Gelli Arts Artist Spotlight: ME!

If you've been reading along then I don't have to tell you how much fun I am having working with monoprinting. Printing has always been in my blood in some form or another - from lino block cutting and printing, rubber stamping (it is too a form of printing), making my own stamps out of anything and everything, creating collographs, screen printing, and now making monoprints with a Gelli plate.

The joke around here is that if it sits still long enough I will either print on it or ink it up to make a print on something else. Nothing with wonderful texture is safe around my inky and painty fingers! Yes, I've been caught inking up interesting cracks in the sidewalk and making prints from them!

Right now I'm having such a blast with my Gelli plate that I've hardly had time been able to stop printing long enough to fill you in on some extremely cool news! 

I was contacted by the folks at Gelli Arts, the company that makes the Gelli printing plate, about the prints I posted to my Facebook page and blog. They enjoyed them and asked for some images to feature me in an Artist Spotlight on their Facebook page. They posted 18 images from various pieces I have made in the last few months. 

How cool is that?! 

Rendered even more speechless by the response - thus delaying this post further - I am still at a loss for words over the number of comments and "likes" my work has received. 

(The album itself currently has over 100 "likes" and 13 shares. One piece has 125 "likes"! The amount of traffic here and almost every other site I have for In My Head Studios has roughly tripled.) 

Gelli Arts, I cannot thank you enough. To have my work shown alongside the work of many of my favorite artists is intensely humbling. The positive response is icing on the cake, next to which I have been doing the Happy Dance of Joy for more than a week. 

Several people have had questions about how I make my prints. I don't currently have a tutorial about gelli printing on this blog to share, but I am working on a few ideas for showing you how I do the printing. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, check out the rest of the Gelli Arts Facebook page for some awesome artwork and a ton of resources about printing. Their Pinterest page is chock full of eye candy, tips, and tricks, too.

As for me, I am headed back into my hermit hole to make more prints! 

- Vickie

In Which I Am Mentioned! Honorably, Even!

I failed to post about Artist Row 2012? How did that happen?! Oh, yeah. That busy thing called LIFE. 

Artist Row 2012 was great. Tons of people showed up to look and shop. The Rochester Public Market is a fabulous venue in our city. It always draws the crowds! 

This was the first year I did this show even though this was the eighth (or ninth?) annual show. I didn't even know they gave awards until I saw several judges hanging around my booth. 

Then they walked over and gave me an "Honorable Mention" award! Can you believe it?! I still cannot believe it. 

This show is filled with the best artists in town - names that are well known in the big art circles - artists who show in the galleries - artists whose work I adore. And I am not in their league - no way, no how. 

Yet, they gave me an award. One of only 10 for the whole big show. How cool is that?! The award came with free booth fee to next year's show! Yay!

These are new BINGO marker pendants, very vintage Anagram game pendants (these are from the 1940's), and a few mahjong tile pendants. 

This is half my booth set-up with my domino pendants up front. That's me in the back, with my certificate. My mom made me pose for a bunch of photos with the thing. Way to make me feel like an elementary school girl - kind of fun, though! Thanks, Mom! 

It was nice to do an outdoor show for once. The Public Market has wonderful covered space, and I didn't have to fuss with a real show tent. A friend helped me put up a small canopy just to keep the late day sun off my work.

I'm so looking forward to next year at Artist Row 2013! What a delight to feel I really earned my spot!  

- Vickie

Casa Larga Winery Craft Show: 5/3/12

Join me for an excellent craft show TOMORROW, Thursday, May 3rd, at one of the finest wineries in town - Casa Larga! 

"Spring in the Vineyard"

Casa Larga Winery

10:00 AM - 7:00 PM

2287 Turk Hill Road

Fairport, NY 14450

There is more than enough time to get there after your workday. Unwind with a glass of wine with friends!

Our local paper has a nice write up of the show plus more information on Casa Larga's  events for Mother’s Day and Riesling Month. Enjoy the music of Chris Wilson while you decide what handmade goodies to buy from over 50 of the finest artisans around.

