Texture

This new old house is filled with texture. Cracked plaster, new plaster, sanded wood, stained wood, cracked paint and on and on. Overall the feeling of the house right now is a little bit mayhemish but there are these tiny bits of beauty that I love. I think they keep me focused on what this place will be for us. I think it’s the first place we’ve lived in that we truly see ourselves living in for – well, a long time. Recently I clocked the distance to the high school (there are no buses here. Kids walk to school – gasp!) to make sure it’ll be manageable for the boy. He’s almost three. So we’re thinking long term for the first time. I love the calm I feel about this.

 

Little Orphan Blog

When I started this thing my husband said “just don’t let it become an orphan.” And then I did just that. To my credit, in the past six weeks we packed our whole house up and moved to a new fixer-upper and then tore out some carpet, removed some walls, pulled out 4356 nails, get the floors redone, had plasterers camped out for three days, balanced buckets all around the basement to catch the surprise leaks, met some new neighbors, applied for permits, got bids and everything under the sun and played a lot of trains with the boy. 

So, I’ve been too busy to paint or draw or print or make any art. And certainly no time to take pictures of it and throw it up here for six people to see! I do miss it. I am so guilty of looking at other peoples’ work and being green with envy – not necessarily at their image making or talent or anything – just jealous of the fact that they made the time and DID IT. I need to get back on the horse. I’m too good at making excuses. I need a deadline.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of what life looks like at Camp Foxbury.

Keeping Secrets

I have been printing journal covers for the last few days. I’m pretty sure my favorite part of printing comes at the end of a run when I’ve successfully printed my stack of paper and filled my drying rack and I start looking around for anything else I can throw on the table and pull a print on. I have printed the walls and posts in our basement. I have printed cereal boxes, shirts, aprons, cardboard boxes, envelopes, shopping bags – anything that’ll take the ink. A couple of weeks ago I printed the tractor on a wooden “box” frame. I liked it so much that I’ve decided to keep a stack of boxes handy. I started printing bits of the screens I’ve been using for my journal covers and out came this test print box!

I love the test print randomness.

I’m throwing a few coats of varnish on this and giving it to my best big brother for his birthday in a few days. He flies in tomorrow so don’t say a word. Swear to it.

Aging Farm Equipment Love

Have I mentioned that I love printing? I think I have. A friend liked the tractor art I did for the Fresh Fridays at the Northside Farmers Market and asked me to do something for her son. My practical nature makes me love an assignment so I tried printing the art on a wooden “box” frame. Not to toot my own horn but I love the way it turned out. It makes me excited to print more things directly onto wood. Maybe collage the background and overprint an image? We’ll see. I’m supposed to be packing for the big move in about six weeks. In the meantime, a quick shot of the tractor print on wood. If I can steal some time I plan to print a couple more for my etsy and supermarket stores.

Before and After?

So I mentioned that we’re selling our house and eyeing another fixer upper (WHAT are we thinking!?) and a friend suggested that we capture the process on film (but not really film – just little digital blips of zeroes and ones that magically turn themselves into photos that people can see on their computers a million miles away – yeah, that). So I’m thinking about it and I wonder if I can be that organized. I tend to jump into a project and a third of the way through realize that we’re completing a total transformation and should have really snapped one simple “before” shot.

Still thinking about it.

Once we’re slightly further along in the process of buying this place I will post some of the MLS listing photos which will suffice as “before” shots. And in honor of this undertaking, and because I’m ambivalent about leaving the place we’re in now and have called home longer than any other place, I will post a couple of before/afters to tide us over.

More to come.

Early morning with the boy

Every once in awhile I get  good night’s sleep and I get to wake up early with the boy and it’s heavenly in the morning. We’ve been having unseasonably cool weather this summer so it’s actually chilly this morning. Jeans, sweater, coffee, etc. We’re up on our third floor watching some Thomas. The windows are open and the birds are singing. I love moments like this. 

It’s about to get super crazy around here. We sold our hulking, Victorian rowhouse in the city and we’re eyeing a 1910 red brick in a small town. The next few months (and years!) promise hours and hours of sorting, cleaning, packing, dumpster filling, sanding, painting, tiling, etc. What are we getting ourselves into? We just finished five years of all of the above. I can whip myself into a panicked frenzy in no time.

But for now we will just sit and listen to the birds and the persnickety British trains and enjoy this morning.

Illustration Friday! – “Worn”

Worn.

I love this week’s topic. I am drawn to old things that show their history. You can’t fake age as gorgeous as the frayed edges of this book cover.

Check out all of the other submissions here.

Giant sunflower tote bags

A long time ago I did this woodcut of a sunflower and I’ve used it a few times on cards and mixed media pieces. Summer is just starting to arrive here in southwestern PA and I got the itch to print up some tote bags for beach trips. I started out simple with three bag options and one ink option but I’ll certainly do more (especially if the orders start flooding my inbox as they surely will) in the next couple of days/weeks. I can’t say enough how happy mixing up ink and pulling prints makes me. Totes available here and here if you’re interested!

String ‘Em Up!

I love these things. I can’t help it. I love the idea and the letters and the design and the craftiness of it all. We strung one together for our first Open House last week and I’m definitely going to string one up in the boy’s room sometime soon. You can get your very own here (fully customizable).

Full disclosure: I work for L2. I love these guys  - always have, always will. No one is more willing to indulge my whims and give support to my ideas. This is a super busy time of year for us – thankfully. The Stationery Show in NYC was a success and now we have tons of orders to fill. Get printing, little print gnomes, people want their goodies.

Birds + Bees

I mentioned that some super awesome woman bought a bunch of my pieces from etsy. Well, she practically cleaned me out. I started a couple of pieces and hoped to have them up last week but, as you well know by now, I am an ace procrastinator so I now have only one done. The other is languishing on my table, waiting to be painted. The right color hasn’t hit me and I actually have some ideas for pattern so…we’ll see. 

I’m totally out of sorts right now because for a long time we’ve been in limbo about where to live. We live in an amazing, huge, old victorian row house in the city right now but it’s…complicated. There are countless great things about living here but a couple of really bad things about living here. And with the sweetest kid on earth in our lives, the bad things loom large. So…we fell in love with a house today and we’re spinning out of control about what steps to take next. Hence the out-of-sortsness. I’m very sensitive about “Place” and “Home” so this is a big issue for me and for S, as well. 

Sorry for the ramble. I’ll shush myself and post the new piece – a pretty bird for May. Goodnight, all.