967, at 5:53 pm EDT (to use a completely arbitrary example, having nothing whatever to do with the day I was born...) you were born in the year of the Goat, in the month of the Goat (inner animal) and the hour of the Monkey (secret animal). The animal representing the year of your birth is the persona you portray to others, your external appearance. I'm not sure if I understand the meanings of the inner vs. the secret animal, except that the secret animal is the most personal, since it represents the relationship of the sun to you at the hour of your birth. Each of the animals also has an attribute of one of the five elements: Wood, Earth, Water, Metal, and Fire. These elements each contribute to the personality of the animal in some way.

The Year of the Tiger drawing measures about 8" square, and is available for sale in my Etsy Shop for a rather economical price.

Happy New Year all! Welcome to the Year of the Tiger!

5:52 Salacia

2010-02-11T15:58:00.002-07:00

5:52 Salacia
Originally uploaded by jvdarcy

Salacia was the bride of Neptune, the Roman God of the Sea. The story goes that when Neptune was pursuing her, she was so intimidated by his greatness that she fled and hid in the Atlantic. Neptune sent a dolphin out to bring her back, and because the dolphin was able to charm her into marrying the God, Neptune gave the dolphin a place of honor amongst the stars, the constellation Delphinus.

This is my piece for Week 5 of 52 Weeks of Creations! I was a week behind, so I just decided to call this one my contribution for this week instead of last week. She started out as simply a study in ink textures and was really fun to create! The only un-fun thing was changing the ink in the pen (my 00 Rapidograph, see rant below) from blue to green, then remembering to wash it all out when I was finished so the ink wouldn't dry that way. I have some really interesting photos of what happens when you let the ink dry in the mixing cup...

Salacia measures 6" x 8" and was rendered in pen and ink and brushed liquid ink.

Rapidograph Rant.

2010-01-18T14:45:00.003-07:00

So, being the child, step-child and grandchild of professional writer stock, I'll call that my excuse to love pens. I do, I love pens. One of my earliest memories of drawing anything involves these cheap, black metal ballpoint pens with some sort of government inscription on the side that my Dad always seemed to have laying around the house (in my vague, couldn't-read-yet, three-year-old's perspective, I want to say they just said "U.S. Government" on the side, but since I couldn't actually read yet, they could have said "Uncle Barney's Government Surplus and Podiatric Supplies," yet, I can hardly see how that would have fit on the side of the pen). Those black ballpoint pens were so sleak, simple, fun to chew on and made a nice, even, smooth line on whatever paper I could find (or the radiator in the dining room). Since that time, I've gone through many different styles of pens: Ballpoints, which eventually grew thin on my patience with their inconsistent skipping and oily, uneven marks, erasable pens, which, until I learned to write sideways, simply amplified the left-handed curse of "black pinkie knuckle," rollerballs, which, though beautiful, smeared way too easily, no matter how long I left myself in suspended animation with my hand poised above the page, thinking, certainly, it was dry by now.

With this love of permanent writing impliments, coupled with my artistic inclination, it was only a matter of time before I went down that slippery slope to my affection for drafting pens. For whatever reason, my fascination with their permanent, archival nature was only peaked when I found out that you could buy them with tips so fine you could perform a trachiotomy on a housefly with one. Not cheap these little buggers were, either. And it seemed, the finer the point, the more expensive they were, and the more difficult to care for. It seemed also that the tiniest of points on these pens were also insanely fragile. Couple that with the fact that the diameter of the tip now approached the molecular diameter of the ink particles, and you've got a rather expensive, no-one-told-me-this-was-a-one-use-only pen. As a teen, I managed to save up my nickels until I could afford to buy one of my own, only to get completely burned by my own lack of experience and care, getting the thing utterly clogged with ink and the tip bent irreparably at the same time. I have no idea what happened to that pen. I hope it is burning in pen hell.

That being said, I completely forgot this lesson a couple years ago (or perhaps I thought I was mature enough, as those of us over forty sometimes think, to own something complicated and expensive without effing it up) and bought myself a set of four Rapidograph pens from Koh-i-noor. Old school, just like the one I toasted in high school, only now there's four of them. I had completely forgotten the labor involved in keeping them functional, and today is a lesson in patience, wherein I am presently waiting for the nib of one of them (pictured above) to dry after cleaning the clots of old India ink out of them. I really just wanted to draw something real quick and be done with it.

But hey, my loss is your, well, also loss, since this is probably the most rambling-on-about-nothing blog posting I've ever written. I think the nib is dry now, but now someone needs to be driven somewhere, so I guess it'll be especially dry by the time I get back.

New Year, Resolutions, and a New Project!

2010-01-11T08:50:00.005-07:00

In honor of the New Year, I decided to create a new project for myself to keep me productive throughout the year. I had considered joining one of the groups on Flickr or Facebook along the lines of "52 Weeks of ..." but I couldn't find a project that I really wanted to do. So I started my own group! I sent out invitations to all of the artist friends I have, and now there's a group of about 45 of us. The idea is that each of us commits to ourselves to start and finish one piece along our chosen theme each week. The theme and medium is up to each participant, as we have photographers, painters, jewelers, a bit of everything, and we all seem to be inspired by different ideas. I couldn't decide, so I chose two, 52 Weeks of Creatures and 52 Weeks of Vocabulary Words. We also have 52 Weeks of: Squares, insects, monsters, journaling, spirituality and "undeclared" (I think there's a bunch of those--don't judge! It's enough for most artists just to commit to this kind of schedule in the first place!).

You can find the group here: 52 Weeks of Creations!

Here are my entries for this week. The first one is for 52 Weeks of Vocabulary Words, and this week's word is "Miasmata":

miasmata. n. plural of miasma.

1. noxious exhalations from putrescent organic matter; poisonous effluvia or germs polluting the atmosphere.

2. a dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike influence or atmosphere.

While the singular, "miasma", is pretty cool, I thought the plural of this word was even better. In the olden days (before the germ theory of disease transmission) it was thought that illness and disease were emitted from dead and decaying materials and that they carried through the air like a spirit.

Entry #1 for the 52 Weeks of Creatures is my "Devil Child Waiting for the Bus":

She requires far less explanation. She is simply a little girl waiting for her bus. She just happens to have horns and a tail, for which her Mommy has lovingly crafted her a matching set of hat and, umm, tail-mitten?

She reminds me of the two adorable girls (twins) who lived behind us. They were the cutest little blue-eyed blonde girls, who would spend their spare time verbally torturing our dogs over the wall and trying to knock birds' nests out of trees with sticks. I used to call them the Evil Twins.

Just because something's cute doesn't mean it won't try to eat your face off.

Neither piece is listed for sale in my shop just yet, still trying to decide if I should do so. Stay tuned.

A Two-Day Trip to the Attic

2009-12-20T12:26:00.004-07:00

So, apparently, this story started last Christmas, when our artificial Christmas tree broke. We have always had an artificial tree, because we do not believe in chopping down a beautiful piece of nature just to display it in our house for a couple of weeks, slathered in unnatural stuff, while it dies. We also do not have enough yard to plant an entact tree each year. Plus, our artificial one already has the lights attached. Sweet.

So last year, at some point in the Christmas season, our original little 5' tree went astray (or asunder, or a-something). One of the strings of lights refused to light and several of the supports for the branches broke, leaving it with a handful of floppy, unlit branches. After the season was over, I, at some point, decided that this tree was to hit the curb and we would buy a new one next year. This story is all based on a vague recollection and numerous assumptions because, well, I don't remember doing any of it.

That is probably why this year, when I ventured up into the attic of doom (don't ask, but suffice to say, the attic hates me) I took most of the boxes down, crawled around on my knees, hit my head, my knees, and my funnybone at least one time apiece, and found no Christmas tree where, to the best of my pathetic ability to remember, it should reasonably be. After the first day's searching was unsuccessful in producing a tree (but did elucidate an entact coffee maker, two steam irons, and a bunch of clothes that no one in this family has fit into in at least 7 years) I started to piece together what must have been my reasoning from last year. I did manage to find this tiny, 3-foot tree that I had used back when I was a single gal with an apartment, so, for the day, we decorated it with a few ornaments and garlands and sat it on the fireplace stoop. Plus, I found the magic Christmas shoe.

