knitty.com

For the last two issues, ouou knit themed cards have appeared in knitty.com's "cool stuff" feature. Let me share my thanks with a little story of where my knit-love comes from.

I took up knitting breifly, after leaving the city that was home to me for almost 10 years. Knitting to me lives in the world of my older sister's aesthetic. Fabric, pattern, textile, and the differing properties of fibers, wool, cotton, clothing... this is just next door to the art I know. My world is paper, that's pretty clear to me. I love the world of cloth, fabric, fiber, embroidery, but there is so much to learn! Celeste has an instinct for it, and I stand happily by as the awe-inspired little sister, peeking into the knitted world.

Knitting hasn't lasted as a hobby or skill of mine, but I remember my breif sojurn there with heartfelt sentimentality. The comforts of making something wearable with my own hands, the tick-tick of counting rows, the exciting anticipation of selecting yarn, trying something new at such a turning point in my life. Maybe someday soon I'll try again, I could use that comfort in the wet Oregonian winter we're facing. For right now I'm fine with showing my adoration on paper, and that my little drawings have made other knitters out there smile their knowing smiles.

knitting notes in hand-mixed Gocco ink

all bundled up watercolor kitty

knit journal - otter -

what a wonderland: Crafty Wonderland and lessons learned

Here we are! Crafty Wonderland, Sunday November 8th 2009 and a little booth for ouou. I've got to say, this was my first craft fair since childhood Girl Scouts but it was probably just as fun. The following photo shows where my booth was, the words "table ouou" are actually written over my sister's back... so there you see I took the picture facing away from us, but along one of the 5 isles where people were set up.

There were 40 other vendors, tons of Etsy artists, even some people I recognized from the streets of South East Portland- here I am among my heroes! Does it sound silly? Working a craft fair in this town is like some crazy combination between the first day of opening your very own storefront and playing shop in the dress-up corner.

At first, seeing my 2' X 2' table made me a little nervous. Remember those two suitcases *full* of cards I mentioned? Yeah, it was way too much stuff. Celeste and I scored a second table, and while entertaining my nephews we managed to arrange quite a bit of stock in the 4' space with enough time to spare for a walk around the block to clear my head.

The boys and my sister had to go back home for much of the afternoon, what with naps and being toddlers and all that. There were a lot of older kids there, 3 to 8 year old's who looked pretty comfortable. I would have liked to talk to more sellers about their experiences but I was too shy, maybe at some future shows I'll be able to come out of my shell a bit. My friends arrived after a little over 2 hours, which was great timing to refresh my spirit (and grab a bite to eat!). I couldn't wander far, though, giddy as I was. I just wanted to keep seeing who would turn up next!

It was a busy show, with a great crowd of vendors and customers. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I'm a little sad that Crafty Wonderland is canceling its every 1st Sunday monthly craft fairs in favor of seasonal fairs, but I also feel like I got to be part of something special by attending this one.

Here I am saying "Don't take my picture!". Sadly we didn't get any follow-up shots so this will be the one. :0)

bah humbug-type sentiments

It has been a while since I consistently blogged, so let's catch up:
My sister and her sons are back on the East coast for their twice-a-year visit with our family there. This means I've had the house to myself (yay!) in order to work hard on my Etsy shop, but it also means I've missed the opportunity to be together with my family (boo!). Little MNJ and SL just turned one year old a couple days ago, a really touching time to be celebrating back east. I'll put up a "one year!" post when they return and we have our party here, but meanwhile I'm glad that they had a fun time eating cupcakes and having their first birthday party celebration.

Around here I've started off the downtime with more drawing than production of new items, although there are introductions to be had. I realized its hard for me to enjoy blogging without photographs~ I'm an illustrator at heart and really rely on visual interpretations to express what I see, think, feel. Posts may be spotty for a while due to my broken camera, but I'll do my best to keep stopping by. :)

I am, it must be said, not having the best summer ever... although many of my friends who are having similar frustrations are encountering much larger challenges than myself. The year after uprooting everything and moving cross-country, I was bound to dig my heels into the ground with some consequences. It is no surprise that my irritations are showing up in my drawings. Anyway, the good news is that I'm able to amuse myself with these little Phooey sketches, and hope they cause you to have a little chuckle through life's inevitable unpleasantness's as well.

