I missed last year's comic expo due to health problems, but I'm back in the Artist Alley! My only hope is that I can still draw like the wind :-)

Come see me at table A476.

Just finished editing this picture despite sending the original off in the mail a couple of weeks ago. The textured paper was a challenge to work with--usually it's not like you see every bump!





Panpastel and pencil crayon ::: 8x10" ::: 2024

Still working away on pet portraits over here, including sharing them! Astrid is an over the rainbow bridge soft-furred rat who enjoyed chilling in her coconut. After chatting with Astrid's human, I decided a three-dimensional paper picture was the right choice.

This picture was fun and challenging at the same time!




Ink, pencil, and pencil crayon ::: 2023

Happy New Year! I know I haven't posted much on my blog lately, but I still working on pet portraits from the comic expo. I was hoping to get them wrapped up by the end of the year, but as usual life got in the way. I had a tooth extracted at the beginning of December. Although the tooth wasn't causing me pain, it was causing other health problems and feel like I'm only getting back to my normal self now a month later.

Life is great when you're not walking around with a giant infection in your face. However I organized all my business files for 2024 and worked on my sales spreadsheet from 2023 yesterday. I'm really happy with how my little Etsy shop is still doing after all these years. Even with just one craft sale and comic expo under my belt, my online sales really helped me get past the $1,000 mark. It's not a lot, LOL, but at least it's consistent! I don't know what 2024 has a head for me business-wise as I need to get my health back in order first there won't be much in the way of art making if I can't make art.

Happy New Year to all of you out there and thanks for reading if you did. All the best in 2024 as well!

I realized I haven't udpated here forever. I'm still working on pet portraits from the comic expo :-D

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I've been so busy working on pet portraits that I didn't notice I hit another Etsy milestone. Each 100 order level up is still exciting to me :-)

So much for hitting the April 8th deadline :-D Two things conspired against me--I didn't realize that 4:59AM April 8th in my timezone wasn't 4:59AM April 8th in the publisher's timezone. I also, foolishly, cut my fingertip open while slicing bread. My finger bled and bled and once I convinced my husband that a band-aid wasn't going to cut it, he drove out to the all-night pharmacy and bought gauze pads, paper tape and more. No, a band-aid wasn't going to cut it. I used my first aid skills on myself and dressed the wound quite nicely.

When the sting subsided and I returned to my computer to submit the story, the submission form had closed! I'm not sad, although I was a little astounded. I checked a time map and I missed the window by seven minutes. Seven measly minutes!

On the plus side, we're now stocked for the next flesh wound and I still have a polished story to send out in the world!

Well, I fooled myself today because I thought a submission I was working towards closed today, but it turns out it's actually April 8th!

I stayed up too late last night editing my story and was up early to finish it when I double-checked the submission page. At least I have another week to procrastinate?

I hoped to hear by now about three submissions in the hopper--but no news so far. Two are still marked in-progress in their respective submission systems and one could take longer.

However, it's good to always have at least one thing out there for consideration and three is the most amount I've submitted at one time.

The story I'm currently working on was written in May 2012 when we went to California. Suddenly I found myself with lots of quiet time. My Kobo e-reader was loaded up with a lot of books and short story anthologies and just for fun, I wrote some stories around some of the things we did and saw in California. These stories are by no means great and they're a little embarrassing to read now, but they are definitely the fertilizer for future success. The base ideas are not bad, just the execution. Like any skill, you have to practice it badly before you can practice it well.

I plunked the story into Word, let Grammarly spot all the missing commas and hyphens, and started breaking it up into logical sections in Scrivener. However, there was very little in the way of logical sections besides a beginning, middle, and end. After trying my best to reformat the story, I realized it simply must be rewritten while borrowing the basic framework. From the original 1300 words there are now about 5000 and I'm aiming for 6000.

I'm glad the submission deadline wasn't today--I'm so tired of this story--my brain needs a break from it!

This 8x10" portrait of Peaches the cockatiel is my belated half of an art trade with a friend who drew Muffin's portrait. You may recall a bunch of posts called "Peaches in Progress" where I tried making a digital composition of her bird. LOL although I'm old enough that I should be able to produce digital art, I'm just not very good at it and went back to what I know best--paper!

The peaches and leaves are from a rubber stamp set btw.