(Okay, the magic Christmas shoe is this spectacularly tacky ladies shoe I found on the side of the road in Winston-Salem, NC, and thought that, truly, the degree of tackiness deserved better than to be hauled around in a shopping cart by the homeless lady who collects the doll heads. It has wandered from home to home with me in storage boxes ever since.)

As proud as I was of having found all of this stuff to give to Goodwill, I realized that I had not found all of the Christmas ornaments. So, with considerably less enthusiasm than the first day, but with more resolve, I ventured up there again to head off into whatever corners I had not yet conquered. I should have brought the camera. I found all sorts of stuff that I had forgotten I owned, and some that I never knew anyone in the family had ever owned.

Amongst the boxes of stuff tat was clearly mine, I found a sheet of drawing paper that had been measured out and divided, in pencil, into 4" squares. Two of the squares had drawings on them! Here's one, completed, done in ink:

The other one was about 99% done, in colored pencil. I managed to discern what color was layered on top of what, and finished it. As such, I messily signed it '2009'.

Clicking on either picture will take you to their listing in my Etsy shop.

So those mysteries being resolved, I found the remainder of the Christmas ornaments, took a shower, and headed out to find us a new Christmas tree. After marveling at the $100-$200 trees in several stores, I went to Walmart (God bless 'em) and found a 6.5' pre-lit tree for $35. A few hours of decorating and shoving a bunch more boxes back up into the attic later, and we have a Christmas tree! Merry Christmas everyone!

Follow up on Streetnoodle's Blog Contest!

2009-12-19T20:20:00.005-07:00

Okay, so I didn't win the Grand Prize, but she did send each of us (who made at least five qualifying entries) a free gift! I received mine today! It is her pretty, silky, beaded scarf!

This long, skinny scarf is made of a super soft, silky-looking yarn and has pretty little stone beads sewn onto each end. I had my husband take some pictures of the scarf on me, but it really isn't my color, so I gave up on that. It is, however, one of my stepdaughter's favorite colors, so I'm thinking I've got one more gift for her!

If you would like to check out any of her remaining crochet work, or some of her lovely jewelry, go check out her shop!

Check Out This Cool Giveaway Just in Time For Christmas!

2009-12-06T19:01:00.002-07:00

I just discovered a fabulous giveaway on streetnoodle's blog, where she is giving away some beautiful jewelry, and perhaps some other items from her shop. Her jewelry has a bit of Japanese inspiration, a bit of Victorian influence, and overall is very creative and beautiful!

Here's her Grand Prize:

And, according to her blog announcement, if you make multiple entries, you can win even more cool things from her shop! Here's the link: Streetnoodle's Blog!

New Print -- Corset of Arms

2009-11-22T18:14:00.002-07:00

A few months ago, I wrote about a drawing called Corset of Arms. The original pencil drawing took a lot of time and I didn't feel like I was ready to put it up for sale yet, so today I decided to create a digital print of it. I took the original and gave it a touch of a sepia tint, in order to make it look old, and I think it came out pretty well!

So if you are looking for some fine art for gift giving this holiday, here's another print of my original artwork that you can get for under $20 with shipping! These prints are sold unframed, but I have tried to make them in common sizes so that they will be easy to frame. This one measures 3" x 5" with a small border around it for framing.

New Christmas Card and Cleaning My Desk...

2009-11-14T18:33:00.008-07:00

Not sure what the one thing has to do with the other, but they were the two subjects I took pictures of today. For years now I've thought that my electron micrograph (that's a photograph of something taken under an electron microscope) of crystallized stain reminds me of branches and the little globs in some places looked like berries, so I finally turned it into a Christmas card! Here's the original image: The original photograph was created on real film, creating this odd sized negative (something like 4" x 5") which wandered around the country with me for years and years before I finally got around to and found a place that could scan it and produce it in digital form. From the digital image, I was able to use The Gimp to colorize it a nice Christmas-y green, then I picked out some of the little clumps of dark areas and turned them into red berries. After printing it onto high quality photo paper, I mounted the photo onto a 5" x 7" card:

I have listed this item for sale in my Etsy Shop.

I have also been working on several other things today, even though it has been a relatively quiet day. I took a snapshot of my desk, because it was looking decidedly picturesque:

The picture shows the bunch of fall leaves that my friend sent me from Ohio, my Day Planner from an Artful Agenda, my buttercream scented, handmade soy candle in a hand-thrown pot from Mad Hatter Pottery, the return address labels I just got from Animal Humane of New Mexico (They spelled my last name right! I think I'll send them money!), my yummy, warm cup of coffee with sugar-free hazelnut creamer in it, and the drawing I've been working on, entitled "Miasmata." (For anyone too lazy to go to dictionary.com to look it up, miasmata is the plural of miasma, meaning the noxious exhalations from putrescent organic material, or a dangerous, foreboding or deathlike atmosphere.) I thought this photo made a nice little snapshot of my day, plus, I cleaned my studio the other day, so you can actually see the surface of my desk in places, which impressed the hell out of me, if no one else.

Oh yes, I took pictures of one more thing today, the adorable pile of mammals on the bed this morning--Mimi, Cassie and Sean:

I Was Featured on the Etsy Top Ten List Today!

2009-11-10T10:49:00.004-07:00

My recent listing, Argyle Beard, was featured as number 7 on the Etsy Top Ten list this week! Please go here to see the complete list. Much thanks to Tim Adam, a fellow Etsy seller who creates delightful steel sculptures, jewelry and other creations and is the creator of many online venues, including Handmadeology and numerous online sellers courses. You rock, Tim! I have already at least doubled the number of views that I started the day with!

I also grabbed an Etsy Treasury in Treasury West today, so I could feature some other people's work as well! Go check it out in the next couple of days!

New Drawing for the Weekend -- Home

2009-11-08T16:37:00.003-07:00

The drawing I started on Friday and finished a little while ago was inspired by another Etsy artist, Laura Berger. I had recently discovered her whimsical style and chanced upon this cute drawing. I really liked the roots of the house and how the smoke coming out of the chimney made a flower. So since I just couldn't help myself, I decided to take the same idea and do something with it myself. I hope Laura doesn't mind, since her style and my style are quite different. I'm not sure if I really captured what I was going for exactly, but it was an interesting first try. This image is drawn in black ink using my Rapidograph 00 pen, then painted using colored inks.

I have already listed it for sale in my Etsy Shop. Clicking on the image will take you to the listing directly.

Five Days in a Row of New Drawings!

2009-11-06T11:44:00.005-07:00

I did not post anything to the blog about yesterday's drawing, so I will do a two-for-one today.

Yesterday, I'm not sure if the image was inspired by the song, or if the title popped into my head as I was drawing and reminded me of the song, but this one is called "Little Wing." You can go listen to the original Jimi Hendrix version here, or my favorite, the remake by Sting. Whichever inspired which, I really like that song. I'm going to have to get Sean to play it for me sometime.

So this drawing measures about 5 1/4" x 6 1/2" on acid-free drawing paper and was drawn using archival, permanent ink. It is for sale in my Etsy Shop already...

Today, I wasn't going to draw anything, I was going to get back to all of the other things I need to do. But, no, this image popped into my head this morning and refused to not exist. It is entitled "Argyle Beard" (and subtitled "Baxter," just to piss off my friend Baxter). For this one I got out my colored pencils and colored in the tweedy-looking argyle in his beard, as well as his swell purple shirt. He is also listed for sale in my Etsy Shop.

