art every day month #30/list it tuesday 11/30: back on track

last day of art every day month! a big thanks to leah for being a terrific host and helping me put that spark of spontaneity back into my hours. now i have to pull my head out of the art and attend the daily affairs i've neglected over the past thirty days. thus, a rather boring list for this week - it's time to get back on track. i haven't even bothered to get yesterday's mail out of the box. same with the newspaper. but the biggie this week is the drivers' license and i cannot blame that one on art every day month because i've been shoving off the task for four years. the problem is, it seems to be a curse - every time i get legal in a state, we wind up moving. if i had been smart i would have held on to my arizona license, which i got in 1996 and was valid until 2030. can you imagine that, my 25 year old mug on the license of a 60 year old? next up is resuming work on a wedding commission - i'm handlettering the invitations, programs, table signs, the works. i don't do commissions very often because they usually make me distraught, but this one has been a SUPER fun job. forgot to include "re-introduce self to family" on this list, too - that goes to the top! if you made a list today, please leave your link in the comments. happy tuesday and thanks to everyone who kept me afloat during AEDM!

art every day month #29: finding the balance

one final doodle for art every day month: my dirty little secret on achieving balance in life. if you know me, this will make perfect sense; if you don't, it will explain everything! i sketched it out at the swimming pool last night and plowed through the rest of it at wheatfields this morning with a cup of extra strong coffee and three hours of peace. my hand is about to fall off (these long doodles make me arthritic) so i'm off to find a bottle of ibuprofen, then coming back to finally start making some blog rounds. last day for the doodlesale - the coupon code BFCM2010 will turn into a pumpkin at midnight. see you tomorrow for list it tuesday!

art every day #28: soaking up the color

back to painted papertowels! my older one uses rolls of papertowels to make paper skirts and dresses so we decided to give them a bit of color this time. we put slightly diluted liquid watercolors in ziploc bags, then squished around the papertowels until they absorbed all the liquid. it only involved a bit of yelling - it's highly permanent stuff and the girls kept opening the bags - and then we pinned them to dry on my pegboard display from yesterday's show. i've seen pegboards in others' studios and homes before but never appreciated how versatile and useful they were until i started playing around with them myself. if you have little feet running around, pegboard is a great alternative to a bulletin board because it avoids the need for thumb tacks. just rows of ribbon (secured with knots behind the holes) and clothespins. plus the boards are very economical - only $7ish for a large, sturdy piece.

more art every day here, and one more day of the doodlesale here. thanks everyone for a great few days in the shop, and happy sunday to you!

art ALL day #27: the biz baz

every art/craft show i've ever done has sucked. today i finally broke the cycle! this is my tiny space in front of the bizarre bazaar, which ran from 9 to 5 today at the lawrence arts center. the table on the right held the bulk of the goods; the table on the left was for little people, with crayons and coloring books, to keep the tots occupied while parents shopped. i took a chance on the weather, which could have easily been lousy, but it turned out to be stellar, almost 60 degrees. i sold double my goal in both dollars and units, and finally got to meet a few people from the e-world live and in person! a big thank you to my family and so many of my friends who stopped by - especially to julie and stephanie who kept me sustained with hot chocolate, lunch, and brownies. hope to catch up on all of your worlds in the next few days - between posting every day and getting ready for the show, on top of the holiday and having the kids home, i've fallen woefully behind on visits. i will remedy that soon! but first, a bottle of beer, and then, sleep.

*p.s. the sale in the shop is still on through monday, november 29*

art every day #25/#26: doodle friday

a few new doodles to share!



look inside that noggin i made to prop myself up when i'm feeling ill-equipped to deal with the world, solve a problem or push myself in a new direction. a reminder that i don't constantly have to look outside of me for all the answers. (i'm a super chronic offender of that.)



wishing star is one that i finished last month, but haven't shown here yet. just a happy and hopeful little doodle to give my inner cynic a restroom break. no one is ever too old to wish upon a star (especially when nothing else is working)...



last thing is a new version of a piece i did long ago. it requested a comeback, because there are so very many things i don't want to do- and if i can't get out of doing something, i should at least get to complain about it.

and YAY! i'm having a doodlesale in the shop from black friday to cyber monday - 15% off your entire order. just enter the coupon code BFCM2010 upon checkout. happy weekend to everyone!

p.s. did anyone go to target at 4 a.m.? i didn't...

art every day #24: mirror mirror

do you ever become numb and indifferent to things in your house, to the point that you don't remember how or when they got there? that is, if you even notice them? that was the case with this mirror - it was a dull, boring space occupant and i was starting to take offense to that. not sure where i'm going with it, as it still needs some work and clashes terribly with the drab wall. but at least it has a story now - as anything with turquoise does - and it might force me to re-paint the room to a brighter, cheerier companion color. happy wednesday, and safe travels to those who are on the road for thanksgiving!

