. . . It's Friday I'm in love

Although I'm not sure what I'm in love with, my new bookcase is pretty high up the list though.  I can't photograph it for you all yet though because I had to make it up in our hallway and it's too narrow for me to get a shot.  I really enjoyed painting it so I'm now looking for a chest of drawers or a cupboard on freecycle that I can sand down and repaint to match.

I had a friend staying last night, hence the short post but I hope you all liked the otters, they are probably my favourite of all the thousands of photographs I've ever taken.

Here are some very rough preliminary greyhound sketches for you to get a sneek peek of that little project. As I think I mentioned before I'm having some trouble with getting the heads right but I imagine I'll get something more or less right in the end (unless I get really annoyed with it and have to give up first).  

Tomorrow: Undiscovered Artist Feature.

. . . Thursday I don't care about you . . .

One of my favourite photographs ever I think. A lucky shot really, I turned round and these three were all curled up together, posing perfectly for me. I only got two shots before they moved, luckily this one was perfectly in focus.

. . . And Wednesday too . .

Wednesday has been greyer but it's held out enough for me to finish painting my new bookcase, which I will put together tomorrow, then you can have some photographs of my interior design master piece (or something like that).

After meeting Jane of Max and Molly Designs through etsy this morning, I've spent this evening trying to sketch greyhounds - it turns out their heads are very hard to get right.  In the event I manage to actually get something reasonable I will be selling/auctioning it for the Retired Greyhound Trust.  If all else fails I'll make a clay hound, I'm a bit more confident I can do that. 

My parents are currently on holiday and as I don't drive I end up a bit isolated.  It is hard to work out if it's better by myself without the stress of dealing with my father's illness and my mother's not coping or with the insanity that is everyday life here but at least there's somebody to talk to who isn't a cat or a gecko.

Another Featured Etsy Seller for you.  Today we have Lynne Adamson of Adamsonart, who sells tiny acrylic paintings that double as pendants - very arty!  Her work is vibrant and original.  I can only imagine the amount of skill that goes into creating something so small yet detailed.

How long have you been an etsy seller?
I opened my art shop in November 2006. It’s very easy to remember for two reasons. One, it’s posted on my shop home page and two, it was Thanksgiving and my daughter was home from college. She had already opened an Etsy shop to sell her own art and said I should definately have one too. She helped me set it up. That was the day my whole life changed. I’m sure you know what I mean. I was addicted from that day forward. My day begins and ends with Etsy. Even if it’s just a few minutes. I can’t sleep if I haven’t checked my shop.

How do you get inspired?
There are so many ways to get inspiration. I may see an image in a magazine or on TV and grab my sketchbook and doodle down an idea before I loose it. I do a lot of gardening and working outdoors is always inspiring. My dog or cat may be hanging out and give me a look and there you go. Get the sketchbook. Everywear I go I carry a little book for doodles. I’m constantly bombarded with ideas.

How much time do you put into your shop on average weekly?
Probably way too much LOL. When I get up, I make coffee, feed the dog and open up my Etsy. I like to spend an hour or so in the forums right off the bat because I’m in the west and the east coast has been at it for many hours already. I’m back again for another hour in the afternoon, usually around 3pm to see if anything exciting is going on and maybe a bit of chatting with my good friends whom I’ve met and become very attached to over the last 3 years.
So probably 3 or 4 hours a day on average.

What are your top three etsy shops that you can’t go a day without stalking?
KDemArte, hemplady4u, TSTreasures. I don’t actually stalk these shops daily but love to check to see what they are up to now and then. 

What’s your favorite item you’re selling at the moment?
My pendants right now. I just started doing them a couple of weeks ago and I really enjoy the process. I get to cut wood and sand it. Then I make tiny little paintings which satisfies my Virgo side.

Pets? Family? Tell us about them.
I have a little MinPin named Rocko who gives me lots of inspiration for my pointy nosed dog images. Two cats who are sister torties. I adopted them from a shelter and couldn’t split them up so had to have them both.
I live with my partner of 27 years and we have two beautiful daughters ages 22 and 24 who have flown the nest.

Can you run me through what a typical day for you?
Not very exciting I’m afraid. I wake early, around 6:30 and spend an hour or so on Etsy with my coffee cup in hand. Read the morning paper. Try to walk to the park for some laps and I get out into the garden before it gets to hot. Make some art, back onto Etsy for a bit in the afternoon. Think about making some dinner.
Back to the drawing board (depending on what I have going at the time). Then relax with my guy, catch some TV or a DVD. I like to sqeeze a little reading in. I’m reading The Stand by Steven King for the 3rd time. I love that story and re-read it every few years.

What else interests you?
I’m an avid Nevada History buff so I volunteer at The Springs Preserve in Las Vegas.  It is a historical and archological site the also inspires sustainable living. I volunteer once or twice a week. I also gallery sit for a non-profit cooperative run by art teachers. In return they give me gallery space. I love a good movie or a good read and also enjoy swimming. We have a pool in our back yard and I try to get in it as often as possible.

Is there anything you think we should know?
Always recycle, and if you have to buy new, make sure it’s source is renewable :)

You can read more about Lynne in her blog:  http://adamsonstudio.blogspot.com

Tuesday's Grey . . .