On a side note, a couple days ago, I watched this video on TED of a talk by Elizabeth Gilbert on genius. I found it quietly inspiring. I think my favorite bit was where she talks about separating herself from the creative process or "genius" as if it is a separate entity, and how it freed her to say to it, "You and I both know that, if this [work] isn't brilliant, that it isn't entirely my fault. As you can see, I am putting everything I have into this... if you want it to be better, you've got to show up and do your part of the deal... and I would like the record to reflect that I showed up for my part of the job."

So I suppose I have showed up for my part of the job, at least for a little while, every day this week. I'm not sure how many of those days my assigned genius came along with me, but we shall see.

Today's New Drawing! Two days in a Row! Nautiloflora

2009-11-03T12:34:00.003-07:00

Yesterday, I finished a drawing I had started the night before and decided to list it for sale in my Etsy Shop. This morning I woke up early, saw the other half of the little sheet of paper I had drawn that drawing on and decided to start something new! Not only did I start it, but I finished it by around 10 am, scanned it and listed it in my shop by 11 am! I have been exploring this stream of consciousness thing and seeing where it takes me. I think it is fun to start with a general pattern and then vary each individual detail. It forces me to simplify my thoughts, rather than thinking of a grand, complex pattern, I find a simple pattern and vary it in the next set.

It is funny that I stumbled upon this theme this week, as I had just been talking to fellow Wooden Cow gallery exhibitor, Cindy Chavez, about the stories that go behind certain works and how often that is what compels one to buy the work. These three drawings (there's one more I haven't published yet) have essentially no story to go with them, they don't mean anything as far as I can discern, they are just artistic energy on paper. This drawing measures approximately 5.25" x 6.5" and is available in my Etsy shop for only $20 + shipping! Enjoy!

New Drawing!

2009-11-02T15:38:00.004-07:00

I started this drawing last night while watching the Yankees beat the Phillies in the World series Game 4. Finished it around midday today and decided to list it in my Etsy shop right away, just to see if it would be a seller. It's priced at only $20! This is not some digital print, this is an original drawing here people!

This abstract knotty tree is perched on the precipice of the unknown, and appears to be dripping its heart into the great oblivion below. It was drawn in archival ink (Pigma Micron, 0.20 mm tip) onto off-white colored acid-free drawing paper. It measures approximately 5.25" by 6.5". It is groovy. Tell all of your friends. If everyone wants to buy it at once, I'll have to make prints. Enjoy!

Stocking Stuffer Ideas for Grown-up Girls

2009-09-16T20:42:00.001-06:00

Seems awfully early to be talking about stocking stuffers, but since the ByHand.me folks have posited the challenge on Facebook, I thought I'd take a stab. Since my kids are mostly grown, I thought I would feature some of my favorites for adults--everyone needs something special!

Item #1: The Artful Agenda

I had considered getting this for my teenage daughter, and I still might, but it is just too adorable to not mention. This 2010 daily planner features a plethora of talented artists--something different on every page. There are month-at-a-glance views, pages for each week, and ample room for notes, doodles, or (oh yeah) appointments, with different themes for the artwork on each page. This is no ordinary stocking stuffer!

Item #2: Butterfly Tattoo Stockings

I have had these stockings in my favorites (and had to replace them a dozen times because they got sold!) for quite a long time, and one day, I may just have to have a pair for myself. In the meanwhile, let me suggest these classy, stylish and unique patterned stockings for the gal whose stockings you stuff. She could be Goth, glam, schoolgirl or not-really-a-waitress in these. They're gorgeous!

Item #3: BeautifulBridget's Hot Cocoa Scarf

While you might have trouble fitting this thick and luxurious scarf into the stocking, the title of this one says it all, doesn't it? Made from super-soft acrylic, which is my personal preference, since it holds its shape, doesn't shrink, and doesn't make me itch like wool (I know not everyone is allergic to wool, but it is certainly nice to have the option if you are!).

So there's my three for the day! It has been a pleasure participating in this challenge! Please stop by and visit my totally-not-for-stocking-stuffing shop full of my Fine Art at Easily Distracted by Julie D'Arcy!

Newly Modified Work Makes Its Debut at the Wooden Cow Gallery!

2009-07-22T16:53:00.006-06:00

Once upon a time, well, in 1994, I sat in my tiny, hot apartment in Rochester, NY, and drew this nude self-portrait:

I was pretty pleased with the result, had it matted and framed, and hung it on the wall for many years. A couple years ago, my husband, who is usually very positive about my artwork, but who never lies, finally came out and told me that he really doesn't like it. I accepted this opinion but never really considered doing much about it, I just figured that maybe someone else would like it and, oh, say, buy the damn thing. No such luck. So a month or so ago, I was possessed by an image in my mind about how words rarely hold as much meaning as actions, and often my best intentions of telling someone my thoughts and feelings don't seem to come out the way I intended them, and instead wind up falling like barely discernible little leaves into the air. So with this vision firmly planted in my head, I proceeded to take the frame apart, hoping that I had not trimmed all of the paper away from the sides of the original drawing. Upon getting it apart, I discovered that I had a good bit of space off to either side of the figure to work with, and I proceeded all the way through conception, planning and execution in about half a day. Here is the result: The original drawing was created by a reductive method (think of laying down a medium toned even color all over the paper, then erasing out the white parts and penciling in the dark parts) in pastel and pencil. I drew new lips onto the figure directly with colored pencil. The heart was drawn with colored pencil onto a separate paper and collaged on. The words were created with a graphics program, digitally blurred, softened and faded, printed out, torn out of the page, then collaged on. A few extra pastel and pencil details later, it was done!

A couple of days after finishing it, I read the announcement for the juried show entitled "Wordplay" at the Wooden Cow Gallery here in Albuquerque, and I thought to myself that it must be kismet or something, as this piece seemed perfect for such a theme. It must have been kismet, since they accepted the work, and now it will be appearing in the show in August.
For any local readers, the Wooden Cow Gallery is located at 7400 Montgomery Blvd NE in Albuquerque, and the opening should be on Friday, August 7 from 5 pm to 8 pm. Hope to see you there!!

Corset of Arms

2009-05-26T08:50:00.005-06:00

What if chicks had ruled the world back in feudal days? Now I know some would say that we would never have adopted the corset as women's wear in the first place, but I beg to differ. Women like being beautiful, no matter how much torture it is...

This pencil work measures approximately 3.5" x 5.5", which is the proper size to use as a master for a Gocco print. I have had a Gocco set for several years now, have gotten it out of the box, read the instructions, just have never pulled the trigger and ever tried to do anything with it. I will probably go to Kinko's and get a photocopy made of it, as I am not sure what might happen to my original if I use that to create my master. I have never done screenprinting of any kind, so this would be a whole new step for me...

Checking the Blue Corn Traps -- Finally Finished, Again

2009-05-07T11:40:00.004-06:00

Drumroll please... I am not 100% positive, but I think this may be finished, again. This colored pencil work is one that I "finished" in 1999 (hence why the '0' in the '09' next to the signature looks a little like a '9') and have blogged about before. There is almost no space on this drawing that has not been drawn over now, but I think I like it. I have totally changed the color of the background, enhanced the original colors of the 'trap,' totally changed the color and shape of the corn, and punched up the little green, um, slug-thingies-that-are-doing-the-trap-checking. The most challenging part was the fact that this wasn't done on particularly heavy drawing paper, and erasing and colored pencils don't go together for a reason. I almost couldn't get the color to take on the last piece of corn for lack of a smooth drawing surface. I am still looking at it trying to decide if I missed any spots, or if I want to lighten up the corn a little, but overall, I think it looks okay. Pretty soon I will put it back in its frame and buy it new glass (found a place here in Albuquerque where I can get low-glare conservtion glass for cheap) and decide on a price! I appreciate any feedback from my readers so please, comment away!

Green Man--An Embossed Print with a Celtic Feel

2009-05-04T15:17:00.003-06:00

"Green Man" is an embossed print I created in 1997 as an edition of 15. It was created by carving the three-dimensional design into a linoleum block, then running it through a printing press with a piece of damp printing paper. The embossed design stays in the paper pretty much forever, creating this beautiful texture of white on white in wonderful detail. I have sold about 1/3 of the edition so far.

