pixels, light and hot wax

I have been very much like a duck these past few months: calm and quiet on the surface, paddling like hell underneath. (Well, maybe not always calm on the surface)

There has not been very much time for art.

There has been a whole lot of work for (and on) my growing business. (I hired someone to help me! For only two hours a week, admittedly, but hey, I’m an employer now!) Which is huge for me, but not anything to blog about.

I am taking a typography class, which is very exciting, but won’t have anything to show for a while. Designing a typeface is REALLY COOL and REALLY REALLY HARD and this may be the thing that forces me to give up and start liking pencils. (Although I am definitely still working, in tiny chunks of time, on Skellington’s fabulous suggestions from the “leveling up in drawing” post)  And I am hopeful this will allow me to expand the range of wedding album appropriate scripty fonts that don’t suck.

But class + business + parenting = no time = lots of small, in process, unfinished art. I am about to have 48 blissful hours of alone time, and should be able to grab at least a couple of hours there to fire up the palette and make the house smell all beeswax-y again. (And ponder whether I can swing a second year at Encausticamp – registration opens in a week or so)

On Sunday, July 10th I will be having a marathon shooting day of portraits to be used as the basis for this years Sofobomo project.

The portraits will be expressive and dramatically lit, in the vein of these portraits of Gloria and Seanne Marie:

I am seeking models of all races, genders and most ages (over 18, please). You will be required to sign a model release. Models will be compensated with one large print, one full-resolution and 3 web-resolution files, and a license to use the images for personal and self-promotion uses.

Shoot will be happening in a studio in the Eastlake neighborhood. Sessions will be 20-30 minutes. Showing a lot of skin is optional, but clothing should be simple and not grab attention from the face. (I will have some clothing on hand as well.)

Please e-mail jane AT jepphoto.com for details.

I’m back from Norwescon 34, and as I always am after a good convention, came home with a head full of project ideas (more webcomic ideas that will take forever! Playing with metal!) and a long list of new books to read.  While I was not as social as would’ve liked due to throwing my back out on the first day of the convention, I still got to see most of my “con people”, as well as meet some new folks. I spent most of my time (other than the collapsed in the hotel room) in programming and the Art Show.

Art Show: This year’s art show has home to  lots of really stunning art; it seemed to me to have a higher percentage of professional game illustrators than in years past.  Sales, at least for me, were reasonable if not spectacular, and I was especially pleased that some of the brand new pieces were the ones to find new homes. (Now only 1 Tentacles necklace left, and I probably won’t be getting more made this year.)
However, my favorite art show experience this year was leading my daughters on a personal tour, where they made sure to look at every cat with wings and dragon possible, and the elder made her first art purchase of original art (a very small colored pencil piece by John P. Alexander.)  While I yearned to bring some of Artist GOH Kinuko Craft’s work home, that was not to be. *sigh*.

Programming:

I made my first foray into actually attending the music track programming, and was thereby introduced to Nerdcore; I’ve been grooving on Death*Star, Optimus Rhyme, and Ultraklystron ever since, and regard this as possibly the most awesome thing to happen at the convention this year.

My other favorite panel, besides the four I was on, was on unusual art techniques you could do at home, courtesy of Fish, Mark Roland, and Neil Duttkin. This is the cause of all my new ideas about ways to play with metal that involve sharp objects and stinky chemicals, and a probable trip to TAP Plastics.

I went to two especially awesome readings, which of course resulted in new things added to be TBR pile: Kelley Eskridge’s Solitaire, which was an amazingly visceral experience, and the Boilerplate “History of a Victorian-era Robot” … history? enhanced history? book.

My panels went well, I think, even the one where I appeared as a stand-in for my partner, who was stuck in traffic on 520, but I don’t know that there is much to say about them here.

Just as a quick update, if you want to see my work in person:

• next weekend, fantasy and science fiction at Norwescon (Sea-Tac); I will also be on a few panels
• 4 of my Lumen prints will be in the Photographic Center Northwest‘s Alumni New Work Show (Seattle) June 3 – July 15, 2011
• Several different bodies of work simultaneously at the Night Kitchen, June-ish

Also, in honor of finding another awesome octopus photograph while going through my older film work, May will be Sealife Appreciation Month, with 15% off anything that lives in the briny deep (it was originally going to be Tentacle Appreciation Month, but the starfish felt left out.) I will also be posting 3 or 4 lovely tidepool-denizen photographs that are not yet online, plus the aforementioned octopus.

