Our normal morning routine, after dropping daddy off at work is to go downstairs, Logan asks me to turn on cartoons and I duck into my studio to check my email. however, most mornings- just as soon as I begin to read I hear him sneak upstairs to play with his cars alone. If he is 'too' quite for long I go to check on him, and today when I did this I got "I told you mom, no one talk to me right now" as a response. Of course he hadn't told me- but this is his new favorite phrase. He went on to tell me 'to go back downstairs'. I guess even 2 year olds need their alone time.
Yes the tornados yesterday in Virgina were awful, but I'm still amazed that the loss of Delaware to the Atlantic Ocean did not warrant higher in msnbc's stream of news. See graphic below:
Ah Spring... normally it means the weather is warmer, the sun shines a bit longer and nature comes alive. Well, it seems that winter is trying to hang on around here, we have even had snow this month in Seattle! But that will not keep the birds away- here are just 3 of the new little birdies that will be nesting here at mamamonkey.
Originally uploaded by m.Lee.
Hi!
Back from a pretty cold and grey weekend here in Boston. Not so good for my spirits.
But I do have some colorful little gouache paintings to play around with. Some will probably get printed on, planned on doing that tonight but I don't feel well so am just going to head off to bed. Some will get collaged on and maybe drawn on and some will probably be left as is. A fun little project to keep me going during a pretty blah time in my creative brain.
My Wacom Tablet may arrive Monday, or Tuesday at the latest I expect. Not bad for free shipping. I'm not really in a good mental place to play around with it but hopefully I will be once it arrives.
I'm still going through my studio and pulling out older but still beautiful pieces for my Studio Sale. This is the last hurrah for some of these pieces as I have a thing for using my own prints in my collages. So if you see something you like now is your chance. I don't run sales often. But I need to clear out my stock as well as pay for some framing for a show next month.
I'm continuing to list new work as well and hope to be making a new collage early this week on either a 6"x6" or 8"x8" stretched canvas.
Finished packing orders from last week and will be mailing them in the morning along with anything domestic that comes in by noon EST.
A Mama Monkey original onesie is featured in Pregnancy and Newborn Magazine this month (March)!. I picked up the magazine last night at Borders and got so excited I was tempted to run around telling strangers "look, that is me" but I did't, because that would have been weird. I did however, promptly call my Dad and sisters, and then came home and shared the news with my Etsy friends. It is my iPuke onesie, and it is in an article about what Tori Spelling dresses her son Liam McDermott in. I have had my work in magazines before when I worked as a designer for Nordstrom- but this is a 1st for Mama Monkey, and hopefully the start of a lot more press as we hope to continue to grow this little baby business :)
I have decided to try and make a commitment to blog on a more regular basis. I love reading blogs, and most of my contact with the outside world is thru my computer. So I thought, why not? I have alot to say after all... just don't expect it to be organized, or to all make sense. I hope to use this little piece of cyberspace to share great things that I find on and off line and to keep you up to date on new things happening here at Mama Monkey land. And of course
I will be throwing in tid bits about my little monkeys, because, what mama can resist talking about her kiddos?
Originally uploaded by m.Lee.
More mixed-media collages are coming, I have one drying right now. A six inch square on canvas panel piece. I have one more canvas panel and an eight inch square gallery stretched canvas as well to work with. Plus cards and other things around the studio until I can get more canvas. I think this weekend I will pick up some eight inch canvas panels.
These two pieces are from the end of last year, I had so many I neglected to scan some and am getting to the last of them now. Getting into the collages distracted me as well. I also hope to block print my newly carved blocks (well new in the sense that they haven't been used yet) this weekend. Friday would be best as I think we will be meeting Jon's parents in Connecticut on Saturday (and Ikea maybe) and spending time with two of our bests friends on Sunday during their visit to Boston from Brooklyn. Hello brunch with banana and Nutella crepe goodness!
I'm still having a hard time but am plowing through. Jon stayed home yesterday because he needed to do some things so he worked from home. It sounds great but it actually kinda stinks as blee tends to be more of a handful when he is around. And since he is working he can only give me a limited amount of help. I nearly pushed him out of the door after the day we had yesterday. She didn't nap at all until she went down at six. That means twelve hours of no sleep. They aren't supposed to be able to stay up for much longer than two hours at a time at this age. When she did go down it was hard to as she was overly tired. But once she was down it was glorious. Too bad we were both exhausted.
