Opening Saturday Evening

Join us Sat. Dec. 7, 6:30-9:30pm at The Guilty Dog Coffee House in Port Credit, along with Port Credit Emporium, for a Caribbean Christmas event, with special menu items, and the opening of my show at the coffee house, too! Stay for the evening, or just drop by. If you can't make it that evening, my work will be showing in the coffee house through late January.

Gallery Craighurst

We took a trip up to Craighurst, ON, north of Barrie today to bring a selection of my work to Woodside Pottery & Gallery Craighurst.  The owner is a potter himself, and has his studio space attached to this gallery shop, in which he sells work by various artists and craftspeople, including his own work of course.  He visited the Spring OOAK show, where I had a small booth back in March.  He now has some of my butterflies, scarves, and silk clutches. 

Etsy Front Page!

One of my paintings was in a treasury that got featured on the Etsy front page a few days ago!
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NjA3ODYyN3wyNTcyMDAxMDU4/chasing-the-blues?index=2

Two New Pieces

Today is warm and sunny, which is great for photos, so here are the two most recently completed paintings I talked about.  Hope you like!

Still painting!

I'm still working on some paintings - I've finished another couple which I will be taking photos of and posting soon. 

Also, have a read of this Arts on the Credit blog post about me & the artwork I do.  Arts on the Credit is the next show I'll be doing, coming up in April. 

Happy Valentine's Day

Or, happy Tuesday, but either way I hope it's a good one for you.  I've been doing some painting lately, revisiting pieces I started and put down - which I do alot.  I've put the finished ones up on my Etsy and may end up taking them to my next show, which is booked for April. 

They're each painted in acrylics, each based on a butterfly, looking at the colours and markings and abstracting from there.  Here's a peek! 

Website Update, Painting!

A painting I did earlier this year, added today to the photo gallery on my website.  Enjoy! 

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition

Well, I took it pretty easy yesterday, since the show on Friday through Sunday was so busy! Thank you to everyone who came to the show, it was great being supported by my friends & family, and meeting so many great people - both visitors and other artists.

Here's some photos from the show, my booth in this post, and some of my favourites to follow!









 

Shop updates

In between getting ready for Christmas and so on I've been working toward switching my greetings cards from one Etsy shop to the other, to make things look more cohesive. I've almost completed that process. Looking better, I think. Now one shop will be entirely jewellery, and the cards will be fitted in with my textile and painting work.

Don't forget the Indie Handmade holiday market ends on the 18th!

Eyespot Designs in Etsy Treasuries!

Last night as I was adding some items to my aforementioned new Etsy shop before bed, items were added to 4 treasuries!

I Pounced, I Loved #4 by glistenbyerin
Take the Time to Think About... Life by craftybubushka
Team Discovery Pop Goes the Treasury Challenge by palimpsestic
NewBEES! by mintlane

And while I'm talking about Etsy listings, here's a picture of one of the paintings I've listed:

Second Etsy Shop

Well, in the interest of organizing my work a little more cohesively, and of making use of my Eyespot Designs name, I have created a second Etsy shop.

I've decided to keep my jewellery pieces and greetings cards in the first shop. The second I will be using for my textile work, and paintings. Any textile listings that were in the first shop (all 12 of them, which wasn't so many) have been removed and listed in the new shop. I have listed the first two paintings also! Eek! I found that a little scary, even though I've exhibited them before. I'll be adding some more periodically.

Show Photos

I'm back with more! Here's a pair of photos of my set-up from the show, one in the dry and one following a bit of rain.  Saturday, though mostly dry, did have a few short but heavy rain showers. 

 

This is a couple of pictures of booths near mine, shortly after a short rain. 

So, about those interesting people - one of those who stood out was a guy who mentioned he's a naturalist.  His attention was drawn to my machine embroidered butterflies, as he was among several people who thought from a bit of a distance that they were real specimens and wanted a better look.  We had a really neat conversation about bugs, nature, conservation, educating people, fear of certain animals, etc. 

The overall feedback on these was really fantastic.  A member of the Mississauga Stitchery Guild was visiting the show and stopped by my booth.  She was so impressed, she has asked me to come to a Guild meeting sometime to show them and possibly do a demonstration on the techniques! 

Another great experience in the show was a photographer for SNAP Mississauga came by and took my photo with some of my work.  I'll have to check in a little bit to see if anything from that gets printed.

Friday again! New WIPs...

In case you wondered, WIP = works in progress.
Sorry for the icky pictures, but I just took them indoors because it's pouring rain outside!  Which is the good news, perhaps, as it might help break the heat and humidity we've had.  We aren't used to it feeling like 40 + Celcius. 

The first two are in the butterfly series, the last one, as is probably obvious, is not.  They're each almost done but still not quite right.

Today the Toronto Outdoor Art Show starts, and runs through Sunday.  I'm not in it, but I know a handful of people who are so I'm hoping to go check it out.

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

Pleased with today's world cup semi result, Spain vs. Netherlands in the final should be a good one.
 
I really should come up with a better system for painting.  I have an easel, which is great, especially for larger pieces, but with small ones, I usually work on the floor.  I like being able to spread supplies out, but it doesn't do my back and knees any favours.

I've got some neat Etsy related news -  I've had an item featured in a treasury list, and another on a blog!

Tuesday

It is a very hot and humid few days here.  I'm doing a fair bit of painting, I've got 10 canvasses (little ones) in the room with me, although I've actually been working on half that many this week.

I also took a few moments outside to watch a butterfly and try to get a picture.  It wanted to keep moving so it's not a good image, but I'm sharing it at any rate.

Today

I think I was wanting a nap before I got up this morning.  Maybe it's the weather?

I've completed the two paintings I showed bits of earlier and am working on a few more that got started months ago then put away.  This one in particular is giving me issues.  I was sick of seeing it the other day and nearly gessoed over it.  However with some persuasion I kept going.  I'm still not happy with it.  It needs some kind of contrasting element, but I can't figure out what.

I think the small format is part of the problem I have with these sometimes.  Larger ones, whilst more scary to start, give you a little room to fudge the composition and so on, but with these little ones (most of these are 8" by 10", some 11" by 14") it's less scary starting out but they don't allow as much 'space' on the canvas to mess up the positions of things, balance the colours, etc.

paint

More painting today - I'm wearing some of it as usual, though it's not as bad as it often is.

This piece has since had more done to it, but the process photo is pretty neat I think.  I like how the black background changes and increases the brightness of the light colours.

If you hadn't guessed, this is one of the inspired by butterflies pieces.


On another note, here's the new website of a talented friend of mine, textile artist Anu Raina.

Colour

I have taken over the floor space with my paints.  Yesterday and today I've worked on this piece (detail of piece in progress shown above) and I'm almost done now.  I started it a while ago, but set it aside.  One of the things that I remembered being taught, which helped, is to turn the painting upside down and look at the problem spots that way. 

Much of yesterday was rainy here, though during a clear patch in the weather I went outside to snap a couple of pics of the flowers.  The day lilies are out, which are a lovely shade of orange.  The flowers below I chose to post because they're such great colour combinations together.

The Earth Moves

Lots of buzzing going on around here about an apparent 5.5 earthquake about an hour and a half ago.  I, however, can't say I felt anything. 

I have pulled a few of my paintings out of storage to try and figure out how to finish them, in preparation for a show in a few weeks.

Issuu

You can now view my portfolios of paintings and of textiles on Issuu!  You don't have to be a member to view them.