Ok, this Ebay addiction has got to stop. It's one thing to want to stock up on supplies for a new hobby, but a totally different thing to make it your pastime to find great deals on said stuff! It would be different if I were planning on reselling this stuff once I got it; then I could just say I was doing my job. Although, honestly, I have thought about selling off part of what I buy, because, I mean... what am I going to do with 400 gold leaf bead caps? I could probably use half of that if I tried. But if I sold some of it cheap, I would be giving the buyers a deal and making up for spending like a maniac.

So no more Ebay. No more searching Etsy for supplies, either. And unless I start selling my earrings, I'm never buying anything earring related again.

So a while back, I was complaining about how I had ruined a piece of art in the making, and had asked how I could possibly fix it. In the end, I decided it would be easiest and probably most fun to simply scan the picture and color it digitally. And I'm extremely glad that I did, because it turned out exactly how I wanted it to.



I got such a rush from doing this piece. I'm not sure why, but I ended up coloring it at a HUGE scale. Like 600 dpi. I guess I figured I may someday want really large prints. Maybe plaster my wall with it.

Anyway, hope you enjoy!


Crochet by JacBerKitsch

I finally remember why I decided to stop working on Etsy so much last year. After a couple of months of crocheting and spending a lot of time online, my wrists were almost to the point of no return. And after just a couple of weeks this time around, I'm already starting to feel the burn.

I don't really understand this. I mean, I have my suspicions. I feel like doing the same repeated motions all the time (for instance, my left arm seems to always be in the same position, no matter what I'm doing) is what the real problem here is, and if I could just find a different way to do things, or perhaps spend more time doing activities that put my arms and hands in a different position, I would greatly improve. But I don't know what to do or how to do it. A also feel like building up the muscles in my arms and shoulders would be a great help, similar to the way strengthening your back helps with back pain. Lord knows I have noodle arms.

I really wish I could go to a doctor and get some advice. There are two problems there, though. The first being that we have no insurance and not much disposable income, and the second being that a normal doctor will probably try to give me a pain pill or have me do surgery rather than help me fix my habits and stop the problem at its root. I hate covering up symptoms. Why bother fixing my wrists if I'm just going to go and ruin them again? I'm really afraid for myself, because it seems like the problem is more persistent these days. I can't play on my computer long before my hands and arms start to hurt. Am I doing permanent damage?

But there are my fears for the day, and now that they're out of my system, I'm off to be lazy a while.

Chicken Scratch

I've been in this huge bead kick for maybe a week or two now. I'm not sure what spurred it on, but all of a sudden I had this huge urge to create earrings. They're simple, easy to make, beautiful, and I could easily sell them super cheap and still make a profit. The first thing I did was to scrounge up all the beads I had collected since I was like 12. I had thousands of beads! But unfortunately, most of them were pretty gaudy and, you know, the kind of thing a 12-year-old would wear.

After attacking Walmant and Joann's and not finding too much in either of those places, I took my searching online. I was thrilled by the variety, but disappointed by the prices. You want how much for what??!!? I thought, "Ok, this is silly. Let's check Ebay."

I was hoping that I'd find some chick who got into beading and decided she didn't like doing it and was selling off her stash of beads, right? That's what Ebay's about, isn't it? Well, I had a huge surprise in for me once I got there. I mean, I found a couple of estate sales with huge lots of beads, but they were still freakin' expensive. But everywhere I looked, I found things that were really unexpected.

Take, for instance, this auction. In case it's no longer there when you go to look, it's an auction for 400 gold plated 3-leaf bead caps, a very popular style. Ok, so that's not so surprising, right? It's a large amount, certainly, but nothing to go crazy over. Until you realize that the winner, a very beautiful woman with great taste, only paid $1.29 for them. Oh, and did I forget to mention that they came with free shipping?

400 at $1.29 means that each bead cap is less than half a penny each. $0.003225 to be exact. What's wrong with this picture? Considering I just bought the EXACT SAME ITEM in silver plated version at Michael's this weekend for $3 FOR 25!!! Ok, so I can understand that! I honestly can! Big stores like that have huge overhead, not to mention they're just buying the item from a company who bought them from the guys in China who made them.

But when did Ebay become a place for cheapskate Americans to buy cheap wares from Chinese manufacturers? What happened to the little old ladies selling off the junk from their attics, or the guy who bought a bunch of crap from a yard sale and wants to get a bit of a profit? I won't deny that finding such huge deals is kind of thrilling, but it also leaves me feeling dirty.

