Archive for April, 2007

Item: Business is booming at the Etsy shop. And by “booming,” I mean I’ve made more than one sale in the month since I opened! I am pleased, especially since I opened the shop on a whim, not actually believing that people might, you know, buy stuff. I’ve even gone so far as to order some custom business cards, in hopes that I can continue to spread the word.

Item: This weekend was April’s photo shoot weekend. Unfortunately, I have little to offer you in the way of proof of said photo shoot, because the results may or may not be part of a gallery/boutique opening in October. The best I can do is this test shot in the ever-popular “bloody egg” motif. The rest of the series has absolutely nothing to do with cheap fake blood, so don’t think I’m giving anything away. I shot this solely to prove that I did pick up a camera this month!

If the photos aren’t accepted, you will see them soon. If they are, you can congratulate me, and I will debut the series on my Web site in October. Ooh, secrets!

What I can do is talk a little bit about the shoot itself. I didn’t arrange anything with any of the girls (aka the models) this month, because it’s getting very close to finals time, and everyone is scrambling to finish the semester, and I’m feeling a wee bit antisocial (what else is new?). As a result, April was “Still Life Month,” which meant two whole days of fighting with my studio lights and bending/kneeling over my not-so-ergonomically-correct studio setup. It’s not ergonomically correct because it’s an overturned laundry basket covered with a white sheet. Makeshift what? And why is my back throbbing? Oh, right.

I really love the new photos, despite the back strain, so you’ll have to trust me when I say it kills me to keep them from you, dear Internets! It really does! I’m already itching to upload them to my new flickr account. Bear with me, please.

Item: It’s 80 degrees outside. 80 degrees! How do we go from snow, ice, and rain to 80 degrees in the span of a week? We live in Maine, that’s how. Not that I’m complaining… it just seems wrong to be enjoying 80-degree weather when the trees haven’t even shown buds, and the grass is still an unpleasant greenish-brown baby poo color.

Since being introduced to etsy, I’ve also started hanging out some new shopping/social networking sites. I’ve never been much of a “real life” shopper… crowded shopping centers are not my thing. But online shopping? I can totally dig that. And, with help from stylehive.com and thisnext.com, it’s easier to find diamonds in the rough.

See more of my Etsy’s Best list at ThisNext.

I spent most of the weekend working on this: A digitally illustrated alphabet poster. I may not have leet illustration skills, but I can draw cartoons well enough (my specialty used to be cartoon chickens - fear the talent) and I thought it might be fun to do a version of the ABC’s and print it as a poster. It may not be a work of Art with a capital A, but I think it’s cute.

All this stems from the fact that I’ve been thinking I should try a creative pastime that doesn’t involve so much waiting… one of the pitfalls of having somewhat elaborate and wacky photographic ideas is that they often require a good deal of preparation and planning before I see results, sometimes so much that I lose interest in the idea before I’ve had a chance to pick up the camera. Let no one accuse me of having a long attention span. Digital illustration is something I can play with in the in-between, thereby satisfying my need to create on a more flexible basis. I may even have to take a drawing class soon, and see if my hand-eye coordination is really as bad as I think!

And yes, I put it up at etsy.