The tradition of Green Man in history is unclear, but its origins are mostly European, and are represented by a relief carving or scultpure of a man's face with branches and leaves coming out of it. Green Man is generally considered to symbolize rebirth or rennaissance.

This particular print measures 6" x 9" on hand torn paper measuring 11" x 15". It is sold unframed in my Etsy Shop for $45 plus shipping.

Black Dog Friday

2009-05-01T11:34:00.008-06:00

Yes, I know it is May Day, and Friday, but I decided today is Black Dog Friday. I was playing around with my digital camera on the SuperMacro setting and the Kids & Pets setting (I actually do know how to work a real camera with lenses and f-stops and whatnot, we just don't have a digital camera with all of those un-automatic features). My teenager is out in the back yard with his airsoft rifle, or else I would have gone out there for some natural light. Oh well.

So my three black dogs are all as terrible as models as I am a photographer, so if any of these pictures are worth a darn, it defies all odds.

First we have Mimi, the Doberman Pinscher, prima dona, Star Pilot and Alien sent here to protect mankind from itself.

Isn't she pretty? I know, everyone says that about their dog. But in the case of Mimi, if I don't say that, she will kill me in my sleep. Or so she tells me. I also got a shot of one of her pretty brown eyes:

And a great closeup of her nose...

Then, there's Axel, a Black Lab mix. He hates to have his picture taken, as if it is going to steal his soul or something. But I did manage to pull off a couple nice shots...

This one I especially like, because he wasn't looking at me, so he didn't seem so scared.

Then, there's Cassie, the Australian Shepherd. Everything I've read about the breed talks about how smart they are, but I swear Cassie was dropped on her head as a puppy, because she's really pretty dense... I couldn't even get her to look at me in response to her name today. But she is pretty photogenic.

So there's the three black dogs. Maybe I'll get better pictures of them oneday, which means I'll probably be a pretty good photographer by then.

Here's a drawing of Mimi I made from a fabulous photo I managed to get of her...

Work in Progress! Checking the Blue Corn Traps

2009-04-29T12:56:00.010-06:00

I thought I would post an update on my latest work in progress "Checking the Blue Corn Traps." This colored pencil work was already finished, matted and framed and hanging on the wall. It looked like this:

After looking at it on the wall for about 8 years, I finally decided that the lavender background makes me want to barf. The image itself I still pretty much like. So I took the thing out of its frame and started erasing the purple background and punching up the orange and red strands in the foreground...

I did manage to get most of the background ickiness off of there without damaging the paper. I decided to replace the background with an intense sky blue. Only problem now, was that the three pieces of 'corn' sort of disappeared. Time to do some more erasing.... So I have almost totally re-colored this picture, and am in the final stages of bluing up the corn:

Sorry if the pic is still a little blurry. I am working out some kinks in my new camera...
This does give you a good idea of what it will look like.
For some finished colored pencil works, go here to see my original drawings.

New Juried Show in Albuquerque at The Wooden Cow

2009-04-24T09:04:00.005-06:00

I haven't blogged in a while, but I thought I should mention... My work is going to be in a juried show here in Albuquerque! The show is called "Eye Candy" and is being held at a gallery in the Northeast Heights called The Wooden Cow.

The show is called Eye Candy with the intention of providing a colorful feast for the eyes. I submitted three colorful works, but I think they probably picked the best one--"Sacred Heart--Cosmic Scale" shown at left, is a colored pencil drawing I finished early last year. I had recently broken the glass on it, so I had a good excuse to upgrade to glare-reducing conservation glass. As a side note, after calling around to several frame shops for quotes and getting prices from $28 to $52 for a 13" x 16" piece of glass, I found out where they all buy their glass from here in town is O'Malley's Glass, who wanted $13 for the same piece of glass! They were totally fine with just cutting one piece of glass, too. Believe me, I will go back to those guys!

So the show at The Wooden Cow will run from April 29 - May 30, with an opening on Friday, May 1st, from 5 pm to 8 pm. The show will feature the mosaic tilework of Meg Butler (having seen some of her work in person already, I can say it is worth going to see just for that), the colored pencil work of Wendell Unzicker, as well as many other colorful artists from Albuquerque. The gallery is located at 7400 Montgomery NE, Suite 20, in the Mossman Shopping Center, just east of Louisiana on Montgomery. Call them at (505)999-1280 if you have any questions.

Capturing Nature with Liquid Silver

2008-10-12T12:53:00.008-06:00

Well, okay, maybe not liquid, but certainly squishy silver. Today's feature is about another Etsy artisan, Marina McCarran, a.k.a. Meridian Studio. She creates amazing, organic snapshots of nature that you can wear! She creates these beauties using real leaves, petals, and other objects from nature and combines them with colorful semiprecious stones. Rather than making a mold and casting these natural pieces over and over again, her work is as unique as nature, because she picks her petals and uses them directly to create her forms using precious metal clay and paste. I had to do a little side research to really understand what she was talking about, since I couldn't see it, but after a quick trip to Rio Grande to look at some of these products, I think I get it. Precious metal clay or art clay silver comes in a variety of textures, but began as a clay, feeling sort of like modeling clay. The original material was invented by Mitsubishi Materials in the early 1990s, and is composed of tiny particles of metal (in this case fine silver), an organic binder and water. The resulting material can be formed by hand or pressed into things to take on their shape and texture. This form is then allowed to air dry (at which point it can be sanded and refined somewhat) then is fired in a kiln or with a torch or gas stove. The heating process burns off the binder and causes the piece to shrink a small amount. After it emerges from the heat, the result is composed of fine silver (0.999 pure silver, as opposed to sterling silver, which is 0.925 pure), is utterly indistinguishable from the pre-fired form and can be further finished by polishing, grinding, or oxidizing. The different products available today vary in firmness (from relatively hard clay to toothpaste texture to near-liquidy slip for gluing slabs together), degree of shrinkage (anywhere from 8% to 30 %), and curing time (depending on the size of silver particles).

Marina tells me that she has a couple of ways she makes these organic forms. If the leaf or petal is light and delicate, she uses the silver art clay paste, applying it with a paintbrush until there are 10 to 15 layers of paste. Once the paste has air-dried, she must carefully remove the leaf or petal, then sand the edges and add other features (stone settings, bails) made out of the clay before it is fired. These are some of her most impressive pieces--you can almost imagine the little petals nearly falling to pieces under the weight of the silver paste!

She has also created pieces using a rolled out layer of clay which she then presses the leaves into. She tells me that this method is usually reserved for more delicate, fragile objects that would fall apart under the weight of the paste. Often these leaves are dried or pressed leaves or flowers, giving her only one shot at getting it right! I have a feeling that method is the one she used for the leaf print that I purchased from her, pictured below:

As an added bonus with my purchase (and because she's such a sweetheart) she also sent me a pair of her ear-huggies! They are simple, ear-hugging designs that are comfortable to wear and so pretty! They cling right to the front of your earlobe and have small earwires that do not really show up when you're wearing them. Check them out, they are a really great idea!

Lotion in a Bar? Who'd've thought?

