Goldfish!

I had a picnic scheduled for July 3rd, but the weather ended up a monsoon, so we gave it up and went to a Chinese restaurant in the area. I was really disappointed that the picnic had to be cancelled, but I noticed a beautiful fish tank at the restaurant, and took some pictures of the beautiful ?goldfish? in it. Most fish tanks in zoos and aquariums I have been to don't have good lighting for me taking pictures, so I was really happy that some of the pictures turned out workable!
So here is my first fish pattern, based off of one of those models..

Part two: art show

After I left the dog show, I spent some time taking wrong turns and driving around trying to find the town square in Medina where the art show was being held (side note- apparently half the streets out there don't have street signs, so I had to do a LOT of guessing). Once I made it there I parked and started wandering around the show.

The Medina art show is laid out in neat spokes from the center gazebo in the town square. Makes it easy to walk the whole show without getting lost or skipping booths, but it also means the paths are crowded. And people always seem to stop and admire something or have a conversation right in the middle of the path in front of me instead of stepping out of the traffic flow first. *sigh* Can you get road-rage when you are on foot I wonder? :)

Anyway, I was going to the show to see the art, and also partially as a scouting mission. I am trying to decide what shows make sense for me to apply to for next year. In general this show seemed to be a good quality one. There were a couple jewelers that looked like they might be 'commercial-bead' varieties (though I may be wronging them- I am not a jewelry expert), but there was a lot of high-end work in many different media as well. I didn't get a good feel for how many people were actually selling consistently (other than the jewelers) though- it felt more like a family festival sort of crowd rather than an art-buying one. Oh well, will have to get that art festival analysis guide to be sure I guess...


Two booths in particular really jumped out at me as far as quality work that is a bit different from the norm..

There were a pair of women from Colorado who did some beautiful intaglio and printmaking work- Julie Hasenfratz and Gerd Anton. One of my favorite pieces here was a maybe 14"x36" (REALLY rough estimate) framed piece, framed in a brown wood burl finish. It was a 4-opening mat if I remember right, and each opening had a single leaf in it. The leaves were embossed into the paper and colored with beautiful metallic inks. Other than the inks, the rest of the colors on the piece were simple and neutral. The artists didn't have a website unfortunately, and this piece wasn't price labelled that I could see, but I may try to email them for a picture of the piece and a price (since I need to get agreement from someone else before buying expensive pieces of art to hang in our house)..

Also there was a local man- James Yager- who did Chinese ball woodturnings with balls or shapes inside pierced balls, carved free so they move around independently without coming out from the inside. Beautiful work here as well!!

Part one: dog show

I ended up going to a dog show and an art show in Medina today- all my favorite things together in one day!! :)

I spent about 2 hours at the dog show taking pictures. There weren't as many different dogs there as I have seen at some shows, but I think a lot of them were probably tucked away in crates and vans with ice and fans since the weather wasn't really comfortable. Not as bad as it has been this past week, but definitely not fun for really furry people...

I did get some shots of a couple breeds that I didn't have any photos of before though.. There was a large Bull Terrier there who I got some nice pictures of. I caught the beginning of the Bedlington Terrier class, so I got pictures of a bunch of them. And I also chatted for a while with a girl who was holding an Ibizan Hound, and got some great pictures of her (the dog, not the handler.. :) ).

I also had a great conversation with some folks holding on to an adorable 3-ish-month-old Newfie girl. I got to pet her and give her love for about 10 minutes too- she just snuggled up to me and laid her chin on my arm. I didn't get any pictures of her unfortunately... AND there was a 6-month Berner girl that I got to talk to as well. I was surprised how small she looked compared to Kodo!! And I was happy to see the breeder/owner of Kodo's grandpa won the working group with one of her boys...

