Lets wreck some something!

My partner just up and exclaimed that our nightstands were friggan' ugly. I kind of agreed. They are standard ikea ones, a kinda greyish white striated finished laminate. They had also seem better days. 

Why did we even buy them??! 

We hate them now. 

SO lets wreck them!!

 Ugh, so boring. The laminate is peeling a bit from those bottom cut outs too. I peeled off any edges of laminate that were sticking out, glued and filled the edges then sanded them. Then I  took off the doors and the little shelf.

The internet is like "Oh use chalk paint, its the best" I TRUSTED YOU INTERNET. Ok, I am sure chalk paint is great when you get the right materials, but my DIY plaster/paint mix was chunky AND translucent and pretty much garbage. But we are WRECKING these things, so no matter, just try and make it pretty smooth, and do a few coats and it will alllll work out...

Oh, did you like that subtle, chalky finish? That is great but ohmygosh so dull. Lets wreck it more by dripping black inky paint on it. Also use a straw, dip it in paint then blow forcefully through it to get amazing spatters. Let each side dry before moving it.

Hey, that is pretty neat actually.

Ok, now once it is all dry you have to clear coat it. I used a satin polycrylic with a pretty small brush. Do a few coats (let each one dry) especially on the top where it will get wear.

Ok, they are pretty weird.

But they are SO MUCH BETTER than the boring ikea grey joykillers. I didn't even have to change the knobs like I thought I would, because they disappear. YAY.

Now we can relax. 

If you are thinking of trying questionable projects, you can't beat using an old Ikea piece as a starting point. Literally every step of this was a disaster, but I pressed on and the end product is super neat! 

The nightstand update is literally the first thing I did to my standard beige rental bedroom. Better find some more stuff to DIY/wreck...

Art Doll - Blue Cat

I thought it would be interesting to paint a doll before sewing it. This is my little test guy.

I made a rough pattern out of paper first, then traced it on the fabric. This would be the basic ink outline. I didn't really plan what he would end up looking like,  this was more of a "figure out how this is going to work" scenario.

I mixed my acrylic with fabric medium, so when it was complete I would be able to heat set it.

I found that I had to build up layers so it wouldn't all run together in a soggy mess (although sometimes that is EXACTLY what looks the best.) I did thin washes and spatters, blasted them with my dryer (which I always use when I paint) And slowly built up this little guy's face.

After painting all the parts, and heat setting them with an iron,  I cut them out with a seam allowance. Then I used a piece of black cotton the same size and sewed alone the outline with right sides facing each other. Get it? 

I left the toes and wrists open and added little hands and toenails. Then stuffed it.

I initially was going to have the limbs be fixed to the body but I thought it would be nice if he could sit or hang out like a cool cat. So I attached the limbs with thread, kind of like you attach a button to a shirt.

I think he turned out quite good for a test run! His feet are my favorite part.

Little Blue Cat is available in my Etsy Shop right now. I am planning to make a few more critters now with this format, its a nice combo of painting and sewing for me.

Painty Party

Painting little doodles. Trying to remember how I ever painted anything before...I think I forgot how in the months since I have done any new work...

*dabble dabble*

Lil' painting

A little painting is finished...

This tiny little painting started out as a face doodle on a scrap of board...

It was inked with acrylic ink then painted in acrylic paint. I sealed it with glossy varnish.

Her little face is cute, no?

I am waiting to put her into a little Ikea frame. A painting this small just seem like it should be sold as a complete package. I will just let the varnish cure a bit more and probably will list it on Wednesday...

(UPDATE!: Here she is in her frame!)

Think she would make a nice bookmark? print? hmm. Will have to do some test printing tonight too. Much to do, much to do...

New painting and more bread rambling...

Worked on a new little painting...

First, a little pencil sketch emerged...

Unsurprisingly, he seems to be some sort of fox-like creature...

And then the painting...

A Fox Soldier! He is dressed in his best uniform with his buttons all shined up.

and the I scanned it and printed it and matted it!

This is a photo taken in my studio. I have not had the official listing picture photoshoot, as it is rainy and gray today. This little print needs natural light! I really love the print in real life. I had not planned to mat it in an oval, but the subject matter just seemed too perfect to not try and it worked.