DRAT!

Alberta Street

The draw in moving to Portland was not just having my big sis to adventure with, or watching my twin nephews grow and explore their world, but also the promise of an abundant and thriving art community. I have the luck of working for a company that embodies old world artisan spirit and therefore work alongside numerous local artists, but have found this first year in Portland that the way you enter into the community of artists is not just by creating, or through work contacts, but with the support of friends.

local printmaker Emily Riley and our shared table outside at
Last Thursday on Alberta Street yesterday

One such friend is Emily Riley, a truly skilled print maker and painter. She is a member of the Talisman Gallery, a cooperative gallery on Alberta Street in NE, and one of my closest friends in town. I'm pretty familiar (and comfortable) with selling online; much of my business plan is still focused on the Internet as means of communication, networking and expression, but Emily has played a role in encouraging me to show my drawings around town, in person, despite my shyness, hesitations, scheduling conflicts... or all the other road blocks that have manifested since arriving in this arty town.

Yesterday I left the glow of the computer behind to set up shop at my first ever outside booth. Attending Alberta Street's Last Thursday was a complete blast, with the constant river of people flowing by, odd parades making their way down the street, and such pleasant weather after a day of overcast foreboding skies. I was surprised to find people were eager to talk about art, process, and other sellers out that night whom they had enjoyed pouring over. It was great fun.

ink drawing on woodblock print BELONGING
by Emily Riley

I was surprised, also, by just how inspiring spending a night out talking about drawing, printmaking, design and other local artists could be. It was very, very hard arriving home at 11:30 p.m. and not cracking open the sketchbook.

ouou shows off her wares; single cards,
stationary sets, journals and original drawings

I feel as though I'm entering into the weekend with bold exuberance for some fresh new drawing, as well as mindful that I've been posting about a new year with new experiences lately- only to stumble into one such experience! :D Find out more about Emily's art at her website here, or visit her Etsy shop here.

ouou on Droolicious

It was an amazing weekend here, sunny and beautiful. The last time I folded laundry, we were still putting away fleece pants and heavy cotton overalls for the boys, now its sun hats and rompers in just a matter of days. Summer seems officially here now that we have a kiddie pool stashed in our garage, so although I've been away during its use (I worked out of the house this weekend) I'm still ever-aware that changes are happening around more than just my schedule, a corner has been turned.

The fantastic news from the web world is that Droolicious wrote up a spot for the ouou Etsy shop on Friday! I'm really excited about this, and so thankful for C's helpful push toward it. Droolicious is a design blog for the modern parent, and they support an even split between handmade or otherwise. C has bought from their suggested necessities and been happy with the items, reviews, articles. I was thrilled to be a part of their Etsy reviews! Check it out here.

update

Sky layer from Larger than the Sky Gocco print

In taking a moment to pull together new Gocco printed items that need photographs, I realized I've been something of a Gocco whirlwind over here. Should I even bother anymore saying "Well, I live in Portland, so... you know... it rains a lot." golly its hard to find the right day (hour?) to take pictures. Not that I'm complaining- this place has amazing weather. I'm still in the production stage on many of these, back-printing or whatever assembly I've got to finish, but I feel pretty accomplished for the couple of print runs around our home busyness.

One, Two, Three new watercolor aceos now in!

One, Two and Three are in the shop as of tonight. I'm finally willing to admit that my computer is having problems with Etsy - another reason I'm freeing up time from being there is I can't seem to use it. Don't worry, I'm still fulfilling orders and being a good shop keep, lucky for us we have 2 computers in the house. For Etsy, I'm using my sister's computer throughout the day, and brought in these three (finally!) tonight after everybody went to bed. I'm feeling ambivalent about the roadblock since I'm finding I had once spent a *lot* of time on Etsy, time spent mostly...? I hear that's pretty common.
Without a clear channel to it now I find I'm much more focused there when I log in from C's laptop.
Funny, life.

