Craftopia 12/11

On Sunday I'll be at Craftopia! 10-4. My lovely assistant will be there too!  Here's Robin rocking a cupcake apron at our last sale in East Greenwich.

Poco Loco, LJ's BBQ and Chez Pascal food trucks will be parked outside and inside will be lots of handmade goodies... come check it out! 

 I've been working my fingers to the bone... Here's brand new tea towel calendars for 2012.  I'm so happy with how they turned out.  I'm staying up late to finish up a few things tonight... wish me luck!

and don't forget to drop by for some holiday shopping and support local artists! 

Elle Girl Korea

안녕 or hello to anyone reading this blog in Korea! I was so excited to be featured in the August issue of Elle girl Korea!

When I was living in Japan I would spend hours in the bookstore pouring through the fashion magazines. I loved seeing the Japanese, Italian and Korean versions of magazines such as Vogue and Elle. They would have such cute and creative editorial spreads and the magazines always came with a little gift. Usually a tiny tote, or a headband!!!

I was honored to be featured alongside some of my favorite food artists such as Claudia Pearson,

Lucille Prache

and Nate Pavadick!

Thanks to editor Kim A Reum for including me in this issue!

What I'm working on....

I was very resistant to working digitally. I thought the computer was evil itself. Now that I've figured out how to use it as a tool... I'm hooked! Seriously... what was wrong with me before? It has allowed me to be spontaneous in my mark making, change around lousy compositions and experiment with color/texture.

So... I was a little nervous about going back to the basics of paint and paper. But as I started painting this week I felt more confident then ever. I still love it!!!!!

Under the Ground

It's finally here! Poster #2 for Fertile Underground!

I had a lot of fun doing the hand lettering for the title and the bottom info.

This time around I did the design and gladly handed it off to a silk screen expert to do the actual printing of the posters. I can't tell you what a relief that was!

One of my favorite parts is this mouse... I drew lots of mice as a kid.

Fertile Underground was awesome enough to give me a dozen or so prints to sell. Thanks again to Kristina for doing such an awesome job printing these!

I'll have them up in the Etsy shop for sale with the first poster! I just finished the design for poster #3 and I can't wait to see it printed.

East Greenwich Art Festival

Just a sneak peak of new fabrics and kitchen stuff I'll have for sale at the East Greenwich Art Festival.

New pot holders in my "tree and leaves" fabric.

I finally got around to sewing full length aprons. I'm hoping these will be a big hit in cupcake print and fruit print as well!

If your looking for something to do tomorrow then drive on down to East Greenwich! It's at 1408 Division Rd and it looks like there will also be a farmers market there too! I'll be at my table 10-5 with art prints, kitchen goods, stationery and some pencil cases.

You've "bean on my mind..."

Art Festivals and Craftshows are a lot of work, weeks of sewing, ordering and organizing stuff all with my fingers crossed for good weather. However, I've found that it's a great opportunity to get direct feedback and that's really helped me make decisions about my work. (which things to discontinue, what needs to be tweaked and pricing too!) I have been busy busy busy working on some new items for the East Greenwich Art Festival coming up Sept 3rd!

I just got these babies in the mail yesterday!

I know, I know... I'm super cheesy. But the berry one just seemed so right that I dared myself to come up with three other veggie greetings.

And I did!

I figured these could each work for multiple occasions and they had a sense of humor... vegetables shouldn't take themselves too seriously.

Next week is crunch time, but I'm hoping to photograph a few more items before I head out for the sale. I will also post these in my Etsy shop too! If your going to be in the area please come say hi! I'll be there 10-5, 1408 Division Road.

Fertile Underground Posters

I have quite a few projects I've been working on since I last posted. Today I wanted to share this one with you. Fertile Underground is a local group mostly comprised of farmers and artists working hard to open a grocery and cafe on the West Side of Providence.

There store will feature organic, local and fair trade food as well as baked goods once their kitchen is done. There are very few places to find local fruits and veggies on the West Side, so I know they will be very popular once they open!

When I saw they were looking for an artist to design an edition of 4 silkscreen posters to promote their store I jumped at the chance! (An opportunity to do some printmaking, draw food and experiment with hand lettering?-Im soo in!)

And it's been awhile since I've done any printmaking...

And I've never done a 4 color print.

I had forgotten how much work goes into making an excellent print, before the ink is even opened....

First I did some quick veggie drawings, finished them in ink and arranged them digitally. Then, I colored the poster, separated them into layers on the computer. I printed them out onto large pieces of acetate, coated the screens, exposed them and TA-DAH!!!!

The screens were all ready to go.

This week I teamed up with my amazing friend Andrea to complete about 80 4-layer prints for Fertile Underground.

After a lot of hard work and deep conversation about unicorns we managed to get a good rhythm down and we finished!

These posters are on pieces of paper 19"x 24", so I hope they will eye catching when they are hung up!

I have 10 available for purchase, so contact me if you want one!

Bicycle Race!

We are finally getting some spring weather up here in RI and all I wanna do is is ride my bicycle! Have noticed the large green and purple button on the side of my blog?

I'm currently training to participate in my first 100 mile bike ride around Lake Tahoe as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training. I am completing this event with my amazing boyfriend Robin! Robin is a cancer survivor and his Mom, Mary, is currently undergoing chemo. We are committed to raising $8,500 total!