I think I will mat the original and sell it too, it needed almost no Photoshop and is pretty much identical to the print.

(Update: I listed the print at Blackforestcake! Check him out...)

And...

On the weekend I got a cute new toy. (Ok, its not a toy,  but this thing is fun to me.)

A teeny, tiny bread machine!!

After much use and abuse of the old second hand bread machine I was gifted, it became clear that I needed a new machine. The old ones pan kept popping out and then it wouldn't let go of the loaves!

After scouring reviews, I decided on this little baby. The Zojirushi Home Bakery Mini Breadmaker. It IS little, only making 1 pound loaves. That is about 9 slices of bread per loaf. That is really small for bread machines. Its about half as big as my old one.

See? Small little perfect loaves of bread. This one is a light rye. 

I have made two loaves of bread so far, and its a dream. For two people its perfect to have such small loaves. Bread machine bread only has a short lifespan and we would always have mouldy leftover bread at the end of the week. It also has a handle on the top so you can move it around. I really struggled lifting the old machine, it was the size of a microwave!

We had to drive to the super faraway Pacific mall to buy it, but a trip to "The World's Largest Asian Mall" is hardly a hardship...

I am going to try to make pizza dough in it next. Like, right now. YAY!

(Update: I totally made it too. It was so fat and ugly! But tasted soo goood.)

When they say "thick crust" in a recipe, they mean THICK! hee hee. Next time I will make two instead...

Those brushes were in that jar of water for two weeks.

Working on a little painting project.

I always add all the colours of paint I own to my wet palette, even if I don't plan to use them. Because I am a bad planner, and who knows what will strike my fancy once I start painting...

P.S. A new clean palette sucks. I know artists sometimes go on about how they love preparation for painting, and some elements of it, I do enjoy. But the setting up of new paint is annoying and I usually avoid it until my palette is a murky, sloppy mess that is almost unusable. Weird huh?

Ok, less posting about painting, more painting.

New print!

A new matted print in the shop today.

Meghan. A 5 by 7 inch print in an 8 by 10 mat.

There are parts of this painting I looove, and parts I haaate.

Her face in the original is so pretty with such subtle layers, and some of the background splotches are so perfect...But she has major proportional problems. Haha. I don't feel bad about tweaking her a bit in Photoshop, because I like the final outcome. I think the print looks great. The colours look really rich and warm in the off white mat.

I am also assembling some bookmarks this afternoon with this image on them, and they look really nice so far. Will probably post them later today.

And, I started a winter/Christmas/Holiday project! It was hard to do it before Halloween, but I am responsible like that. ;-)

Friday is not a day for stress

Sewing sucked my will to live.

So I moved onto something else.

Sometimes your plans change. I was struggling with sewing, and everything was going wrong. So I just put it all away for another day and started something new. Much better!

We shall see how this goes...

Sparkle.

Sparkled!

A little painting in the studio getting its final touches...Notice a similarity in someones hair colour? HEE HEEEE.

Black Sparkle.

This little painting has a hand painted frame too. It has been hanging around in my studio for months and months! So I thought I should actually get around to filling it. Adding the little black sparkle necklace and bow on top of the varnish was fun. I know the idea of adding sparkle to anything could make it a cheap piece of junk so it was a gamble...but I think it looks cute. Cute junk!

Its available in the shop right now...

Ok, now to clean up a billion tiny sparkle flecks from everything...

New in the shop...

I have two new little items for my shops today!

This is "Little Kay"

This little original painting is on a handmade polymer clay ornament. I am always experimenting with painting of different surfaces. I haven't decided if I am going to do more of these or not, it was fun, but sometimes fun isn't a good business decision. haha.

I made this little fox for my Blackforestcake Etsy shop. Aw, isn't he sweet?

And...

I got my cookie cake for 1500 sales! That baby was eaten so fast. Sure, I like to make real homemade cookies from scratch, but sometimes an overly sweet mall-made treat is just what you need. JUNK! :-)

I somehow hurt my back like a sad old woman, and sitting in my studio chair is killing me. Hopefully I heal and can get pack to work, because the next two weeks are a basically the best time of year. I have so many plans for things I want to make!! CakesCookiesDecorationsCostumesCoffins! :-D Can you tell I am excited?!

