Smell ya later.

Two things:

First, my dog hates when you sing Billy Joel's

"For the Longest Time" through a wrapping paper roll at her face.


Second, I downloaded the game Lost Winds from Wiiware last night and it is adorable. And fun, of course.



Have a happy new year!!!!

New Treasuries, hurray

Featured in two treasuries today :) Always nice to get.
Thanks to the Crafting in Color Team for giving me lots of promotion in the team treasury lately.

Warm December

It's December 27th and I today I had thew windows open and shorts on. Ohio, if you don't like the weather..eh, just wait around for 20 minutes.
It was in the upper 60's today. Amazing. And Louisiana gets snow, what the hell... Well, I'm fine with it.
Cleaned up all the xmas junk today, I was sick of looking at it. Woot. Xmas was dandy, btw. Lotsa new books, sweaters, gift cards, and art supplies. :)
I'm gonna make a new years resolution to really try to work towards my goal of doing more craft fairs/selling on etsy. I don't need to make a lot to live on, I mean, where I work now I barely make enough and next semester I have more classes and less time to work somewhere else. Sigh. I say it all the time but dammit, I mean it now!

Boring days...

I found this little questionaire while browsing through AshleyG's blog today. If you haven't checked her out, she's got some colorful, quirky stuff. Anyways, I was bored so here ya go:

What I was doing 10 years ago: That was 1998. I was in 8th grade...so, I was hanging out with my best friend at the time, Jamie. We we're probably sledding about this time of year, and still going for really long walks through the woods even though it was cold as shit outside. I was always sitting up in my room next to my kerosene heater watching movies in my almost dead VCR on a big old tv that had no place to go except on the floor. Ah, youth.

What is on your to-do list today (in no particular order)?
Well, it was to scan in new drawings and put them in the shop (did one of out of like four or so), mail out a print (check), go buy a frame for moms xmas gift (have yet to do), and go to work.

Snacks I enjoy: Jet's Pizza, but that's really a meal... I like BBQ Frito's, tomatoes, pickles, fruit snacks, chocolate chip cookies, ramen noodes lime chili with shrimp, cheese filled pretzels, corn dogs, umm...ice cream.

Things I would I do if I was a billionaire: pay off all my student loans, of course. Pay off all debt period. Give a lot of it to my parents and my brother. Buy a house, and a horse. Get a brand newwww caaaaar. Buy my dog everything she could ever want. Donate anonymously to the humane society/aspca and to the columbus homeless shelters.

Places I have lived: King Ave. in Columbus, Ohio. Plain City, Ohio. Johnsville, Ohio. Hilliard, Ohio. Currently I live almost in Dublin, Ohio.

Jobs I have had: From the begining: Laborer at Heartland Country Resort-taking care of horses and doing trail rides, Concession stand at Mid Ohio Racing track, bagger/cart pusher/cleanup/gm clerk at Kroger, tech support at Calltech, Hardware associate at Lowe's, Backroom team member at Target, and now a print shop assistant.

If you don't know what Flight of the Conchords is, you should.

Bye ya'll

Front Page number two!!

I was on the front page of Etsy again!!! Yay!!! It was at like 2:30 in the morning, but it got a lot of views and hearts so thats good. Then I woke up this morning to find I was also featured in the Crafting in Color Team treasury. Which should be up on the CIC blog eventually. I'm glad for the exposure. It makes me think my hard work has paid off.
I have had bronchitis or something for over a week now. Don't have insurance, so I've just been jacked up on OTC cough meds. Started taking Mucinex DM, which is supposed to be pretty hardcore. Hopefully that does something. Sigh...being sick is laaaaaaaaame. Cherry gets overly concerned everytime I go into one of my coughing fits. What a swell dog she is.
Christmas in four days. Then crazy new years time. Shoot dang.

Mags

technique...and stuff.

Did this piece today just trying to get my watercolor/ink technique down...didn't turn out as I'd hoped, but that's okay. Now I know what to work on... I gotta get it looking good by the time I submit stuff to the Society of Illustrators in January. It's a pretty shitty time trying to get into it, but if you do get in, you're set.

Dad on the porch. 9" x12".

Friday...

Yay it's friday!

What little originals I'm putting up are selling, so that makes me happy. I like doing those and I think people enjoy having original pieces. It still amazes me each time someone is wiilling to pay for my artwork.

Didn't get into the CCAD Dec. sale...its a bummer because I was really counting on that money to buy xmas gifts. Ah well.

Sold this original today, little curious colt guy.

I have to buy more watercolor paper...

One week left of classes til xmas break, next sem. is going to be a pain. Oh well, I'm that much closer to graduating.

bleh.

Weekend Dealzzz

Free shipping on all my stuff this weekend!!! Hurray!
The Shop

Originals

I did a couple small original illustrations. I finally sold a print of the old retro camper watercolor/ink drawing I did a while back, so thats nice. Anyways, they're small, one is 6x6 and one is 7x7. I really like doing them, I'm trying to do a new one everyday to put on Etsy.

