New Etsy site

I've been following Etsy on Twitter and have always had a love for the site. I really enjoy making things by hand but am more of an admirer than a participant. When I started my business, most of my products were handmade items, and because it was so time consuming, I slowly moved to doing digital collages. Still time consuming, but no mess to clean up and no products to buy other than paper and ink for my printer. But I've been missing adding that handmade touch to my artwork. So as I struggled for a way to mount the new collages I posted last week, I decided it was time to return to my love of making things by hand.

This the new artwork:

I mounted the collages to 4 x 4 canvases that have been painted with acrylic paint and then "antiqued" with walnut ink. Then I applied beeswax to the print and the canvas.

I will be selling these collages through Etsy and you can find them here. They are a limited edition of 100. Enjoy!

Late night, new art

Sometimes I just can't let something go until it's finished, and this new piece of art was it on Tuesday night. I'm not really tired, and I just had to see how this was going to turn out. I kept working and working on the focus of this piece, the spinner, until I got it exactly how I wanted it. Rather, I got it until my brain said "STOP! THAT'S IT!" because I honestly didn't know how I wanted it when I started. I love playing in Photoshop and having happy accidents while creating. I just kept working the layers until I finally got what looked right to me. Love, LOVE Photoshop.

Once I got the focus looking how I wanted it, I dug into my fun vintage stuff drawer and looked for the perfect pieces to accompany what I had done so far. The fun part about creating for me is my brain becomes a divining rod of sorts. I just keep looking..."nope...nope....that's IT!" Do I know WHY that's it? Nope. I just do.

So...here's the finished piece:

It's a 4 x 4 since: a) I have a fondness for square things and b) I don't have a whole lot of small art. People have less and less wall space these days and I think it'll be nice to have some small affordable things. Like the other new pieces, these will also be a limited edition, but I'm not sure just yet how many prints I will limit them to. 

MORE NEW WORK!

I'm actually following through on things I say I'm going to do artwork-wise...it's amazing. I said I was going to make new pieces to compliment my other new artwork and here they are!!

What about my location collages? Well, funds are tight right now so I'm not sure if a trip to Chicago is in the works, as much as I'd like it to be. I might work on some new Minnesota pieces soon. I've been wanting to do another Minneapolis nightlife collage, but there's only one problem. Bunkers hasn't had their neon working for MONTHS! And that's a pretty essential part of my collage since it's a pretty well known bar. I'm guessing fixing neon is expensive since it's been out since around October. Also wanted to do a GLBT bar collage, and a West 7th Street collage. Just need to find the time to go out and take photos. And warmer weather helps, too. 

New things coming up

Today I received the acceptance to Arts at the Oval at the John Rose Oval. It will take place March 28-29. I'll post the art fair to my website schedule soon.

I'm applying to an art fair in Beverly Hills in May. I applied to the show last year and was rejected so maybe things will come through this year. I'm not 100% happy with my booth photo of my "other" art (I wouldn't bring my Minnesota collages to Beverly Hills) so if I did get rejected again I wouldn't be surprised. I'm going to be applying for quite a few out of state shows this year but don't have much hope of getting in to any of them. I know positive thinking is important, but my location collage work is so much more popular than my other collage work that it's just hard for me to keep my hopes up.

Hoping to continue working on new collages and as I said in a previous blog, I want to get down to Chicago sometime very soon. I'll keep the blog posted!

NEW ART!!

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, it's been awhile since I've felt very creative and had the desire to create some new art. Today I was doing some printing to keep up on inventory while I have some down time and thought, "I should make something!"

I never have any preconceived notions of what I want the art to look like when I start. The new thing that I'm trying is making a background using traditional techniques: painting, stamping, drawing, etc. Then I scan it in and go from there.

Also as I mentioned in a previous blog, I've been collecting vintage papers and other goodies. I've had the word game papers for quite awhile and didn't know what I was going to do with them (I NEVER know what I'm going to do with stuff when I buy it!). I just love the graphics on them, very 1960's and so I decided to go with a somewhat retro style to the art.

I've always loved square pieces, so these are 8 x 8 square. They'll be printed on a cotton rag texture paper and will be a limited edition of 250.

Right now they don't have titles and probably won't have any until I print some out.

I'd love to hear some feedback if you have any!

   

This might just work out!

Ok, I'm positive bragging about my ability to follow through with posting a blog every three days is annoying, but it's a big deal to me since my whole goal this year is to consistently follow through on things that will better my business in the long run. I promise that this won't be a continuous topic of my blog, or maybe it will be until someone comments to shut up already. :)

New things.....

I'm going to work towards getting to Chicago in the beginning of March to FINALLY complete my Chicago collages. Yes, I know, I've been talking about that for a year, but this time I have the time, resources and travel companions in place to make it happen for sure.

Atlanta collage? I have a friend that will be moving back to Atlanta this year and she's invited me down to show me around. She thought it might be an interesting place to do a collage of. I'd love to hear some feedback!

Collage a day. I'm currently tossing around the idea of doing one collage a day and putting it up for sale on a separate blog page. Right now I just don't feel all that creative and it's a bummer. I've seen a lot of 365 blogs (my friend who's moving to Atlanta currently has one that I think is fantastic) and I just like the idea of trying to do something you love every single day to push yourself to be better at your craft and learn new techniques. I'll update my website with a link as well as announce on my Facebook profile and Twitter page should I follow through!

uw-madison.....COMPLETE!

After working on it every day for almost a week, I finally finished the UW-Madison collage. This one gave me a lot of trouble. It was like trying to put together a puzzle and having pieces missing. I had plenty of photos, actually I had WAY MORE than I needed, but it was just getting them all to fit in an eye pleasing manner that was the difficulty. It's hard to explain, but I just know it when it's done. I always tell people that I have no preconceived notion of what it's going to look like, I'll just know it when I see it. And this one just didn't want to appear!!

At 60 layers, this is the most complex collage I've done so far. I'm happy with the result, and I'll be putting it up for purchase on my website soon, and I will be sending out an email notification to those on my email mailing list ASAP!