Love, Lydia - Notes from a geeky, plus sized artist.: art sale
Showing posts with label art sale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art sale. Show all posts

Friday, April 17, 2015

Making, Growing, and Moving Things

Hello again dear readers,

I've been incredibly busy these past weeks cleaning and organizing things, getting ready for our upcoming move, selling my art at the CCAD art sale, plus some fun things like going out the see art during the First Friday art walk in downtown Raleigh.  I've got some newly completed pieces, and am working on more, plus putting many of my photographs up on Etsy for the first time.  I didn't realize how many I'd simply neglected to put up.  I should have more new photographs soon too, because at the new house I'll be setting up a darkroom!



I've been planning my garden, and even bought a pair of apple trees for it, a couple blueberry bushes, a grape vine, plus seeds for veggies and some flowers that will attract hummingbirds.  I also happened upon a sad little gardenia plant at Lowes, which I'm nursing back to health.  I've been prepping for the new yard by doing soil tests and planning where things will be placed according to the light conditions at the new place.



Between all that I've been neglecting my blog and my pins project, as ambitious as it was, it's been pushed to the back burner.  But I have several new ones to share with you, and will still be doing more as the year goes on, just less often since I'm being more realistic about my goals in an attempt to combat the some of the effects of depression.  Otherwise things with the new house as well as prepping the rental for moving are keeping me busy.  Here are a few shots of how the house is coming along.  I can't wait to share more with you all about the journey!  I'll write a more about it in a post later.



9. Coin Magnets, this was a quick easy one that I thought would be perfect for the coins from Mexico I've had tucked in my backpack pocket for the past 2+ years.  I decided to try a modification and used adhesive backed strips of magnet.  I got it to work on coins, plus I also tried it on pressed pennies!  I have a ton of them because they're such fantastically fun souvenirs from my travels.  I grabbed the ones I still had floating around in my wallet.  Anyway, I think I'll be replacing the strips on the coins with the resin and thicker magnets as in the tutorial, but for the pressed pennies the strips worked really well!  It helps that the magnets can be cut larger for them, making them stronger, plus their backs are smoother that the coins.  This is a fun one guys, try it out!



11. Homemade Stromboli, a great easy recipe, which while it takes a little time it's completely worth it!  It was my first time making my own bread product with yeast, but this recipe totally raised my confidence levels.  I can't wait to try out more bread recipes, though the kneading process isn't my favorite.  Maybe one day I'll get a breadmaker!  We opted for canned sauce to go along with the stromboli, but went with a more adventurous option, which proved to be delicious.  We also changed the filling inside the stromboli to sausage, which was great.  We decided we'd put the herbs inside the stromboli next time we make it, but otherwise the recipe was fantastic.


I've got lots on my plate as I get through processing photos for Etsy, packing like a madwoman, and working my way past a sinus infection (oh allergies!), but I'm excited to have lots to write about and share with you all this spring.  So until next time...

Love,
Lydia


Saturday, May 31, 2014

Days 153-154

Hi everyone,

Today's update is all about art!  So What have I been doing?  Well, In April I participated in Live & Local Raleigh, where I had a booth showing my art as part of the street festival.  It was a fun day, there was live music, and plenty of friendly folks stopped by my booth too.  I look forward to being part of the event next year as well!  Here's a shot of my booth thanks to Groucho's Deli via Facebook.

Additionally April 8th was Draw a Bird day, so while I drew my bird that day I'm just now getting around to posting it!  I looked some of my older reference photos and selected one of a Brown-Headed Nuthatch at the feeders from our old apartment.  I drew it on watercolor paper with various colored pencils and it ended up having a nice soft look to it.



I think I'll try to find a nice sketchbook next time.  Speaking of which I'm thinking I really should start to keep a regular one and hopefully share some bits of things in future entries.  I poked around my studio a bit and found a tiny sketchbook that isn't made of watercolor paper...I think I might need to go shopping though.  Hehe  If so I think I will get something similar to a Moleskin style book since I will soon be getting an Imbue creative tool thanks to my friend Stephen Hughett and his collaborative partner Igor Zemskov's fantastic Kickstarter!  The tool will be very useful for my Irish inspired pieces or really any pattern based art I work on.

In other news I finally have a new camera!  A friend of mine was looking to sell hers and the timing was just right for things to work out.  I'm so incredibly thankful too!  I now have a Canon T3i DSLR, which I have been having a great time getting used to over the past two weeks.  So, here are a few bits of what I've been up to with it.  First there were test shots, of which the following two were lovely.



Then we went to one of our relative's 1st birthday party.  They had the nicest spread of ice cream sundaes and toppings set out, and of course the birthday princess was adorable!



I've also been keeping an eye on the creatures in our yard, birds and bunnies, there are squirrels too, but they're just annoying buggers.  The feeder is just outside our kitchen window, but the rabbits are used to us enough that I could walk just off the porch to take this picture, the Tufted Titmouse didn't mind either.  Then while I was writing the beginning of this post I kept hearing at least one fledgling Carolina Wren, and soon after had one come and investigate what I was doing on the porch!


I also took a few shots during our Memorial Day board games.  We were playing Tzolk'in, The Mayan Calendar game, which is why there are little crystal skulls involved.  A young relative was arranging the extra pieces while her dad played with us.  The lighting made it irresistible, and I went to grab my camera partway through the game.
                           

                           

                           

                           

Lastly, today I was working on my first Pinterest style project.  It's inspired by this pin of a chalkboard cheese plate!  I had given one of my brothers-in-law a beer sampling paddle, and during the party I realized it would be perfect to add a chalkboard paint finish to, so I'm doing that, plus painting some lettering on the back for him too.  I'll be going through the steps of how I make it as part of my next post.  Here's a teaser shot of all the items I'll be using to put it together.


Enjoy your last day of May and I will see you all in June.  Thanks!

Love, Lydia