. . . actually it's not grey at all, it's been extremely sunny but I feel I have a thing going with titles.  I've spent most of the day outside painting my bookcase hence the late post.  Painting furniture outside is great, no mess inside to worry about, nice hot weather to dry it quickly, less paint smell indoors; two BIG problems though bugs and grass, which no matter how hard I tried kept getting stuck in the paint.  It wouldn't be a big problem if I wasn't such a perfectionist about stuff like this. 

I've also been up to some more artistic painting.

Remember the little cat sketch? Well here he is on canvas.  I'm thinking of giving him orange stripes and turning him into a tabby but I'm not particularly confident in my ability to pull that off.  The other half of the canvas is blank because my boyfriend is going to put something in there as it is to be a gift for a mutual friend. 

This one I started over a year ago just for fun but I've now finished it and it turned up way better than expected considering I'd never really used acrylics before.  I can't work out if I love them or hate them but I'm interested in continuing to work with them for as long as this creative patch lasts, they tend to come and go a lot as far as drawing and painting goes.

More artist features coming up later in the week.

I don't care if Monday's blue . . .

Today has been gloriously sunny so I haven't spent a lot of time on the computer. Too much of my day has been spent in B&Q, first of all to buy paint then to return the bookcase I was going to paint with the paint, because when I got it out of the packaging all the wood was split.  I hope the weather holds out because I really need to be able to paint outside and I won't be able to do that if it rains, obviously.

Here's a little interview with Etsy Seller, Stony Ghost who makes and sells beautiful hand dyed cushions and t-shirts as well as selling antique and limited edition Stony Ghost prints:

How long have you been an etsy seller?

I've been an etsy seller since june 27 2008

How do you get inspired?
I'm just generally inspired when useing materials to make something. I am also a visual artists, so making objects is the language I understand, and so that is what inspires me.

How much time do you put into your shop on average weekly?
I put a lot of time in, making things, photographing them, spending time in the forums, it's like a full time job. Prob about 25-35- hours a week.

What's your favorite item you're selling at the moment?
My favorite new items in the shop are the simple cushions, which have a clean, neutral feel, and are very versatile in terms of design applications.

Pets? Family? Tell us about them.
I am a young guy so I dont have a family yet. I really want a cat, but at the moment have no pets. 

Can you run me through what a typical day for you?
Get up in the morning make coffee, maybe make a few things, relist some items, promote. Then I go for a jog and that gives me time to think, and get out of the house. When I come back I might work on my painting, or prints, and continue to make stuff for the shop. I am really trying to make it work as a possible business, but right not It's fun to have added this new creative element to life.

What else interests you? 
I am interested in visual art and design. I am into aesthetics, music, going to galleries. That kind of thing. I also have a gallery space in brooklyn called real fine arts. The website is realfinearts.com if you want to check it out

My goodness an award!

Well I never, I was just reading through yesterday's comments and lo and behold my little blog has been given an award!

Courtney of http://addictivecreative.wordpress.com has given my blog an award.  She says:  'You've been awarded the Lovely Blog Award because I love that you take the time to discover and feature items from Etsy. Your posts are also engaging! Congratulations! :)' 

Many thanks Courtney, this is a very special thing for you to do for me and gives me a lot of encouragement with my new venture.

I now have the responsibility of giving this award to some other blogs but as I'm very new to the world of blogging I think I will need to take a bit of time selecting some very lovely blogs and I'll keep you all updated as to when I choose them.

I will start off by passing the award onto:

Kind Over Matter because Amanda and Gen's blog always makes me smile.  I especially like the hearts in the woods photograph they posted yesterday.

Creative With Clay because Charan has created a well written and presented blog that not only provides readers with an insight into his creative process but promotes other artists and contains useful articles such as yesterday's post on space saving.

Some sad news and a sketch

Should we have the sad news first?  I think we maybe should.  Yesterday I found one of my little baby crested geckos dead, I called it (for I don't know if it was a boy or a girl) 'Lemon' and it was one of my first clutch to hatch and one of the three babies from May.  There's a nice little story that goes with Lemon's hatching that I'll tell you now.   I incubate my crestie eggs in a polybox at room temperature without any additional heating but due to an unfortunate series of events, the three eggs in my incubator in November got soft boiled (when I went to check them one morning I found the temperature in the polybox read nearly 55 degrees Celsius) and I naturally assumed they had been kill but I never threw the eggs out because it would have really upset my mother (who initiated the chain of events leading to the soft boiling) so they just sat there for months.  Then on Christmas Eve I received a phone call from my mother, who was gecko sitting whilst I was away for Christmas, saying she had found them hatched but not looking too alive due to nobody really bothering to check on them because we assumed they were dead.  I advised her to spray them immediately and they started to come round, apparently one had some shed stuck to it, which she removed and they both went on to do surprisingly well.  Lemon always had a few shedding problems but I didn't think too much of it.  All my geckos are pretty slow growing on account of them being fed mostly Crested Gecko Diet, which is perfectly fine.  I really don't know why Lemon died, he dropped his tail on Monday for no apparent reason so maybe he was sick or possibly the incident during incubation means he always had something wrong with him, it is just very sad to have had him hatch and live nearly six months only to die suddenly.  RIP little Lemon, you will be missed.

In less depressing news, my feature yesterday of Teal Stripes' work has inspired me to do a little bit of sketching.  Now you'll remember I said it's something I'm not good at so please excuse the quality but I thought I'd share this little cat drawing with you.  I might even do some painting later if I'm feeling brave.

I've got more features lined up for next week.  I'd also like to share a little of my photography with you so that's to come as well.  If you have a preference or there's something in particular you'd like to see let me know.