2008-10-03T16:22:00.004-06:00

Today's post is a bit of a departure from my other posts. The technique I'll be talking about today involves a woman who pours her creative passion into creating Earth-friendly, vegan, luxurious body products. Her name is Nicki Leigh, and she sells her handmade bath and body products in her Etsy store, at nickileigh.etsy.com. She and I are in a Buy and Replace group together where we happily promote each other's wares and usually wind up buying from one another. She has created a unique product that I had never heard of before called a lotion bar. A lotion bar, I was told, is a solid bar of emolients that you warm up with your hands (or somehow with your body heat) and smooth it over dry hands, elbows, legs, or wherever. I asked her if it was her own invention, and she said no, that she had heard of them before, but she did come up with her own special formula. Upon questioning her further, she told me that many of the people in her family, herself included, have skin allergies and have great difficulty finding bath and body products that are not irritating to their skin. Additionally, she also said she wished to create something with vegan ingredients, as she also knew many vegans who would appreciate body products that do not contain animal products, such as beeswax. After numerous attempts at perfecting a recipe (25 or more attempts!) she found a combination of vegan oils and waxes that moisturized and softened the skin, but did not melt too easily or with too much difficulty. Further still, she came up with her own way of presentation of the product. Rather than pour the ingredients into deodorant tubes or other dispensers, she has chosen some pretty little round molds with a pattern on top. She then wraps it in wax paper and puts it in a little carrying tin. The picture above is her Lavender and Clementine Lotion Bar, the fragrance that I chose, and I find it to be a delightful citrus scent. Next on my list to try is the Green Tea and Cucumber scent, but I have a ways to go with this bar--it lasts for a long time!

I Am Featured on "Etsy Spotlight On" Today!

2008-09-03T10:53:00.003-06:00

How very exciting! Please go see Blockhead Rod's blog, Etsy Spotlight On, where he interviews a different Etsy artisan every day, and today it is all about me! He has put together a very nice article--many thanks! Here's one of his funky cool sculptures on the right. You may click on it to go to his listing.

My First Fully Digitally Created Collage

2008-08-25T20:17:00.003-06:00

Okay, there are too many adverbs in that title, but anyway...

Today I listed a completely digital creation. I created it as several layers in The Gimp. For those of you who have never heard of that, the Gimp is a shareware graphics program built originally in Unix (the name is really an acronym--Gnu Image Manipulation Program), but which has also been made available for Windows. It can do many of the cool things that the pricey Photoshop and others can do, but it is utterly free! All you have to do is figure it out. I have been able to figure out a few cool things with it, though I am not exactly a whiz or anything. I was able to create this nifty new digital collage, colorizing and combining a silverpoint drawing that I had scanned and have since misplaced (yikes!) with the electron micrograph that I had digitally scanned last month (see my post about it). I think it came out pretty well! You may click on the picture to go to my Etsy shop and purchase one for yourself!

Inspirational Credit Where Credit is Due

2008-08-20T10:42:00.003-06:00

My previous post was about my new little bunny headed, long-necked, volumetric flask-bodied creation, and a little about how it was inspired by some Etsy doll-makers. I tried to include as much of my genuine inspiration in my treasury as I could find, but then I remembered another artist who I do not believe sells her work on Etsy, but is instead represented by real (b&m) galleries and her own website. Her name is Denise Greenwood, and somehow I found her on MySpace (lucky for me!). Her work can be found on her website (http://www.artofgreenwood.com/) and an example of her interesting characters is shown here. Love those lips, Denise!

Something Different--in Three Dimensions!

2008-08-18T09:33:00.003-06:00

I just completed a treasury on Etsy of my favorite 3D figures, and these works have inspired me to create a figure of my own! He's still a work in progress, but he is tentatively named Erlen Meyer (Erl for short) because he reminds me of an Erlenmeyer flask. He is not solid polymer clay--I made him a coat-hanger armature, put a rock from the yard in his butt to make him more stable, and fleshed him out a little with aluminum foil. He stands about 4 inches tall. He's not quite ready to be baked yet, as he needs feet and probably a tail--not sure yet. I will also have to wash the dust off of him before baking--right after I took the pictures, my dog knocked him onto the floor where he sustained a few minor injuries and nice cakes of dust.

I like him so far. What do my readers think?

Afterthought: Upon further contemplation, he really is much more shaped like a volumetric flask than an Erlenmeyer, but Volumetric makes a dreadful name!

New Abstract or New Figurative?

2008-08-16T17:45:00.005-06:00

My last post was about a somewhat abstract work that I am improving. I have also been considering listing another older, abstract, colored pencil work, shown at the right. That image is entitled "Brownian Paisley" and is matted and framed and ready to sell. I am fairly committed to doing a lot more colored pencil, it is just a question of whether I should go in a more abstract direction or stay with the more figurative, surrealist works.

If I were to start creating a series, what should it be about? I will be doing a couple more for my Cell Series (see this link for one of them), but should I make it a larger series, or should I do something different? I would like to expand something into a series of works in order to unify the appearance of my shop. I would like for people to have an idea of what I am about from just a brief look--sometimes, that's all you get.

I have done a few long-faced cats, such as the one to the left, but I'm not sure if they would be that popular. I actually started them after completing a search on eBay of Self-Representing Artists whose items had already received bids ("cats" was among the more popular keywords, along with "nude" and "mini" which led me to briefly create the "Mini Nude Cat" series...). I love these guys, but they have not been successful sellers.

If any of my readers have any great ideas, I'd love to hear about it! Perhaps I will collect up all the ideas and create a poll here on my blog! Perhaps from there, I can create my first blog give-away contest! Who knows!

Cool Drawing, Ugly Execution

2008-08-11T11:45:00.004-06:00

Today's work is one that was recently downgraded from finished work, framed and hanging on the wall, to work in progress. The title of this piece is "Checking the Blue Corn Traps." The date inscribed on it, next to my signature, is 1999. I matted it and put it into a nice wood frame, and it has been hanging in various locations in my house (including the attic) for a few years now. I have always liked the design, but over the last few years, the intensity and choice of colors have really started to bug the crap out of me. I like the bright foreground colors, but they are just not intense enough, and there is much too much white space within those areas. That background purple color has recently started to make me ill just looking at it. Blech. So here's the plan: I have determined the colors I used originally (apparently, despite my posts that recommend writing down what colors you use as you are composing a new work, I glibly thought I would remember, or would never change it once it was finished), and have begun the process of punching up the foreground colors. I will probably not burnish the colors in, as I like the graininess for this image, but there is still room for a lot more pigment in the orange and red areas. The background I intend on changing completely, by overlaying (probably) true blue, as the purple just isn't working. I will try to post some snapshots as I go along, but if anyone looks at this image and thinks of the perfect solution, comments are always welcome.

Fun with Fifteen Year Old Mistakes Caught on Film

2008-08-10T11:46:00.004-06:00

So, as I may have mentioned in my profile, I have a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Wake Forest University. As part of my thesis project, I attempted to visualize my happy little protein of interest, integrin αIIbβ3 (if you must know), all by itself on a film, stained with uranyl acetate (a salt of uranium), by transmission electron microscopy. This particular attempt was early on in the learning process, and wanting to see something right off fairly badly, I loaded it up with a ridiculous amount of stain. So ridiculous an amount, in fact, that the stain crystallized across the membrane, and in places, made really pretty patterns. Having an artist's eye already, I took a picture of it (this was back in the day when you used real film, not digital files), and the nice folks in the EM lab developed it for me, along with the snapshots of my real experiment, and somewhere along the line, I acquired the negative. A large format negative, measuring 3.25" x 4", I managed to keep it in an envelope, stashed away, through a dozen or so changes of address through three different states. During a photography class I took several years ago, I did manage to print out a couple of prints in the University darkroom, but still couldn't do much with it. Finally, inspired by my fellow Etsy sellers who make lovely greeting cards and prints of microscopic photography (please see Etsy sellers ara133photography and EssenceFineArtImages), I found someone who could scan my original slide and put it into digital form so I could play with it. While I have only played with it a small amount in The Gimp, I thought it came out sort of pretty, and made a good excuse to blog today!

I am open to any suggestions my readers might have with how I could utilize this image, perhaps layering it with other things. The image is not for sale anywhere in my Etsy shop yet, as I am still trying to figure out what to do with it.

