Hello everyone!

Well, I'm *finally* feeling like my old self. I have battled the Ick bravely, and I have overcome. Go me!

Seriously, though, I really don't handle being sick well. I never get flu shots, for my father rarely ever got sick until he started taking them. Now? Every year he gets the flu, so I figured if they make a man who never-gets-ill sick, then what are they going to do for a woman who germs just love? You know, it's the cat syndrome:you've heard of how people who hate cats are the ones that a cat is attacted to? It's the same way for me and colds. I hate them, and they love me. Go figure.

Anyway, after beating my cold to a bloody pulp with loads of NyQuill and gallons of orange juice, I am finally up and moving. My beloved husband had the joy of playing both Mama and Daddy to both our young children while I was down and out, but now I'm resuming the role. I spent all day Friday and Saturday straigtening and re-organizing my sunroom, and I've turned it into my personal space/art studio. It's beautiful. It's my Autumn Room, complete with autumn vines, glittery pinecones, and Amy Brown framed prints. I am very, very happy with it. Now, all I need is the time to sit down and enjoy it!:)

So, other than cleaning, sketching, and listening to an insane amount of Blackmore's Night, I have not been doing much else. Hopefully, I'll have some finished pieces to upload soon. I discovered I have an indecent amount of WIPs in my desk, and they are begging me to finish them.

Warm wishes,

stace

I just recieved my fairy name.

How wonderful!:)

Yeesh. I have been *so* sick lately. I'm just starting to feel like my old self again, which may or may not be a good thing considering I'm still struggling with back pain.

'Arrgh' to quote a pirate...

Anywhoo, I should be back to the drawing board soon. Since I've been in bed for so long, my house looks horrible and is in dire need of cleaning. My husband has been working remotely, and he's been playing both Mommy and Daddy to our two young children. He's been doing the best he can, bless him, but no one can keep up the house like Mama! Not that I'm an obsessive neatnick, but I know where everything goes, where everything is, and where it can be found if lost. But all in all, things look pretty good, just not good enough for Mama.:)

BTW, I want to send out a personal 'thank you' to a group of amazing artists who are fast becoming my friends. Thank you for your honesty and your caring, you have become a sanctuary to me. You know who you are...

I've been thinking about my art goals and dreams for 2008, and I've decided to keep it simple. I've broken it down into short-term goals and long-term goals, with the long-term obviously extending beyond this year:

Short-term Goals:

1) Build up my portfolio.
Looking over my current body of work, I realize that I really want to branch out. Some of my best sellers are my two fairy cats, so I'm going to add more cats. As a matter of fact, I want to add more wildlife in general. I also want to experiement with some deeper, more meaningful subjects that relfect my spirituality. And more full-body pieces to help me reach one of my long-term goals of licensing for figurines.

2) Make friends and network.
One of the things I truly enjoy is getting to know the minds behind the creativity I love so much. Through this forum and others, I now have a way to get to know my fellow artists on a more personal level, and this jazzes me to no end. The few I've already had the pleasure to meet are wonderful people, which just goes to show me creative people truly rock.:)

3) Build a new website.
Due to health issues last year, I had to give up my website. I just couldn't maintain it, and I could not afford to pay anyone big bucks to keep it up for me. This year, I'm taking things in healthy steps: once I build my portfolio to my satisfaction, I will hone a new site to showcase it. In the meantime, I have my Etsy store for business (and soon CafePress, Zazzle and Ebay) and my various art galleries, but soon CatspawArt will have a home of its own.

Long-term Goals:

1) Licensing for figurines.
I don't know what it is, but I'm nuts about figurines. For me, the crown-jewel in my career would be to see my work cast in resin. This is the driving force behind the full-length body pieces I've currently finished, and those sketches that are in my drawing tablet.

2) Fairy Armwarmers.
Most of my fairies have armwarmers, either basic striped or something entirely original. I love armwarmers, but the only ones I've seen for sale are a generic, striped, one size fits all (riiiiight). I would love to design and market armwarmers for faes of all body types, thin or fluffy. I can imagine them sold at Ren fests, fairy conventions, etc. The main problem, however, is that I'm not a textile artist, so I don't know the practicality of transfering art to fabric. That said, one day I want to see (and wear!) some of my art armwarmers, in particular from "Feeling Girly", the piece which inspired the idea in the first place.

3) Licensing Deals
'Nuff said, I suppose. This is the general goal of most of us, so it's needs little explination.

Well, that sums it up for now. These goals are very general, but at the same time they are specific. I'm much more focused now than I was a year ago, and like any business the art world needs to be approached in steps. These steps makes my inner-organizer much happier, and I can relax knowing these things will happen in the order they are meant to happen.:)

Welp, I finally got off my lazy booty and decided to scan in some current WIPs. I made a decision three days ago not to scan in any more WIPs of my work, because I always seem to jinx them by not finishing them. However, I seem to have broken the curse by finishing Suz and the Incredible, Irrepressible Pancho Villa Weasel, so I thought I have another go.

As some of you know I work almost exclusively with Prismacolor colored pencils and Prismacolor or Copic art markers. I have used watercolors and oils in the past, but I find the ease and simplicity of pencils and markers wonderful. I've been asked to do a colored pencil tutorial in the past, and I tried to do one but I found I work way too erratically to come up with one that made any sense. That said, I'm hoping you can see a little bit of how I use them in the following WIPs.

This piece is "Pink Dogwoods" and you can see how I slapped on a base color in the background using Prismacolor marker in Celedon. It provides a nice, flat finish to spread pencils over. I'm using three colored pencils for the shadowing and highlights, while letting a little of the base color shine through. It's a very straighforward technique that with is very easy to execute. Just be sure to keep your pencils sharp!

For this one (I call her Sparkleberry. Hee!) I'm using the same technique, but I'm using a lighter, more "swirly" hand with the pencils. I want more of the background to show through, giving it more of a hazy, cloudy look than the dogwood piece. I will be using white acrylic to add sparkles and shimmers once the piece is done, but you can see them starting to take shape. I'm using a white pencil on top of the other colors, which gives it a smoky look. The only thing to watch for here, however, is 'blooming', or when too much wax builds up from the pencils. Once you have bad blooming, no more color can be applied. It's a real pain in the neck, trust me.

Anyway, that's a start. Hopefully I'll get to work on them more tonight and maybe get some more scans done once I move on to something other than background.