art every day #23/list it tuesday 11/23: morning moods

this week's list started last week, when i took the girl to preschool and went to circle her mood on the sign in sheet. but there was no option for her state of being that day. so i gave them a verbal heads up and they appreciated that. clearly it was a list in need of expansion. tammy from daisy yellow got things started with bewildered, giggly, exuberant, and questionable, and from there the rest of the words flowed like wine. it was quite the aha moment when i finished. no wonder days can be so complicated - not only with children, but for all of us. who knows what mood we'll wake up hosting, let alone others in the household? at work? in public? i think we all need our own sign-in sheet every morning. it would be a common courtesy to the rest of the world, a public notice to let others know whether they're in for a trick or a treat from us.















(background images: 1) the ethnic paris cookbook, 2) recipes from provence, 3) traditional sarasatic patterns, 4) robert guest's lunchbox notes to his kids in esopus, 5) côté sud, 6) ready made, 7) the cute/idealistic BOHO mag, and the FABULOUS new polaroid book WORD by jen shaffer and jen victoor. a must if you are a polaroid fanatic - available here and here.)

any other listers out there today? please leave your link in the comments!

art every day #22: desecrating the boden catalog

i don't need much of a nudge to re-purpose magazines and catalogs, so when i got an outright invitation to befoul one, i was nearly beside myself. thus today brings a little more collage fun.

















i'm eyeing that polka dot shopper for myself. he looks so happy with it, i imagine i would be too! more art every day here. see you tomorrow for list it tuesday!

art every day #21: sunday newspaper tape city

the newspaper + colored tape = a load of sunday morning collage fun! i ordered a jar of these fabulous crepe tapes from red bow studio for my daughter's birthday, because she's a tape addict, and this morning i asked her if i could swipe from her stash. she agreed. i chopped up the sunday newspaper and within a few hours this little city was born. the mexican four cheese house is mine, and the diamond tower w/the UFO is taken too, but the rest of the buildings are available for immediate occupancy. the crossword puzzle house is condemned, but as you can see, it can be had for a fair price if you are the fixer upper type. i'll be doing more of these - i am now totally, completely, incurably addicted to tape!

art every day #20: uncovering the plot

here's the current state of the dairy and pastry case at our downtown starbucks. "what happened?" i asked the manager. "there are varying accounts on that," he said. which set my mind spinning immediately on the potential plots and the cast of characters involved in the destruction of the pastry case.

my top guesses:

1) the drunkard who plowed through Nomads' window last week
2) the deer who took out the front window at Weaver's
3) a fight for the last top pot doughnut

any more ideas?

(more art every day here.)

art every day month #19: art therapy

after a supremely horrific start to the day i needed to clear my head. i grabbed my art stuff and went to the merc to settle down. moaned into my coffee, put back a raspberry white chocolate scone, scribbled like a volcano, sought asylum in a magazine and then came home and unleashed all over the pegboard and the coffee cup and the sleeve. the little folded thing in the background is on its way to being a bitty book much like the ones i made on a rampage a few years ago. the tutorial i used seems to exist no longer, but the recipe is easy - just open the cardboard sleeve and lay it flat, trim a rectangle from the middle (mine is 2.25"x4.5"), and collage/paint/do whatever you want to it. then cut four or five rectangles of grocery bag paper (slightly smaller than the cover), punch two holes in the spine, fold it over, secure the pages to the book with a piece of wire or a twistie, and there you go - how eco-friendly of you. it is a super addictive activity and the last time i did it, i thieved five or ten sleeves at a time from the coffee condiment bar. (i call it pre-cycling.)

p.s. all is well now.

art every day month #18: much obliged

for having a skyscraper of paper in my house, i should have no shortage of correspondence cards. thank you notes especially. but i'm admitting it right here, i suck at getting thank you notes out the door on time. the holdup usually comes from good intentions - i want to create something tailored to the person i'm thanking - but i forget or get distracted and then end up sending a lame e-mail, or worse, buying a generic greeting card from the grocery store. and then i feel supremely guilty about it. so that was my art every day mission today. i designed a set of thankies in varying colors to keep on hand. they are flat cards, about 4.25"x5.5", with the design on front and the back blank. big enough to say something, but small enough to keep the message short and sweet. i'm planning to test a few sets in the shop to see how they do. if they bomb, all the more for me! as for the white pegboard in the background, that is part of the display for the biz baz show. but i don't think it's going to stay tighty-whitey for much longer...

art every day #17: chop chop chop

papercutting today, nothing else. soothing, repetitive, decisive, therapeutic, measurable papercutting. at last count i was at 850 rectangles and i'm still going. half is going to my daughter's school, and half is for my show preparation. i traded creativity for productivity today, but it was just what i needed to do.

