Incubating ideas

Last night I attended my second meeting with the 'Pollinators', kindly hosted by Sidney E.  This is a group she invited me to take part in, where working artists can bring their in-process-work in for feedback and ideas.  As with the first night, the Mode-de-Monstre work that I brought received the best response.  Sculpture keeps coming up as a response when I show my drawings, and Wylie mentioned an iron pour that takes place in Burlington.  My response has been rather giddy.  I got out my roma plastilina clay when I got home, but it's tricky to work with (and my hands stank all night.)  This is something I'll probably need to talk with some other sculptors about.

I'm also halfway through a class with Alyson Stanfield of artbizcoach.com and it's simultaneously overwhelming and energizing.  Tons of "to do's" are threatening to topple over onto me, so thank goodness arkonbey has stepped up to the plate and is, well, washing the plates.  Ladies and Gents, my man makes dinner and he does the dishes. 

Back from the HoP

...and spending a few minutes searching for Sweet Enemy online.  Found a few images of my artwork, which is great--that's what I was hoping for, but I also found someone out there who's got a righteous excuse to use my psuedonym:  Check her out.

Fresh Art for Etsy

It's almost Art Hop time again!  I'm cranking up my matting and framing in the studio, trying to get ready, as once again I've got a space.  Meanwhile, here are a few close-ups of pieces that just went live 
on my Etsy shop.  More to come soon...

Waiting At The Station (detail) ©Sweet Enemy Art 2010

 Waiting At The Station

Walnut ink and gouache, two great mediums that go great together!  

This little guy is rather melancholy, waiting faithfully on his bench...

Gothic Reader (detail) ©Sweet Enemy Art 2010

 Gothic Reader

Walnut ink and gouache again, with a liberal dose of colored pencil and snaky hair.  

This Is My Cheese (detail)  ©Sweet Enemy Art 2010 

 This Is My Cheese

From a series of pieces I did when experimenting with some new-to-me acrylic mediums... the whole thing started off with this lovely yellow cheese-like surface, so the subject just had to reference that.

Grandma Sweater (detail) ©Sweet Enemy Art 2010 

 Grandma Sweater

Walnut ink strikes again!  And so does Grandma, with yet another bizarre sweater at Christmas. 

This piece shall now proudly take its place with the other Mode De Monstre.  

Bright Bird (detail) ©Sweet Enemy Art 2010 

Bright Bird

From a lovely day of printmaking down at the Burlington City Arts Print Studio, here is a monotype done in a technique which I always love but don't often have a chance to use.  And because I can rarely leave well enough alone, there is colored pencil and possibly some watercolor along with the dry-media and ink that the print was originally made with.

15 microseconds of fame!

Well, maybe not fame exactly, but when I checked into Etsy last night, I discovered a friendly little note from bythebead saying that one of my pieces had been picked for a treasury.  Treasuries aren't that rare, it's not like being posted on the main page or anything, but still, nice to see my work in a collection picked by someone else.

Here's the link

So what's YOUR vote for my next Etsy batch, oh internet peeps?  

Should I post more line drawings, or bigger pieces, or what? 

Until then, looking forward to this heat breaking a bit.  It's too stuffy in the studio, and we just found our awesome vintage fan needs an overhaul.  

Cheers

The shop! The shop!

The shop is alive!

Ten original pieces have made their way onto Etsy.  I feel like I've done a technology workout this evening, but it was all worth it.  Here's a few pieces that you'll find there:

Ghost Cat, one of the most recent mini-cat watercolors (1.25 x 1.25 inches) is at the top of the list.  Now that I've blown the image size up here on the screen, I don't know if I can part with him!  Excuse me while I go jack up the price.  Just kidding.

Favorite Book Bug

Celtic Pup, loose in the book of Kells

My imaginatively-named "Bird Number Two" 

At Arkonbey's suggestion, I've set Mondays aside for business-related activities.  Tonight was one of the more rewarding Mondays, even though it overlapped into Tuesday.  Next week should see a few more pieces in the shop.  Till then, Goodnight!

A pair of birds

I'm waiting to hear if the recipient likes this design.  She'd missed her chance on obtaining an earlier piece of mine, so I'm revisiting the theme, but it's turned out quite different from the first.  

There's just something I love about the way a crow quill pen scratches across textured watercolor paper.  This may get a bit of color later on.  Remains to be seen.
While drawing this, I took advantage of my fancy-pants laptop's DVD-playing abilities, and went through three episodes of "All Creatures Great And Small" (Season One.)
Fantastic show, and I'm familiar enough with it that I just listened to it, audio book style.

Private lives of sophisticated cats

Private lives of sophisticated cats
Originally uploaded by Sweet Enemy Art

Here are two 6x6 pieces I started last week.

If you dropped by the studio on Sunday, I had just started the one on the right. On the left panel, I let a few folks try out my white acrylic ink and watercolor crayons. Most of that has now been covered up, though this absorbent ground has done its best to play tricks on me.
Sometimes "permanent" just isn't, at least on this stuff.