Be silly for your Tiny Works of Awesome! Cluck like a chicken at my booth for 10% off! 

- Vickie

Doodles Unleashed Workshop: Week 2

I am so very excited to take another awesome workshop by Traci Bautista called "Doodles Unleashed".  Traci is the author of the new book Doodles Unleashed. You may know her from her book called Collage Unleashed. I already bought Doodles Unleashed online and am waiting impatiently for its arrival.

What is even cooler about this workshop is it's a FREE course offered by Strathmore Online Workshops. 

Strathmore is an art paper company. They make many of the papers with which I work. Traci is recommending for this workshop the 400 series of Strathmore papers made for specific uses such as mixed media (which is a thicker paper able to take the abuse of mixed media work). I like the acrylic paper in the 400 series, which has a nice faux canvas texture that also holds up well to mixed media use. 

The image above is my Spontaneous Watercolor Background from Week 2 of the course. We were encouraged to play with the watercolor like mad scientists. This was my third attempt at getting it how I wanted. The first two were overworked and muddy. I will probably keep them and chop them up for other uses. [Image above: 11"x15", watercolor paper, © 2012 In My Head Studios]

I took a bunch of photos of this piece for future reference. I like to get in really close and get the details photographed. I love the macro setting on my camera. It's awesome. These images are good for making note cards and promotional materials. Also I print these photos for use in an art journal or other collage project. I like to make the most use of my work in this way.

Below you can see the close ups. Don't you love the splotchyness? That big splatter of orange hit that wide brush stroke perfectly. I was thrilled when that happened. Never underestimate the power of throwing paint at your work!

I'm practicing painting circles with a small round brush. For some reason this ability eludes me. I am happy with these circles because I remembered to keep my brush loaded with paint. (You can't paint without paint on your brush!!)

Love the splotchy splatters! Yes, I got paint all over myself.

I waited for the first applications of watercolor to dry so I could go back over them with contrasting colors without making a muddy brown mix. When I say "waited" I mean I impatiently shot the heatgun at it until it dried.

I highly recommend signing up for this class if you like to doodle, experiment with paint, or want to increase your skills in these areas. Traci takes doodling to another level with paint. Doodling is a really important part of our creative development.

So get outta here! Go! Run right now to sign up for this class! I'll see you in the forums!

 

- Vickie 

p.s. I have not received any compensation, product or otherwise from Strathmore or Traci Bautista. I'm writing this to present cool stuff - not to make a profit off blogging. My opinions are my own. I am not affiliated with Strathmore or Traci Bautista.

All Things Paper: A Feature (From Long Ago)

I made an oopsie. One I feel quite badly about. So let's fix it, shall we?

It's no secret that I love all things paper. And I love "All Things Paper" quite literally, too! It's the name of one of my very favorite paper artists' blogs! Ann Martin is an amazing quilling paper-whirler extraordinaire.

Quilling is the art of coiling and shaping narrow paper strips into designs. Often these designs are quite intricate and fancy. The paper strips are usually only about an eighth of an inch wide. That's not much to work with! To top that the strips are glued to the background on their side edge. Yeah, the thin edge of the paper. The one you can barely get any glue on.

Did I mention this is a very fiddly art?

Ann makes it look easy... and that's the sign of a truly skilled artisan.

I must admit that her Twitter Fail Whale is my favorite piece. I love when old school art and craft meets pop culture. When it is done with such skill as this it makes me really really happy inside.

You can imagine my astonishment when Ann emailed about wanting to feature my work on her blog!

Huh? What?! Ann Martin knows who I am?

She found me through my good friend Stefani's blog, Pine Tree Designs. This was waaaaaaay last August 2010, just after my bout with that hemiplegic migraine. I totally had a blog post drafted up about her feature about me, but it got lost in the shuffle of trying to catch up after being ill. I was doing some back end blog maintenance and came across the draft post this past weekend.

I get a fail whale of my own!