Tuesdays are always better than Mondays! My least favorite days are Mondays and Fridays.
Expect at least one collage tomorrow, maybe more depending on how I spend my time today. I have other things that I really should get to so I may just give art a break for the rest of the day as I have already gotten a lot done and it isn't even ten!
Have a good one!
Originally uploaded by m.Lee.
Good morning and happy Thursday. This weekend can not come soon enough as I am very tired.
Been working hard and stressing myself out per usual. After somehow squeezing Collage #12 in between fussy baby time I need a break. If she napped even for five minutes I was working. I didn't even have lunch. But it was so worth it, as I am really happy with the result. I think I am most proud of how I used the gocco print in a non-traditional way and the stitching as I am most certainly no seamstress. Today I am going to take it easy and make something quick and dirty for the collage challenge. Sometimes those end up being the most interesting.
After my post yesterday I realized that I had neglected to explain what a Gocco is. It is a tabletop screenprinting device from Japan. Originally intended for Japanese schoolchildren it has taken off big time in the indie craft movement, especially with greeting cards and invitations. People do wall art too but the small size can be quite limited and the large model is ridiculously expensive and not all that large. And I am not much of a card maker. I just hope that when blee is old enough that supplies will still be available for us to make cards together. I can't wait to work on art projects with my little buddy! I'm going to give her a little art table that she can draw on as much as she wants just like I had. That is why those fancy kids tables make no sense to me. I don't want something where I will tear my hear out the second she invariably marks it up. No Pottery Barn Kids for this family.
After blee went down around 6pm I knew that I didn't want to make a damn thing, but I still needed to be productive. So I made a mess. That is I started going through junk boxes and tossing some and organizing others. Before I knew it was 11pm and I had to go to bed. But right before this realization I found these four unfinished prints from 2005. They were sitting at the bottom of one of my bins along with some meh ACEOs. It is like looking at something another person made at this point, two years feels like forever ago. So much has changed in my life much less my art. And I think that I have changed too. I'm not sure what I am going to do with them. But I really want to use them to mix the old with the new. Some may just get another layer (or two) printed on them, while others will find their way in collages. All I know is that they are very much a happy discovery. Maybe I will start squirreling stuff away on purpose?
Originally uploaded by m.Lee.
I'm sorry I ever spoke ill of you. You were never an ill device devised by the evil one at all, you just had a mealy old press bed that was keeping you down. Replace that and suddenly using you isn't hard at all, almost like you were designed to be used by Japanese children or something.
I've been goccoing a bit since getting the new bed (old bed pictured on the left after having been scraped off of the plastic base), but nothing I felt the desire to share. I've been using scraps from them in various collages and I will do the same with the ones from yesterday, but these deserve to be more of a focus than a background player. Also, I like the full design enough that I am going to get some black Moleskine cahier notebooks to print it on.
I knew that the bed was bad months ago but didn't act on it because I had talked myself into thinking Gocco wasn't right for me. Basically talked myself into an artistic box where I am a woodblock relief printmaker who can't draw well enough and doesn't like silkscreening. And that the supplies are too much money compared to what I am used to. That if I mess up a small block it is no big deal, but to screw up a screen is a tragedy.
Well, I guess I am more willing to push myself and take some chances these days. Because Gocco is great fun and a useful artistic tool that you will be seeing more from.
Originally uploaded by m.Lee.
My demons are at me again. Just need to keep busy to keep the negative thoughts away as they can only do harm.
Felt like giving up on the collage challenge, today is difficult for some reason. Yesterday would have been hard too if I hadn't done it first thing. Not so today instead I woke up and did this sketch comprised of various doodads from earlier sketches. I have a tweaked version on printer paper ready to be burned onto a Gocco screen once it is dry enough and I get the chance.
It was then that I decided what I want to try for my collage. I knew that I didn't want to use another ACEO blank or another canvas panel as I used those twice in a row. I also knew that I want to go through materials that haven't been used in awhile and incorporate them. Crayons! Maybe I am more into the whole multi-media aspect than strict collage. But there will be collage in it somewhere.
If you haven't already please run over to Modish to check out my studio in their Modish Handmade Spaces feature.