I do feel relieved to bring in new aceo's, though, as they've been finished and waiting patiently for about a month. I've got another Robot themed card (related, but not the same as Land of Cupcakes) that has also been waiting on my desk since April- I'll be bringing that one in toward the end of the week. Otherwise, get your Gocco boots on kiddies cause I've been elbow-deep in printing ink and will be bringing you news as often as the aperture lets in any light at all. Portland, Portland- time for the sun to shine again! Pretty please?

Land of Cupcakes, make room for more Robots.

Etsy Day

Etsy Day article by The Storque...
...put together by contributors- and my People drawing appears
on the list!

Today is Etsy Day, um, I guess you could say the first annual. Its pretty exciting to see such enthusiasm about marketing Etsy around your community/ city/ town. The thought was to create a "buzz" and some mystery around the site, and was brought to you by the Etsy contributors instead of the Etsy admins. They've embraced the guerrilla marketing tactic, and have an article on The Storque (Etsy's blog/ web magazine) today about getting involved. This is the good stuff if you're part of Etsy, knowing that your support and building knowledge about the site helps fellow artists out there to succeed, thrive, and craft another day.


I almost jumped out of my pajamas this morning when I followed the link on this (above) Treasury and saw one of my drawings on the Etsy Day article of The Storque! This morning our parents departed for the cross-country flight back to Massachusetts, I'm still in the lurch of sadness. Having them here playing with the twins and filling our days with laughter... the house felt so empty right away. I thought that would be the extent of my day, posting later in the weekend. Happily, suddenly I'm catching up and shouting out- "Happy Etsy Day!"

print print print

While my visiting family are enjoying the sunset on Mt. Tabor, I'm home alone with fresh strawberries, warm brownies, sleeping nephews.... time to sneak in a blog post!

Other than a week of uploading ACEOs, I've been behind the scenes using silkscreen, cutting and sewing. A nice, fruitful print run of last year's Gocco screens and the Knitting Otter left me with more than a few projects to stretch throughout the week. For the Gocco on fabric, neither my sister or I had any luck with using the press, so we squeegee our designs using a credit card. It makes for much cleaner, more uniform prints. It also kills the screen, which is meant to be used under the press but goes about as far as a handmade silkscreen would. This last run was the end of Knitting Otter. His screen peeled and tore. Seeing a screen fall apart of the first time was rather shocking, but I feel like I got a lot out of it.

"Knitting Otter" in brown ink

What a mess! I love printmaking.

Otter screen, peeling around the lines.

With any luck I'll be updating soon and bringing the clothing into the shop first, the sewn bits take a while longer.

While I'm online, I also wanted to mention Earth Mosaic. For those of you interested in Earth Day tomorrow, you can add an artistic and personal peice of flair to the holiday by contributing a photograph of a natural setting. The photo will then be used as part of a giant mosaic. They have a huge Flickr pool, too! The thing is, your camera has to record that the photo was taken on Earth Day~ so get out there and take a journalistic view of your big blue lovely Earth. If you read this, and have shared a photo- I would love a link in comments!

Happy Earth Day, everyone, and thank's for the strawberries Mother Earth. :)

update

A few more notes on Spring Cleaning~ today I listed Puddles and Dragons back in the shop. This design shows Girl in her rain slicker, romping through spring puddles with her best imaginary friend, Green Dragon. I have also changed the photographs back on the Gocco version of Sofie and the Bird, since my updated photograph that's been up all winter is not so clear.

...from the desk of...

I have mixed feelings about March. I'll be honest, its not my favorite month. In fact, if Spring and all its good graces were *not* floating through the air throughout Portland I think I would be in a pretty sorry state about entering into a new month. However, we do have flowers blooming (chin up little camper!), and other than that there have been many, many little treasures showing up in my days this past few that remind me good things are indeed in the works.

One of these glimmers has been the kind and exciting inclusion of the above Black Umbrellas in the Bugs and Fishes blog. See Lupin's article on loveliness here! I owe her a debt of gratitude not only for her continued support and sweet words but also for some inspiration. I am working on some colorful designs for April, and of course the Gocco should be back in action this Spring season, but though I want to bring new designs into the shop I had been at a loss as to what to do for March. After showing up on Lupin's blog I've been thinking- wouldn't it be fun to end the winter with tea, cocoa, and steamy drinks that first got me started on Etsy? Yes, themes are good, and I'm thinking March for ouou will be the Month of Tea. I may even try my first ever *BLOG GIVE-AWAY*!

