It’s a Sunny Day

Which is most days here in Reno…

I’ve been here for 6 weeks. I’m still looking for The Right Job, but overall I think I’m doing okay in most aspects and a lot better in others. I’m sleeping really well and my anxiety is so much better than it was. After spending so long with so much stress and disappointment, it’s amazing what a real break can do. That’s not to say everything is perfect right now, and I did expect to have a job last month… but I’m not giving up anytime soon.

Earlier this week I pulled out all my beads and jewelry making supplies and made a few new adornments to add to my Etsy shop, after I get good photos taken, of course. I sorted through the bits of unfinished projects and A Lot of loose beads, crystals, and jewelry findings. I just sorted through all my Delica seed beads this afternoon and got them organized. I’ve come to realize that my long standing aversion to gold, yellow, and orange is most certainly getting in the way of being able to do the rainbow 🌈 projects that I have in my head… which is problematic because I really don’t have the funds to invest in expensive seed beads right now.

This afternoon I also pulled out a few in progress glitter paintings that were unfinished. Small 5×7’s with “Joy” and “Nice” started on them, and an 11×17 with “Mermaids Always Win” on it, and a couple of wood cut out Sugar Skulls glued onto 11×17’s and painted with black gesso that I had planned to do something with glitter on them, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what.

So I plan to work on those things… I haven’t managed to unpack all of my art or art supplies… and most of what I have “unpacked” is actually still in the boxes they’re packed in…but that’s because I have limited space and organizational ability where I’m staying at present.

Earlier this month I got a message on Etsy asking for pricing on a 36×36″ glitter painting… I’ve never priced or done anything that large so I had to look up material costs and do the math. I gave them a range of options from $900-$1500, depending on what they’re looking for, and let them know I would require a 50% deposit to get started. I didn’t hear back. I’m trying not to be disappointed, but it’s difficult. I could really use the work and I would LOVE to do something that big and test my large format technique.

No Art Yet

My freight delivery with all my art supplies and the rest of my clothes and stuff that was supposed to arrive last Monday… didn’t. Because Roadrunner sucks apparently.

They sent my pallets to a distribution company in Denver that doesn’t deliver outside of Colorado.

The last update I had was that it might be delivered this coming Monday… but that wasn’t a certain thing.

Living out of 2 suitcases for 3+ weeks is not something I would recommend.

I’ve been struggling with negative thoughts about my art lately. Since I can’t actually DO any art it’s difficult to combat those thoughts. I also had to back out of the winter art/gift fair I had wanted to participate in because booth space was almost full and I didn’t want to commit to it before my art and supplies arrived in Reno. The cost was also $200+ and I’m still unemployed. So this has been disappointing and there’s pretty much nothing I can do about it.

Not Livejournal…

One of my friends on twitter commented that she missed livejournal and getting to know people better than twitter usually allows for in its limited format. I also miss livejournal. I don’t necessarily miss the person I was when I was using it regularly… I’m a different person now than I was 15 years ago. Every time I think about livejournal I think I should start blogging more regularly and then I don’t.

Each time I post something here I think it’s going to be the start of me writing more regularly but then it isn’t.

Anyway. I’ve been in Reno for a little over 2 weeks living out of 2 suitcases, having limited clothing and personal items, not having any of my usual creative outlets since my art supplies were all packed in boxes NOT in my suitcases, sleeping on a borrowed futon cushion with borrowed sheets, pillows, and blankets (though I’m VERY GRATEFUL for those items), while I apply for jobs online.