More disturbing is the thought that we Americans no longer manufacture anything anymore. I mean, we make a few things here and there, but even those things usually stay in this country. Do we export anything? How do we make money? All we're doing is consuming from other countries. Eventually, we're going to collapse from the huge amounts of crap and dept we've collected.

Until then, I'll be surfing Ebay to see what else I can find.

(This space intentionally left blank. I don't think any Etsy sellers want to be connected with this post.)

I sold my first Etsy item in months! I have a little sale going on, and I guess that drew someone in to my shop. It wasn't a big sale, but at least it let me know that I'm not a total failure.

In other news, Chad and I are going to Presque Isle state park today to go swimming in Lake Erie. I'm so excited! I haven't been swimming in the lake in years. I'm surprised I convinced Chad to go at all. He's not nicknamed Cat for nothing, after all. But like I said, I'm excited.

I'm also pretty happy about the trip because we'll be stopping at Michael's arts and crafts. You can only find so much craft and art supplies around here. Walmart and Joann's only carries the most common stuff, and only a small variety of that. I like shopping online, but it kills me to have to pay more for shipping than I paid for the item. I could solve that by buying $100 worth of craft supplies, but that seems to be over doing it a little.

Anyway, Chad's off helping his dad with something for the morning, so I'm going back to lazing around until about noon. Enjoy your day!



Merlin The Cat Yarns

I have this weird fascination with anything big or extra small. Any time I see something that's super tiny (like doll houses), I just have to squeal with delight and finger the delicate little item. Likewise, I'm not sure why, but I really love things that are abnormally huge. I'm thinking it's because it makes me feel small in comparison.

This might explain why, as a heavy-set 5'8" girl, I always wanted to marry a super tall guy. Luckily that worked out in my favor.

So within the last week, I've seen and taken pictures of two very large things. I don't know about you, but they really make me smile.

Ok, so this first picture is of a HUGE oak tree. It just so happens that we live like 15 minutes away from Pennsylvania's largest recorded oak tree, and it is indeed a very big tree! Ok, so oaks don't grow as large as some trees, but it was still big. It would take four very long armed people (or five normal people) to wrap their arms around this guy. The cool thing about the tree is that it's right in the middle of an old cemetery, out in the middle of nowhere. I would have never known it was there if one of the locals hadn't said something about it.



The next picture is a rather blush-inducing banana. Call me crazy, but when I saw this bunch of huge, thick, long bananas in the store, I had to buy them. They were hilarious looking! They were all really long, but one in particular was especially big. So before it got eaten (which had to be soon, because it was so big that it fell off its stem), I took a picture of it next to a ruler. 10 or 11 inches might not seem big unless you know that a normal banana is about 6 or 7 inches.



I wish I had taken a picture of it in someone's hands. It's hard to tell that it's a monster in that picture. Chad ended up eating it, which is a good thing because I don't think I would have been able to.

Ok, so in other news, I want to start posting a link to an awesome Etsy shop every time I post, at the bottom of my entry. I think it's a fun idea, and plus it helps me connect with other Etsians. I have trouble doing that, and I thought this might help.


Valerie's Sparkles by Design

So here's the art I promised a while back but was too lazy to actually post!



Created for a contest with the theme of "Mysterious Glow". It was really fun to do, and I feel like I learned a lot from it. I was sure I was going to win at least 3rd place, but as it turns out, Pixel Joint (where the contest was held) is very male oriented. In the end the 3rd place winner was of a guy looking into his pants, which are mysteriously glowing. Gah! I'll admit that it was well created, but c'mon. That's just immature.

But then no one ever said men were mature. Especially guys who create video game style art for fun.

So all I got was a lousy entry ribbon for it and the knowledge that had I entered it in a more feminine contest, it surely would have won.

Have you ever tried to do something and found out later that you weren't really going in the right direction? Or could you not keep yourself on the path you set up for yourself?

Yeah? Then you're in good company; I am, after all, the queen of derailed ideas and misplaced paths.

So do you want to know what's on the game plan today? Well, I'm trying to work on my Etsy shop again, this time with some new items...maybe. We'll see how that goes. I like working on my crocheted stuff, but if I want to compete with others on Etsy, I end up making about $3 an hour. I'd rather work in retail!

Well, probably not. But you know what I mean! So I'm trying to do some jewelry, which is less labor intensive, and finally get my aprons up in the shop. Also, I've been thinking about my art. Isn't the point for me to sell and make a profit off my art? But no one wants to buy art prints right now, especially fantastical ones like I make. So.... Why not note cards, or post cards, or something fun like that? I'm actually pretty excited about it. The only problem is that I'm almost out of ink, so I'll have to wait on that. Or try selling hand crafted cards.