Otherwise I'm happy to say that the shop seems to be holding its own. I just recently packed up and shipped out the last of the hand-drawn ACEO size Valentines- all sold in just a month! I'm really grateful for everyone who showed their support for those, whether or not you count the Gocco prints it was the first time I've offerend original pen & ink drawings. Two of the designs were of tea, so I'm hopeful to get another line going and begin listing soon. Before that, though, will be new printed cards~ they're at the end of their production this weekend. It has been since last Spring that I've had a new A4 card design... Oh what a month March will be!

~On the Homefront~
My nephews are still going through the throes of teething. This means a couple things; first, that my sister is dealing with some pretty irratic sleep (that's a nice way of saying "no sleep for mama") and also, days consist of pretty short attention span for all of us, babies making teeth included. SL has gotten not one but two teeth, while MNJ is growing ever more adventurous in the gnawing preoccupation.

The thing about the last few weeks is there is certainly an up-tempo in keeping them entertained and the rest of the house going. The good news is it seems as though the packaging, printing, cutting, assembling, listing, wrapping, burnishing involved in my Etsy life breaks down into a hundred little tasks, and these hundreds of little tasks spread throughout the day...? It's a good feeling to know that it may be a lot of work, but it is working.

some endings, some beginnings

Oh what a crunch, getting everything into the shop before Valentine's day! How is it going with all of you? I hope everybody is having a good week, and looking forward to tomorrow's historic inauguration.

Yesterday was Sunday, and on Sundays I like to take advantage of the slow and quiet nature of the day~ going into work hours early (I'm a weekend worker) to paint and draw. These are leisurely hours with a whole building to myself, and one of the more anticipated parts of my week. I usually camp out in the printmaking studio, or in the back at the Production desk, listening to music and slowly nursing my coffee. After a little reading or doodling, this week it was straight into painting, those final touches on the originals I've been posting about these days. Finally finished!

Tea 2

Today was much more focused on home & Etsy. I finished all the painting I'll be doing for the next couple of weeks and took tons and tons of photos. Although it is windy and blustery here, we are still enjoying days of sunshine. From there is was hours of fun-filled photo editing, breaking up the monotony with some cleaning & organizing of the house. From there it was packaging the rest of my outstanding orders and posting my framed pieces! All of this as a build-up to tomorrow, my last day before vacation.

In order to make sure I'm still able to fulfill orders within the 3-5 business days I've promised in my Shipping section, I have decided to go on Vacation Mode for this time:

Wednesday January 21st to Friday January 23rd

Just a small string of days, and by its end I will still be in MA and can figure out at that time if I should wait out the remainder of my own vacation or open back up.

In this, my first year in Portland, it has been 8 months of moving (three times now!) ,transition, new friends and new family. Leaving for Massachusetts kicks off the end of yet another chapter in those months and the beginning of an all new adventure once we get back. I'm really looking forward to the upcoming months where I intend to~

1. get myself a studio space in our new home
2. learn letterpress and hopefully new skills in silkscreening
3. explore the state of Oregon and take a trip to California, too
4. grow some potted plants (oh how I miss you)
5. get back into reading, knitting, sewing and *cooking*!
6. begin serious work in freelance illustration

...and that makes up for not having posted a New Year * New Leaf post here on the blog. I'll be home with my family in a matter of days, catching up on all of the changes my nephews have gone through in the last month (the words "crawing" and "teething" and "laughing" are still too hard to believe). It has been heartwarming spending the last months in the company of the R Family, being a part of their day to day pattern of living. I'm so completely grateful for all of the help and friendship they have shown and all the new friends I've made in this exciting new city. A break will be good, seeing family will be great, and then taking the next steps into becoming established in Portland will be all the beter with these sweet people in my heart.

Thank you friends, thank you readers, thank you Etsy, and happy new year.

Tea tea tea, all these little framed drawings of tea. No, they're not in the shop yet because they're getting all purdied up with some watercolor, but I'm really happy with them. I have these small square frames that go just right with these small works I've been tinkering with.

