Flickring and my art on letterpress cards (!)

When Flickr first launched, I remember lots of people being highly skeptical. I signed up for a paid account ages ago and still love this online photo/image service. About 90% of my illustration clients find me through my Flickr pics, and I've even made money with a few photos as well. My school teacher friend Allison just earned some money with one of her photos because of Flickr; apparently Scholastic Canada is going to use one of them in an upcoming textbook!

What I enjoy most about Flickr right now, however, is the fact that it's a glimpse into a zillion other lives, one photo at a time. Fascinating to go into Everyone's Most Recent Photos every so often, for example. Click "Refresh," and the entire page changes. For photographers, it can be truly inspiring. I recently happened to follow one random photo to this set of amazing photos and then this blog. I'd kill to be able to take wedding photos like that.



Flickr also got me a new illustration assignment. A small letterpress company based in a village in northern Wales wants to do a line of letterpress cards with my illustrations on them! They like my woodcut style characters like the cat below, and have commissioned more artwork:



I'm very excited about this! I've been fascinated by letterpress since seeing the letterpress display at Coach House Press during Doors Open and subsequently interviewing letterpress publisher Nicholas Kennedy for blogTO.

Anyway, I loveLOVE the idea of this north Wales shop hand-printing cards on Victorian letterpress printing machines with MY ARTWORK on them. When they're for sale, I'll let you know.

I've posted a review of Penrose Fish & Chips on blogTO, if you're interested. It's one of our favourite fish & chips places in Toronto. Yummm...



Sold two more paintings yesterday. I decided to revamp one of my current paintings (the fairy painting below).



Instead of a regular wedding card to accompany the bowl that Luisa and I made for our friends Hrach and Lori, I created the 4" x 4" mini-painting in acrylics (see below) instead. I designed a note to stick to the back of the painting, we signed it, then inserted it into a small envelope.



Some of the paintings above are on sale in my Etsy shop.

Video O' The Day:

I was grossed out by the zombie scenes at first but then was HIGHLY amused.

THE LAST DUET ON EARTH: "In the future, music will be the only thing that matters anymore."



(Thanks to Ray for the link!)



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Weddings, pottery and painting

Congrats to Hrach and Lori on their wedding! Luisa and I attended yesterday as each other's dates since both our husbands were at BGG.con in Texas (Jeff's coming home today, yay!). As part of our wedding gift to the happy couple, she and I collaborated on creating this bowl:



Luisa designed and shaped the bowl, then gave it to me. I painted a design on it: the flowering vine as well as the couple's name and wedding date on the outside, and a small heart inside at the bottom of the bowl. Then I gave it back to Luisa, who glazed and fired it.



This time I was careful to outline all my colours in three coats so that they would come out properly after being fired. It was painstaking work because I was SOOOO paranoid about screwing up; Luisa had done such a wonderful job on creating the bowl, and you can't really paint over a mistake the way you can in acrylics. In fact, one of the reasons I started painting acrylics was because I wanted to get some practice with real-life painting and build up my confidence for pottery painting. I use different paint for pottery, of course.



We were both pretty pleased with how the bowl turned out, and we're going to do some other pottery projects together. I may even put the occasional piece up for sale on Etsy. I sold three paintings yesterday, by the way; thanks so much for your support!

I also very much appreciated tips from my artist friend Beckett, and went out and bought better brushes as a result. I also read up on how to take care of my brushes, though I'm a bit confused by all the conflicting advice. Some sources advice washing with soap and water, letting the soap foam but not rinsing it out; the soap apparently acts as a sizing ingredient and helps keep the brush shape, is rinsed out when you first wet the brush before painting next time. But other sources say to always make sure to rinse out every trace of soap.



This source advices artists to put a new brush in their mouths (IN THE SHOP!!) to see if it holds together nicely when it's wet before deciding whether to buy it. Eugh.

But I digress.



The wedding was lovely, and I enjoyed learning about some Armenian wedding traditions. The "crowning," for instance, when headpieces are tied around both the bride's and the groom's heads. During this ritual, the best man stands between the two, holding a cross over them both.

I got a lot more practice with my camera and Sigma 30/1.4 lens. With the low light in the reception room, I had to crank the ISO up to 1600 to avoid using the flash. The pictures are a somewhat grainy as a result, but I continue to be amazed and pleased with that lens. I also came across some of the challenges of shooting photos at a wedding and quickly learned NOT to try setting the exposure or focus by aiming directly at the blinding white of the bride's dress or the unrelenting black of the groom's suit.



Thanks to Lori and Hrach for a fine evening, and to Luisa for being my date. :-) For those interested, I have more pics from the wedding online.






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Artsytalk

I forgot to mention earlier in the week that Will Write For Chocolate has been updated.

As I've mentioned before, my music group (Urban Tapestry) is the Music Guest Of Honor at Balticon next year. Connie Willis is the Author Guest Of Honor, and we've just found out that John Jude Palencar is the Artist Guest Of Honor.



You may not recognize his name, but I guarantee you've seen his artwork. He's done book covers and illustrations for works by Stephen King, Lovecraft, Connie Willis, Tolkien and many others, but is probably best known for his covers to the fantasy novels of Christopher Paolini.

For those that don't know, Balticon is a four day science fiction convention that with over 300 hours of multi-track programming featuring authors, publishers, editors, artists, scientists, musicians and other "creative sf luminaries." Date: May 23-26, 2008. Place: Marriott's Hunt Valley Inn in Baltimore, Maryland. You can download the Balticon 42 PDF flyer or see the Balticon Web site for more info.