But I think I'm going to add my blog to my daily to-do list, so it's right there in my face all the time. That may help me to remember. Maybe. If you're lucky, punk.

But before I go, here's some cool Etsy shops to check out!


LUCKXURY luck and fashion jewelry


Grandma's Jewerly

Blah. Life is funny, in its unpredictable, twisty ways. One minute you're deliriously happy, and the next you're feeling like something scraped off the bottom of someone's shoe. I'm feeling like the shoe thing at the moment, and the worst part is that I don't really know what to do about it.

Usually when I'm feeling like this, I don't know the real cause of it. I blame this or that, never really knowing why I'm feeling so down, until my short attention span makes me forget that I'm even down. Well, this time I've been depressed for so long that I think I've finally figured it out.

My life isn't going anywhere. I'm stuck in a rut of uncertainties and fears. I'm so afraid to move forward because I don't know where any of these paths will lead me. I'm afraid to move because I may fail. I may lose everything I've got. I may make a fool of myself. I may just prove to myself that I'm not good enough to be successful.

I'm so bored with my life right now. I can't keep myself busy enough with the domestic stuff anymore (or, actually, I probably could if I could get myself to focus on it), and I just don't want to work on my art because I know I've come to the point where I need to do the real work. Real work that I don't know how to do. Getting a real job when you're in a traditional profession is pretty straight forward. Finish school, apply to jobs, interview, kiss butt, then retire. No one ever tells you how you're supposed to do it when you're a self taught artist, and I can't take it anymore.

I'm to the point where I'm ready to offer my services to anyone who wants them for a cheap price. I've never liked treating my art like a cheap whore, but it's been the only way that I can really get people to buy it. Picture for a penny? My soul for a buck? Sure, why not!

It's always been my dream to go to school, to sharpen my talents, get experience and connections, and learn the secrets of the trade. But I can't afford it, and I'm scared to death to get a loan. Art schools are horrendously expensive and there's no guarantee that I'll walk away with anything other than a piece of paper and the exact same problem I have now. Maybe business management or some sort of sales course would be the better way to go. At least that way I would get some useful tips on how to go about the business part of things.

What I really feel like I need is someone to deal with the nitty gritty part of things. Like an agent or something along those lines. The problem is that I don't feel like I'm experienced enough for any agent to take me on. You usually have to have a couple of books, magazines, and/or awards under your belt before anyone looks at you twice. Maybe I should make that my goal. Get in a couple of magazines and get an award or two, and then contact an agent.

It's terrible, but I feel like my art is some delicate flower that needs to be pampered to. If I'm constantly worried about the business, I can't create. So I need people around to take care of me in that way... My experiences with running things have showed me that it's true that some people are better in the spot light, and there are those who would much rather be in the background making sure everything's working properly.

But speaking of awards, I'd forgotten that I do have one under my belt. Not a fantastic award; 2nd place in one of the Pixel Joint challenges. I wonder if I can claim that? I mean, those challenges are really fantastically hard, and I really do deserve some recognition. On the other hand, the piece that won the award is kind of illegal. I totally copied a scene from the Labyrinth. Of course, that WAS the point of the contest, too. To pixel a scene from a movie. Sooo... I'll have to ask around about that one.

Oh, but with luck, I should have a new award coming my way soon. I entered another PJ contest last week, and I'm really proud of how that turned out. I'm lazy at the moment, so I'll post the picture later. It won't be until next Monday before I know if I won or not though.

Anyway, I am feeling better after spewing all of that. I tend to get like that. I need to get stuff off my chest before I can start looking at the bright side of things. See the silver lining, and so on. I think I'll follow my own advice and try to get some things into a magazine, then find an agent. Or maybe I'll brainstorm on other ways to go about this stuff. Either way, I know I need to do something with myself. If I don't, something really terrible's going to happen to me. Either I'll turn into someone I don't want to be, or I'll simply wither away.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you thought you couldn't get any stupider? And then you proved yourself wrong? Well, let me introduce you to my stupid.

I was drawing a lovely dragon today:



Got the pencil sketch down, laid the ink lines really neatly, was having a great time and enjoying myself. Well, as much as I can when I'm doing art. I've noticed I get really anxious when I'm doing art. Fidgety. I just can't keep still long. Anyway, I started putting the masking fluid down (that's the orange stuff). Once I finished that and was working on closing the jar up and cleaning the brush out, I noticed the lid had a huge glob of solid masking rubber on it and decided to peel it off.