As always, I was delighted by how welcoming and friendly most dog-show people tend to be. I always try to stay out of the way and snap candid shots whenever the dog I am looking at turns the right way, since I know people are busy and concentrating on getting their dogs ready for class and I don't want to be a distraction. But a lot of the handlers will pose the dogs for me once they see what I am doing, and are more than happy to answer questions and chat about their breeds if they aren't busy.

More new patterns

I have been trying to expand my offerings of other animals for those people out there who aren't really dog people.. :) So I just finished a bear and a tiger pattern. They are both really complex and will take forever to cut, but I am really happy with them and I think it will be worth it!

The models for these two came from my last trip to the zoo. It was a really hot and humid day, and there weren't a lot of people there. Usually when I visit the tigers they are all sleeping, but this time when I walked past the enclosure one of them picked his head up and started bathing. And he posed several times, just staring at me across the moat. Probably thinking that I looked like dinner, but it looked like a distant, regal expression from my end.. ;) There was nobody else in the vicinity for the 5 minutes or so that I watched him and took pictures-no screaming, running kids, no tourists.. It felt like this quiet moment that he and I got to share.

The grizzlies are usually sleeping too, but it was hot enough that both of them were immersed in their pool up to their shoulders, rolling around and looking as happy as a bear in a zoo can possibly look.. Those massive coats look even heavier when the water is molding them into spikes.

Puppies, puppies everywhere!

And two more patterns! The Chihuahua I drew up because I just discontinued my older long-haired Chihuahua cut after selling the last piece I had in inventory, and the golden I drew up since I keep selling out of my golden retriever cuttings. This seems to be a more recent thing for me- common breeds haven't seemed to go as well in the past. I assumed those people have a lot of choices when it comes to getting artwork and gadgets that reflect their breed, so by the time they find me, even if they love my work their walls tend to be full already? One of my favorite things is having someone come in and ask about their uncommon breed, not expecting me to have one, and being able to say "Yes I do!" and show them the piece. I just love the excited reactions!! Though I still haven't had anyone ask me about my Otterhound or Field Spaniel patterns. Or even the Dandie Dinmont terrier for that matter.. Ah well, someday! :)

Family members

I completed two more puppy patterns- a pug and a Bernese Mountain Dog. The pug is modeled off of my puggy nephew Stewie (who inspires most of my pug work- we think he has such a beautiful typical little puggy face, and everyone seems to agree since I keep selling out of his patterns.. :) ). And three guesses as to who the model for the BMD puppy was!! :D He is a bit older now and looks less shapeless and fluffy than this picture, but the picture was such a good one I wanted to use it anyway. He has such a serious expression on his little fuzzy face!! I am planning on using one cut of this pattern as my display sample, next to its photograph with a sign advertising my custom work, since a lot of people seem to be missing my existing custom work signs. We will see if everyone else thinks he is as cute as I do!!

Crocker Park setup

I believe that every wedding or major event has to have at least one thing go wrong. If you are lucky, it is a small thing that you can look back on and laugh about.. if only a couple months after the fact. And as of today, I am advancing my theorem that art shows and art show setups are the same way..

I had taken the precaution of taking my tent out of its bag a couple of weeks ago and doing a partial setup to make sure everything was working and I remembered where everything was supposed to go. I carefully loaded up the car this morning, going through the new booth floor plan in my head to make sure I wasn't missing anything I needed. And I packed a bunch of extra 'just-in-case' tools and supplies... just in case. I had also been watching the weather over the last couple days, and there were supposed to be scattered thunderstorms in the evening and through the night- fortunately ending around the time the show is supposed to open tomorrow. I figured my big concern was going to be the wind, since we have had some fearsome gusty thunderstorms over the last month, so I planned on only setting up my display partially so I could keep the tent lowered and zipped up so it would be less vulnerable to gusts. With all this prep work, I figured I was pretty well prepared.

I got to my booth site and with my mom and dad's help unloaded the car and started setting up the tent. And problem number one reared its ugly head. One of my tent top cross-braces snapped as we were popping up the tent. Apparently there had been a flaw in the coating and water had gotten in and rusted the cross-brace right around the bolt hole, so as soon as pressure was put on it, it broke. And this tent is less than a year old! May still be under warranty, will have to check on that.. Still I am less than happy with E-Zup right now.