So I didn't want to be horribly remiss and not thank Ann for her generous, kind words! Better late than never, right?

Thank you so very much, Ann! Your post came at a low point for me and was a very encouraging bit of attention in a much needed place. You rock! xoxo

- Vickie

Backlink: all things paper: In My Head Studios: "You may have guessed by now that I love wearable art. It's no wonder then, that the work of today's featured artist, Vickie Porter, from Rochester..."

Buried The Humble Meter

Honestly, I kind of don't even know what to say about this wonderful piece by Jonathan Everitt. My “humility meter” has me wanting to duck under the covers. Yikes! Attention! Run away! The fact that anyone is even remotely interested in what I do amazes me every time. I am go grateful for the community I have around me.

Jonathan’s blog called “Originals: An Occasional Look at Cool Creative People” features local artists. Some of the talent he has written about is utterly unbelievable. To be in this kind of local artistic company is awesome! Happy Dance!

Thank you, Jonathan, for all you do to promote our local artsy peeps! There is “shameless self promotion” and then there is something more miraculous… the coming together of people, community, and “The Right People Who Will Shamelessly Promote Others”. I think The Universe lately is putting my right-people in my path. How cool is that?!

Happy Friday!

- Vickie

Doodles During The Artistic Biker's Ustream

These are some doodles I created while watching The Artistic Biker's show last night. I highly recommend stopping in to see him work on his art journaling. Plus the added benefit is that the chat room part fills up with A-list art journaling web celebrities. I met a few new friends last night!

Where to find The Artistic Biker:

Blog: artisticbiker.com
Twitter: @Blade21292
Ustream Live Show: Thursdays 7-9 PM CST: ustream.tv/channel/the-artistic-biker

Local Treasures From Rochester, NY

We have an amazing amount of art and culture in Rochester, NY for the size city we are. There is always something going on in the arts to go check out. We have world class museums and art galleries. We even have a Neighborhood of the Arts (NOTA)! A lot of galleries, artists’ studios, and cool little shops are part of the NOTA.

Because our city is so generous to the arts community we have a treasure trove of local talent to show off. I belong to the Rochester NY Etsy Street Team (RNEST). We are a group of local sellers from Etsy coming together to network and promote. RNEST has some amazing members. I made a Treasury to show you some of the handmade goodness!

It will bring our Treasury up in the rankings if you click each item in the Treasury. Then please leave a comment! Thanks!

Click the image to visit the Treasury!

Lilac Festival 2010

I spent a lovely Sunday at Rochester’s Lilac Festival at Highland Park. The weather was perfect – not too hot, not too cold. Due to the nice weather every single person living in the Rochester metro area was also in attendance at the Lilac Fest on Sunday, too. It was the most crowded I’ve ever seen Highland Park! This giant 10-day festival kicks off the local summer season of outdoor festivals and art and craft shows.

The aisles down the craft show rows were shoulder to shoulder with people. It was kind of hard to see all the great arts and crafts! Plus I dislike crowds so I was having a mini-panic attack. We attempted to make our way to the food tent. The path was just a river of moving bodies inching forward ever so slowly. When we got to the food tent there simply was not room to get inside. So we got out of there (much to my relief!) and went elsewhere for some garbage plates.

I was surprised to see how few local artists I recognized from doing shows here for the past two seasons. My friends Amanda Preske from Beadwork By Amanda, Jennifer Born from PS Enjoy Your Life, and Stefani Tadio from Pine Tree Designs were there with their arts and crafts. And that was it. Most of the business cards I picked up are artists from Pennsylvania, Arizona, or Buffalo. Very few locals. And I picked up a lot of business cards!

Stefani and I have formed a really cool friendship, email a lot, and sometimes do projects together. This was her first big outdoor show with the whole tent-setting-up business and leaving things out overnight. Her tent and set up looked great! And she did really well, too! I’m so happy for her! Plus now I get to pick her brain for when I finally get up the nerve to buy a tent and do outdoor shows.

