Autumn & Artfire

I had planned to go out and wander around and take photos, so, of course, it rained. Perhaps this is why I so seldom make plans.

Anyway, instead, I sat down at the computer and opened up some of the thousands of digital photos I have hanging around here and there and everywhere, and decided to have some fun playing with Photoshop. Let's just say that in reality neither of these were photos of red leaves...

autumn glow

sublime maple alchemy

So, I'm taking the plunge, and I opened an account on Artfire called SunshineSight. There you can find these and eventually probably all of the rest of my work.

Artfire is offering a pretty cool deal on their accounts, which is valid if you sign up before 10-01-2010. Where a "pro" account is only $5.95 USD a month. It's the same basic price as listing an item a day on Etsy, except with an Artfire account, for the flat monthly fee you can list as many items as you want. Obviously, I encourage you to check it out.

So, I was going to come home from work yesterday and get a bunch of stuff done... and was then reminded that the Fall Festival was going on. Stuff? Who needs to do stuff—especially when people with art & jewelry & fudge are set up in booths 2 towns away?

Yes, I have been to the Fall Festival, I now have more jewelry, some fudge, and some cookies; and I had half an elephant ear. Yes, I am such a sweet child that I gave the other half to my mother.

It was a fun hour. I'm one of those people that condenses fairs & festivals into the swiftest route. Hey, I still saw everything (much of which I actually see every year when I go). I generally always have to work on whatever day the event is happening — no one really schedules these things on a Monday or Tuesday so in theory I could dawdle at a leisurely pace. Yeah, I gotta go home & go to bed to get up for work...

Anyway, I got what I wanted: jewelry & fudge : )

I did take my camera with me, thinking I might take some pictures... but I didn't. I suppose I should have photographed the elephant ear. Anyway, it was windy as all get out. Hopefully no one's booth blew over. There were definitely literally some artisans holding down their respective forts.

I guess Fall is determined to make its presence known.

And in the spirit of fall, I have been rifling through some of my thousands of photos. Last year I had a lot of fun photographing the Japanese Maple...

Japanese maple in red

maple confetti

maple delight


These are available at sarahknight on etsy.

Snowflakes in September

Dear blog: yes, I hope to update you more frequently.
Sincerely,
Sarah
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Okay, now that we have that out of the way, I got busy working and being exhausted last week. Part of that working was my full time job, which regularly consumes 50 hours of my week (between my actual presence there & my drive). The rest of the 'working' was spent at home in front of the imac and involved snowflakes. Yes, every September I start working on the snowflakes.

I started designing snowflakes about 5 years ago. I'm sure as a child I cut snowflakes out of paper, and in college I started decorating my dorm rooms or apartments with snowflakes (I have hundreds of those plastic snowflakes covered in glitter — every year I go out and buy new snowflake ornaments)... but it was about 5 years ago that I started to seriously design snowflakes. I decided I wanted them to have the traditional 6 arm symmetry. Thus I designed a template that I could design my snowflakes with 6-arm bilateral symmetry on. I use the same template to this day.

I began designing the snowflakes because I decided I was going to sell Christmas cards. And if I was going to sell Christmas cards — I would want them to look like something that I would want to send to people, thus snowflakes.

So, every year about this time it occurs to me that "it's time to make the snowflakes." And every year I design some new snowflakes... and they usually have some kind of general theme. The first year there were lots of peace signs in hearts. The next year there were more hearts and "words." After that it was more traditional themes — like old school Martha Stewart motifs... and last year my thing was swirls. This year may be the year of the deer, at least that what seems to be on my file so far... yeah, I'm not done with this year's crop of new snowflake quite yet. Hey, it's only September.

What I did accomplish last week was designing and consolidating the backgrounds for the snowflake prints I offer for sale on etsy. At the present moment I have 42 different background color choices available (they can be found here). I know, I know, it sounds excessive, but I aim to please. Of course, I also have 66 different snowflakes to choose from. Technically, I suppose that makes 2772 possible different prints...
although I do have at least 2 new snowflakes finished...

Anyway, this is one of the new backgrounds I calibrated this week:

This is "Julia" on seafoam pizzazz
which can be found at "sarahknight" on etsy.