The Versatility of Colored Pencil

2008-08-03T21:12:00.007-06:00

Well, okay, most people have heard of colored pencil, but I thought perhaps I would introduce some of my readers to the versatility of the technique and show some examples of what can be achieved. "Stinky Cat" to my left was rendered in colored pencil in a somewhat typical manner, layering a few colors together in places, with a certain amount of the white tooth of the paper showing through. For a few of the details, I have used various burnishing techniques to make the colors blend smoothly and achieve more detail, for instance, in the eyes and the nose. Burnishing is a technique that uses a neutral colored pencil (white, cream, or a colorless blender) layered heavily over other colors to blend the colors together and create smooth transitions. Burnishing differs from regualr drawn lines as the technique involves pressing the pencil into the paper and blending it as you go, without showing the individual lines. In the case of the cat's nose here, I used a white pencil over the dark and mid-tones to create the smooth appearance with white highlights. The eyes, on the other hand, were burnished using a colorless blender. Colorless blenders come in pencil form (basically the plastic-y wax the colored pencils are made from) or in marker form, and they will each produce their own qualities, and each has their own pros and cons. The pencil form can blend incompletely or leave a slight bloom (waxy residue) on the image, but is overall my favorite for most work, as it has the same properties as any other colored pencil. The marker style blends very smoothly and evenly in most instances, but can soak up the first color you use it on, making it difficult to get back out in order to avoid transferring it to the next color. The markers also do not seem to last terribly long in my experience. It is also common to burnish with a white, cream, or grey colored pencil. Each of these will necessarily change the tone of the colors underneath, but makes some very nice effects. I have successfully pulled off some great experiments in burnishing two or more non-neutral colors together, but, strangely, some colors mix together well while others do not. My advice is to use a secondary sheet of the same type of paper your main work is drawn on, try out several variations of two or more colors blended together, and be sure to label your experiments, in case you forget later how you achieved a great combination.

The picture to the right was created almost entirely by burnishing together bright colors with one another. The sky is a gradation made up of various shades of grey, then burnished with white, to give it a grey-sky appearance. If you look closely you can see how hard I pressed the pencil into the paper in order to mix it together and seal the tooth of the paper at the same time.

Both of the images shown in this post are for sale in my Etsy shop!

Technique for Chiaroscuro: Pastel, Pencil, Vine Charcoal

2008-06-18T10:22:00.008-06:00

Today's medium you never heard of is more of a technique made up of several media that you have heard of, combined in a different way. The drawing at the right shows the broad range of light to dark that can be acheived with this technique, and the subtle and smooth transitions make it an ideal method for rendering the human figure.

While it appears that this drawing was made on a piece of tan paper, the paper was actually white to start with. The first step for this technique is to prepare your surface by rubbing the entire page with a thick piece of vine charcoal. It has to be vine charcoal, not compressed charcoal, as you just want enough coverage to protect the tooth of the paper (the rough surface of the paper that absorbs the pigment or pencil). This step will leave the paper a sort of uneven light gray. Next, get out your soft pastels and pick out two or three (or more) colors that range all over the color wheel. This particular drawing used a teal green, sienna, sky blue and yellow ocre. One color at a time, rub the side of the pastel across the whole sheet, not worrying too much about evenness--that'll come later. As you mix, you should be able to see your neutral background forming, and you can adjust it by adding more of one color than another to get it the way you want. Once you are satisfied with the tone, overlay with another layer of vine charcoal. This second layer of charcoal should even out the tone of the page somewhat, but if you would still like it smoother, take a wad of soft tissue (like Kleenex) and gently rub the surface in a circular pattern until the tones are even and smooth.

From this prepared surface, you will create all of the lights, darks and midtones using three tools: graphite pencil (6B to 9B, very soft), a kneaded rubber eraser, and a wad of tissue. The pencil is used to create any tones darker than the paper tone, using crosshatching or other techniques to achieve the darkness you desire. The kneaded rubber eraser is used to gently lift out the pastel colors to create the highlight areas, and you are able to lift out as much as you please, from a little lighter to all the way back to white. The wad of tissue acts as sort of another type of eraser, but this one helps blend unwanted lights or darks back to the background midtone.

Overall, the technique is very versatile, fairly forgiving, and gives extremely satisfying results. Try it for yourself sometime!

The above images were created by me, Julie D'Arcy, and are for sale in my Etsy shop!

Artistic Media You Never Heard Of: Embossed Prints

2008-06-14T17:15:00.003-06:00

For my second installment of Artistic Media You May Have Never Heard Of, I have chosen embossed prints. A striking example of this medium is shown in the banner at the top of this blog. This medium comes under the category of printmaking because the image is transferred to the paper by running a plate of some sort through a press with a piece of damp paper. If you would like to read more about printmaking in general, please go to my lens on Squidoo entitled Printmaking in the Modern Era. While there are various methods for embossing an image into a piece of paper, this method allows you to emboss a permanent image cleanly, create a reproducible image many times, and even gives you the option of adding color to parts or all of the image at the same time. The paper used for this medium is specifically printmaking paper, I like Stonehenge or Rives BFK, because you want to have a fine art paper that can be soaked in water without curling or drying unevenly. This paper will be soaked thoroughly, excess water gently blotted off, and run trough the press with your plate or matrix.

The plate can be practically anything that can be safely run through a printing press. You can use an etched metal plate (the two koi fish in the banner at the top of the blog were created using a deeply etched zinc plate), a linoleum block plate (The Green Man featured in this article was carved out of a linoleum block), a collagraph plate, which is basically a collage of stuff (paper, plastic, found objects, lace, fishnet stockings) glued together to create texture and depth, or even just a simple flat layer of stiff board or flexible plastic (I once saw an embossed print of an angel where the plate had been cut out of a Pringles can lid!). The materials you use for your plate will determine several things: How many prints you will be able to make before your plate is no longer good, and what sort of control you have over the depth and detail of your image. Metal plates will last practically forever and make hundreds, if not thousands of prints, but the etching process requires a great deal of time and monitoring of the etch and the etched lines are decidedly sharp. Linoleum blocks are very versatile, easy to carve, and one can achieve subtle patterns and deep lines, but the force required to emboss the image is strong enough to destroy the plate after a few dozen prints. Plates created by a collagraphic process, where the 3D image is pieced together with found objects, is as versatile as you can make it, but the plate is only as strong as the materials that make up the plate, so it is this strength that determines how many prints can be created.

Whatever materials make up the plate, this method of embossing has the advantage of being rather permanent because of the quality of the printmaking paper. These beautiful papers will hold their images forever unless creased or bent, and make beautiful displays in shadow boxes.

Here are some embossed prints from my Etsy Shop to get you started!
Green Man, linoleum block print
fishy.fishy, a zinc plate etching
Coiled Snake Card, a handmade blank card printed from a linoleum block

First Medium You Never Heard Of: Silverpoint

2008-06-06T08:37:00.012-06:00

I decided to start with a medium that was near and dear to my heart. This technique was invented in ancient times, was revived during the Renaissance by the great masters, and then revived again in more modern times by late 20th century artists such as Picasso and Joseph Stella.

Silverpoint (broadly referred to as Metalpoint) uses a thin silver wire (usually Fine Silver, which is 99.9% silver, or Sterling Silver, which is 97.5% silver) to draw very delicate, fine lines on a specially prepared surface. The technique is not limited to silver, as I have used 22K gold wire and pure copper wire, and in ancient times, lead, bronze and possibly other metals were used. This thin metal wire is usually wrapped with or around something so the artist can hold onto it better while drawing. Historically, the wire could be wrapped around a pencil or stick, allowing only the tip to extend out past the end. In my own experience, I use modern mechanical pencil holders, as they come ready to accommodate a variety of widths.

The specially prepared surface (support) can be virtually anything--canvas, wood, parchment--but is most commonly paper. Whichever support is chosen must then be treated with a primer to give the paper some "tooth" (grittiness). In ancient times, this primer was a mixture of binding agent (think something sticky--gum arabic, spit, other stuff that is even more nasty sounding) and white pigment (could be anything--ground up bone, chalk, ashes). In modern times, artists generally use common gesso, an acrylic-based primer. This painted surface can be sanded gently with very fine sandpaper to eliminate brushstrokes.