Here are some pictures of her awesome booth:

Small notecards and adorable hand stitched paper pins

Hand stitched greeting cards and paper magnets

I love Stefani's Sticky Notes Holders!!

My plan for 2011 includes doing outdoor shows like this one. I have no idea how much inventory I would need. Maybe I better shut off the computer and Twitter and get crafting!

Oh, What A Mess!

Click to see it bigger with notes over at flickr

OK. I’ll be the first to admit I am a total slob in my studio. I do not have a “neat gene” at all. I like all my tools to be within arms reach. So it piles up around me. Not too good at putting things away when I’m done with them! I might need it again in another minute! It displeases me to have to get up from what I’m doing to get something for my current project. It’s disruptive. So I have this eternal mess.

It’s an inspiring mess, though. I love to sit and look at the little bits of paper left behind and how they mix with other paper around them. This is a source of design inspiration for me. It keeps my eyes busy and my brain going. I simply cannot work with a clean and organized work table. I’ve tried. It totally freaks me out.

My hunny calls the studio “The Fire Hazard”. I’m too embarrassed to show you the rest of it, to be honest. It’s really just more of the same from the work table, just spread out over a 10’ x 15’ room. Ugh. I cringe when people say, “Hey, can I stop by the studio and see your work?” Sure thing… if you can even walk into it! Welcome to the mess!

Not helping is the fact that I am a paper freak and collect it like it is gold. I have lofty plans to use it in collage work. But working on the size canvases I do (on small dominoes) not much of this paper collection gets used up. A domino maybe uses up 1.5 square inches of paper.

I would love it if you shared a photo of your studio. I like to see how other artists work. It’s very interesting to me. So please share!

Featured Artist: Purple Lemon Designs

Kelly Rinehart, of Purple Lemon Designs, is a fellow Etsy Twitter Team member. She creates custom stationery and rubber stamps. Her shop is filled with lovely paper goods for weddings and everyday correspondence. She makes custom address stamps, monogram stamps, and wedding stamps. And you all know I love paper and rubber stamps!

What inspires Kelly: “I am inspired by so many different things. It can be a poster I see walking down the road, an email I receive, or a pretty font. I also am inspired by fabric (for some crazy reason!). My juices just start flowing and then I just start drawing ideas in my sketchbook!”


She wants you to know: “Probably more than anything I love creating a custom piece that is uniquely a customer's own. When I have a customer that is pleased with the final project, that makes me so happy!”

She started her business because: “I was feeling very creatively stifled at work. I desperately needed a good creative outlet. So, I started designing stationery. That quickly led into creating rubber stamps. I love that Etsy gives artists a way to be creative and earn money at the same time!”


Read her blog: purplelemondesigns.com/blog
Follow her on Twitter: @purplelemon

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade purplelemondesigns.etsy.com

Etsy Twitter Team: Shop of the Week: A Cagey Bee

I like the creative name for this Etsy shop. The artist is Kris G. Brownlee – or KGB = A Cagey Bee! Very clever!

“I'm a painter, so my first love is creating the actual paintings - from sketching to swirling the paint around my canvas. But because I know a lot of us can't afford to buy original work, I try to offer a variety of lower cost reproductions: prints, notecards, and even little pendants with my characters!

I want my customers to know how much heart and soul and pure joy is poured into my work. I think most of my customers *do* know this, but it's not always easy to get a sense of who someone is via the internet. I was a very quiet, shy child and spent years creating elaborate stories for my imaginary friends. It's really no wonder that I've started to bring some of them to life in my paintings. The idea that I get to share that with my customers? That new friends from all over the world look at my girls and smile? I couldn't have dreamed up a better possibility for my life. :)”


What inspires you to create? “Everything! Favorite storybooks, movies, lyrics to songs, interesting characters I meet in real life... my biggest fear is that I'll never have enough time to paint all of the things I want to paint. If I ever run out of ideas, I can just walk out my front door and almost always see *something* interesting. There's this one woman in my neighborhood that I see every so often who I've been itching to paint since the first time I laid eyes on her. She walks this pack of 6 or 7 dogs - those giant long haired Afghan hounds! It looks like a scene straight out of a cartoon with their hair swishing and bouncing and swirling along!”

