Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade lifeimagined.etsy.com

(Click the icon in the center of the table to see the content... stupid livejournal)

I updated the shop a bit.

I've been going through a creative drought the past few months. I apologize!

I just remembered that I dropped the prices on all of the things in my Etsy store. You can check it out here.
I sort of want these to be gone. ;)

Listed three paintings in my Etsy Store today.


A Robot painting I did for a tutorial on addmyartjournal.
You can see the listing here. ($20)


The Zombie girl painting ("The Starlet") I did for an art show a few months ago.
You can see the listing here. ($40)


The Zombie/Greaser guy painting ("The Star") I did for the same art show a few months ago.
You can see the listing here. ($50)

Several weeks ago I came to the realization that if I was going to make paintings for an art show, drive seven hours across the state to attend said art show and expect any sort of promotion to come from this art show, I should have some form of business cards. I toyed with the idea of getting business cards made by one of the random sites online where you only have to pay shipping (and have someone else's domain on the back of your card). I thought about designing my own cards and having them made up by a close friend of mine. I quickly realized that I don't know anything about designing business cards and have no idea what sort of look I wanted them to have. Then I remembered MOO cards a site where you can upload your own pictures (up to 100) or your own custom done graphics and have them print out unique business cards for you.
A few days later I had all of my work scanned and cropped, I began sorting through it all to decide which pieces I wanted to have on my business cards. I uploaded about ten images to MOO's site and began to narrow down my choices by seeing which pieces worked the best for the shape of the cards. After cropping, choosing one of their pre-made logos for the back and adding all of my contact information I sent the $20.00 to them and began waiting for them to arrive.
They took about ten days to travel from London to Northern California, which was on the outside edge of their estimated time (a friend of mine waited several weeks for hers to arrive). They came in a padded, recycled plastic envelope. The cards come in their own white, hard plastic box (also made from recycled materials, they try very hard to use only recycled materials).
The cards are smaller than I thought they would be, I knew going in to this that they would be smaller and would be shaped differently from normal business cards. I must say that they quality is fabulous, as was the printing and lettering. For such a tiny card, you can still read the lettering on the back (at least I can). Also in the envelope was a sample version of their custom sticker books. I am so looking forward to slapping these tiny little stickers on things. I will definitely be buying some custom stickers in the future.
Overall, I am very happy and looking forward to passing these suckers out like there is no tomorrow. I can't wait to toss these in with artwork I sell.
( Pictures of the MOO cards )

It has been far too long since I have updated this. Worry not though, I have been busy and I am finally prepared to share the fruits of my labor.
As I mentioned in my last post, my official art site has been moved to wheelhopcity. It has also been refined a bit more and I am quite pleased with the results.
In the past month or so I have been posting at least once a week to addmyartjournal featuring different artists and interviewing most of the ones I feature. I just posted an interview featuring my work and a self interview today, you can read that here. If you would like to be featured and/or interviewed, ask me anytime. Also, if you know of any artists out there that should be promoted (in your mind) in this community, let me know and I'll do what I can to make that happen. It's a project that I am really enjoying and I want to see it last a long time.
The picture to the right here features the two paintings that I have done for this weekend's art show in Los Angeles at Meltdown Comics. The show is in celebration of the release of Motor City's first graphic novel. The theme is Greasers, Ghouls & Gals, it's going to be quite the party. For more information on the show check out Motor City's Official Blog.
I just added two new items to the Etsy Store. The first is an original watercolor painting Bug Lady Revisited, the other is a tote bag that I've spent the last few years trying to convince myself to part with The Little Black Sheep. You can see pictures of these pieces behind the cut.
( Follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road )

WheelHopCity.com Has just been converted into my new art site. Finished the galleries today and added some more to the about page. It's nothing too fancy yet, but it works pretty well. Let me know what you think, please?

I listed "Them" on Etsy tonight.
$20.00 plus $5.00 for shipping. I realize this is a low price, but I make the price low enough that people can still afford it easily, and high enough that I can still buy more supplies with the money.
I'm just getting my name out there. :)

The listing on Etsy.

I'm getting closer and closer to finishing my art show piece.
I'm very excited about it.

This is my newest painting titled "Them." My husband gave me the idea, unintentionally, a few weeks ago. He was ranting about something, saying how "they" wouldn't let him do something because "they" were evil. I asked him who "they" were and he had no idea, but "they" were quite mean. So, I painted Them.
This is a 5 inch by 5 inch squared canvas that is 1 1/2 inches thick. Painted with acrylics, paint pen and covered with a gloss sealer. I'll be listing this on Etsy later today. (I'll update this to show you the listing.
I just bought a new scanner/printer combination from Best Buy for $80. The printer is decent, not amazing, but good enough, the scanner is absolutely brilliant though and makes me so happy. I'll be scanning as much of my work as I possibly can from now on. Expect a lot of entries soon.

I've updated E for the first time in a while! *cough-singapril2007-cough*
Really, I apologize about that, but I am really glad that I did. I made a post with a bunch of drawings/paintings I've done in the last year. It's a pretty good recap.
Some point later I will try to set up a reasonable looking layout there. I really don't like the one it has now, but it's better than the one I had before.

