Starting off strong...

Well, art fans, it's shaping up to be an exciting 2015 already, and we've barely even started!  I don't know what I did, but for some reason the universe has decided, "here, have some sprinkles on your 2015 cake!"  If, y'know, sprinkles were jobs and dollars.  I don't want to jinx it, but there's a project I'm in the running for that would really be a great opportunity...challenging, but that can be fun sometimes.

For another thing, we got our old house rented!

Scotty will miss the Art Shack.  As will I.

And we didn't even have to use a management company, so no management fees!  Of course, this means that I have to add "property management" to my long list of part-time jobs that I do, but I don't mind.  I'm just happy to have the house taken care of and not have to pay two mortgages anymore, let me tell you...

I also got my first Etsy custom order!  This is exciting.

My studio is always open

So, the weekend before last was the Open Studio Tour...

My setup...art on the wall, supplies, reference photos, finished cow painting and unfinished dog painting on watercolor pad.

 I got to set up in a gallery at Old Town Artisans (very cool place, highly recommended to visit if you're in Tucson!  The restaurant there is also very good).  I got to meet some other artists, see a couple of them work, and finish a painting while I was at it.  It was a nice couple of days.

Art show recapination

In lieu of Inspired Monday this week, I wanted to post about how my art & craft show this weekend went.  Maybe this will be inspiring to somebody, though...it was inspiring for me at the time, and a big learning experience too.

It's my booth!  You can tell it's windy 'cause the Sowing and Tree Woman paintings are blowing away from the grid.

Honestly, there's not a lot I would do differently...although this was my first craft show selling my own work, I've done several helping someone else sell their work, so I kind of knew how things should go.

And this is how they went...

Hey, you! You need t-shirts!

It's just a big week for this little ol' art business all around...preparing for the show next week, and now, Society6 has informed me that my t-shirts are on sale!

I bought this one.  Is it not perfect to wear to yoga?  Or just on any day when you anticipate you'll need a little extra bless-and-releasing?

It goes through Monday, and it's $5 off any t-shirts (this style shown above, plus v-necks or tank tops).  So that lovely shirt shown above is only $19.  Plus shipping is FREE.  You don't see that every day, folks.

Check out these possibilities...

From progress to DONE.

So remember my painting of a Westie that I showed you guys the progress on a few days ago?  Well, it's done!

When last we saw the painting, it looked like this...

This westie has no background, but she doesn't care - look at that tail wag!

And now?

Painting in progress

I feel better today...as I posted on the Maxfield and Madison Facebook page yesterday, I was reeeeeally sick all weekend.  I'm not entirely sure what it was, nor were the people at the urgent care place I went to, but they just threw antibiotics at me and it seems to have gone into retreat for the moment.

Unexpected illnesses are just not fair.  I had planned on going to the big street fair this weekend, to see what other artists were doing in terms of booth setup, maybe asking them questions, doing a little research.  But did Mr. Illness care about that?  Noooo.

I had planned to finish this painting on Saturday too...

But since I spent most of Saturday lying in bed with a fever, this did not happen.  However!  Today I made up for the lack of progress on things this weekend.

Tin roof. Rusted.

My studio(/computer room/music room/fiancé's video editing studio) is in this little guest house behind my main house...well, guest shack, really. Looks like this:

Yeah, the light is not great this time of day...but you can still play Find the Corgi in this photo!

Well, now the studio has this nifty accessory...

It's a sign!  Literally. :p I spent lots of time designing the sign, figuring out fonts and colors (the studio walls inside are green, it seemed a good choice), and a few days ago I finally put a coat of sealant on it (sealant was left over from another project, which maybe I will post later) and today I hung it up!  I will probably get a certain B52s song in my head every time I come out here for a while...and I'm okay with that.

As to what kind of art is currently inhabiting the shack...here's a sneak preview of a painting I'm about to finish today: 

Pug Shack, baby!

Oh no, she's back!

Hi!  Miss me? (sound of crickets chirping)

So, seeing as I've had a lot of art-related things going on over the past year (two exhibitions, launching a print shop and making several sales, and starting to inch my way into the pet portrait industry), I thought it might be prudent to restart my art blog.  Well, that, and I kinda just missed having a place to ramble on about art and related things.

Here's something I've been doing lately: playing with this app called Brushes on my iPhone!

It's a pink corgi.  Why?  Why not?  There never has to be a reason to draw pink corgis.

It's really gratifying, not only to be able to create tiny phone paintings, but the Brushes app also shows you a little video of your progress on the painting.  I'm trying to figure out how to import those, because they're really fascinating...and I like seeing videos of other artists' painting process, like the ones Jorge Columbo does for the New Yorker's Finger Painting blog (which is where I found out about Brushes).  It's been a fun way to get the daily sketching in, even without carrying a sketchbook...ahh, iPhone, what can't you do?