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.

You’ve probably already heard from the wonders of twitter that the big art show was a whole lotta fun. It was a whirlwind of activity for me. I’m still trying to sort it out into some kind of cohesive story that will capture what it was really like.

It wasn’t huge. It wasn’t some grand debut on the art scene. There weren’t people were asking for my autograph or writing up articles for the scene and be seen magazines… but it was REAL. It was genuine. It was a combination of so many of my friends who really love me and GET me and a bunch of dog people who were besides themselves happy to have a party with art for their dogs. It was a bunch of happy people.

When you get down to it. Isn’t that the kind of party you really want to be at anyway? It was really fun. I think I loved the accordion music the best. It reminded me of walking along the Seine in Paris, licking a passion fruit ice cream cone. Toby said the music jammed his frequencies but for me it was a few hours of being that silly happy Parisian girl again enjoying the wonder of a warm summer night. It was wonderful.

The paintings sold pretty well. Some of my loyal fans rushed in early and swooped up their favorites so I felt all special and stuff. Man, you guys are the BEST and I know my funny paintings will be loved in your homes. The other artists had really great work and if they weren’t so nice and constantly telling me to get over myself, I would have probably had a huge inferiority complex. Thankfully, I did not have any time to whine and worry about such things because it was a busy busy night of talking to all sorts of old friends and new friends, furry and not so furry.

Did you see everybody who came? Lots of bloggers. It was like a little mini so-cal blogher except not just for her. (thinking of you Mr. BlogHim). Some lovely bloggers I didn’t get photos of and I’m kicking myself. And some other lovely bloggers got there while I was busy getting ready in my new magic dress and being fashionably late. Thank you for the champagne mip mup! I’m sad I missed you!

I was a terrible photographer all night because I was so distracted and scatterbrained. I think I talked everybody’s ear off. And if I wasn’t blabbing excitedly, I was exiting with Baby Bug because she needed some one-on-one time with her mom. She was really good most of the night but she did have a few crying jags when people came up to her too quickly or tried to take her away from me. She is such a mama’s girl. But then what do I expect, we hang out together every day all day.

Everybody else took pictures so I’m hoping they email them to me or send me links and I can post them here. I tried to capture the fun of the night but… well I already explained that. I was a little stretched. Toby tried too but he was number-one baby watcher and Baby Bug kept him running from one side of the gallery to the other.

Her cousin SuperChic was there, who is four, and they are best friends. Best friends who like to run around and chase each other. If they weren’t chasing each other they were chasing the many dogs who came as guests. How cute is that? The dogs were very well behaved and my brother even adopted one.

All in all it was a really sweet event.

Kinda like Baby Bug and pupcakes.

***UPDATE***
Kelly uploaded his pictures from the show and two movies!