Long Over Due.

So this is a very long over due update. What can I say, life has been crazy busy these days.

I got into a mass-production mode a few weeks ago on a Saturday morning that Kevin was working. I started all sorts of projects trying to get ready for the holidays and it actually worked out great!

The first new thing I started working on was painting these adorable little bamboo pendants. I bought plain pendants on etsy about a month ago and just actually started to do something with them. I am pretty excited! I have already sold four (Thanks to Nicole Trombley! My no. 1 fan!)

Here are a few pics of the ones I sold:

And here is another one that is available in my etsy shop:

I also FINALLY brought home the sewing machine from the office. I brought it up there a long time ago thinking I would use it - but never actually did! So! On that wonderful lonely Saturday I started something else that was new.

Plushies!

I think I am going to start a series of Fat Man Plushies. :) This guy was number 2 out of the set:


And in the middle of all this creation - I started a painting for my Dad as a christmas present. About a year ago, I would say -- we spotted a Bald Eagle in the parking lot across from our house. Feeling incredibly opportunistic, I ran across winchester st - and began rapidly taking photos of this bird. They came out awesome - to say the least.
Here is the original photo:
And I was just about to upload pictures of the final painting... but apparently I didn't bring my camera cord! Damn! Those will be coming soon.... on to the next project. :)

I was contacted by a KSC student who saw my exhibit in Bagel Works a few months ago. Apparently her sister was visiting and really loved my work. She wanted to purchase the City Of Lost Dreams but it was too much for her budget. Like I always do, I did my best to make her happy. :) She really loved Heart of Nature too- but the original one isn't for sale unless someone is willing to pay me a LOT of money for it (I promised it to my brother..) So instead - I offered to remake the painting for her - and I think it came out GREAT! :)

Here it is:

And, in the middle of working on all of these projects -- I got an order for two custom pendants from the one and only Nicole!
I wanted to give her a few options - so I created this guy (she didn't choose this one! He will be for sale on Etsy soon! I had to make him a big photo so you can see the little details. He actually has a little bit more detail then this - I just realized I never updated the photo!)


I guess that is all for now! I certainly have been busy creating and still dealing with the daily holiday madness! Zehn Naturals has been doing great - we pushed out over 30 orders so far this month. Here are a few snap shots of what has been going in between being so busy!

Here is Theodore Bunny eating his Thanksgiving Meal!

I made sure I went out on Bethy's 21st Birthday to help her celebrate!
And the next night, we celebrated Kevin's 22nd birthday!
And a few weeks later, it was Caitlin's 21st birthday!
And as a final picture - I leave you with Ghengis' holiday photo that she will be submitting to Pet Playhouse:

Gearing Up.

Soooo!! I will be putting some of my paintings in Lotus & Child for the holidays. Lotus & Orchid is a new gallery located at 21 West St. in Keene, NH. Because of this exciting news I have decided to start doing a lot more mini paintings. I am also doing this new technique where I am using this perma-enamel clear gloss glaze to finish off the canvas - makes it SUPER extra glossy -- almost like glass! I know a few other artists who use this technique and I think it is totally awesome. One of the artists is Jess Grahm! Check out her site - her work is awesome! I bought a small piece at craft producers and just love it! Here are two paintings that will be glazed tomorrow!

And, I finally finished one of my commission pieces! It really didn't take me too long and I think it came out great! I did have a lil fiasco with my frame - we left for lunch and when we came back it was like pouring rain! I had just sprayed varnish before we left and didn't realize it was going to rain! I had to go to Michaels and pick up another - and thank gosh they were there, and already on sale for 50% off! Someone bought this for their wife, :) Hooray!

That is all for now - not much to say! Waiting on food, totally hungry.

Here is a hilarious picture from this weekend's birthday celebrations:

Gearing Up For The Holidays

Ahh, it is already November 9th... I find this to be quite crazy.