I’m confident I made the right decision in coming here. I’m starting to struggle a little bit with being unemployed still… but I’m not really worried about that. I applied for a couple jobs with companies outside Reno that were offering remote work locations, one of which I’d be THRILLED to get. If it becomes necessary there’s a grocery store, Walgreens, and Starbucks within semi-reasonable walking distance. There’s also a Walmart, but I’m not considering that for obvious reasons, and also the walk there is pure torture. Up a huge hill… down the same hill… up another huge hill… then up hill some more… fuck that shit. If you know of any legit work from home options or if your company has an office in Reno that might be hiring, let me know! 👍🏻

My freight delivery is scheduled to be here this afternoon. I’m excited to have my art supplies, more clothes, and comforting familiar blankets for me and my dog. So a little while ago I picked up my bedroom and moved some things around to help make room for the massive quantity of boxes that will soon be arriving. The blue velvet futon I ordered for cheap from the Target website is scheduled to be delivered on Wednesday, so that’s exciting too.

I’m hoping to have my Etsy shop off vacation mode sometime this weekend. I’m planning to start making the cuff bracelets I’ve been thinking about for the last 6 months pretty soon. I’ve been doodling ideas for them. I’ve already had one request for Harry Potter themed bracelets, but if there’s something specific you’re interested in let me know and I can add it to the list of potentials.

I think that’s all I have for the moment. I’m going to try to post more often… but we’ll see if that works out or not. 🖤🖤🖤

The Bloody Hearts of My Enemies

After a shit winter where I’ve done almost no art in February I started working on a new series of paintings called The Bloody Hearts of My Enemies. I’ve completed 3 paintings, a 4th is just waiting for a few coats of gloss varnish spray, and 2 more are actively in progress.

I’ve just been super angry and unhappy for the last 6-9 months and it seemed like nothing was going right. I applied for and was rejected for more jobs at my current employer than I’d care to specify here over the course of 12 months and I was just not handling it well.

So after a random tweet by one of my fave authors, this idea got stuck in my head and I decided to do it. I wrote up a list of names, over the last couple months more names have been added, and I pulled out my paint, pastels, glitter, ordered some new mica pigments from Mad Micas, decided to do this series on 8×10″ and 11×14″ stretched canvases and got to it.

It’s going slow because I’m still not quite back where I want to be creatively… but I’ve been working on these regularly and feeling pretty good about them.

They are going to be added to my Etsy shop at some point this spring. I want to have a few more completed and I need to take decent photos of them.

Here are the 3 that are done though. Currently they’re hanging in my living room along with some of my other paintings.

New Paintings!

It’s been too long since my last post.

I have a number of new paintings to post, I have a new Patreon I started this month, I have a couple videos on my new YouTube channel, and I’m working on a tutorial for my rainbow paintings.

First, let’s chat about the environmental impact of micro plastics. In short? They’re terrible for the environment. There’s been talk lately of scientists wanting to ban micro plastics like has been done with micro beads that used to be in bath products. While I don’t believe that a ban on micro plastics (glitter) is immediately viable or likely, glitter is used by A LOT of different industries and our government is in the process of imploding, so I sincerely doubt this will happen any time soon.

Having said that, I have made a personal decision to stop buying standard glitter. I’ve been using a very high quality polyester craft glitter that I order online from Bulk Glitters. The quality is vastly superior to anything I’ve bought in a craft store. However, it’s still environmentally questionable.

I’m going to continue to use the polyester glitter I already have, but I’ve been working with biodegradable glitter and mica pigments to determine how best to use them instead.

Here is one of the recent paintings I did with mica pigments added to the paint. I think it turned out lovely! 💜

Not NaNoWriMo…

I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo in the past and failed each time. Which isn’t a big deal. Mostly. I considered trying again this year, I have a few ideas I’ve been bouncing around my head, but I decided against it. I’m just not that interested in pursuing any of them right now. This may change, but probably not this year.

Instead I’ve decided to try to do 50 paintings in 30 days. 50 FINISHED paintings in 30 days. I have a handful of canvas panels blocked out (for butts, fart, wtf, stfu, etc.) if I finish those after November 1st, I’ll count them.

I also have an idea for a series of friendly gouache monsters on watercolor paper.