My convention plans for next year are as follows:

GAfilk (Atlanta, GA - Jan. 11-13): Very much looking forward to this! Jeff & Maya Bohnhoff are the Guests of Honor, Brian Richardson is Toastmaster, and the Brobdingnagian Bards are the Interfilk Guests.

SCBWI Winter Conference (New York - Feb 8-10): The 9th Annual Winter Conference On Writing & Illustrating For Children.

FilKONtario (Toronto, Apr. 4-6): GoH-Michelle Dockrey and Tony Fabris, Filk Waif: Bill Roper, Interfilk Guest: Marilyn Miller, Special Guest: Heather Bruton. Urban Tapestry has a concert!

Balticon (Baltimore, May 23-26), of course. We'll be doing a concert and will also be involved in the children's programming.

SCBWI Summer Conference (Los Angeles, Aug. 3-6): Beckett Gladney and I are rooming together at this conference about children's book writing and illustrating.

And I'm hoping very hard to be able to make it to the Ohio Valley Filk Fest next year, where the Guests of Honor are Annie & Tim Walker, Toastmasters are Becca and Graham Leathers, Listener Guest is Jan di Masi, and the Interfilk Guest is Sibylle Machat. This convention will depend on finances, though, since going to the LA conference will be pretty pricey.


"Bunnylove" - original fridge art on 3"x5" canvas board.
Available on Etsy.

In addition to my regular writing, I'm working on two book projects right now: the graphic novel I mentioned before, plus putting together a book proposal for a compilation of some of my writing-related cartoons.

And I'm still getting huge enjoyment out of my DSLR camera. Since buying my Rebel XTi last July, I've been taking a ton of photos. Many are very, very bad and I end up deleting them. But I'm gradually learning more along the way.


"Sunjoy" - original fridge art on 3"x5" canvas board.
Available on Etsy.

Above: "Sunjoy" is all about embracing life. The girl in the picture is facing the sun, arms outstretched in the wind. In my mind's eye, she's smiling, her eyes closed.

Anyway, I'm thinking of revamping my online work portfolio to include photography. I'm not actively pursuing professional photography right now (I want to focus on my writing and illustration) but I have enough publishing credits anyway that it's about time I list them somewhere.

And just recently, an educational publisher contacted me about using one of my photos in a new textbook. In the old days, I would have been just thrilled. This time, I cautiously asked about how they were planning to use the photo (how much of the page it would take up) and they responded with detailed info plus their standard rate...which was more than three times the amount I was planning to ask for (!). Wow.

I've also had a family-owned garden centre in California pay a licensing fee to use one of my garden photos. Kudos to John from Clifton's Flower & Garden Center; he could have just scooped my photo and used it on his Web site (it would have been a violation of my copyright but would I ever find out?), but instead he was honest and asked permission.

So how many of you have started Christmas shopping? I actually started early this year, when I was in Calgary. If you're buying for a writer, librarian or bibliophile, by the way, don't forget to check my list of holiday gifts for writers.



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Painting with acrylics

I've posted a review of Lemongrass restaurant on blogTO, for those interested.

But on to the main topic of this Blathering...

So I was painting mini-canvases I found in Calgary for a Christmas ornament exchange (smaller canvases than the ones pictured above). I wasn't used to painting with real acrylics and was surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience. So I decided to try with 4"x 4" canvas boards I found in a local art store:




Trying to figure out how to hang them, I came up with the idea of turning them into fridge magnets by sticking a strip of magnetic tape on the back of each:



I figure they can also be displayed on mini-easels:



I only picked up two of these mini-easels when I was in Calgary and wish I had bought more. I'm currently looking for a source online where I can buy them in bulk.




I've also decided that I'm going to start occasionally (very occasionally) selling some of my handmade art in my spankin' new Etsy shop. As most of you know, I usually work in digital format. Every once in a while, though, I find it's fun to play around with real paints.

Painting with genuine acrylics instead of digital is an educational experience. There's no Undo or Delete, and the lack of digital layers means I have to plan things ahead of time much better. Anyway, I figure it's good for me to try this every once in a while.

While I had my acrylics out, I was suddenly overcome by a need to paint vines on part of my office wall:



That blue thing hanging to the left is my craft apron (I did that crazed face in fabric paint). To the right: my magnetic wall, which I created using magnetic paint.

You can see some other pics of my office in Flickr. Every so often, I'll go back and take a look at photos of the room BEFORE we moved in:



The bit of wall you see to the far right of the photo is the one I painted vines on. Wow. The space sure has changed since then.

Looking forward to going to the David Francey concert with Tom, Sue, Walter and Trish tonight. Apparently because we booked so early (thanks, Tom & Sue), we have the best seats in the house, woohoo!



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Letter of the Day

Busier than usual, hence the brevity of this Blathering.

My writing-related comics have been appearing every weekday on the National Novel Writing Month site this month, and just recently I received a great letter from one of the NaNoWriMo participants: you can read it here.

Also...

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my photographer friend, Iain Bradbury. Well, Iain has a professional Web site now, with help from my Web designer friend Ray! So do check out Iain Bradbury Photography when you have a chance.

I've also compiled a list of Holiday Gift Ideas For Writers, Librarians and Biliophiles.

Link O' The Day:

Mainly of interest to Canadians...

The Final Cost: this online calculator will help you estimate the final cost of purchasing items from the USA and having your order shipped to Canada. (Thanks to Ray for the link!)



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