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Fun free day last week painting flowers.

black floral

A few sketchbook florals I liked so much I tried out a little ceramic dish in the same style.

my desk

OUI & Me

I've been a big fan of Angela Hodgkinson's line of ceramic candles, OUI, for a long time, and when she emailed me and asked if I wanted to work together on a special collection of hand-painted candles I was thrilled. In April she shipped me 12 blank, bisqued teacups, and I painted them and shipped them back to her in Oklahoma City. Shortly after I sent off the box the devastating tornadoes struck. Angela and I are both devoted cat moms (I'm huge fans of Hazel and Jacques on her Instagram), and we decided to give all proceeds from the sale of this collection to the Central Oklahoma Humane Society for their work rescuing, saving, housing, and placing pets during and since the devastating May tornadoes.

The collection is for sale here.

In My Room

"In My Room" is a one night group show put on by some of my best friends from school, Rachel, Monica, and John. Since we graduated, they've been organizing group shows every chance they can, and this is the first one I've had the opportunity to be in & am around to attend. It will be a fun night with a lot of my favorite people, so stop by if you can make it to Park Slope! On top is the thing I made, I don't really know if I like it but art (without Photoshop) is hard.

blue cat dishes

Here are the dishes I made based on my drawings from a couple posts ago. I also made little figurine versions that I'm waiting to come out of the kiln. You can buy one of these guys, and other ceramic pieces, in my shop here.

Ceramics

I finally got around to photographing most of the 18 ceramic pieces I made at my mom's house back in December. There are a bunch listed in my shop here, and the rest have become gifts for friends or objects I can't bear to part with. It was incredibly fun to make all these, so very hands-on in a way that the other things I do aren't, and the final product is so satisfyingly solid and real. I'm taking a handbuilding class next month and I can't wait to make more.

favorite sketchbook

The night before I was planning on going to New York Central and trying to buy one of these elusive sketchbooks, I had all sorts of wonderful dreams about paper and drawing and George Bates' sketchbook class and the open model drawing session at Parsons etc etc. It was really nerdy.

And then I had the best trip there, because not only did they have the sketchbook, I had this fantastic conversation with one of the notoriously pretentious employees about it. We were like "isn't this sketchbook the best, it's such a good size, it always sells out so fast, and the cover is so nice, and it even lays flat when you open it in case you want to use the full spread, and that coventry vellum is super nice too, such a good pick." It was really nerdy.

After a week of emails and recoloring patterns and writing licensing contracts, I was so happy to paint a bunch of leaves and flowers for a few hours last night.
I started drawing in sketchbooks religiously toward the end of high school when I was 16 or 17 and knew I wanted to go to art school. My drawings may not have been that good, but I can look at a page and remember exactly where I was and what I was doing. At Pannikin with Ryan and his brother on New Year's Eve. I was drinking tea, his brother was reading a newspaper. It was lightly raining. It's a more accurate account of my life than anything I could write.

My two more recent ones are less vivid, maybe because I don't have as many feelings as I did when I was 17 or 20, or maybe because almost all of the drawings were done while giggling with Chelsey in Jordin's class. It's really nice to flip through though and see what I was thinking about then (mostly girls and flowers, of course).

cake!

The coolest thing happened - someone painted a cake inspired by one of my patterns!

and, my original for reference:

More photos on Abby Galloway's blog here. I really wish I could bake with her! It reminds me a lot of the cookies that Rachel decorated with her friend Julia of Azúcar Pastel. So fun to put drawings in places I never thought I could put them.

little drawings

A couple little drawings I pulled out of my sketchbook. I liked the swimmers so much I made a bigger more final piece out of them.

Working on some new floral patterns. Not sure if all the coloring is done on this one, but I like it so far!

New Patterns

Summer Fruit

I painted some of my favorite summer fruit over the past few days, in honor of summer and how much I'm enjoying the fruit share part of our CSA. Last week I baked an amazing crumble with the strawberries and rhubarb we received, and this week we devoured a quart of blueberries in just a few days.

Park Day

I kicked off the day with an early-morning walk (more like a dawdle) in our neighborhood park with Moses. It was his first time really exploring the outside world on a leash, and I think he really liked it. Then I headed, sans Moses, to Park Slope for a picnic lunch and an afternoon of sketchbooking in Prospect Park with Tuesday. All the greenery and damp air put me in the mood to draw some fruits and vegetables.

These are some very, very lightly edited scans. The muggy weather meant my paint never quite dried, resulting in lots of smudges everywhere. I might edit some of these further into finished repeating patterns, or repaint more polished versions.