Circus Folk Paper Dolls

Hello all, this is my first paper doll post!

I designed these dolls some months ago, based on drawings of circus characters from my neatbook, and I cannot begin to tell you how much I love them.
Click to enlarge!













In preparation for the Craft Carnival on November 5th, I've ordered some lovely glossy 5x7 postcard prints of these paper dolls that can be cut out and assembled with provided brads. Each doll takes 30 to 45 minutes to carefully cut out and put together. I'll be selling them both as DIY paper doll postcards and pre-assembled dolls.

Also note the Etsy shop address on the front of the doll sheets: kissabug.etsy.com!

I'm planning to begin stocking up my Etsy shop this Friday, so run over there and bookmark it, heart it, add me to your circle, and keep your eyes peeled, because this Etsy shop is happening!





I've also got new postcards and business cards, a nice fat stack of postcard prints of other illustrations, and my stickers should be arriving any day now. I'd like to make some fine art prints available too at some point, but that will have to wait for the time being. Right now, I'm sewing plush!

Little by little, everything is coming together.

**EDIT**
I've decided I need a bit more time to launch the Etsy shop. Wednesday or Friday, I think.
Some time between November 2nd & 4th, kissabug.etsy.com! I'll keep you posted.

Handmade Miami Craft Carnival

Fun news friends! 

This year I will be participating in the Handmade Miami Craft Carnival! I'll be selling prints, paper dolls, stickers, and plush goodies, so if you are in or around Miami, FL when November 5th rolls around, please stop on by! I'll be posting often in the coming weeks with updates. AND since this event has lit a fire under me, I'll be setting up an Etsy shop soon as well. Stay tuned!

Lorenzo and Lynda

(Photo by Elizabeth Stemporzewski, used with permission. Thanks Elizabeth!)

Here is a portrait that I painted for Lynda and Lorenzo, friends of mine that I have known since elementary school. They just got married! I was so happy to be asked to do a portrait for their wedding, which was used for the cover of their guestbook. Congratulations Lorenzo and Lynda! All my love! ♥

Old Forgotten Things

Here are some things that I forgot to post! They are all precisely one million years old.

First up is the forgotten monster that I painted years ago along with the other characters of this flickr set.
I somehow I managed to overlook him, poor thing.
Next are two color studies for the Telephone Series. I love them, they are as loose as it gets.
Then is an old but not too old page of colors from the messbook for the Tarot Journal notebook cover.
And last is the painting of a trio of goldfish, which is probably one of the first paintings that I made upon rediscovering gouache, ever so many years ago.
So many old things. My, how time flies.
And there are newer things to come.

So Many Swatches

I uploaded 12 pages of swatches to flickr today! Yikes, 12! I think 12 is a pretty pretty overwhelming number for a blog post though, so please visit the flickr set if you want to see more. I mix a lot of paint y'all. I have so many of these pages now that I feel like I need to do something with them... but what? Ideas?

Drawing Lines in my Sleep

Click for big.

I keep a journal by my bed to jot down my thoughts, and sometimes to record my dreams when I wake. In the back of the journal, I draw patterns and lines, mostly to calm my mind or to occupy my hands and eyes while I listen to an audiobook, podcast, or some music before bed. I find making this kind of freehand drawing very rhythmic and soothing.

The first page above is a collection of a few snippets from my late night drawing sessions by lamp light, cut and arranged to fit my neatbook. I thought it was a lovely coincidence that the sheet music matched the color and feel of the drawings.

The bottom image is of a neatbook page that I'd begun ages ago, just wavy lines and wobbly diamonds in orangey red, and I never knew what to do with it. It recently occurred to me that it might make a nice abstract nature backdrop, and that is how the goldfish came to live there.

Some Long Overdue Neatbookings

Here are a few pages from my neatbook that I have been meaning to share for some time now.
Click to view larger!

Speaking of the neatbook— forever ago, Miss Mel Chao of To Boldly Fold, who made this book for me, took some lovely photos of it while I was in Boston this June. Take a look at her blog post about it here.

I realize that it has been 5 months since my last post. Will you ever forgive me? I hope you will. I am making things all the time, and have more to show, as well as some projects in the works, I promise you.

I just need to be better at sharing.

Because sharing is caring.

And I care, I swear.

xoxo

Their Hearts and Eyes are Golden

For a while now I've been keeping record of all my Tarot readings and interpretations, written in a notebook that I use specifically for Tarot. I think Tarot reading is pretty fun and useful— I read the cards to clear my mind and to sort my thoughts, much like guided introspection. A journal for secret little internal explorations deserves a special cover, so I painted an alternate version of a favorite Neatbook page, Tree Children.



By the time the first Tarot journal was filled, I'd grown so accustomed to the cover that I didn't want to let it go. I decided to paint the same image on the next two, with varying background colors. I think it's interesting how differently the covers came out, considering they came from the same initial drawing.  It was a fun and frustrating experiment, though not one that I'll be repeating any time soon!



Happy as I am with the copies, the first is still my favorite. Someday I hope to take a screen printing class, and once I've learned and gathered what I need, this will be the first thing on my screen printing to-do list.

I actually painted a different and redrawn version on a larger notebook, but after some consideration, I decided I didn't like the size for a Tarot Journal. I have other plans for that notebook, so I'll save it for another time.

On an unrelated note— Let's pretend that I did not completely miss a full month of blogging.
Technically, today is April 1st, but if I pretend this is March 31st, will you promise not to tell?
Shh... It will be our little secret.

In Circles

Another from the neatbook, portraits in circles. The bear and the freckled girl in the upper right are my favorites. Click the image to enlarge.

King of Newts

Above, I present to you the good King Edmund-- the great and gentle giant bearded newt, lord of all newts, and protector of rivers and rolling hills. Often on warm days he can be seen emerging from the waters to bask in the sun and watch children play in the shallows. Click the image to view larger.

Doodles of this fellow have been in my sketchbooks for quite some time now, and I am happy to have finally done something about it. This was a fun one, with a few experiments along the way. The tree and the water are things I tried to tackle differently from how I normally might, and I am pretty proud of them. There is nothing so satisfying as the completion of a new painting.

Below, you can see the sketch to final. Start from the bottom left.
As always, click the image to view larger.



It has been too long since my last post, again not for lack of things to be posted. For some reason I always wait, I hold on to things before posting them. That, and I have a terrible tendency to all but forget/ignore the existence of the internet for long stretches of time. A few of many New Year's resolutions: blog more often, don't hold back, have no shame or fear, find balance, get it together.

See you soon, friends. All my love.