Wow, this month has flown by! But then, it is a short month, even though it's a leap year!
Since last month, I spent time playing with watercolors and marking pens, just for fun! Here are a few of my results:
Wow, this month has flown by! But then, it is a short month, even though it's a leap year!
Since last month, I spent time playing with watercolors and marking pens, just for fun! Here are a few of my results:
Happy New Year! If you're wondering what I've been up to this past month, here's my story!
First off, most years I wind down the end of the year through the beginning of the next with a creative respite - my creativity takes a hiatus, and I'm left with no energy or inspiration for awhile! It's kind of like hibernating... the holiday rush is over, and January and February are typically slow season at the gallery. So I give myself permission to rest and at some point I start to "dither and putter" around the studio.
Well, this year, I had another little thing to deal with - I fell the day after Christmas and hurt my back! I won't go into the details - suffice it to say, I have been kind of in "healing" mode for the past few weeks... some days I don't feel like doing anything, others I venture into the studio and putter some.
This year, I decided to play around a little with water colors, and started following some artists on various social media platforms. Here's an exercise I did one day following some videos by bb henry art:
I looked at the calendar this morning and realized we're 2 short weeks away from Winter! This year has just flown by for me... so many projects, cranking out the dyes and bowls, selling my socks off! And we still have a few weeks left of 2023... looking forward to maybe having a little "down time" to rest and recouperate!
Two things of note: After almost 3 years, my friend Cinde and I have decided to pull out of Sedona Artist Market. Cinde has done very well there this past year, me not so much. But having to schedule one day each month to head down, restock and tidy our booths, has become a little more than we want to commit to. We are leaving on good terms, and may at some time decide to return, but for now, it's a relief to know we don't have to make the trip down unless it's for a hike on our favorite trail, or because we just feel like it!
The other thing that has happened this year is that I've added a few new items to my inventory! Late last year I started offering zip up hoodies, but didn't really know the best way to dye them, but this year I've become a little more adept at tying the "Geode" pattern, which for me is a diagonal stripe rather than the more irregular circular version many dyers create.
And I just added Rayon/spandex open front cardigans to my inventory, as shown in the above photo on the right. They dye up beautifully! And the one in the photo got snatched up by one of my fellow artists the day I put it on display! Got another one I'm getting ready to dye for Cinde as soon as I take delivery of one of the dye colors needed. And of course, there are the aprons - what can I say?
Wow, time flies! I totally missed posting in October, mainly 'cause I was busy beefing up my inventory for the two galleries! I've had fabulous sales the past 5 months, and we're heading into Holiday shopping season already! And just in time, I'm working on a couple of new items - here's a rope Christmas tree I just finished:
It's been awhile! After our annual Open Studios Tour which was a great success for me (thank you to all who stopped in and shopped!) I was busy filling orders I received at the event, then began working to build up my inventory for holiday shopping, which has already begun!
Here are a few things I've completed recently:
How is it that a month goes by in a flash, and I start feeling like I'm forgetting to do something? Oh yeah, how about a new blog post?!
Here's what I've been doing this past month - Geode ice dyeing!
Well, we finally started getting monsoon storms in the past week or so - last year this time, our area was being deluged with post fire flooding - first time we ever got flooding across our front area and ended up with a couple of inches of mud in the garage! I never did post photos from the mess, but after a year, the County Flood Control district has done a great job enhancing the flood mitigation efforts - we've had some heavy downpours the last couple of weeks, and our river did come back for a short visit on the southeast corner of the property, but no bad floods across the front - just lots of large puddles and a lot of Thunder/lightning.
Wow, I let June get away from me! Been busy dyeing and doing other fiber related projects, and it paid off - had great sales at Arts Connection and good ones at Sedona Artist Market too. Now I'm trying to build up my stock for the 25Th Annual Flagstaff Open Studios Tour which will be held August 26 - 27 this year! I will be at my friend Cinde's house again along with Cinde and 3 fellow artists, so that should be a nice draw for folks to come by. I'm finishing up an ad that we will be posting to the Brochure for the tour, so that will let everyone know who will be there and what medium(s) they will be offering. So if any of you will be in the Flagstaff area the last weekend in August, be sure to save the dates and stop by to see us!
Here are a few of the items I've been working on since my last post: