New show

Spring is almost here! Finally! Alter being so cold for so long, I am stoked to have booked several shows for later this year when the summer is in full swing and festivals abound!! The newest one I have signed up for is probably one of the biggest- Kentucky Western Waterland's 33rd annual Arts and Crafts Festival Labor Day weekend. If you have never been, its one of the biggest in the area, and always interesting. This year their show will be right here in lovely scenic Grand Rivers, one of Cosmo's most romantic places in the U.S., at our new Little Lake Park. Set back in the trees, this "little" park is a shaded, cool place to spend a leisurely day looking at crafts, eating nummy festival food, and hanging out with your loved ones. Their show features all handmade only items, and includes a super huge variety- from over 100 vendors, including wood carvers, broom makers, painters, sculptors, and some of the craftiest folks this side of the Mississippi! So mark your calendars!! If you have not yet ventured over to my website, wander on over now and see my calendar to see where else I'll be this summer. My goods will vary from NEW fun jewelry, bedazzled versions of my printed clothing, and of course, NEW cooler vases that have yet to be unveiled!!! And while you're here enjoying our quaint little town be sure to check out the sunset at the jetty:

Weekly special

Buy anything from my store, and I will personally send you a special treat, handmade by me, free!! Whatever could it be? Just send me an email after you place your order with your address.

Thanks! xoxo

Legal Mumbo Jumbo

Today is a day of legalities and other such nonsense that artist hate. Alas, sometimes, it must be done....arggggh! So I spent all day typing up contracts for all my art-related business, and took a break to check my email, which is usually ten to fifteen messages of brainless nonsense like, "forward this to all the moms you know," or 20 pictures of something crazy.

Going off topic- if you really want to see something crazy, check this guy out on youtube. It is a friend of mine from high school's little brother, who has apparently achieved youtube notoriety.

Back on topic- even though my email is usually a break from thinking, today I recieved an email relevant and important, a tax law that affects all artists.

This organization needs our help! Apparently, when an artist donates a work of art to an organization for whatever reason, he or she can only deduct the cost of the materials used to produce the artwork of his or her taxes. Meanwhile, a collector that donates the same artwork can deduct the fair market value. Most artists at one time or another donate art to boost their career, help out their favorite charity, or both. Is it fair that artists not get the same tax deductions? ABSOLUTELY NOT! So take two minutes to submit this simple form to Congress. Thanks!!

Colored pencil drawing

Colored pencils are sooo underrated. I love working with them, playing with the values, shading and layering. If you have dismissed colored pencils as something you use in grade school projects, look again. Colored pencils come in wide varieties and vary greatly in quality. There are the regular, hard school ones everyone has used. There are softer, higher quality ones that draw on smooth, and are a delight to work with. My favorite are Prismacolor.

I just finished a drawing for a commissioned work. I was asked to make a painting with lilies and butterflies, using blue, green, and purple. This is my sketch for the painting:

I know I went overboard for a sketch. Proof that colored pencils are fun! This picture has all my favorite things-butterflies and flowers, paisley, filigree, and Art Nouveau. What do you think?

FOUND!! Free Art/ Photo Program!

After my last plea for a free, but good, art program, I was directed in the way of this site. Whether you have a mac or pc, if you want the capabilities of Photoshop without the high-falootin' price tag, check out Gimp. Not to be confused with its, uh, differently-abled namesake, this program can do anything! One of the features that I personally find the most helpful for artists, aside from general photo manipulation, is the ability to correct lens tilt. In other words, when you take a picture of your painting and it looks crooked, and you were sure you took it straight on, well, this nifty program can fix that without cropping out half your picture. Any artist who has tried to photgraph their own art can tell you how irritating it is to try to photograph a perfectly straight square shape.

But this sweet tool makes it simple to change it! See?

So download it free, and enjoy!! I know I will! I am going to play right now-yay!!!!

Friday How-to: Color Wheel

Teaching kids is complicated. Especially when you homeschool. I have spent countless hours looking for free printables while homeschooling my daughter, and have found it easier to make them myself rather than weed through countless useless pages of coloring book pages. Here is the color wheel I made for my daughter to learn the color wheel, but I use it too! Print it out, color it in, and refer to it when you paint. It is also a good exercise when learning or teaching how to mix paint. Whether you already know it or not, sometimes you need to look at it to see how colors relate to each other. So enjoy! Happy Friday!

Wanted: free (but good) art program

I spent all night on my computer last night. Until my husband got jealous that the laptop gets more love than him, that is. I was trying in vain to create some simple buttons for my website, and make pretty graphics and logos for all my "friends" on my links page. I only have a basic photo editing program right now and paint, of course. I remembered seeing this guy on the news that did the Mona Lisa, among other things, on paint, though, so I remained determined my crummy programs would do what I wanted, by god! So I spent hours going back and forth between the two, at times "painting" one freakin' pixel at a time. The best I could do was this:

I think now I must have a different MS Paint than that dude, because mine doesn't do anything. Except irritate me. So what do you think, better, worse, or just different than the banner on the top of this blog?

Now, back to the problem at hand: free stuff that does what I want. I refuse to pay hundreds of dollars for Photoshop, even though I LOVE it, and know how to use it, I have a kid to feed, for cryin' out loud. Does anyone know of a decent free (or inexpensive) substitute? I did the best I could with mine, and it is ok...but soooo time consuming. I made new logos and or buttons for the links on my page with it. Maybe you are there now. Go see.

I also searched and searched for decent clip art on the web. I caution anyone brave enough to take on this project not to google free clipart and expect results. All those sites are really unhelpful, and freakishly linked to one another. Finally I found this place. Awesome.

So if you can help me, you rock. If you are in the same boat, good luck. Until later...