What are your Twitter tricks of the trade? “My newest favorite Twitter trick is installing Friendbar. It adds a toolbar to your browser so you don't have to load the Twitter page to tweet plus it makes it really easy to just click 1 button & tweet about the page you're currently viewing, including an already shortened URL. You can set it to update your Facebook status too. Very handy!”

Read her blog at www.acageybee.com
Follow her at Twitter: twitter.com/acageybee

As a special thank you to her Twitter pals, all prints in her shop are 2 for the price of 1 this week. Buy one print and simply enter the name of the second print you'd like in the notes to seller box. Double the cuteness!

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade acageybee.etsy.com

All photos copyright to Kris Brownlee/A Cagey Bee

Reposted from my original post at: Etsy Twitter Team: Shop of the Week: A Cagey Bee

The Spot Coffee Craft Show

I set up. I waited. Not many people showed up to buy. So I had 12 sales for all three days total. But I am not complaining because that’s 12 more than I would have had if I were just sitting at home on my sofa eating bons bons, which now that I think about it has just become my To Do List for tonight. The other crafters were awesome! So much fun meeting craft show people – especially the younger indie crafters.

The work of Jen Born, of P.S. Enjoy Your Life, really caught my eye. Our work is similar in style and I just love her business name. She makes these great mixed media collages on blocks of wood and seals them with bright shiny resin. She also makes bottle cap fridge magnets from tiny bits of paper and collages them under resin. I wanted to buy out her whole booth!! You know how much I love tiny bits of paper!

Casey Wright, of Peaches Products, creates tiny wonderful needle felted animals. Her unusual set up was really cool. She has copper wire coils attached to tree branches so it looked like all the little owls, birds, and chickens were roosting in the trees. I bought a little blue tweety Twitter bird from her. This little guy makes me really happy!!

Sunday, my friend Stefani Tadio from Pine Tree Designs came to set up shop. Her work is so perfect! She embroiders paper and embellishes Post-It note pads in ways that would make a well dressed woman look bad. Seriously! Her stuff is amazing!!! She also carries cards and paper brooches.

I scheduled myself a spot again in June. I think repeat exposure will bring more sales. So we will see about this show then. I think it’s too early to decide if we should opt out. The show is just getting started and this town is always slow to embrace new things to do. Plus the parking there is tricky for non-city folks to navigate. The patrons are more my demographic than usual craft shows so I really want this show to work out well. I have a hunch it is going to catch on. It’s just going to take some time.

Etsy Artist Feature: Wildflower Hill

One of my favorite things about Twitter is meeting local people. I find it fun to manage to “bump into” someone from the Rochester, NY area in the big, big online world. To run across a local Etsy seller is quite rare in my own experience. Being a firm believer in shopping local even if the shop is online, I wanted to let more people know about this great shop, run by Cindy Macca, called Wildflower Hill. This shop is chock full of gorgeous and very unique beads.

Cindy chose her shop name by taking inspiration from her Bloomfield, NY surroundings where she lives in a log cabin among a big hill of wildflowers that bloom in spring, summer, and fall. She is a wife and mother and has two dogs, five cats, and a guinea pig to care for. Running Wildflower Hill takes up much of her time and is her full time job. She openly admits that her house “looks like a bead factory exploded in it”. Her father and a brother are gemologists and appraisers of fine gems. One might call her bead store just part of the family business of working with precious and semi-precious stones. Her shop offers “a wide variety of stone, shell, fresh water pearls, coral, and glass beads along with copper, sterling, stone and ceramic pendants”.


What struck me most when I first visited her shop were her absolutely gorgeous photographs of her beads. Honestly, are these great pictures or what?! Plus the beads themselves are quite distinctive. I haven’t seen such a unique variety in many small business bead shops online, and trust me when I say I’ve spent a lot of time in online bead shops. The “Matched Set of Beads” section of her shop is genius. She does all the work for you by selecting great bead combinations and coordinating pendants.