I am selling these notebooks as part of my fundraising efforts at my Etsy site! If you live in the Providence area come to the RISD Sale this weekend. (10-4 Benefit St. April 30th) I will have these notebooks and many other things for sale.

The LLS is a truly excellent organization. 76.2% of all the funds collected goes directly to local patients and researchers. Patients can use this money to do whatever they see fit with it. This is the kind of organization that actually helps actual patients when they need it. I am very excited to be able to use my artistic abilities towards fundraising for this group! Please consider buying a notebook or making a donation at my fundraising website. Thanks!

Gettin' Figgy wit it!

This week keeps getting better and better! In addition to entering the squid contest on Spoonflower I was working on an entry for California Figs and They Draw and Cook's Year of The Fig Contest! There were many tasty looking recipes on their website that you could choose from.

I looked at a lot of fig recipes but ultimately decided on this one from Serious Eats .

I snuck in my entry at the deadline. There were a lot of really great fig recipes: Ingvard the Terrible, Lucile Prache, and James Gulliver Hancock were among my favorites!

... I came in 1st for dried fig recipes!!

I really like having a warm bowl of oatmeal in the morning but I had never tried it with figs. Turns out figs are amazing with a bit of cinnamon, vanilla, and honey. I like adding brown sugar to mine too! I love the shape of the figs and I wanted to make sure they were highlighted in my recipe. In the past I have struggled with getting all of my directions to fit on the page. I decided to try to be minimal with the written steps and really focus on the imagery.

A big Thank you to Nate and Salli from They Draw and Cook! If you haven't seen the new website go check it out! It has all these great ways of searching for recipes by artist, meal, ingredients, art style and country. Anyone can submit an illustrated recipe on their site. So... if you also like cooking and drawing, what are you waiting for? Submit a recipe! It's fantastic to find a site like TDAC with so many other artists that are as passionate about cooking and drawing.

Etsy Giveway!

Jen of This Girl's Life So Far recently contacted me on Etsy about doing an interview and giveaway on her blog. An addition to running a blog Jen has an Etsy shop where she makes her own soap. My favorite is her cupcake bombs!

This is my first interview and it was a relief to know that someone saw my avatar/store name and liked it. Turns out she's actually been chased by a rabid Emu! Haha, how crazy is that?

Check out her blog to read my interview here and if you want a chance to win a notepad/notebook set just leave a comment. You can enter till April 4th! Thanks so much Jen!

Everyone Loves Squids!

I love squid, octopus, cuttlefish (Cephalopods in general.) I've been busy sewing things for the sale but I took a night to make this squid fabric for the Spoonflower contest.

I scanned some ink blobs and played with them on the computer! I'm really happy with how this turned out and can't wait to see it printed on fabric

Please...go vote for my fabric in the Spoonflower contest this week! Click on contest and you can select any of the designs you like, there are some really good ones! Once you've viewed all the pages just push "Save votes!" It's up until Tuesday. Thanks guys!

Hogwarts, I Wish I Had Thought of That!

Lately, I've been thinking about other things I can have on my blog. I'm sick of just writing about my work and so I've decided to start a new section called: I WISH I HAD THOUGHT OF THAT! Every two weeks or so I will share the work of another artist who is doing something awesome! I just received "Here At Hogwarts" by Lucy Knisley in the mail this week! A friend showed me her work and I've been following her blog ever since. (okay technically her RSS feed) Lucy and Nora are also big Buffy fans, like me! They have an excellent buffy shirt among other things at their joint store: The Burrow

Here at Hogwarts is a comic book about Lucy and Nora (her studio mate) and their trip to the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter." They are both big time fans as am I and when I saw they were looking for donations on Kickstarter I was delighted to send some money their way! They did a super cute video about going through nasty break ups and taking comfort in Harry Potter books. It's websites like kickstarter that may save Indie comics. I guess it seems plausible that book publishing will change and fans will be able to directly invest in artists they like and allow them to self publish their work.

Anyways, that's what Lucy and Nora did! They proposed spending a week in Orlando to scope out Harry Potter land and then do a comic about it. For just $15 I got my own signed copy and helped fund their trip! I don't want to spoil anything so I'll just show you this page, its one of my favorites in the book.

I love the way Lucy draws! I am envious of her ability to simply so that it is readable but maintain the quirky nature of her drawing too! I also got a kick out the Thank you pages at the end showing a bunch of wizards running around!

If you are also a Harry Potter fan or a fan of comic book artists you can get your own copy mailed to you or download it digitally for $3! I am also eyeing the posters that sum up the plots of each book 1-3. I wish I had thought of that!

Cupcake continued...

As Spring is approaching I'm picking up speed. I ordered this sweet stamp from Rubber Stamps.net and I've been stamping all my paper goods like crazy!

I was able to upload an image that used my handwritten text and they shipped it very quickly.

I find stamping and labeling things extremely satisfying!

Also received a test swatch of cupcake fabric in the mail from Spoonflower!

In the past I've struggled with getting the colors to print faithfully. Often the way they appear on the screen is very different from how they turn up on fabric. This time I went through the process of creating a test strip where I tried a few different colors for each color (light brown, brown, blue, yellow and pink)to see how it would look.

Overall, I was really happy with this little experiment and I think from now on this is a really safe way to check my colors before purchasing a large amount of fabric.

Robin started printing me some stickers at work. : ) I can't wait to have these up in the store too!