Working on a new direction

I've been away from my blog forever it seems (how many of my blog posts start out with something along those lines lol?) I've been doing my usual summer market in Market Square in Knoxville and working on getting a bunch of originals on wood done for my upcoming December First Friday exhibit at Bliss Home. Last year's was a huge success so it will be fun to see how it goes this year.

I'm also going in a new direction with my art, or well, kind of revisiting a direction I was going in 5 years ago when I first started. But in a new way. I'm also working on getting some licensing deals for my art and creating some collections that will organize my art in a way that make sense from a manufacturer's point of view. Due to that, I will be revamping my website to showcase my art on different products, etc.

First and foremost, before anything else can happen, I HAVE TO LEARN PHOTOSHOP! I've put this off for years now because it's INTIMIDATING. lol. My husband is a graphic artist and our Resident Photoshop Expert (although he says there is no such thing as a Photoshop expert because it's such a vast program). In my eyes he is though :). So I'm going to diligently apply myself over the next few weeks to learning it and creating some collections. In the meantime, here are some of my mixed media pieces showcasing where I'm heading. I love love these, they are so completely me and from my heart.

I have a bunch that I've done so far although I'm just going to upload 2 today. The originals are much larger of course. I'm using vintage images along with my photographs to make something that I feel is really unique. I'm so excited about the possibilities!

800 Sq. ft Modern Cabin - LOVE

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Quote for Today...

'You're the Biggest Part of Me'


" The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want."

~ Ben Stein


' In Love '

What a morning!

' Sunday Morning and I Never Want to Leave '

Our flooding kitchen/laundry room/bathroom dilemma continues... When I got back from mom's last night, the plumbing still wasn't in functioning mode. We ended up having to get the septic tank pumped out (it was just put in 4 years ago) which cost mucho dollars of course (on Memorial Day? are you kidding me?). Anyway, I left to go to mom's, leaving Richard and Bones with the septic guy. Got home that night, there's still issues.

It turns out that the tank was full of water due to fill lines being done incorrectly or something like that. Plus there was an obstruction in the pipe. So we rented a 100 ft pipe snake this morning and ran it through the pipe to the septic tank. It was super disgusting lol. The downstairs was stinky ~ wow, I'm not even going to go into any further detail. TMI, I know. My daughter's boyfriend Nicky helped us tremendously. If you ever read this Nicky ~ THANK YOU.

'Curvy'

So, enough of our house issues lol. I still love my house. It's like a child that you really really love even though she misbehaves sometimes lol. Naughty house, we're just going to have to make you do better. Hopefully we won't have to deal with anything like this again for a few years.

'Shall We Dance?'

I sold some art today. Finally, I've had a long dry spell in my shop somehow. It was like I got several sales all at once and I was thinking that finally everything was coming together on Etsy but then no sales for like 15 days. EEEK. scary. But I've had calls from 2 galleries this month that want to exhibit me and a permanent spot from June to November in a Farmer's Market/Craft Market in Knoxville. The Farmer's Market thing was juried, I couldn't exhibit without prior approval. Ditto for the galleries of course. So all that's come together for me this month during the time I wasn't having any sells. That's funny how things work out like that isn't it? I think I just need to sit down and write out my progress this month and see how it all comes together in the big picture instead of focusing on my lack of sales at Etsy. Hmmm, I'm going to do that. It should be interesting to see how my art sells in the real world as opposed to the Etsy world lol. I'm looking forward to June, to seeing how it all goes.

This is what I sold today :

'Love'

Wow, I hope I didn't sound whiney in my post today. Like poor me with my plumbing problems and lack of sales. I didn't mean to if I did lol. Just a day in my life, things don't always smell like roses LOL.