I highly encourage you to stop by Wildflower Hill and to take some time to look around. You won’t want to leave empty handed!

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade wildflowerhill.etsy.com

Etsy Artist Feature: The Midnight Orange

If you have been reading at all then you know how I just love paper. And I love paper crafters. So when I saw The Midnight Orange’s work at the Buffalo Indie Market on Sunday I knew I had to share her work with you!

Also known as Dana Truesdale, The Midnight Orange has a nice selection of objects de art in her shop. But what captured my attention most were her altered assemblages. She makes little match box dressers out of chipboard and paper. They are cute and useful at the same time! The legs are made of things you would not normally think of as legs. This one has seedpods for legs!

I asked Dana how she got started making the matchbox assemblages.

“We had a primitive childhood and lived out in the woods. Often we made our own things to play with because the store was just so far away! I had an entire dollhouse full of handmade miniatures, and I used matchboxes for anything in the home that had a drawer. The tables were the front-runners in terms of aesthetics, and I still continued to make them for fun as I grew up. Later on someone recommended I use chipboard to reinforce the top and bottom, and it really perfected the design.”

Her favorite source for inspiration:

“My kids. They are just like me when I was young, and it helps me stay true to my roots. I often will give them a few basic things to play with and just watch them use their imaginations to make it fun and functional.”

What she wants you to know:

“My work is very eclectic and the variety is diverse. My hope is that my browsers and buyers will see that the message transcends the medium and within my shop they will find whimsy, high emotion, and ordinary things turned extraordinary. My shop sections will allow people to experience my work with more consistency and help them target what they may be looking for. Lastly, I want to say that I am humbled. Just humbled beyond compare to be here and be doing this. It is a privilege to be able to feed people's art souls.”

Dana also makes something I believe is really great for healing or get well gifts... a spoonful of sugar!


Go check out her shop! She has more lovelies than I covered here!

Etsy Artist Feature: Beadwork by Amanda Preske

I met a marvelous artist at the Community Nursery School of Irondequoit Craft Show today by the name of Amanda Preske. She makes the most striking, intricate beaded jewelry.

In addition to being an avid jeweler, she is a chemistry student at Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work reminds me of complex molecular structures, almost like she is weaving atoms together. I find it interesting how artists’ lives play out in their work and always enjoy when the two marry so well, as in Amanda’s instance. This piece especially makes me think of long, crystalline chains of atoms.


Her work has been awarded a silver key in a scholastic art competition in the jewelry division. She is a member of the Etsy BeadWeavers Team.

A free pair of earrings accompanies every purchase from her Etsy shop. How nice! Specify what colors you want when you check out. If you find something in her shop you like but want a different color, just ask. She’s open to custom orders.

Amanda offers jewelry parties in your home with some really great deals. Hostesses receive 20% off purchases at the party and an additional 5% off for every $100 in sales. Everyone who attends receives a free gift. I’m sure you and your friends will enjoy her work. More information is available here.

Her website has a page of some of her creations that are not yet offered in her shop but are incredibly nice. They are worth a look-see!

Visit her site for a 20% off coupon good at a craft show or mention this offer in a message if you purchase an item from Etsy.

Amanda, I wish you much joy and success in all your endeavors! I’m looking forward to seeing you again at the craft show at Irondequoit High School on November 29th!

Images used with permission from the artist, Amanda Preske.

Falling Slowly

I love this song so much that I thought I would share because it is so good. It gives me the chills sometimes. Very moving. It's called "Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova and is available on the Once (Music from the Motion Picture) Soundtrack. It won the Best Original Song Oscar® this year.

It plays on my computer at least 5 times a day, and I never tire of singing along. That's what I do in my studio alone all day... sing. Poorly. I find that music ties up my internal art critic and allows me to get more work done. (Although I have not been getting much done lately because I cannot shake this fatigue from my thyroid being under active. Hopefully the meds will kick in soon.)