(The Aforementioned Octopus would be such an awesome band name.)

(some of this will be redundant to the LJ crowd, sorry)

3.5 digital pieces just added to my online portfolio. I may or may not have some of them as prints for Norwescon; not sure yet.

And secondly, a new artfire collection:

(that blue pearl bracelet? Someday will be mine. Er, if she can make it fit my mighty wrists.)

And speaking of my artfire, some pieces (mostly necklaces and some limited edition prints) are about to be made inactive so I can be certain I *have* them for Norwescon, so if you were dallying for some reason, you might want to jump now.
Also, I will *deliver* to Norwescon; just put a note in when you order. That does include the large framed floralscapes.

This Monday was the combined k-2 musical performance for the year.

Miss E demonstrates her stunning modeling “patient waiting” pose with the rest of her kindergarten class.

And Olivia, the experienced and worldly 1st grader, knows that the proper time to throw the double goat is right before the rousing “I’d like to teach the world to sing” finale.

Plus, bonus playing in the snow picture:

(That was the final test for the new camera body; it definitely needs a visit from the calibration fairy.)

…. that I had taken the time, several years ago, to pull everything from my original hand-coded version and made a new, spiffy, wordpress version of the Gilbert and Sullivan Parody Archive back before I really understood much about wordpress sites.

And then, this week, someone e-mailed me with some new parodies. So I’ve gone in, cleaned up the place, and will start listing new material next week. (Um, and probably prettify it, and do the rounds of the G&S groups to find new stuff, and all that.)

(Because I need a project to get my head out of obsessing on the perils on entrepreneurship, but I don’t feel well enough to dig out the drawing table right now.)

This Thursday, October 28th at the Four Seasons there will be a super-swanky party filled with Seattle wedding professionals auctioning their products and services to the participants — and giving 100% of the proceeds to the Get Hitched, Give Hope charity, the Making Memories Foundation, which grants wishes to stage IV breast cancer patients and their families.

I have witnessed the work of, or straight up worked with, a number of the vendors who will be donating their services, and think this is an incredible opportunity to get hooked up with some awesome vendors and do some good at the same time.

The next leg of the abstract flower tour will be a stopover this August much closer to my own neighborhood: at the PizzaWorks in Bothell. This will be a subset of the work from the Fremont show, with a few new pieces mixed in.

Pizzaworks is unique, in my experience of local pizzerias, for offering not only vegetarian, but also vegan, wheat-free, and gluten-free options.

(and I thank them not only for the opportunity to show, but also for another reprieve in figuring out where to store all these large framed prints.

I’m hanging today (the 2nd) so stop in between the 3rd and the 31st for a slice or a grinder, eh?

2 new photographs and one old one (and the first not-a-flower) will be making their framed debut tonight, assuming there isn’t some horrible mishap with the drill:

(Edited to add: while there were no power tool mishaps, there was an epic tantrum. So these three did *not* get framed in time, alas.)

Cherry Blossom #98 (from my Lapin cherry tree)

Queen of the Night Tulip

Anemones in Pink and Green

I went out last night to the first meetup for the Seattle Artist’s Salon, and it was rather lovely to have face to face time with people who take the value of art as a given; I am going to try and go to more of these events.

Although, it was a bit disheartening to have several complete strangers comment on how exhausted I look and realize that my looking completely exhausted has become the normal, expected state of Jane for the people who *do* see me regularly. I kind of wish I had the ability to nap.

However, I have slaked the Monday morning grumpies with a large dose of lolcats and chai, have my one rush order out the door, and am now possessed of a flow chart to govern getting things ready for my first arts festival. I might be moving very slowly, but at least I’m moving slowly in a somewhat efficient manner.

My next scheduled round of overcoming my introversion will be, I think, trying to go see the ukiyo-e print exhibition that is up at SAAM next First Thursday (June 3rd), probably around 11. I’m happy to go solo, but company would be okay too.