Bees take over the Studio

Not really, but both the Mincing Mockingbird and I were finishing up our pieces for The Bee Cause art show at Zinnia yesterday morning before taking them to the gallery in South Pasadena. The opening is Saturday, September 13 from 7 - 9 p.m. and we're planning on being there the entire time. So stop by The Funky Junque Gallery at 1040 Mission St. in South Pasadena and say hi.

Arbitrary Art Curiosity #6

I love this image. It's titled "Dreamer" and the artist is Erica Felicella. You can see more of her wonderful work here. I actually found her on the Blurb website which is where Mincing Mockingbird had his art book printed. Erica's is titled "The 'Shots' Project" and she took photos of people right after they drank a shot, which is a great idea.

Dog Proposes Marriage

Sigh....canine mating rituals.

A few months ago I got an email from Peter Schulberg, owner of Eco-Logical Art Gallery, saying that there was going to be a piece about the billboards we painted. It would be on "The G Word" on Planet Green, and since we didn't get that particular cable channel, I had to wait until I could find it on YouTube, because -- let's face it -- almost everything ends up on YouTube. So here is the piece. You can see me briefly painting and saying something about wondering how hard the vinyl would be to paint on.

Really intelligent.

Really.

And here's a photo of me in front of the billboard when it was over the gallery.


You can check one of the blog posts about the process here.

The Super Shipping Station!

The studio is coming along and the fabulous shipping center is shown above. The only other item we're waiting on to complete it is the postal scale that the Mincing Mockingbird has been harping on me to buy, which I finally broke down and ordered and will be arriving something this next week. It's probably ridiculous how much we've been losing in shipping costs because on larger packages we almost always underestimate how much it will be.

We also scored a couple of corner desks from the "AS IS" section of IKEA that we'll be installing this weekend. $160 desk tops for $50 each because of a few scratches and dings. What a bargain!

I'm totally copping out and going to put in a link to Mincing Mockingbird's awesome interview with our new shipping station. She's a bit tempermental but he got some info out of her.

Ahhhhhh Finally...a New Banner!

So, after months of putting it on my "To Do" list, along with backing up my computer and vacuuming behind my fridge, I finally designed a new banner to reflect both my etsy greeting cards, as well as my oil paintings.

I think I could actually see "The Frantic Meerkat" and "David" going out for a cosmo or chocolate martini and discussing my procrastination problem.

FREE STUFF!!

The Mincing Mockingbird is having a contest to kick off the publication of his new 80-page book, "It Is Folly To Assume My Awesome Lies Dormant". I berated him because it's not much of a challenge - you don't have to draw a picture of a bird, write a haiku about a bird or even tell him the story about when you were little and a blue jay attacked you on the way to school. All you have to do is send him an email and he'll randomly pick out a winner who receives a copy of his book and a $50 gift certificate.

He says he doesn't like to choose favorites out of his many fans.

Click here for details.

Arbitrary Art Curisioty #5

This is a wonderful photo by Erin Tyner who I found on etsy. Check out her website here, her etsy store here, and her blog here.

Happy Weird Halloween

So it's a little early for Halloween, but I thought I'd better design some new cards.

You Can Never Have Too Many Art Supplies....

Today I thought I'd introduce you to one of my favorite stores -- Zinnia in South Pasadena. I don't get there as much as I'd like, but everytime I do I buy something. They carry tons of cool supplies, and have classes where you can make your own sock creature, journal or embellished canvas.


And now it's even better - they're expanding to add a gallery, The Funky Junque Gallery which will carry expressive and creative gifts and art. For those of you in the Los Angeles area, the grand opening will be Saturday, September 13th from 7-9. And if you're not nearby, you can always shop at their online store. Now I've got to get my studio organized so I can go shopping....

It's cold! Grab a Blanket!

Mincing Mockingbird and I took the advertising plunge and bought classified ads in this really cool online art mag called Blanket. It was only $30 for the ad, and they're clickable, so if someone likes what they see in your ad, they just click on it and it links directly to your website or etsy shop. It just came out August 1, and will be up for two months, so we haven't really been able to see if it works or not. Check out the magazine -- there's an even an article on etsy in it.

I'm a Freakin' Super Hero!

I hadn't done a treasury since before we moved, so yesterday, when Treasury West at etsy came up, I decided to have some fun.

Applying! Applying! Applying!

The past few days we've been applying to fall craft shows, and since most of them are juried, we won't know if we've been accepted for a few weeks. Plus, since at least one of them you only get a six foot table, we applied separately so we could have two tables (and hopefully together).

The studio's still not quite usable even after we both worked on it for an hour or so last night, but Mincy has to paint 10 paintings this weekend for a shop in Portland, so we'd at least better clear off a table top, find some art supplies and ignore the pile of Kim's miscellaneous boxes in the middle of the floor.

You need a bird magnet, you say?

Since we're still organizing our studio, my fiance, The Mincing Mockingbird, hasn't had the space to create paintings, but did manage to order some brand spanking new magnets.

New Trunkt Portfolio!