A Productive Sunday?

Not sure how productive it will be since I slept in til 9:30; it's already 10:30 and I'm sitting here in pajamas and drinking coffee.

Nevertheless on a day like this I tend to get up and look outside and imagine a whole day of possibilities. That's what weekends are for, right? Pretty soon my weekends will become even more meaningful since I'm going back to work full-time as of November 1st. The longer hours will definitely not be fun, but I can't argue with having twice the paycheck... especially in time for the holidays.

So what's on the agenda for a day like this?

The first thing I'll do this morning while I finish my coffee is work on letters to my two representatives in the Virginia General Assembly. Remember my post about a new project I'm working on? That project is: I'm designing a new license plate for the state of Virginia. It will be a revenue sharing plate and the shared fees ($15 per plate after the first 1,000 are sold) will go to the Pollinator Partnership.

The theme for the plates is "Protect Pollinators" and I think I've got the design just about finished, but I need to get it approved by the Pollinator Partnership and get one of my representatives to agree to sponsor it.

BUT
Even if I have to change some of it, I can't help but want to share a sneak peak:

If either of my representatives approves it, then I can start collecting signatures of people who would be interested in having this plate, or better yet, actually collect the official license plate applications AND fees from folks. I need 350 by January 1st to get it approved. If I don't get enough, I'll probably have to work on it all next year and try again in 2012.

Wish me luck and please comment or contact me if you're a Virginia resident who would like a plate! And of course, I'll be posting more about this on my blog very soon.


Also for today....
I'll definitely be going for a run- I was going to go yesterday but my husband surprised me with a birthday trip to the Smithsonian to see butterflies! We even got to meet up with a couple of friends of ours who were in town for a race today. I'll upload some pictures when I find the cables that connect the camera to the computer.

I'm also hoping to get my desk finished today. I need to go buy some legs for it, and was planning just to use sawed off 2x4's but my husband wants something sturdier. And a sturdy way to attach it to the desk (which is 2 doors in an L shape). Makes sense, but will I be able to get him motivated to go out and look at hardware with me when some football game is on at 1 that he wants to watch? If not, I don't totally suck at building things and don't mind making an attempt at it!

New Project Idea!!

Last night on our way home from PA, I was chatting with my husband and we came up with an idea for an AWESOME PROJECT!

Awesome because it's going to combine me making art with my favorite subject matter- POLLINATORS!- with raising funds for the Pollinator Partnership!

I don't want to give away too much about the project because I'm paranoid of jinxing it or other applications of Murphy's Law ("anything that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong"). So for now..... I'll just give you some visual hints! :)

In the meantime if you're starting your Christmas shopping a little early, take a look in my CafePress Bees store for great "Bee Kind!" shirts, bags, and more! All profit from these items goes to the Pollinator Partnership! :)

Weekend Inspiration

I finally decided this week that it's time to tackle..... the office. The art studio. The office/art studio.
Remember this photo? Yeah I know... It's a kitchen, not an office, but still.

Last night I started the painting process. I'm pretty excited!

I spent some time yesterday looking online for inspirational photos of great craft/art rooms and found this site via the Etsy forums:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/CraftRoomInspiration

Be sure to check it out if you've got an art studio or craft room you're in the mood to reorganize! There are so many great ideas here. I've never had a real craft/art room before, so I really didn't know where to begin.  

How do I store/display all my paints in a useful and practical way? 

How do I keep my paper cutter, mat cutter, and self-healing-cutting-mat out in the open enough to access them easily when I need them, but keep them out of the way so as not to clutter up valuable desk space?

Since I have no right to be completely selfish about this whole thing, how do I integrate my husband's desk and super-awesome awards he's gotten from work into the office/studio without making him feel like he's in 'my' room, but instead in our office?

When we first started the house-hunting process I had visions of a little room off the back of the house with a separate entrance where I could paint, make a big ol' mess, and invite clients to view my work in a private studio setting. That's a pretty specific requirement when you're under a time crunch and looking for houses in the DC area (where they move pretty fast). I decided to drop that from the priority list and focus on other things instead- things more important to family life (the kids being furbabies for now).

We ended up in this perfect not-so-typical split-level with 4 floors. I love it. We've talked about the possibilities of adding on a garage (with a sun-room on top?), and/or small sun-room/art studio in the back. It might happen one day.

For now our office/studio is a room in the back of the house among the other bedrooms. It's got one regular window and then one GIANT window.

As of about 9:00pm last night, the office looked like the mother of all disarray went in there and threw up after eating a hearty meal of boxes, art supplies, and shelves. All the random extra shelves and furniture were put back there with the thought that I'd find something crafty with which to fill them. Then add in all the paintings and computer accessories and the cat's litterbox and this desk I've had since I was 10 years old. Yes, 10. The poor 20-year-old-particle-board desk sags terribly from the weight of my old CRT monitor circa 2000 (which just got replaced this year with a lightweight LCD). Pieces of it are falling off. I knew it was time to replace it.