I don't know the exacts of what happened next, but I do know that the lid went zipping out of my hand and landed on the floor. I angrily put the jar of fluid down on the desk and went down to fetch the annoying lid, and when I got back up, I noticed, to my horror, a HUGE puddle of fluid on the one corner of my piece. It was practically a lake. Annoyed but not discouraged, I knew that if I just spread it around a little and let it dry, I could just peel it off.

Unfortunately for me, I forgot that I'm impatient. I also forgot that masking fluid is wet. And, on top of all that, I forgot that wet paper is prone to tearing. So even though the corner had bubbled up despite being taped down, which I knew to mean that it was still damp, I peeled the masking fluid away. Along with the top layer of paper. Luckily I'm using Bristol board so it didn't tear the entire thing away, but nevertheless.

Argh.



So I don't really know what I'll do. It wouldn't be a problem if I was using colored pencils alone, except I had planned on making the background a watercolor wash of some sort. The finished surface absorbs the color differently from a torn surface, so that'll just look crazy. So maybe what I'll do is cut a piece of Bristol board and glue it down over the damaged part...

No one will notice, right?

I like to say that the main reason I haven't broken into the professional world of art is because I never knew where to start, who to contact, or even where to look to find this information. And that was all true, too. The art world has this thing with mystery and elusiveness, to the point where, if it was a person, you might think it had some mental problems or a weird fetish.

Well, the clouds have finally opened and the sun of happiness and delight is shining down on me! That's right, my friend. I finally got my hands on a real live copy of the 2009 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market book. I'd been eyeballing this book for about a year now, and had actually seen the 2009 Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market book while I was searching for the Children's book, but I decided that I'd probably be much happier as a children's book illustrator. Lord knows I'm almost mature enough to draw for children.

I just got the book this afternoon, but just flipping through it and reading the first couple of articles has convinced me that it was a really smart purchase. It tells you a lot of things other people skip over because they figure you already know it. Like, for instance, only about 50% of book publishers will accept your work if you don't have an agent/rep. However, since you don't generally make as much with magazine deals, reps/agents won't even bother with those so anyone and their brother can submit to them.

I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. Plus it's really warm outside today, and according to my body, warm sunny days = ambition and a go-get-em attitude. Hooray for natural cycles!

If I find out any other interesting tidbits, I'm sure I'll share. But only if you're nice to me.

....I think something is out to get me. I really do. I was just typing up a post about how I hadn't been around here much, and how I have a ton of art to show off when BAM! My post dissappeared!!!!

Well. I guess it was less dramatic than that. I accidentally hit the back button and, well, you know how that goes. But it's easier for me to blame it on mysterious forces than to recognize that I'm a silly.

Anyway, I have some art to show off that I'm just dying to put on here! I don't really know why I haven't been posting my art (that's slackerese for "I'm totally lazy and would rather be goofing off"), but at any rate, I have a few pieces that need to be shown to the world!

So let's get down to business, yo. I colored my IF picture for the word "fleeting", and I'm rather happy with the colors (though the skin could have had more contrast. Ah well!). I never did get around to posting it to IF, but then again, I've been very busy being lazy.

And she's still nude, of course.



Oh yeah, in case you hadn't noticed, there's two pictures there. I really like the sketch and the colored version as two separate pieces, and I thought I'd show them side by side. They just seem to have very different feels to them, and it's always fun to see a work in progress, yeah?

Alright, the next piece is a naked man. Just... a guy that's nude. Chad mentioned that I hadn't drawn any men in a while, and after thinking back and realizing that, yes, it has been like a year or more, I decided that I should probably start with the basics. So after searching around DeviantArt for naked man models, and blushing a bit along the way, I decided on a model and just drew him. It was fun. I feel like I learned a lot, too. Like that I usually draw men as skinny women.

You can look at the reference photo and then my drawing . Or you can look at my drawing first, whichever. But I decided that I wouldn't post that one in plain sight, in case there are any heterosexual guys looking through my blog. I don't want to frighten them off with questions about their sexuality. Guys can be like that, you know.

And! One more picture, and I'm pretty happy with this one. I decided that it was time to create myself a deviantID, which is a little picture you can have on your DeviantArt profile page that... I dunno, is you? Most people don't actually have pictures of themselves, though. So I decided to break the mold and actually draw me!

Except it's a much cuter version of me, but nevertheless 99% pure Julie.



