Download the PDF here

I’ve been doodling little characters in my sketchbook lately and thought they’d make for pretty darn cute Valentines. I hate the cheesy 5 dollar cards you see this time of year, so instead my boys are going to be getting these little notes tucked into their pockets and lunches on the big day. I thought you might enjoy them too, so feel free to download the PDF and print ‘em out yourself!

printed on card stock & cut out

I’m not one to go all out with big romantic gestures on the 14th, mostly because I like to think of myself as too cool of a chick to fall for such a commercial holiday, but after being in a relationship for 9 years, I now appreciate Valentine’s Day for what it is – a reminder to take a moment to think about the people you love. This doesn’t necessarily have to be romantic love; some of the longest lasting & most rewarding love stories are ones between good friends, sisters, hell even our pets! I still think society in general puts far too much emphasis on the entire notion of coupling, but once you’re in that couple, it’s a lot of work. Day in, day out there are a million tiny moments that come with sharing your space with another person who doesn’t share your exact brain & hormones & emotions that have the potential to lead to a fight. Or an eye roll. Or a snotty tone. It’s remarkably easy for people who have been together a long time treat each other worse than they would ever treat a complete stranger.

So, I think it’s kind of nice to take a day to remind ourselves that love can be silly and fun and yes, romantic too. That it’s worth it be to kind and gentle with each other. And that sometimes it’s worth it to cut out a simple paper heart and give it to someone who makes you smile.

Edited to add: If you’ve never downloaded a PDF before, you may need to install a program to open it. The most common (& free) one is Adobe Acrobat.

Waiting for the Postman
8 X 10, acrylic on canvas
$148
original for sale in my Etsy shop

Whoops! How did I let this one slip past the blog? I listed this new quasi-Valentine’s Day painting in my Etsy shop a week ago & could’ve sworn I’d also posted it here, but I guess the dementia is truly starting to kick in. Seriously, I don’t think I’d remember to put on pants in the morning if I didn’t have it on a list somewhere!

Part of my spring cleaning plan is to get my studio space organized. My desk also functions as my painting space, so having it littered with TO DO lists, sketches, scraps of paper with ideas scrawled down…not exactly conducive to a productive, organized work day. Plus everything is covered in paint. Sorry monitor!

I did start up a couple of new systems for keeping track of my work in a spreadsheet, but I tend to prefer taking pen to paper. It feels…better? more focused? I don’t know how to explain it. All I can say it that there’s a marked difference between writing out a list by hand versus typing it into a spreadsheet. Of course, getting to put a big checkmark through things as you cross them off your list is hugely satisfying too. Now that I’ve built quite a collection of work for sale, the paper list just isn’t working so well. I need to keep track of originals and prints, which site I’ve listed what on, if it sold etc. I think I’ll stick to paper for my daily lists, but refer to the spreadsheet to keep the whole kit & kaboodle organized.

Unless, of course, my helper monkey has a different system. He should be arriving any day now, along with my cheque from the ex-communicated Nigerian prince. Woohoo!

*yawn* It’s only 9:30pm, but I’m feeling ready to curl up in bed with my favorite podcast. I finished the last painting in my creepy series and then varnished the lot of them so they’ll be ready to ship to NY for a show next month. I had a parent/teacher conference at the boy’s school in the afternoon, followed by much discussion. Trying to motivate a 12 year old boy (who has just discovered girls) to put more effort into his schoolwork is not an easy task!

After dinner & dishes, it was back to the glamorous job of being a working artist: I had to go through alllll of the listings in my Etsy store to add a new tag. I joined a team of Etsy sellers who also use Twitter, so we have to tag all the items in our shops appropriately in order for the other team members to find us when looking for items to feature. It’s a big group & the plan is to help promote each other’s items & shops via our own Twitter feeds, our blogs & so on. Anything I can do to promote my shop & connect with other DIY business owners is a good thing, but man oh man was that tedious! It’s 5 pages of slow loading clicks to change that one thing on each item. This is where a helper monkey would come in handy.

Off to take the puppies for their last walk of the day & then bed for me before my TO DO list gets any longer. G’night!

I feel like I’ve been such a busy bee this week, but I haven’t really accomplished anything. Running around to the post office, researching cheaper alternatives for shipping boxes ($4/box from the post office is teh suck, especially when compared to USPS which has cheaper rates, faster service & FREE boxes!), my first meeting with a local artist group, going to the boy’s basketball & hockey games…gah! It’s Thursday already and I’ve had hardly any time to paint!

That will have to be rectified today since I have class tonight and 3 homework assignments due. I have to a paint the same subject (an apple) in 3 completely different styles: using only a palette knife, thick sculptural brushstrokes and a blendy one. I feel like doing the blendy one first since that’s my obvious comfort zone, but I know how long I can spend adding more layers, adding more glaze…might be better off getting the tough ones out of the way.

Off to paint! Have a lovely day. =)

Where did January go? Holy cats! I can’t believe we’re on to a new month already. Looking back though, I didn’t do too badly. I started listing on eBay and sold my first original painting over there (yay!). I fell 6 & a half hours short of my 90 hours/month painting goal, but between being brutally sick at the beginning of the month & then having family in town, I’m not too surprised by that. Will definitely be making it up this month though!

After spending another day of working, but not painting, I’m really looking forward to getting into a routine with the business side of things. I had to set up and change so many piddly little things just to get my eBay account configured properly – custom emails, new Paypal address, mailing address, the “me” page. Then there are a TON of options you need to set when you’re adding an auction. Once I’ve resized my images, FTPed them to my own server so I can hotlink them in the auction body, written the text & set up the tables properly…I’m ready for a nap!

‘Course, it could also be a sugar crash after all the crap I ate this weekend. We had a little Super Bowl party with a few friends and John Captain Slowcooker went all out. Homemade chilli (you KNOW that chilli likes it slow), salsa & guacamole from scratch, tons of chips & pretzels & of course, beer. Yeah, that could explain a few of the rumblings in my tummy today.

How was your weekend?