This one up here is my housewarming gift to myself- tea for me! I don't always keep these things, or I do but they end up in a drawer somewhere. I am looking forward to decorating my new home with Etsy prints, and will no doubt keep you all in the loop on the decorating schemes. Oh, and speaking of decoration- look who is in the window! Well hello little lady!

Hello from the windy and cold corners of Oregon, where the Spring-like days that blessed us throughout this past week are gone but not forgotten. The sun has been wild this week, after rain rain rain we were all a bit dazzled by 4 sunny days strung together in yellowy hues. We woke one morning to a magical, crystalline frost right about when it started getting cold again.

I'm packing my bags and getting ready for a trip home to my original coast, the Eastern one, so all these fluctuations in temperature have me thinking of my new home, and all the differences here, maybe hyper-aware of small changes or details. I'm pretty sure the shop will remain open through the vacation since I have people to help me with shipping. I am very much looking forward to going home (also because I have this place to come back to) and feel for some reason that it will prove to be a very inspirational trip.

I was able to get some pretty good shots of the frosty morning while out on a walk...

Alright, back to business: there are some changes going on in the shop as we enter 2009. Now that the Holiday season is over, I've taken out USPS Priority Shipping as my shipping method. I was thoroughly disappointed in Priority (this year was my first year using it as my primary shipping option) and saw no significant improvement. I bet "5.00" under shipping probably had some people scratching their heads, too, although my motivation was to have as little concern as possible for items arriving punctually. I'm putting my faith back in old reliable First Class and checking out my options in tracking... more on that beginning February.

As for now, there is an option in the shop to "order" Priority Shipping~ and that will include the cost of tracking/ insurance. I figure people ordering large orders or Gocco prints will like having this option and am more than happy to provide expedited shipping. Hopefully this will ease the shipping confusion of this past season, as well as get me back into one of the fun parts of this whole Etsy project for me: making packaging! Believe it or not, a lot of love went into my mailers last year. I'm particularly proud that when you order an ouou item, the whole production is a unified project.

together - hand drawn Valentine

Oh, and also- I've listed another Valentine- this one on a folded (and larger) card tonight. I was happy with the clarity of the photos, too! Next up are the little framed originals, but for tonight I'm considering whether or not I want to go into those with watercolor or leave them black and white in pen. Hmmm. Maybe I'll sleep on it.
:)

Here is a sneak peek at some other things I'm working on. Behind the scenes over here I had struggled with these scans (can you tell? fuzzy) until I realized it was a paper issue. Ive been re-drawing the small hoard of finished drawings from this month in the evenings when I'm able to set up at the light table. I feel happier when I know my night table is around- do you have tools like that? My bone folder, my favorite eraser, my Zebra mechanical pencil, and my beat-up light box I've been carting around for 13 years.

Am I on a tangent tonight? Probably just excited about setting up a work space again, daydreaming of that glorious afternoon of setting out my pencil jars and paint boxes. I'm sure you understand. Anyway, so these guys won't be the finished product for another couple of weeks. I'm also working on some framed small drawings and the Valentines in several other sizes. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Walk

Two newer additions to the Valentine line are here! I've just finished some packing and am on my way to do a little mailing, but first I thought I would pop by the blog for a few introductions. Walk and Sweet Music are in the shop as of last night/ this morning. The smaller card sets that I introduced after Christmas also seem to be holding their own, so I'll be releasing a few new designs in those styles later in the week. Whew! Lots going on around here- and I've got to scoot if I'm going to hit the Post Office before work- hope everybody is having a good week! :)

Sweet Music

It has been fun spending the last couple of nights cuddled in bed drawing these little pictures. No surprise that I'm a big fan of the 2.5 X 3.5 inch canvas, my drawing school before college took place on the margins of my notebooks. Although I was frustrated last week, it has been simplifying to scrap all my grand plans for the time being, going back to the basic Handmade premise of Etsy shop. Inspirational, too. I can't get enough of these little characters.

My friend K and I spent the morning moving me out of my apartment, but I had time in the afternoon to get some photographs in. I'm going on vacation at the end of January and thinking about either slimming down my selection for a week or closing (gulp) the shop completely for that time. Updates to follow as I address the calendar.