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.