The niece-com-poops are visiting and we are up to all sorts of no good. Blue pancakes in the morning, wild dress up parties in Annalie’s room, art projects galore and of course some outings to all the local tourist spots. Bethany’s town has a lot to offer. You should come visit her.

I’ve been running around after them, wildly trying to clean up. It’s amazing how much more mess three kids can make than one. But then they are the niece-com-poops so making messes sort of runs in their blood. Not to mention my mom is here and she’s been sewing up a storm so there is material and thread all over the place.

My mom sewed three skirts for me, a skirt for Bug, a hat for Bug and a skirt for Bug’s stuffed green bear all in one day! I think Bethany’s house brings out the creative juices in more than just me. CC has also been here sewing and even put up some cute pink skull coffee sleeve thingys in her shop.

I haven’t doing much besides yelling at the kids and cleaning up their mess. But that’s okay. I’ve had lots of time to be creative already. As you can see below:

I picked up the pottery we painted the other day. This dog mug is a lefty mug. It wasn’t supposed to be but when I painted a dog face at the bottom inside of the mug (not shown–see shop for details), I painted it upside down. So yay for lefties! Or yay for Marci who already bought it! Thanks Marci.

I also painted this blue cat plate but when I was in the drawing stages, I accidentally went to brush off my eraser shavings with a paper towel that had a bit of black paint on it. DOH! I wiped a big black streak around the middle. Thankfully, most of it washed off but as you can see there is still some residue on the left and over the cat’s head. I should have drawn something to incorporate the smudge but when it was all wet and covered in pencil marks, it was really hard to tell the difference between pencil residue and paint residue. Excuses, excuses…

What is it with me and messing up my pottery? It must be my signature. I think I’ve messed up every piece I’ve ever painted. Sure, it gives everything more character but it also makes it so I can’t sell them full price and since I haven’t figured out a way to buy bisque cheaper yet, that’s not really working out for me. But I can’t complain, it’s a hobby that almost supports itself. Which is a lot better than other hobbies I could take up. It’s in my shop for cheap, if you’re interested.

Now here’s a piece of pottery that Bug and I sort of messed up on purpose. It’s a collaboration. First, I drew on the bear in pencil. Then she painted it with a flourish and then I outlined some detail over the top. I think it’s rather cute. It’s in our shop but if it doesn’t sell, that’s fine with me.

So that’s what we’ve been up to. Don’t come home, Bethany, we’re having too much fun. Just kidding. Hurry up and come home and join in the fun with us!

I brought my remaining dog paintings home from the Surf Dog Market yesterday. The Surf Dog Market is closing it’s Redondo Beach location so my paintings need a new place to go live. Somehow the remaining ones look really really sad without all their companion paintings.

I think I have homes for the two big ones but if anybody really really really wants the smaller ones I could probably be convinced to send them to you for the cost of shipping. Or I might just paint over them. I think the little little ones wanted to be painted over. They want to be the story behind the painting. So somebody can say, “This painting used to be “Cool Paw Luke” but now it’s bla bla bla….” I don’t know. It kinda adds to the fun of paintings when they have a long story to go with them.

My favorite painting didn’t sell. I thought it would be a big hit with it’s light feature but maybe it’s just an eyesore. I still really like it. I’m going to give it to my brother. I know he’ll put it up in his bedroom, next to the eleventy-seven other reject paintings I’ve given him over the years. That’s what’s great about family. They like what you paint no matter what it is.

Edited to add:

These are the paintings that are still available:

and the blue coyote one pictured at top. Click on them for more details.

Oh my goodness, I have a shop! How many commenters does it take to get me to do someting? I know. I lag. It’s just that these sorts of things intimidate me. I want to do it right and I know I only have the attention span of a gnat so this sort of creates a problem. Gnats do not make nice pretty shops. But enough of you hinted and cajoled that this is something I should really do so I finally buckled down and opened up an Etsy shop.

I’m not 100 percent happy with it. I want to ship to places like Canada and the UK and Paris ( because Paris is a country on the map of SAJ) and maybe even Japan (love you guys!) … but I don’t know how to yet. I have to walk down to my local UPS shop and inquire. So if you live somewhere outside of the United States and you really want a print, do not despair! Just contact me the old fashioned way and we will use you as a guinea pig to figure out how to do it right for my Etsy shop.

Another thing: Everyone who ordered a print via email in the last week… You got a deal! I didn’t realize shipping is so expensive when you need a box and you are sending glass… I just lumped it all together as a flat rate thinking I’d have plenty of profit to cover shippping.

Well guess what? Shipping costs bucks! Ack! Way more than I expected it to too. Maybe someday I will find a way to do it cheaper but for now I’m charging $25 to cover it all. It really does cost that much. Well, it’s actually $23 something. I’m adding two bucks for my walking because I’m worth it.

You don’t know how hard it is to schedule a walk to the UPS store with a toddler that you have to wrangle into a stroller. Or maybe you do and you’ll probably be happy to forward two bucks for my latte fund.

So anyway that’s that. I will probably upload more over the weeks to come. I’ve got some other digital art in the works and of course I’m selling prints unframed substantially cheaper.

But believe me, the frame is totally worth the $55. I thought fifty-five dollars was a lot at first but then after I blew dust and fiberboard sawdust out of the frames over and over, cleaned the glass over and over and then spent hours trying to match the matte up juuuuuust right (which took several tries of course) and wrestled with the matte and the funny bendy things on the back, I was so over it. Fifty-five bucks is mere pittance for my efforts.

Well maybe I exaggerate just a little bit but it did take a bit of tender loving care. Because I do care.

And with that I bid you farewell to go snoop in my Etsy shop. Don’t feel obligated to buy. This is just an experiment. When I have my real shop, I will have way more stuff and then I’ll really put on the hard sell.