I was lucky that this problem didn't seem to affect the structure of the tent (though if I come in to a crumpled heap of canvas and metal tomorrow morning, I reserve the right to take that back), but now there was this ragged-edged bar of metal hanging down around customer-head-height in the front of my tent. And since most potential customers I have met seem to have strange objections to being clouted in the head with a sharp and ragged piece of metal... (Mental note- add duct tape to my just-in-case toolkit for tomorrow morning!)

The rest of the setup went pretty smoothly, no rain yet! I managed to get all the boxes and bags pulled under the tent and put three of the sidewalls up, so if it started raining I would be relatively protected. Whew!! I put up the tables and put the feet on the racks, though I didn't set the racks upright or connect them since I wanted to be able to lay everything flat so I could lower the tent when I left. I tucked my boxed artwork in under the table and covered the table with plastic sheeting since the tent roof tends to drip a little when it is rained on excessively (another peeve of mine about E-Zup- they call their tent roofs 'water-resistant'- a misleading term which is not the same thing as 'waterproof'. My older E-Zup never leaked, but this one dripped quite a bit last time I had it out in a shower. I didn't get a chance to do a seam-sealing on it before this show, which may or may not help?)

By this time I figured I had done about all I could do to protect everything from wind and the possibility of the roof dripping a bit. So I zipped up the last wall, grabbed my extra hardware and headed to the car.

I had a couple errands to run in the area, and as I finished the last one the sky darkened up and it started to rain. No, not rain- POUR. Not scattered thunderstorms as expected, but a monsoon. I realized- as I was starting to drive home and was seeing all the sides of the roads filling up with lakes from the water coming down too fast to drain completely away in time- that while I had done my best to make the tent wind-proof, I had left my artwork boxes stacked on the ground. Right along the curb. In the path of the drainage of the flood waters. Now, my boxes are plastic with seamless bottom, but they have lids that probably would not be waterproof if completely immersed. And I had no desire to test that 'probably', since those boxes contained my entire inventory of artwork. PAPER artwork. Which generally does not deal well with getting wet. So I decided instead of staying up all night envisioning my years of work in those boxes going swimming, I was going to go back and check on things before the water situation got any worse.

That is the end of the drama however- when I got back to the tent everything was fine. The tent hadn't blown over, and the boxes weren't drowning. I picked them up and stacked them off the ground anyway just to be safe, then re-covered them with plastic to protect from drips. And then I left to go home. Again.

Hopefully everything will still be fine tomorrow when I get on-site. And here's hoping the weather forecast was right and tomorrow will be gorgeous. And lots of folks will come out. And buy out my entire inventory!!! OK, maybe a LITTLE too optimistic.. :)

Upcoming art show

I have a big art show coming up this weekend that I am very excited about. It is at the Crocker Park shopping complex in Westlake (Detroit and Crocker Roads), running Saturday 10am - 8pm and Sunday 11am - 6pm. It should be a really nice show with lots of fantastic artists and high-quality work. Lots of out-of-town artists will be exhibiting here as well as local ones. So far the weather looks like it should be decent (fingers crossed), and it is free admission! Can''t beat that! :) So if you are in the area, come on out and give the show a look...

Here's the link to the show's website!

2 more puppies

Finished drawing and scanning two more new patterns! A schnauzer and a boston terrier this time..

"Reflection II"

I just finished designing, cutting, and putting together a new piece in my Limited line. This line contains pieces 11x14 and larger, pattern drawn in a larger size so they are much more detailed, the backgrounds are hand-painted in watercolors, and most are framed.

This was my first try at doing original-line pieces of a person, and I am really happy with the way it turned out- I actually think I got a good resemblance to my model as well (thanks Teresa!! :) ).