Baby Canvases II Show is up!

So much of the last 2 weeks has been wrapping up work for the Baby Canvases II show at the Soundry. I finished all 15 works and added little tags to the back of them with my blog address and dropped them off last Wednesday.  This past Saturday was the show opening. There were so many good works. I drank a delicious lemonade fizz served up by the lovely folks at the Soundry.  HINT: The Soundry is a gallery, studio space, and coffee bar all in one!


My friend Katie, who also had work in the show, dragged me over to where my stuff was displayed. I was surprised and thrilled to see that within an hour of the show opening 2 of my works had already sold.  :D I took a picture of my hanging work before I left, and now a total of 5 had been sold! *twirls* I'm very excited if you can't tell. This is the first time I've sold anything I've made, which is super awesome.

I'm so glad some of them (maybe more?) will have new homes. I'll be honest, I had a hard time relinquishing some of these to the show once they were finished. In particular, that little girl with the red balloon. She's modeled after some of the dolls I'll be making soon.  I was finally able to put her in with the rest of the pieces once I decided I'd make myself a bigger version of her for my home.  Turns out my sisters all want a version of her too, as its become their favorite as well.

You can see more detailed views of all of these on my Flickr Account.

Here are the works Katie had up, and below that are the works her sister put into the show. Katie made some really cute kokeshi girls.  I really loved the little blue skull one, so its mine!  We're doing an art trade. Her blue skull kokeshi for a variation of my Stitch Bunny.

The show is up until July 28, so if you are in the Northern Virginia area, you should go check it out. There really are some very neat works, and its just an neat space overall to visit.

Sketches - Curl Girl to Whisp

A few months back I was making nightly sketches (something I really should get back into).  Just getting things out of my brain and onto paper. Most of my sketching is very organic, without too much forethought going into them. I'll have a basic idea, and after that things flow in whatever direction they want to go. I've tried to force myself into a neater, cleaner style, but it rarely turns out right.

I have a pretty set sketching style. Where I use short loose strokes and slowly tighten things up as I see how things are developing, and the image slowly reveals itself to me. Its almost like scratching a lottery ticket to reveal the numbers below. I sit there scratching into the paper to see what exactly is going to end up staring back at me.

This is what ended up looking back at me one night. I did the initial sketch one night, and then a few weeks later I added a little shading. Its really neat watching these girls I draw come into existence. I nicknamed her "Curl Girl".

Recently I decided to try and make this sketch into a drawing. So one night I set out to make a cleaned up version. While I like the outcome of this first attempt, it didn't end up looking exactly as I had planned. I ended up nicknaming the drawing "Whisp" because of the whisps of hair flying in the front.

I'll probably try to make her as drawing again, but without getting rid of the "sketchy" feeling entirely and without such thick lines. I really like the character some of the sketchy feeling gives to the original sketch. There may also be more to the drawing next time around, such as more of her, and some other little items, like a background or such.