Sweet!

Ok, important stuff first.

I made sweet lemon poppy seed cakes.

YUM. I used a recipe from The Martha Stewart Livings Cookbook: The Original Classicsbut no one tell Martha that I added poppy seeds to the cake. Like really, lemon cakes are supposed to have poppy seeds in the cake, not just on top. Really!

They are super good, with a blast of lemon syrup that is supposed to seep through the cake but just really stays on top just under the sugar drizzle. Trying hard not to just scarf down both cakes in one day.

Next sweet thing..

Two paintings that I have been slowly finishing for the last few days. I might have to do one hundred more of these, as there are so many cat faces that need representation. They are available in my Etsy shop.

Third super sweet thing is:

Won a trip to Montreal!

Going to Pop Montreal on a TRAIN. Can you tell what part I am excited about? Haha. I lived in a "train town" most of my life and never went on a train. It just sounds fun to me. I don't know any of the bands at this festival, but there are so many i am sure I will like some of them. Never been to Montreal before, it will be *so* interesting.

AND

1500 sales at my Etsy!!!! SWEEEET.

Thanks to all my customers, you guys are big buckets of sweet sugar and stuff. Big thanks to Lynds the Crazy Cat Lady for the purchase that put me over the top. :-) YAY.

Oh yeah, and last sweet thing is that its getting colder and I can wear coats. YES. This is a big deal to me. Coat addiction activate! :-)

On a roll.

I am really milking this one painting for all the blog posts I can get out of it!

I worked on this painting WAY too much. Like, hours and hours and hours. I am usually a super fast painter. I still have the urge to work on it too, I just can't seem to get it where I want it. If I just liked more colourful subject matter, life would be so much easier. All that black on black was such a pain.

The scanned and photoshopped version is ready for the spotlight!

It looks almost too dark until you put it in the mat, then it totally changes. I guess having a photo of it in the mat would make more sense. Uh, go look at the listing to see one. (See what I did there? ) Haha.

I am probably going to do a bookmark or mini print of something else with this image. And if I can work out the kinks on the original I will sell that too.

So now I have to go and baby my cat. I had to shave some of the fur off his tail and it majorly hurt his pride. Handsome cats take things like this very hard. It should grow back in a few weeks, but until then he is a big fat ugly cat instead of a big fat adorable cat. Sigh.

Still more Winterwoods.

They are probably about half finished... Ok, maybe 40 percent. 30? Does a face count for more percentage than an elbow?



Her face is complete, working on the hair. I rarely fully finish one area at a time but I am giving it a shot.



He looks a bit better now. I am still not sure if I digging him yet though. But there is still work to be done, so that could change. He looks less like a teen heartthrob though!

Next is clothing, and sometimes I kick myself for getting all involved in intricate outfits when it comes to painting them. Like ruffles and tiny buttons?! WHY did I do that to myself!

A few more days and they will be ready. I already have an idea for the next painting of them. Obsessed much?

More Winterwoods.

Little sketch...

I swear he won't look like Zac Efron when its painted. (Ok, I hope!) And I took it on an angle to try and keep a bit of mystery, but I think it just added gigantism.

This is another drawing of The Winterwoods, a couple I did a print of before. I like the idea of people who might come back again and again. Or maybe I just like the idea that I get to draw their clothing. Ha. Plus I can make up more of a story for these people, and then ideas come to me more readily. I always enjoyed falling back on Batcat when I felt less than creative, and becaus it wasn't forced I made some good quality artwork. So I am trying to do it again with some new kids.

Its too cold in my studio for me to be too productive today. So I leave The Winterwoods in their sketch form, and get to the business of making myself a mini-apple crisp.

Anita Blake!

The Anita Blake painting I have been posting progress shots of is finished...

I am not gonna lie, there is some digital cut and paste going on here. Her shrunken body was enlarged. I know a lady isn't supposed to share secrets like that, but it was pretty bad, so I must confess.

I actually like it quite a bit. You have no idea how scary splattering blood on it was though! Its could have ruined it so easily. That monster behind her isn't supposed to be anything in particular. There are a billion supernatural things in the books I could have done, but that would have taken research, and I am lazy. I wussed out at adding arm scars (the character has a lot of them in the books) but only hardcore geeks would know that right?