I have to start with the most important thing that I want to write about, which is my new tattoo! I am actually really excited and proud of it. I decided to document my biggest success of 2008 (yes, I know, the year isn't over yet - but I won't be able to top this!) so I decided to get a mini version of my blue bird painting I sold earlier this year to Nicole from San Diego, CA. It is the biggest and most expensive painting I have ever sold and I am really really happy with this tattoo! Kevin Berube of Art for Life did it last week. I am going to go back and have a few more additional circles of color added in but besides that I think it is perfect!



I am trying to get ready for the holidays early this year. I am usually pretty organized - I make lists to make sure I cover everyone for gifts and such, but this year I am going to try and make as many gifts as possible in order to save on cash and spread the word.

I started a new holiday painting today on my wonderful 4x6 gallery wrap canvases. Not sure who it is going to, but I wouldn't post that up anyways. Heres a quick snap shot:

I am also working on my commission piece for a guy named Jason. It is a painting very similar to the Big Bird painting I sold to the woman in California. I guess his wife really loved the piece when it was at bagel works so he asked me to do a smaller version with a few different colors. I am really closed to being done! Here are a few progression pictures:

The second image is the final painting. It just needs my signature and bam! it's done! I am pretty excited, I really like the way it turned out. It will be hung in a nice gloss black frame. :)

In about a week and a half I will be setting up an exhibit at The Bagel Mill in Peterborough, NH. I am pretty pumped and optimistic about this exhibit and I hope that I can sell a couple of pieces over the holiday season. I have also made contact with Noelle of Lotus & Orchid, a new gallery in Keene, NH and we will be discussing dates soon. I am hoping to get in there for the holidays because I have quite a few small pieces that could possibly move quickly for her boutique. I really love that Keene has two new galleries opening up that feature more modern and up to date original artwork & collectibles.

Things are going GREAT with Zehn Naturals! We just got some great free web marketing advice from this woman named Donna that I happened to meet at Expo East in Boston while we were both enjoying the free bagels and coffee. She did a full site analysis and helped us out so much!
I am pretty excited to say that our tees are currently on their way to our first account in California! They asked us to custom print their logo on to our printed tees and they all look fabulous! It is a day spa sanctuary called Osmosis.

We also recently got approved for two big accounts, Giant Eagle and Akins! We should be finalizing details with them and going over their specific procedures.

I am also working on this really cool project for a customer that has a store called The Natural Dog. They want me to design custom tee shirts for their store with really cool and funky sayings like "Pooping Is Organic or Pooping Makes Me Happy" and "Chew On This" and " Go Raw "! It is interesting to do custom design jobs, but this one is by far my favorite! Have you ever googled poop?? Well, I guess most of you out there probably have not. I do recommend typing "poop clip art or cute poop" because other wise the results can be a little graphic and disturbing. I just heard back from the owners today and they look my sketches so far. I am totally excited to keep drawing and creating this line of humorous dog and cat shirts.


So to make this short and sweet, I will say that I am optimistic and excited about the things to come in the upcoming month.

October is about to end.

The streets are covered in falling leaves - bringing pure evidence to the fact that October is gone, and soon all the leaves will be too, leaving dark and dreary trees that reak of death. As much as I love the fall, I hate it when it comes to an end. Winter in New England is often times totally depressing so I know that I need to take precautions to avoid the slow slide downward.

Kevin has begun to put up plastic on the windows at the house. This will definitely be our last winter at this house and I want to make sure we aren't spending a bunch of money on oil that just goes out the window. This house is so old, and so drafty. I hate making an oil purchase - but its obviously totally necessary. This time next year, Kevin and I will be in our own cozy little apartment, and it will be lovely.

We just got done doing Expo East last week - and things are starting to unwind which is why I took the opportunity to write a new blog. The show was successful and I believe that we will continue to get orders in in the upcoming weeks. We managed to get an account in CA - which was pretty exciting! We are also being looked at by a few small chains and received a lot of inquiries about custom printing. Hopefully the flow of orders continues through December. We have a lot of following up to do - so this is when things start to get exciting!

Crispness.

Sometimes, I can't deal with the crispness of Autumn. Today, I had to start and heat up my car for the first time this year and yesterday we turned on the furnace for the first time. Slightly frightening. Especially when you know the oil and fuel prices are about to rise.