Once the artist has prepared a metal wire he or she can hold onto, and has a prepared surface, all that is left to do is start drawing. The fine lines on the page resemble the marks made by a very hard pencil, and must be built up gradually to reach the desired darkness. Generally, crosshatching, laying down many tiny parallel lines in different directions across one another, is the best way to create shading. These lines will be very silvery and even show a bit of metallic appearance at first, but over time, the metal will oxidize upon exposure to the open air and turn dark and a little brownish, as can be seen in Rembrandt's portrait of his wife at the top.

Newer metalpoint drawings will appear silvery or like they were drawn with a very hard pencil. The drawing at the right is an example of a metalpoint (silver and gold) that I made a few years ago. This drawing will probably take a long time to oxidize, as it is already framed under glass, and it currently hangs in my home, in the middle of the desert. The speed at which oxidation takes place can depend on all sorts of things, like moisture in the air, pollution, salty air. I have read about techniques to accelerate the process using dilute egg yolk solution, or an acidic solution, but have never tried any of them (so much work goes into a drawing, I can't stand the thought of ruining one).

So, the next question that comes to most people's minds is, if this technique looks so much like pencil drawing, why do it? There are a variety of good reasons. The fine lines you can obtain from this technique are much finer than those you can achieve with a pencil. Another huge advantage to the artist is that these fine lines won't smudge! (Well, okay, I've gotten them to smudge a tiny bit, but only on purpose.) Granted, because they don't smudge, lines are very difficult (but not impossible) to erase, but since most markings are built up from many small lines, you can make a few stray wrong marks with little harm. The final reason that I can think of is the durability of the medium. Drawings in metalpoint should last for at least as long as a pencil drawing, and the primer on the paper will help prevent the drawing from getting crumpled or bent.

So are you all ready to try it for yourself? Go to this great site to find all of the expert advice, detailed history, and even supplies you will need to get started!

Artistic Methods You May Have Never Heard Of

2008-06-05T09:18:00.003-06:00

I was brainstorming about what unique wisdom I could contribute to the blogging community, and I decided that traditional art techniques or other people's work probably wasn't going to get my blog noticed. So I have decided to go on a quest to seek out art forms that my readers may not have heard of before, and explain why they are worth a second look.
Off the top of my head, I've thought of embossed prints, silverpoint, encaustic, TTV photography, wire-wrapped jewelry and double-walled pottery. I'm sure there are many cool techniques out there that I haven't thought of, so if you happen upon my blog and don't see your cool medium of choice there, leave me a comment, and maybe I'll get to learn something new myself! Stay tuned!

Image a Day -- Day 12 -- Orange Cat in Red Flowers

2008-01-20T10:04:00.000-07:00

Today's image is another one inspired by James Christensen and his characters. Personally, I don't even have a cat any more (three dogs, my last cat ran away, 1 block, and never came back), and it's not so much that I don't like cats--it is that I like other people's cats. This one reminds me of Benjamin, a big, lazy, orange cat my Mom and I had when I was growing up. He had no problem picking out my mother's favorite flower bed and plopping himself right down in it to take a nap.

This drawing is an original colored pencil, and is available for sale in my Etsy store here.

Image a Day -- Day 11 --Big Fat Purple Cat

2008-01-19T19:55:00.001-07:00

I was looking through a collection of artwork by one of my favorite artists, James Christensen, and I remembered where I got the inspiration for this cat's face. If you check out some of Christensen's characters, you'll notice that this long, somber face looks a little like some of his musicians. I am currently working on a colored pencil drawing that has borrowed another of his character faces, but it is slow going. It was another one that I started, thinking I would figure out what goes on the rest of the page when I got there, and now there is here, and I am still trying to figure it out.
The purple cat was never meant to be all that complicated, just a small blurb of an image with pretty colors and cat with an odd face.
He is for sale in my Etsy store both as a print and the original.

Image a Day -- Day 10 -- "The Sun Was Well Over the Yardarm"

2008-01-18T09:11:00.001-07:00

In this laboratory where I used to work was a man who had grown up in a rural, fairly wealthy part of Connecticut, and although he became something of a tree-hugging hippie in his later years, used to make these references to Northeastern countryclub colloquialisms. One of them was, "Well, the sun is over the yardarm," which was originally intended to mean that it was getting late in the day, and there was now a long shadow from the yardarm. If it is late in the day, then it must be proper to have one's first evening cocktail. But, if you think about it, any time the sun is up, it is over the yardarm, so really any time at all will do for the first cocktail of the day, right?

This image was inspired by that saying, as I'm imagining if your first cocktail was sometime during daylight, by sunset, the yardarm has got to start looking something like this. This picture is another colored pencil that is also not for sale, and also happens to be hanging in my kitchen (where, oddly, not that much drinking really ever occurs). I suppose I chose this one today in response to my 14 year old daughter's tyrade last night about the evils of alcohol, and how, anyone who drinks alcohol at all is going to hell in a handbasket. I really don't drink very often, so mine is probably a small handbasket with rickety handles and holes in the bottom. I should probably drink more to make it worth my while.

Image a Day -- Day 9 -- Brownian Paisley

2008-01-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

I don't often create truly abstract images, they usually have some reference to something. This image was an attempt to create something truly abstract. It really doesn't have anything to do with anything, except that I thought of the title, "Brownian Paisley," which struck me as a nifty title, and drew the design from that. I love the idea of starting with something with structure, and then just injecting a left turn in one's thought process (I'd use the word "random," but as a scientist, I know that nothing is truly random, especially something created by humans, plus the word has been recently banished from use by Lake Superior State University as trite and horribly over- and misused.) Just the idea of trying to imitate the fractal patterns inherent in Brownian motion just with pencils and paper is a big part of what being an artist is all about--imitating nature, while at the same time, creating something that wasn't there before.

This image was rendered in colored pencil, and is the first of the Image a Day Series that is not for sale in my Etsy store. It is framed and hanging in my kitchen. There's lots of other Brownian motion in my kitchen to keep it company.

Image a Day -- Day 8 -- Feeling a Little Crabby

2008-01-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

In honor of feeling a little crabby, today's image is my tiny crab, an aquatint and etching in two colors. Originally part of a 6" x 9" etched zinc plate, the plate was not coated correctly, and as a result got horribly pitted during the etching process. I bemoaned my mistake for a little while, then looked over the printed image again, and determined that the lower right corner, intended to be part of my signature, looked okay. So I put the plate in the giant metal plate cutter and hacked it out. The resulting plate only measures about 1.5" x 3". I printed a few of these off-center prints on tiny pieces of paper, and printed a few on greeting cards. I applied the green and blue inks to the background with gloved fingers, then changed gloves, and applied the orange-red to the crab. If you look at the crab's back closely, my signature appears: a J, two O's on top of one another, and an L (JOOL). After printing, while the ink was still wet, I sprinkled tiny bits of copper powder on the background area.

This print is, of course, for sale in my Etsy store.

Image a Day -- Day 7 -- Snakeprint

2008-01-15T18:15:00.000-07:00

Today's image is another embossed print, the plate created from a circular portion of a linoleum block, printed onto soaked Rives BFK paper. It is an image of a coiled snake, and only measures about 2" across. I printed this image as a set of blank greeting cards, and they are, if I say so myself, even nicer looking in person. I have already written about the difficulties taking detailed pictures of embossed prints with the digital camera, and this one was no exception.
For now, it is available as individual cards in my shop, but I just found a cache of them in a storage box, so I will probably list them as a set of 5 or 6 as well.

Day 6 -- Image a Day -- Imaginary Biology

2008-01-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

In honor of the latest sale from my Etsy store, today's image is from my Cell Series. This was the first of four tiny colored pencil drawings designed after living cells. Inflammatory cells, such as monocytes, lymphocytes, and granulocytes, mediate the response in our bloodstream to invaders of all sorts, secreting chemicals which enroll other cells into the fight, and undergoing dramatic shape changes to suit their roll as defenders. This cell is no specific inflammatory cell, but it is getting ready to respond to some sort of invading threat. Plus the colors are pretty.