Discontent.

So the paper goods idea isn't really working so far. I'm going to take everything to the art sale and see how it goes, but so far no one on Etsy is buyin'. I don't even know if I got into the December sale, I signed up late and when I emailed someone about it they said they didn't get it. So...we'll see.
I'm going to try to do some originals though. On wood and canvas.

Well, its the last nice day in Ohio it seems. And by the time I get out of work it will be dark. I need to work on my car...and rake leaves...and pick up Cherry's poop. Bleh.

Dreamin'

So, more and more I find myself zoning out at work thinking of how great it would be to do art full-time. I'm talking with a guy who wrote a book about a dog, it's already got a publisher I think, but it's down to me and two other people. It would be a wonderful step to take.

Cherry Berry--------------------------------->

I don't know how I feel about my job...it's a good entry level job. Steady paychecks. It's by far the best job I've had so far (except when I was 16 and worked on a horse farm, that was awesome).

I think I want to do more with canvas. Ink on canvas or something. I signed up for the December art sale yesterday. I guess signups started the 3rd and no one said anything. I hope I get in because I've done so much stuff for it that isn't on Etsy.

I also was invited to join the Color in Crafting Team on Etsy. I was really surprised, as I always am when anyone likes my work enough to do or say something about it. Hah.

My Paper n Stitch shop opens on Friday, hurray! More advertising.

Well, back to business.

Papernstitch.com

Check out papernstitch.com. I just signed up for it and the site's owner features a different shop everyday and hold different "exhibitions" on the site. My shop won't be active until Nov. 14th, when the second exhibition opens. Anyways, its a nice little place to advertise art, jewelry, paper goods, etc and hopefully more and more people will visit.
-mags

FRONT PAGE!!!!

Finally, after waiting and working for soooo long....I was on the front page of Etsy.com today.
I made a couple sales too :)

Going well...

Well, I think the new ink/watercolor things seem to be popular. I've had what to me is a lot of views of them on Etsy and even a few new hearts and hearted items. Hurray! Now if only someone would buy something...
I need to rack up money to pay off tuition this semester. It's a sickening feeling to need so much money at once and not knowing how to get it. Oh, sigh.

Ink and stuff

I'm starting on some watercolor/ink pieces. Just small stuff so far. I like how they're coming out, but thats me. I want to eventually submit several ink and watercolor pieces to Society of Illustrators in December. It's worth a shot.

More Originals Comin'

Did these little 5x5 canvas pieces. I like them, cute little ready-to-hang pieces. Nothin' sold yet, but I'm going to do some more. I think they'll do good at the December show.

Originals

I'm starting to try out some originals on canvas, as well as picking up again on the spraypaint/wood things I started. It's really hard to take good pictures of canvas paintings though. Lame. Anyways, here's the first attempt, a horrible photo.

I guess I'll see what happens. I plan on doing quite a few for the December CCAD sale. Huzzah.

Things I love...

Micron Pens
Flickr.com
Juxtapoze magazine
my lazy Boxer
my fat guinea pigs
my smelly ferrets
pillows
beer
household items from the 50's/60's
the color green
weird indie music
laundrymats
line art
patterns
Aleve
Ohio Thrift
county fairs

....mmm, and tomatoes.

That's it for today.

New site

I got a new website up...this is website number three. I make them and forget about them, whoops. Anyways, give her a visit http://www.oreillyink.com/

:)

Kickin' it old skool

So I've recently drifted out of my animal phase and into the bizarre figures with patterns phase. I did this piece today, which was just an ink drawing but I added the stripes digitally. I have a sketchbook thats all the brown tone seen there and I'm furiously filling it with the odd and retro. I've taken a liking to adding fifties to seventies patterns to things. It's fun. I have too many damn ideas that will never work themselves out, but this is one I've kept up with.

I also did this old vacuum today. I started this other thing where I want to put fonts into the stuff I draw. Sometimes it's clever but sometimes it's just stupid.



Cheers-

Student Sale Results

The sale went unexpectingly well. I made a little over 300.00 which I didn't expect at all. That is a lot to me :) Lee really helped out my sales though, he's great at talking to strangers. I'm so damn awkward...
We ran out of business cards too, sweet. We have a lot of ideas for the December sale. I put up a sign for custom pet/animal portraits and I think that sold a lot of people. Mom keeps bothering me to advertise that but I don't know where to advertise it. Gah.
I hate retail, I wish I could escape the bowels of Target. I'm also thinking of making this project I'm doing in my Electronic Illustrations class into a book. I'll talk about that later when it's done.
-Mags

Student Sale

I will be selling at the Student art sale this saturday from 8am to 2pm. There's a hell of a lot of talent at these shows. :)