This weekend was rather lovely and also extremely exhausting. Craft producers was once again a rewarding experience that involved great locally brewed organic beer. On Friday, I was able to get Kevin to come up and help - we paid him $40 for the day which he then spent on delicious beer and amazing food. Tiea ended up leaving early so me and Kev headed home from Manchester at about 5pm ish. We stopped in Bratt to see what the Flat St. Brew Pub had on the menu, (which is basically nothing) and decided to try some coffee porter. Delicious. Actually, incredible. I am totally craving one right now. We tried the Mocha Java - which is the porter mixed with hazelnut liquer. Seriously, amazing. I wish I lived in Bratt so I could spend $6 on that drink all the time... I wonder if they have a happy hour!

Our night then brought us to Unos, where we got some grub to go. I was totally disappointed and pissed off with my meal. I paid $4.95 for a CUP of lettuce, three stale croutons and a lack of Caesar dressing. It was beyond aggravating. My burger was under cooked and actually tasted unusual - the texture was something strange that I definitely didn't like. I took about 5 bites and gave up. Shortly after, I went to bed because I knew the next day would be another early one.

I picked Tiea up from Bratt at exactly 8am. We then ventured back to Manchester for day 2. Sales were great on Day 2 and the traffic was constant and almost hectic. It is great when you are in a booth, but try going to the bathroom when you have to sort of snake yourself around onlookers and people who are just literally standing in the middle of the isle, looking. It is definitely difficult. I got to leave early that day - but had to make my stop at the beer tent where I was totally devasted to find out that the Wolavers organic pumpkin ale had sold out. ( it was the BEST pumpkin ale I have ever had in my short life of drinking beer! I finally found one I loved!) So i settled for an Oktoberfest and set out to get myself some grub seeming the brew didn't go well on my empty stomach. First I rec'd a half cooked burger which was followed by an over cooked burger. You think people would have this shit down - and not serve crappy fair food. But seeming I didn't learn my lesson back in August, another $6 was wasted on a pre-pattied crappy burger.

Moving on, I started my journey home. I stopped at Dutton Farms and picked up some fresh local produce for the nights meal and then stopped in at Hannafords to pick up a few more things. I finally got home - and it didn't even seem like I left early because I stopped so many places. Oh well, the night ended early and I managed to sleep till 7 on Sunday morning.

Sunday was a nice day, but rather slow compared to Saturday. Over all, our sales topped 1,500 which is always nice. Our peace shirt is our best seller - we sold 14 of them. The second best selling tee was Hybrid - which was a nice surprise! I did sell three pieces of my artwork and then traded one. I got this kick ass Obama shirt from Bo of Eat More Kale. Check out his site, he does very nice work and is one hell of a guy!

I also got to meet Jess Graham who has amazingly lovely work! I bought a little bunny bingo card, which I should have taken a picture of for this blog but I figured I would do a shout out anyways. Jess' work is totally lively and brilliantly colored. I am an absolute fan after spending three days admiring her work. She has a nice style and brings it out by putting up a really nice booth using awesome recycled things like a fridge door to hold her magnets. Check out her website here!

As soon as it was 5pm on Sunday, Tiea and I went into action breaking down our tent. We know exactly what we are doing so it really only took us about 30 minutes. Of course, I am dying by the time we are done but I just hopped in the car and drank a bottle of water on my way home. I was totally exhausted by the time I got home - because I didn't leave until about 540, it was dark by the time I got to NH. I noticed that I have been getting sleep on long trips so I have some tricks to keep me awake - like blasting slipknots new album and having your window down when you are going 60mph on a fall night.

I need to finish this off - I wish I had pictures to put on it, but I do not.

That's all for now -
Until next time, don't hold your breath. :)

Just an Old Friend

She is just an old friend
that I see every now and again
on the dark lit streets
of forbidden memories -
she comes to me.

I regret the things once said
and the things that repeat
over and over in my head
because she is a forbidden memory
and she is nothing to me.

A life once lived, but now passed on
I cannot forget that she helped me
become who I have become
and each time I see her and her defeat
I realize that it is my life that has won.