Well now.... this is embarrassing.

The horrific cell-phone-photo seems appropriate for something that's already such a mess, n'est-ce-pas? So there's the old desk, and yes, the litterbox, and the state of the office as of last night.

Sadly, that's an improvement from what it's looked like for the past 3 weeks.

Before I started the painting process, I begged my husband to take the door off the hinges (he thought I couldn't do it myself?). Why? Because I had plans for it. Ohhhh yes.
The doors in this house are super old and super gross and dingy and have holes in them and we want to replace them with nice 6 panel doors since that's a pretty cheap and very nice way to improve a house. I decided that one of those ugly doors was going to become MY NEW DESK. Economical, eco-friendly, practical, my husband said it looks like crap but it's for arty stuff so crap = ok! Then who cares if you get paint or ink all over it!? Happy Birthday to ME!

The very first class I attended at my college was Drawing 101 and in that studio the teacher's desk was a door with two file cabinets underneath it. I thought that was the greatest idea ever and it stuck with me. The doorknob was still on that desk, but we took the doorknob off last night so I can run wires from various electronics through the premade hole.

I'll eventually add actual legs to it (ok, sawed off 2x4's), but I had some little shelving units that I thought would be perfect to put under the desk to hold it up. Also you can see my old desk under there, since where else was I going to put it? Eventually I dismantled it and piled the pieces up on the other side of the room. I also took the hutch off the top of it- no need for that any more, and it makes the workspace feel so... closed.

I'm so in love with the door-desk that I'm going to add another one on the wall to the left to make a wonderful L shaped desk. That one will run under the GIANT window and provide a great space for drawing or other crafty things :)
There is room for my husband's desk on either two of the other walls, so I don't feel toooooooo guilty for taking up so much space.

Now everything's in a huge state of disarray once more since I had to move EVERYTHING so I could start painting, but I really hope to have it almost done by the end of the weekend or early next week.
I'll be sure to post more pictures of the process!
What a great way to have a fantastic HUGE new desk without having to buy anything!

How to pack a painting for moving

How to pack up a painting:
Step 1:  Lay some bubble wrap or some sheets of white packing paper FLAT on the floor or on a table- a flat surface. (You can also use: Sheets, towels, blankets, fabric...  You can do a layer of paper and then the fabric for padding if you wish. The layer of paper will help protect from any fuzz from the fabric sticking to your painting.)
Step 2: Carefully take the painting or artwork off the wall.
Step 3: Lay it down FLAT on top of the bubble wrap or packing paper.

Step 4: Carefully fold the bubble wrap or packing paper around the painting.DO NOT BALL UP THE EXCESS! Keep it all very nice and flat. (Pretend you're wrapping a pretty gift for your mom. "Mom! Aren't you impressed with my wrapping skills? See? I told you I can be good at something!")
Step 5: Tape it together neatly.
Step 6: Place it into a box and tape the box closed.

How not to pack up a painting:
Step 1: Shove a bunch of packing paper down into a box.
Step 2. Take the painting off the wall and shove it in the box. Smush the paper.
Step 3: Fold and cram a bunch more paper around the frame of the painting and along the sides and top.
Step 4: Make sure you have excess paper to ball it up and shove it in front of or behind the canvas.

In the last 2 days I unpacked 3 paintings and two of them are damaged pretty badly. Paper- many, many sheets of folded and balled up white packing paper- was shoved around/behind/in front of the canvas and as a result I've got bubbles in my canvas the size of my fist. I'd like to find the person who packed them and give him a new hole in his head the size of my fist.
I am confident that I would be acquitted by a jury of my arteest peers.

My advice to any artist who is moving is to be sure and pack up all your own paintings. Don't make the mistake that I did and think "The movers are PROFESSIONALS! They know what they're doing! They can probably do a better job than me because THIS IS WHAT THEY GET PAID TO DO!"
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehappythoughts!!!!

I'll be looking around online for some advice on how to fix the canvas- a few products have been recommended to me by artist friends. I might call some local framing/art restoration shops and see if they can do it for me or what they would recommend.

After I get them fixed- if they can be fixed- I'll be sure to post about it so that anyone else who runs into this problem can find a solution and not cry about it like I did.

EDIT: I left the canvases sitting out and after a couple of months they, pretty much, went back to the way they were. If you look very hard you can sort of tell, from some little cracks in the paint, but they are not a total loss.

Mural finished!

It feels so great to have this done!
Right now I've just got this picture from my cell phone, but my friend is taking some pictures with her real camera and will send me some soon. You get the idea though- this was such a fun project! I can't wait to do more :)

Also as you can see if you're reading this, I did a complete re-design of my blog yesterday. I'm still tweaking it a little, but what do you think?