I cheated a bit by taking a picture then tracing the lines for the table, chair and lamp, as well as getting a skeleton down before drawing the rest of the girl. But I really feel that, by imitating real life, I'm learning a lot about how to represent it better. I don't want to have a really realistic style, but I don't want my anatomy to look off and wrong, either. So I'm trying to reeducate myself on the basics so I can incorporate it into my style. Plus, I've always thought that people need to practice drawing realistic anatomy before moving their style to something less realistic. Otherwise, you start creating your own anatomy in your head, and it looks so right to you that you don't understand when someone tells you that it's wrong.

Anyway, I hope this is the beginning of a lot more art!

So IF's word this week is Fleeting. I wasn't going to do it... until my muse came to visit me one night. He hasn't been coming around so much lately, but I guess he decided there was nothing better to do. Plus I guess I was in the mood to finally listen to him... and I'm extremely glad that I did.

I don't think I'm done with this piece quite yet, but just getting the sketch out of my system felt really nice. It's amazing how easy it is to forget what it feels like when you haven't done it in a while.

I can tell I'm starting to ramble emotionally, so I'll just post the picture and run along now. Some nudity, but hell, it's my blog after all. And besides, it's not like disgusting nudity, like the naked girls men tend to draw. With cannon ball breasts. You know what I'm talking about.

So this week's illustration Friday is Poise, and as it just so happens, I recently did a pretty little piece of pixel art.... Well, I think you'll agree with me that she just oozes poise. If you can ooze while being poised.



She's a Water Fairy, and I just like her. She's really shiny, but on the other hand, so is water. I plan on using her in my cyberpet website, in a maze that I've been working for what seems like 10 years. She'll have three sisters, too; Air, Fire and Earth, but they're not done yet. Soon!

So you know what's annoying? December comes along, and I'm totally full of the creative juices. I'm making cookies and bread and Christmas presents by the bucketful, and I think, "Wow, this is fun! I'm really creative and inspired! I bet things will only get better from here!" Then January gets here, and it's like someone dumped a big bucket of icy cold reality on me and all I want to do is huddle up on the couch with a book or a video game. I don't even look at my art desk.

Then, ah, the fresh air of spring hits my lungs, and all of a sudden it's creativity city once again. I have all these grand ideas for my blog, the dessert that once was my Etsy shop, my art, my websites... you name it. I even have plans to start an aquarium in my front room, have some fishes to watch and keep me company, and drive my cats crazy.

And it's not that I'm upset that I suddenly have this energy again, it's just frustrating having to live through two or three months of hibernation. I don't understand why I do it, but I do and nothing I do can change that. I think I just have to accept that as a part of who I am and just get over it. Or possibly move tho Florida. I bet learning to live with it is cheaper and easier though.

So I do have some pictures to share. I know it's been a while, but bah, I'm tired of explaining myself. I'm sure you all love me, so I won't even start.

First, some art!



I actually did this piece a few weeks ago, but I rather like it. Well, except for the fact that I can't transfer from pencil to inked lines without messing something up. Unfortunately, that's usually the eyes that I mess up, which totally ruins the whole piece for me since I put most of the emotion in the eyes. Ah well. This is what I get for enjoying small pictures so much, right?

I was working on this piece shortly before (I think) and then some time after taking reiki 1 classes, and it was just such a neat experience that this piece came out because of it.

Ok, next up! I hope this picture makes you drool.



Well, maybe they won't make you drool, exactly, but they make me drool anyway. What these are supposed to be are teeny tiny mint meringue cookies. I accidentally stumbled across the recipe from Joy the Baker, and they just looked so cool that I had to give them a try!

But man, I have to tell you!!! These things were a sticky mess. I ended up with meringue everywhere (which dries hard as a rock) and green tinted finger tips for..... well, they're still green tinted, actually. Mmmm... but they're so good! They're peppermint and they melt in your mouth and they're just so creamy and airy and crunchy and good! Not to mention cute.

I did, however, not read the recipe correctly. Instead of attaching the whisk attachment, I used the normal beater attachments. I was wondering why the heck my meringue wasn't getting very stiff, but figured what I had was just going to have to work. They turned out kind of droopy looking compared to Joy's cuties, but I'm not worried about it. I plan on trying the recipe again, this time with LESS peppermint extract. And maybe even an orange flavored version. Possibly maple? No, that would be just weird. Probably. Maybe it would be good...... or just weird.



Anyway, that's the important artsy stuff going on in my life right now. I know it's probably not really important in the grand scheme of things, but it keeps me busy.