more miniatures

I was watching "The Prestige" and something about those piled-up Edwardian hairstyles and all the magician's finches fluttering anxiously in their cages clicked.

I don't know if I mentioned this, but all the miniature silhouettes I've been doing have been studies of a sort for what I'm hoping will be much larger, more elaborate pieces. I won't be offering all of those for sale, but I'll definitely be sharing them here.

new series of miniature silhouettes

There are actually six in the series so far, but the photos turned out so shoddy (it's raining today) I'm planning on re-shooting them on Friday. Still, I listed the girl with the mohawk and the girl with the bob, just for the sake of putting something new in the shop. I'm hoping to have a series of twenty.

adage felt cuffs

I made jewelry!




These are the first two in what I hope to be a series of at least ten wool felt cuffs, with partial adages cut out of the center and images from the saying cut out of the top edge. The wool is so soft and warm.

new drawings in the shop

a little better

I have to say, though, I'm missing my scanner pretty hard right about now.

new gouache paintings

The light is obviously really crummy, since I had to photograph it at night and all that. I didn't even bother setting up the tripod, since I'm going to re-take the pictures on Friday anyway, which is hopefully when they'll go up in the shop. I tried tweaking the contrast and exposure so you can see the colors better.

I'm really, really loving gouache. It's so satisfying and matte and lovely, and it doesn't have that tacky quality that acrylic does. For larger personal projects or projects for school, I prefer acrylic because you can paint layers and mimic oil (I still haven't properly learned oil because I can't possibly paint with them in my apartment, but next fall I think I might be wedded to it eternally so I might as well enjoy my freedom) but for these smaller projects, the ones that are almost more like drawing than painting, I think I prefer gouache.

"Sly Boots I" listed in the shop

I've decided to offer larger pieces unmounted as well. It occurred to me that some people might prefer them loose, to add to shadowboxes or whatnot, or to mount them on different paper than I might choose.

I'm also gearing up to add a bunch of Christmas and winter items to the shop; stay tuned!

miniatures listed in the shop

miniatures in progress

Sorry the photo is so grainy and out of focus. It gets dark so early these days and the lighting in our apartment is less "daylight simulation" and more "three lamps from Ikea." I'm planning on painting them with primer to stiffen them and weatherproof them a little bit, and sell them loose and unmounted.

lavinia and first frost almost complete

I couldn't find my good matte bristol, so I painted the backgrounds for these on watercolor paper instead. It turned out alright. The colors and gradations are more muted than I'd planned - you can see how the gouache seems more saturated on the bristol cutout than the background - but I kind of like it like this, too.



I'm still working on getting a decent full-shot image of this one, but here's a detail. I tea-stained the papercut and the touched up the branches and her "mouth" with gouache, but I think I want to do a little more touching up.

I'm not going to list them yet. I'd like to finish a few more paintings, loose papercuts, and some new things I didn't offer last year before I put anything up in the shop, but I thought I might as well show them here.

first frost of the season

The base of a new silhouette. I'm debating whether or not to add some texturing by cutting out some partial crystals and texturing the yarn in the pom pom on her cap, maybe something to define her breath better.

This was kind of frustrating to photograph. It might have been the time of day and the waning light, but I found it really hard to get a crisp close-up to show the details, even with the tripod.

YES.

I'm so glad I bugged Camden into taking the day off from work so we could go to the polling station together, sit down at the same table to mark our ballots, and that I remembered to keep my ballot tab as a memento.

I'm so glad I tackled a ridiculously complicated recipe for dinner, just to keep my hands moving and my mind on the two square feet of space in front of me until finally I couldn't take it anymore and turned on the radio to see what was happening.

Now that the results are barreling in I'm so glad Camden and I decided to stay home instead of going out to the pub or any of our friends' election parties because right now I want to be quiet. I want to hold his hand and savor this moment that's not just part of our history, but a part of history.

And I'm so glad we bought a new bottle of bourbon, because there may only be two of us but let me tell you: tonight we're going to celebrate for everyone.