This is actually really good timing because I signed up to have a table at the Holiday Art/Craft Fair at my paycheck job which is going to be on December 7th. So this will help ensure I have plenty of art in a variety of sizes/prices ready in time to sell there. I’ll probably put them up in my Etsy shop throughout the month and then just put my shop on vacation mode for 3 days around the Fair at work.

I’ll be posting my progress here, Twitter, and Instagram on the regular. Posts here will be cross posted to Facebook and Twitter automatically. Posts on Instagram will the cross posted to Twitter but I can’t get them to post to Facebook for some reason.

All paintings posted will be available for sale unless otherwise noted. If you don’t want to go through Etsy, just send me a message on any platform except Facebook (because I really dislike Facebook messenger) and we can work out the details.

If you’re doing actual writing for NaNoWriMo and I’m not following your blog (or preferred social media flavor) let me know and I’ll follow and offer lots of encouragement!

We can all totally do this!

Though I’m still mostly okay with failing.

 

The Struggle of Creation

Last week John Scalzi posted a thread on twitter about how difficult it is to write in the current social and political climate. The world is going under; natural disasters across the planet, mass shootings in our backyards, the president is a tangerine colored buffoon who cannot be controlled or managed, and the government is trying to kill everyone who isn’t a rich white man. 

As if being an artist isn’t hard enough under normal circumstances, we have to also contend with the suffering of everyone on a massive scale. It’s hard. It’s really hard. 

Art thrives not because of adversity, but despite it. So I keep going and doing what I can. Slowly. A little at a time. I wonder whether the quality is up to my standards. I wonder if it even matters. I doubt anyone even pays attention to what I’m doing. 

I try to tell myself it does matter. I try to tell myself that even the smallest steps count. I try to remember that art is important. 

Being creative is always a struggle. Some days the struggle is much harder than others. 

New WIPs

I recently acquired some new canvas board panels. I prefer painting on wood panels but they were free, so I decided to not worry about that. They’re on the thin side, so they aren’t suitable for Glitter Fluid Painting, but they are perfectly suited to glittered profanity and sass.

 

Okay. Maybe neither of those are particularly profane or sassy… but they’ll still look fab once the glitter I added dries and I varnish them. 

The only thing I’m struggling with is whether I want to invest in frames to sell with them, glue sawtooth hangers to the backs, or just sell them as is and ready to frame. The backs are gessoed, in either black or white, to match the gesso used on the front. Though the backs aren’t pristine once I’ve finished the painting, but I doubt that matters much. 

Hot Pink Hearts?

Is cutting bright magenta fleece into heart shapes twee? I did it anyway. 

My mom agreed to loan me her sewing machine and my tiny coworker agreed to let me measure her arm, so glitter embellished fleece arm warmers will happen just before or soon after legit fall and/or cold weather hits my state. 

I’ve also got some fleece stripes, stars, circles, a light blue cephalopod with arms, stars, and I’m hoping to do some bats as well. 

Because bats are cool. 

Just Glitter Everything

I’ve been wanting a new wallet for a while. I wasn’t having any luck finding a nice leather wallet at a price I wanted to pay. I couldn’t find a cute wallet with skulls, mermaids, cephalopods, or dragons that fit my needs or aesthetic. 
So I found a plain black rfid blocking “leather” wallet on Amazon for $9 and decided just to buy it. The listing was a little misleading. Parts said “genuine leather,” other parts said “high quality PU leather,” and some reviews talked about the leather smell, but it was $9 so my hopes for genuine leather were not high. 
The zipper is kind of huge and VERY gold, I’d really prefer it was silver, or less dominant on the wallet, but I can’t do anything about that now. 

Since the wallet is decidedly NOT genuine leather, I’ve decided to cover it in glitter. Right now I’ve just got the first coat of black gesso on it. Then I’m going to do some thin coats of glitter and acrylic medium. I haven’t decided what color yet. Then I’m going to put a glitter skulls or a mermaid tail on it. 
Because I really can glitter anything. 😘