28 paintings in 3 days

So, while I wasn't blogging last week, I was painting. Now, if I'm going to get out the paint (translation: move the plastic 3 gallon sized basket over 2 feet next to the paper cutter) then chances are I'm going to make paintings in multiples. Apparently I am not prone to moderation.

So, over the course of 3 (okay, 4) days I made 28 paintings. On the fourth day I made 1 painting, which was actually a "redo" because I wasn't overly thrilled with how it came out the first time...

Anyway, I don't have a studio, and would probably find possessing a room with nothing in it but art supplies to be a complete waste of a room. I believe I would consider that a "storage" room. I enjoy stimulation, whether that be music, television, or the computer. And generally, when I'm doing work I'm either listening to music or watching something on tv. Of course, by "watching" I mean I look up every five minutes or so...

So, virtually all of my painting is executed atop an old paper cutter which sits on the floor in front of the television. It's my de facto desk.

Anyway, when I paint the 'implicit landscapes' I put the illustration board on top of a box so the excess paint doesn't get all over the place. And that box sits on top of the lid to a pizza box, so the paper cutter can actually be used to cut paper or cardboard if the need arises without needing to be cleaned. Otherwise, if I just painted them atop a drop cloth or a piece of paper, then paint from the first painting would get mixed in with the next one, or else I would have to waste a lot of paper to keep my work surface clear for the next piece...

So, this is where the painting happens:

This was actually the box for a dremel tool & kit, although you would have a hard time identifying that now. As you can see, we enjoy pizza from Little Caesars.

Yes, there is flotsom and jetsom hanging around the paper cutter... and more paintings, and cardboard for the boxes I make to ship my work.

And this was the last painting, the one I repainted: "orchid guava aurora"

Beautiful things can be made in the most mundane conditions : )

Four of this production of 28 are currently listed for sale at my "sarahknight" shop on etsy.

Where have I been?

Evidently I am terrible with commitment. Oh, blog, where have I been? Too bad the answer to that isn't something fantastical. Yes, drat, I didn't take an actual vacation or something relaxing or interesting like that. I just got busy doing "stuff."

Of course, if you all knew how much stuff I technically possess, then the idea that I was distracted by my stuff for over a week wouldn't seem unusual... that, and you're probably about to call the people who produce "Hoarders" for A&E. Don't do that. Seriously, I don't have that much stuff, and I certainly don't have any dead cats at the bottom of my stuff.

I'm actually not a cat person, or a dog person... I have fish. And yet, I would not consider myself a "fish person." I don't do aquariums, and I don't do goldfish. I have bettas. And last week I bought 2 new fish, as one of my fish (Eli) had died, and Kaleb was all by himself on the kitchen table. Yes, Kaleb needed some other life form to direct scornful displays of aggression at, because otherwise he'd just be all sulky.

Yes, just like your cat or dog: fish have personalities. Kaleb is my sulky fish. He spends copious amounts of time at the bottom of the bowl, presumably napping, and knows he's the alpha fish... and really was not interested in being photographed for the purpose of a blog entry... in the lower left-hand corner, he looks at me sternly as if to imply that my need for him to look at me and the goofy thing I am holding (camera) is interrupting his nap.

Algernon is Eli's replacement. He enjoys eating, and otherwise sitting on the bottom of the bowl. As some of you may know, he's named after a character in a book: "Flowers for Algernon." I admit fully to never having actually read this book, and yet, I will never forget the title, it is emblazoned in my memory because "Flowers for Algernon" sat in a pile with other notable books such as "Silent Spring," "Mister God, This Is Anna," and "The Bell Jar" in the linen closet of my childhood. The paper that I drew on as a child, as well as the tupperware box containing all the stamps & stamp pads were also kept in that linen closet... Sorry, but "Bell Jar" is just not an awesome fish name.

Rhomany is "mommas little princess" (okay, so were Veruca, Tallulah, Esme, Zizzy, and every other female fish that proceeded her). Rhomany is the token female. She's feisty, and she enjoys eating... and for the purposes of these photos, while she conveniently did not swim to the other side of the bowl (*ahem* Kaleb & Algernon) she did not understand why the hand was not dropping food into the bowl and kept turning around to look for sustenance. That, and I think I dazed her with the flash on the camera...

Hopefully, if you have pets, you spend some quality time with them : )