(+ a beautiful story about susie's sensitive son and his papercutting therapy.)

art every day #16/list it tuesday 11/16: also known as

i can't resist a good nickname or slogan. call it the marketer in me, or maybe just a lover of kitsch. i especially have a thing for city nicknames, those monikers that reveal far more than the map ever will. there are the crime towns: murderapolis (minneapolis), killwaukee (milwaukee), bodymore (baltimore), killa city (kansas city). the slogans: "living with a mystery" (villisca, iowa), "we've got all the civilization you need" (riverton, wyoming), "the city that saved itself" (fort wayne, indiana). the superlatives: spinach capital of the world, gymnastics capital of the world, the watermelon capital of the world, and the fruitcake capital of the world (all on which there are multiple claims). for more U.S city sobriquets, go here. for more art every day, go here.

thanks for all the customer comment cards in/about the mailbox - it was, in her words, a prize winner!

art every day #15: special delivery

here's my favorite AEDM project so far! most likely it's because i had no idea i was going to make it until i found a bunch of letters my birthday girl penned to herself on behalf of her sister, her friends, and someone named mr. nobody. obviously she thought she was going to get shortchanged today so she took matters into her own hands. and clearly she needed a place to put her special deliveries. i had a load to do today and had no business painting this mailbox, but the urge trumped everything else, and that in itself was a notable feeling. i went back to home depot, picked up a plain white mailbox for $20, went nutso with the liquitex, and gave it a quickie varnish job à la how not to paint chairs. it's drying now, and i'm crossing my fingers it will be firm to the touch when she gets home to all of her letters and packages, which arrived in quite a scene this afternoon when i opened the door and the doorknob fell off. mailman laughed and said, "sorry, i don't make house calls for that." as always, sorry for the dirty porch! and happy birthday, sweetie. you are MY special delivery - the gift that keeps on giving all year, every year!

art every day #14: going bonkers with yarn

what a treat! i stopped by traci's open house yesterday and filled my arms with skeins of her hand-spun/hand-dyed bonkers handmade originals fibers, a few pocket mirrors, and this outstanding art-o-licious print, then finger knitted this rope last night with a skein of her yummy wool. what to do with it? maybe a scarf, or a garland? we'll see. i learned how to finger knit with this tutorial - a super easy, very relaxing process when you want to do something, yet nothing terribly involved or taxing on the brain. now off to pick up a chocolate cake and do a frantic cleaning of the house for the artsygirl's 8th birthday (party today, birthday tomorrow.) she's asked for all preschooler toys this year, with a sing-a-ma-jig at the top of the list. going through a mid-childhood life crisis maybe? happy sunday to you!

art every day #13: penchant for a pendant

yesterday i had the yen to make a necklace. i don't have a load of confidence in my crafting skills so i thought this would be a good way to deal with that. i dragged the girls to home depot in a downpour and emerged with a long piece of wood, a saw, sandpaper and small eye hooks. it just seemed like a good combination and i went with it. came home, sawed off a small piece, sanded it, gave it a few coats of acrylic paint, mod podged a sliver of my handpainted papers on each side of the wood, and screwed around with the eye hook until it finally fit in place. swiped a ball chain from one of my other necklaces and was done. it's a rough attempt, but i'll still wear it.

off to traci bunkers' studio open house this afternoon. can't wait to look through her hand-dyed fibers since i just learned how to finger knit! happy weekend to you!

art every day month #12: production time

I was nursing a hangover this morning - the kind that comes with a kid who was sick all night long - and a most welcome phone call snapped me out of my beleaguered state. A spot opened up at our local annual funky art show, the Bizarre Bazaar at the Lawrence Arts Center, on Saturday, November 27. Whee! I've been out of town for all the others, but when we decided to stick around this year for Thanksgiving, I put my name on the waiting list just in case the crafty gods were willing to take a chance on me. And they did! The only catch is that I'm in one of four outdoor spaces (most of the show is indoors) so there's a chance the weather could doom me, as we're talking about Kansas in November, and all the prep could be for naught. But I'd like to do a few art shows next year, so regardless of how this one turns out, I'll be booth ready. This is the first time peddling my Artsyville wares at a show, and I am super excited about it.

