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...

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. ;-)

Prom!

Prom!

The Winterwoods at their prom, before they were The Winterwoods of course.

Because the subject matter, I felt like it was ok to have a bit more fun, and not worry as much about the stuff I usually do. Its more cartoon, right? Fast and furious.

Being a Canadian, I didn't have a "prom." I had a semi-formal (whatever that was for) and a "Grad" when I graduated. Both were crappy. I think I went to both, even though my internal voice screamed nooooo! Live and Learn. I skipped my high school and university graduations ceremonies, so I guess I learned my lesson. Since I have also decided not to have a wedding, I am home free for "everyone look at me and my big dress" events for life. WooHOOO!

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 alive!

Not having to tend my Etsy Shop is weird! When I hear the email ping I don't feel like I have to run in the room and check right away. I am so unpopular.

I have been busy this week but I can't show much as they are gifts...What if the giftee saw it?? Horror.
- I finished up a gift for new bundle of baby!! Its SO not my usual colour scheme.
- did a little Christmas illustration decoration, which I guess I could make downloadable later this week...yes.
-sketched up a *ton* of new print ideas. Its a sheaf.
-and printed up a new lino print (Which I can show you!)

I had this stamp carved for a year or two, and have used it a few times on paper for tags and things, a few times on fabric. But it was time for a proper print run. These teeny little prints are oil based ink on thick and smooth watercolour paper. They will be listed in my shop when I return on December 30th.

The oil based ink works so much better for me than the water based did. I think I may have to switch permanently. Sure I risk brain damage when cleaning it up...

So even though I have orders from my dude to "not work and watch movies," I don't feel that happening today. Its a day to produce! Vampire boys don't draw themselves you know.

Newness

My mailman brought a big box to me!

New mats! (Hey, it was exciting to ME! See the exclamation points!!)

I would love to mat everything in oval mats. It reminds me of old photos and fairytale illustrations. Some of my paintings have rough edges and can be hard to mat without a getting a custom mat cut (Which is a pain. Am I right? You won't do that.) So I will introduce a few prints in this new format.

I haven't even updated the shop with the new listings or anything. I will probably do it throughout the weekend...Later. What? Am I a robot? A listing robot?? Its FRIDAY.

I might do my Twilight review later today. I finished the book last night so I wouldn't have to stick my fingers in my ears whenever some movie review came on TV. (Which is a freaking frequent occurrence, with all the **dazzle hype.**) I am one of those people who hates having any part of movies or tv ruined for me. Even if I know what is going to happen. I don't want to know when, how or what pants they are wearing when it happens.

Off to find some sort of sparkle graphic to accompany my review...

An new print.

I don't generally do artwork that is for a specific time of the year, as that just seems like such a strange and limiting concept...

But. I did do a Halloween-ish one this year.

Not that it started out that way, it just kind of progressed and with LARGE thanks to a costume idea from Martha Stewart, it just became a Halloween painting.

Here is a progress shot I grabbed if it as I threw paint on it. Of course, using orange makes it instantly Halloweeny. I hardly ever use orange.

I think this is one of the rare times when the print is actually more beautiful than the original artwork. I reproduced it at the same size and the slight change in colour that happens when you scan and print really made it pop. It's available in the shop now. I might also offer it matted in the near future. And probably the original painting too. Haha, how many ways can you utilize one image? I will do it!

P.S. She has magic hair. In more ways than one.

Took my sweet time...

Yeah, the finished "Sugar and Spice" and "Not Very Nice" paintings sat around for a while. (The ones from the previous post...)



They are in the shop. I could have worked on them for weeks and weeks, with all their little critters and flowers and stuff. Everything always needs more highlights and lowlights and splatter. If I didn't stop myself I would ruin everything by overworking it until it was a mess.

I think they turned out cute. I have plans to make them into an object a little later on today...

But first I have to ride the streetcar (I heart the streetcars so much in the summer.) and buy fancy envelopes and art supplies. My silkscreen experiment failed miserably. I had bought a new big screen, but then my photo emulsion refused to harden after being exposed. Grrr. So I need to redo the whole thing again. I would LOVE to just pay someone to burn my screen for me, but I am cheap.

Ok, ok, enough procrastinating, its 1:44 in the afternoon and I am still wearing pyjamas...