I made bookmarks with it! It seemed like the logical. They have a blood red back to them. So appropriate. I am probably going to have it as a print in my Etsy shop too. But later.

Most selfish painting ever. haha.

Ghost Girl!

I think she seems like a ghost, what do you think?

I think it turned out pretty good. She has a bit of that " big eyed girl" current look that I usually try to avoid, but I can live with that. I used my favorite colour combo, black purple and gray, and that alone makes me like it. If it doesn't sell in 4 months I am totally keeping it!

She is in the shop, and I put her at a competitive (is that the word I am looking for?) price for an original painting. :-) Cheap is what I mean.

I had planned to post two paintings, but it is too dreary a day to get good photos of the other one. Plus I might hate it, so I need to stare at it for another day. So tomorrow.

Painting progress...

I posted some line art last Thursday, and I am slowly turning it into some sort of actual painting.

Its coming along. She has "giant head" right now, but I can probably fix it. Or just burn it if I can't. ;-) I am liking it less the more I look at it, but I am trying to not be all Debbie Downer about it.

My dude switched to night shift this week and its making me all weird! I don't know when to eat my meals. A voice in my head says "When you're hungry dummy!" but that is easier said than done. Watching someone eat dinner hours after I ate mine is torture!!

Tomorrow I have finished paintings to post and list! Yay!

Today is pointless.

Its one of those days I can't make myself do anything worthwhile. I have some pouches to photograph, bookmarks to make, whatever, don't want to. I feel like moping today.

So I started a totally pointless painting. No plan, no direction, just paint and pencil on canvas. Its an exercise in uselessness. I am not trying to challenge myself or illustrate something. Its just because I want to do it...

It may be beautiful, it may be horrible and get painted over before 10pm tonight. But at very least, I am doing something. And today, that is a victory.

P.S. Hello 50 followers! (Thanks Rachel!!) Its such a cute little number. Makes me feel quaint. Maybe someday I will have 50 000 like some blogs. Maybe interesting content will go out of style and complaining and pictures of half finished artwork will come into vogue. YES.

Two new Loves.

After hinting I would create some new animal "Love" pin and sticker sets, I actually DID IT. *gasp.

Panda Love!

Bunny Love! (Its not even listed yet. I am a marketing genius.)

Panda was quite the leap for me. I intended the Love sets to be Canadian animals that I loved. I kind of changed the rules by adding a Red Squirrel (which Canada doesn't have, we only have brown and gray and black, which are cute but no big ears I love so much...) so after that the concept changed.

I do love Pandas, I somehow don't even believe they are a real animal. So weird. And Bunny Love just seemed natural. I did struggle to choose a bunny that represented every bunny. Its impossible! They all look so different. So screw that, I just did a mix of them all.

So the Love set got a bit bigger. I already have a few ideas for more, but I don't want to go nuts. Maybe in a while...

Today I have an appointment with a makeup artist friend who will make me gorgeous. No reason, just because its fun, and I am a good consumer. So I have an excuse to not work any more today. haha!

Lastly, I leave you with this little sneak peek at my work in progress.

It didn't start as fan art, but it became it as soon as I did the hair. I do so much work that I think is acceptable for people to hang in their homes, and then it doesn't sell. This one won't be as pretty. Sometimes you just need to nerd out and do something with blood splatter for yourself, Am I right? :-D

Get your fresh paintings! Right Here!

*eep*

Listed another original painting! (Two actually...)

"Sugar and Spice" and "Not Very Nice" are now for sale at my Etsy Shop.

Batcat is a moody beast. He can be both sweet and sour. I think I just wanted to have an excuse to paint night animals! This can serve as my Owl contribution to Etsy, as it seems that every hipster person on earth likes owls for some reason. *snark* Ok, I can't point fingers. I like bats just like every other gothy-girl out there. I think I just burned myself.

I feel a bit of that "OHNO...CAN'TSELLMYARTWORK!!" creeping back in. These two paintings are really cute in real life, and mid way through taking photos so I could list them I changed my mind. Then I changed it back last night. Haha.

So there. They are out there. I can't really take it back now. *cries*