I picked up my vendor packet this morning (and have to find out who did these postcards - I love them!), so my Art Every Day is all behind the scenes today doing my booth planning, inventory planning, production planning, product packaging design, business card design, banner design - basically all of those stragglers that have all been on my push-off-until-whenever list. Now I've got to do it in two weeks. Wish me luck, and if you have any strategies/ tips / suggestions on how to set up / plan / manage an outdoor booth in potentially crappo weather, I am all ears. And if you're local, please swing by and say hello - I'll be next to the front doors, in front of that groovy red sculpture!

art every day month #11: oh my gouache

Last minute squeaker today. Almost didn't happen. It was a day full of rushing and scrambling to get here and there, school conferences, wielding a scanner at the book fair this morning, cleaning the exploded coffee out of the loaner entrusted to me while my car is still at the spa. Then off to the grocery store, where I caused a minor banana cascade in the produce section. Got home, knew there wasn't enough time to start a doodle, so I unpacked the groceries and cut up the paper bag into rectangles. Fetched the kids, brought them home, and pulled out the gouache. The cheapie kind, so I wouldn't freak if they painted with the whole tube. We painted rashly, giving each other one-minute challenges, two color challenges, starting with blue dot in the middle challenges, and so on, as fast as we could so I get these pictures before the next time zone claimed the sun. They are still painting, and I'm going back to join them in a minute. This is my kind of painting. The kind that doesn't demand a Great Statement. The kind that happens fast and frenetically. And this is my kind of surface. The plebeian paper bag. The people's canvas.

art every day month #10: a mouthful

I was long overdue for a doodlerant - the last ones were Do the Duty and The Bell Ringer. I've gone far too long without complaining. So here's a mouthful. And now you know where I'll be today.

> Winners of the scrappy bag giveaway, chosen by the Artsyville accountant (the random number generator) are Stephanie and Julie Jordan Scott (thanks everyone for entering!)
> More Art Every Day
> Today's NaNoJouMo prompt
> Amy unearthed her grandmother's amazing artwork from the 1930s

Happy day to you!

art every day month #9/list it tuesday 11/9: the daily mania

For today's list I scribbled a reflection on why Art Every Day rocks! If you posted your own handwritten list today, please drop your link in the comments so we can stop by and say hello!

> More Art Every Day
> Today's NaNoJouMo prompt
> One more day to enter my early morning scrappy bags giveaway

art every day month #8: the book-o-meter

Today went in all directions except the one I had planned! I did manage to pull this poster out of my ass at the last minute, though - I sketched & inked it over the weekend and then went balls out on the color this morning. It was another piece where time was in short supply, as this one is for our school's upcoming book fair. Hence just a peep of it, and the strategic placing of pencils to block out all personal details. But you get the idea. And the deal is a sweet one. If we reach the book sales goal, the principal is going to hop on a harley and take a spin around the school for the kids. And she's not normally a Harley spinning kind of gal, but she's game for the challenge. Wearing a helmet, of course. We are hanging the posters around the school and will mark off each tome on the book-o-meter as sales rise to meet the goal.

Now if only someone could hold a fundraiser for my ailing car! I took it in today for an oil change and came home with a loaner and a bill for the precise amount of the book fair goal. Oil leak, antifreeze leak, gaskets blown, timing belt shot, a surcharge for having that look on my face that I had no idea what they were talking about (guaranteed an extra thousand), and a two day stay in the car hotel. Sucks. Oh, well, onward. See you tomorrow for List it Tuesday!

> More art every day
> Today's NaNoJouMo prompt
> My scrappy tags & bags giveaway is open until Wednesday

art every day month #7: scrappy bags

For once (and probably the only time) this month I'm posting before noon! This is because my 4 year old blasted me out of bed at 5:45. That was bad enough, but not as bad as when I realized it was in fact 4:45. And wouldn't you know it, she went back to bed and slept until 8:30, leaving me holding the early morning bag. Which gave me the idea of making bags. So I did not grouse for long. Made a cup of coffee, got out the new paper cutter and my tape gun, and fashioned a bunch of gift bags and tags from the remnants of my rolls of handmade paper. They were a steal - I found them in the gift wrap section of World Market for $2.99 each. The paper is just thick enough to give the bag a fun pillowy shape, but not too thick to fold and seal. Perfect for paper crafts. (This is also the paper I used for the happy little feet stepstool.)

As usual, I made more than I can use for myself, so if you'd like to drop a comment here, I'll draw two names on Wednesday for a mini handmade bag stuffed with tags! The minis measure about 3.5" by 5". The tags are 2.25" square folded, just slightly smaller than the groovy doodle cards, and are blank inside. I won't seal the bag, so you can reuse it as a gift bag yourself. You could also use it for a journal pocket, a bulletin board pocket, or a library book pocket.

> More Art Every Day
> Love today's NaNoJouMo prompt
> Make Time for Your Writing made it into this awesome NaNoWriMo treasury

Happy Sunday!