( How I start the big drawing projects )

Earlier this week I decided to get back into painting. In school, growing up, we always did watercolor paintings in our art classes. Art comes fairly easy to me, drawing is my forte and I love working with colored pencils. Painting with anything other than watercolors has never quite clicked with me though. Sure, I've tried to complete amazing paintings or even decent ones in the past, but I've never had a lot of luck. That all changed yesterday when I managed to paint this pretty rad ninja. I never get really full of myself for any of my artistic abilities, they've always come pretty naturally to me so I've never felt the need to be über impressed by anything I've done. However, I must say, this ninja is bad ass.
I listed him on Etsy last night before I headed to bed and he was sold before I woke up the next morning. (Could have a LOT to do with the fact that I only charged $15 for the painting.) The guy who bought the painting sounds really cool, he collects small format paintings-that are good anyway. It looks like he created his Etsy account yesterday and bought my painting, which is amazingly flattering.
I also completed a painting of a Pixie Dust jar which can be seen here. I'm not as happy with this one, but it's still better than my previous attempts at painting.

Really, I'm just overjoyed that I sold the painting which allowed me to return to the art store to get more canvases (and some green paint for an upcoming project I will be trying to take part in). I love buying art supplies.

I originally was going to paint a ninja with a scythe to illustrate a dream I had earlier last week. In the dream ninjas were Grim Reapers. They had three certificates for each person in the world. The certificates were all small and square. ( More on my crazy dream, it was a graphic designers fantasy, I wish I could show you... )

(cross posted to my site wheelhopcity.com)

New drawings! I don't mean to horde them for so long, I swear. I just do too many drawings in one day sometimes.
My husband and I spent most of October working on a Haunted House with some friends. It was fun, stressful and enlightening. However, I am really glad that it's over, I like being able to stay home on our days off. Speaking of days off, I will be having less and less of those because I (finally) got a new job. I'll be working for Aaron Brothers, an art supply store (appropriate, non?) with a 25% discount! I'm really, really excited about that.
On November 4 my husband and I went to Downtown Sacramento to see Henry Rollins (3 or 4th singer of Black Flag, Singer of The Rollins Band, Writer, Actor, etc) do a spoken word show at The Crest Theatre a venue that I love, solely because it is gorgeous inside. The lighting at the show made it pretty hard to see and we were farther back than we would have liked, but it was fun nonetheless.
I just downloaded AIM again, so if any of you have any questions, or just get bored, hit me up: furimmerx
If any of you read comic books, I suggest picking up Simon Dark from DC Comics. It's pretty (violent & gory, which I love), but also rather sad. My new favorite frame from a comic is in this first issue here. The setup for that is that he just saved this guy's life by killing someone that was about to kill him and all he asks for in return for saving the guy's life is food. THAT is a super hero. By the way, Simon Dark is a new character for Gotham City, Batman's stomping grounds.
I'm going to stop sounding like a geek now so you can see my drawings... yeah.

( I feel awkward, as I should )

A very useful post from organize. How to Organize for an Emergency Evacuation.

I've started drawing again, plus I have a few unfinished ones I've been meaning to share.
Some of you may have seen some of the older ones on my regular journal. These are shown in the order of newest to oldest.

( Awwww )

A week or so ago I was reading a dictionary for fun. (I do this sometimes, it's amusing and soothing to find new words for me to learn. I started doing this in my Junior year of high school during my Poetry/Shakespeare class, which I loved.) I came across a word, "executrix" this caught my interest and I soon learned that this is the proper term for a female executioner. Really? I didn't even know there was such a thing.
Then I got the idea to draw a scene girl (or emo kid, or whatever they're called, apparently I just missed that trend with my age and I'm completely clueless at it), with a mullet, and a scythe in her hands. Well, I got the basics of the scene girl drawn (though she's probably not that "scene" and I'll have to, at least, redraw her shoes, because sandals are so not scene kid, right?) now I just have to add the scythe and the rest of the scene.

I'm sort of amused by this project. If it goes well I just might have to draw some more definitions, or careers at least.
As you might be able to tell, I'm not great at drawing people. Arms, hands, legs, feet and mouths are the parts that I have the most trouble with. The reason she's wearing a blue fishnet shirt is because I messed up the lines and figured that would be a good way to cover the mistake. Also, yeah, she's got an anchor tattoo.

( Rainbow Killer )

I can't afford to buy $100 art prints that are limited to 150 and only available if I manage to fly myself out to the art gallery in LA. So, I carry the paintings and artwork that I really love with me, all the time. I get tattoos.
People get tattoos for a number of reasons, but that is mine. I never wanted to have that cute little butterfly above my butt crack or the word 'mom' on my upper arm. That just wasn't me. When it came time for me to get my first tattoo I was thinking of getting lyrics to a song on my leg. Then I began flipping through art sites online and found the painting that became my first tattoo. Possessed by Luke Chueh spoke to me, well it pretty much screamed at me. It's such an interesting representation of how I feel when I interact with people in person that I just fell for it head over feet. So, on my 21st birthday I got it tattooed on my inner, left calf. ( Possessed tattoo picture )

For my 22nd birthday my husband decided to buy me another tattoo. I finally chose A Squid Pirate by Greg "Craola" Simkins for my inner right calf. This one didn't speak to me so much, but I loved the imagery. This tattoo is currently unfinished.
( Squid Pirate Tattoo )

Welcome to themonomaniac. This is the public art journal of speakdaggers.
Here I will share my artwork and whatever other creative ventures I partake in. :)

monomaniac:
A person with monomania, the excessive concentration on a single object or idea.

Interesting community: jr__nal