While I just sold its sister, the plant cell, this drawing is still available for purchase, as well as two more.

Also in honor of having made another sale, allow me to introduce my readers to the purchaser, who is also a clever and talented potter (no, not like the dorky kid from the movies, someone who forms clay). Her name is Katie, but on Etsy she goes by scrumdidlyump, and here's an example of her work! The grand bowl to the right is entitled "Not Yo Mama's Fruitbowl," and if you think the title's funny, go read the description. In fact, go read all her descriptions, they are very funny! Oh yeah, and go buy something!

Image a Day Number 5 -- Something Fishy

2008-01-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

Two koi fish swim past one another in a narrow channel bordered by two Celtic knots.

Today's image was created using one of my favorite methods, embossed printmaking. It is really not just one method but a variety. The plate used to make the impression can be created by a variety of methods, including metal plate etching, woodblock or linoleum block carving, or plastic cutting and inscribing. This plate in particular was a zinc plate that I etched in stages to create variable, but very deep etched incisions. It was printed using an etching press set on fairly tight pressure, and printed onto wet Rives BFK printmaking paper. Once the print dries, it retains the pressed image perfectly.
This edition is one of several embossed prints I have created, but it is the only one using an etched metal plate. My other plates were all linoleum block prints, which works equally well, and you can achieve softer edges and higher detail.
Probably the most difficult task related to these types of prints is trying to get pictures that show the level of detail and depth of the image with my now-geriatric digital camera. This type of image is an example of something that is actually easier to photograph accurately with a film camera, because you have total control over depth of field and exposure.
Before anyone asks, you can't scan them either. The results are even more awful. I am hoping to sell enough artwork to be able to afford a high quality digital camera, but I have a ways to go.
If any of my dear readers would like to help me with this endeavor, come buy some artwork at my Etsy shop.

Image a Day..... or so. Day 4

2008-01-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I've been working on some other projects for the past couple days and completely forgot about my Image of the Day. I have also recently begun working as a proofreader and editor through an online company called Scribendi. I worked for them a few years ago, but took a very long break--fortunately they were willing to take me back. Sometimes being an artist is very fulfilling, but quite often I feel like I have few useful skills to offer the rest of the world. So my proofreading and editing makes me feel like I'm making a contribution to the world, one nit-picky paragraph at a time.
So, anyway, today's image is entitled "Sacred Heart--Cosmic Twist" and is available on my Etsy site. It is yet another colored pencil drawing that I started several years ago, only to leave it unfinished until recently. The funny part is that there was really only about 10% of the blue in the background left to do, and it took me about 30 minutes. I'm not sure what the image means, but, living in New Mexico, I am exposed to a lot of Latino Catholic artistic symbolism, as well as the history of splitting the atom, so I guess it just all came together like this in a grand, colorful object. Enjoy!

I was featured on motomoto's blog today!

2008-01-08T15:46:00.000-07:00

Today my Dandelion was featured on motomoto's blog, along with artwork from fellow Etsy For Animals Team member mvegan5, and some others from Etsy! I'm excited! Thanks for the love, motomoto! Right back atcha!

Day 3 -- "Gertrude"

2008-01-08T07:20:00.000-07:00

Today's picture is Gertrude. She's one of those big-haired waitresses in some diner just off of the interstate. Between the Blue Plates and the endless cups of coffee, her mind wanders off to a place where she can roam the seas, free from bad tips and old men pinching her fanny.
She is the first in a series of pencil drawings of seemingly ordinary people who live extraordinary lives, even if it's only in their own minds.
My next drawing in the series is going to be Sid the construction worker. What an imagination he has!

Gertrude is available as a 5" x 7" print in my Etsy shop here:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=8005708

Day 2 -- The Seer

2008-01-07T08:40:00.001-07:00

The original drawing, a colored pencil on paper, is hanging in our living room, and measures about 9" x 12". It originally started as the eyeball in the middle, and was slowly finished between about 1995 to probably about 1998 or so. The date in the corner says '96, as, at a certain point, I inscribed my signature in the lower right hand corner, thinking it would inspire me to finish it in the year that it was signed. I did the same thing to the drawing I am going to go back to work on today, it is dated '99. This time, I'll put a -'08 next to the signature (that is, if I manage to finish this one in the next twelve months).
Sometimes I come up with a great idea for a piece of a picture, and then tell myself that I will fill in the missing areas once I get there. That strategy almost never works, but at least I'm challenging myself. The other thing about this piece is that, sometimes I come up with a great title for a piece before I've even created it, and then other times, the title eludes me forever, like this one, and I just go for some lame name like "The Seer." The aforementioned picture I'm working on doesn't have a title either, so I'll probably post it somewhere in order to solicit suggestions for a title. Stay tuned.
While the original of this image is not for sale, I am selling digital prints of it in my Etsy store, here.

Artwork a Day for 2008!!

2008-01-06T10:47:00.000-07:00

Well let's see how many days we can keep this up...

So maybe I didn't start with the first day of the year, but I've never done this before, so I figure it's better than nothing. For a few days, I'll have images of old artwork, but the cool thing about this idea is that, pretty soon, I better start making more art to post!!

Today's image is my "Heart in a Box" ACEO. I created it one day when my husband was out of town on business, and I started getting all mushy about true love and personal freedom. To me, true love means never being "captured" by another, but being surrounded, nurtured, and supported. I have much more freedom with my honey than I ever had alone, because there were too many things I was afraid to do on my own. In fact, my husband has gotten me into things I never thought I would ever enjoy, and I've done the same for him. He's got big dreams for the future, and, thanks to him, I'm building some new dreams of my own. Together we are much more than the sum of our parts.

Etsy for Animals!

2007-12-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

I have joined Etsy for Animals, an organization of Etsy artisans who support Animal related charities. You can find out more about them at http://www.etsyforanimals.com/ . This month's chosen charity is Little Angels Pug Rescue, http://www.lapr.org/ . To start out, I will be donating 10% of my sales to the chosen charity, and hopefully I can increase that percentage as my sales increase!

To my left is my personal dog charity, my Doberman Pinscher, Mimi. She says it's okay to help the pugs this month because they are pretty cute, and fun to play with!

Welcome!!

2007-12-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog!! I am a visual artist who sells on Etsy, and occasionally on Ebay. I have always been an artist, but the past few months have been the first time in my life I have ever tried to make a living at it.
It's a typical tale of woe. Girl grows up in a mundane suburb of Washington, DC, (specifically Falls Church, VA), drawing, painting, watching her Mom (who's an amazing artist) and thinking she's not that good, discovers she's good at something that might make money (perish the thought!), goes to college in rural North Carolina (Hi, fellow St. Andrews grads! All 100 of us...) to major in Chemistry, which is interesting to study, but not sure what I want to do with it. Upon obtaining Bachelor's degree, goes to graduate school in Biochemistry (Hi, fellow Wake Forest grads!), studies some more art (because in grad school, let's face it, you're poor, starving, miserable, why not be an artist?), and gets a Ph.D. in Biochemistry despite herself. Still doesn't know what she wants to do with it. Girl does two postdoctoral fellowships, somewhere along the way meets the boy of her dreams, and gets married (totally happy ending, only, wait a minute, I'm not done yet). Has some success in science, followed by some failure, followed by a complete lack of jobs in biotech in my town (BTW, somewhere in there moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is awesome), but wonderful husband is there for the girl, and says she can try doing something she's always wanted to do---whatever that turns out to be! So girl discovers http://www.etsy.com/, where everything is hand crafted and hand marketed by artists and craftspeople. So therein lies the beginning of my happy ending!!
Please visit my Etsy shop, http://jvdarcy.etsy.com/, and if you like anything you see, click on My Favorites, so you can visit some of the other great artists and craftspeople there!!