Thank You!

stamping thank you cards
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

For being so wonderful. Please bear with me while I deal with a teething baby that fusses all day and doesn't sleep well at night. I'm trying hard to keep up with everything and am struggling. Right now my online activities including blogging, Etsy and blog reading are suffering the most. Since I end up wearing her most of the day I generally need to keep moving. I try to catch up on reading blogs at night but am often too fried to comment. I'm a bit of a lurker these days.

I don't know how I pulled it off but I managed to not only print out some thank you cards but I also finally Gocco printed some Moleskines. Sketchbook and graph paper. Didn't intend to do graph paper but Jon got some by mistake and I didn't notice until it was too late. All done while wearing miss blee! except for the new stamp I carved





I hope tonight goes better than last night and that Tuesday is better than Monday. Ugh!

I've also done my first week of cloth diapering during the day. Jon is the night shift so for now this is weekday only but it is going pretty well. It is a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Welcome to Thursday!

addicted to rounded corners
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

This week is going by so fast! Monday was long but since then it has been zippy. I'm excited because tonight I am getting out with a girl friend to a local coffee show after blee is put to bed. This is a first for me in awhile. I love having her with me everywhere but when she is sleeping going out is great. And boy is she a sleep champ these days. Last night she slept twelve solid hours! We were shocked when we woke up this morning. She wasn't even grumpy, just chit chatting away with herself.

Blee is just two days off her fifth month! Wow how time flies. And more good news as my friend Heather the Gocco goddess gave birth to a beautiful baby boy on Monday. After 24 hours of labor and 3 hours of pushing! Man my five hours of labor and 13 minutes of pushing felt like hours I can't even imagine going through it that long. I don't think I would have made it, I was so exhausted.







Art is going well. Mostly drawing obsessively at the moment, and I must say that it is nice drawing for the simple pleasure of it. It doesn't always have to be a means to an end but I can just enjoy doing it. And I am so much that I started a group on Flickr called 365 Sketch to encourage others to attempt sketching daily. It is a pretty loose structured group as 365 is just the best case goal and anything in between is great too. Thanks for the tip on using a brush pen. I should have some Pitt brush pens around here somewhere to try out if they aren't dead. And maybe I will order the kind from Japan next time I make a Dick Blick order.

I will still be able to keep my shop updated daily.

Sketch it!

365 Sketch - Day 3
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

test Good morning to you and happy Monday. We had a snow filled icky weekend but I mangaged to make the best of it.

Do you sketch? Often?

Do you like to keep a notebook and pen handy at all times in case an image flashes behind your eyes? Lest you lose it forever.

I do and I still lose images all the time. The worst is when I wait too long and I just can't get what was in my head out. And I am sketching nearly constantly it seems. In pen, just like R. Crumb.

I'm certainly no R. Crumb but I remember when watching the movie how he always uses pen because it requires commitment and therefor a steady hand compared to wishy washy pencil. I switched to pen about two years ago and it has helped my sketching by quite a bit. I use either my 02 Micron or my Pilot G-2.

The past month or so I have been constantly sketching. I have something to write in stashed in every bag and every important room along with my favorite pens. I keep my big Moleskine sketchbook in my studio, a mini legal pad next to my bed on my nightstand and another in my bag along with a pocket Moleshine caheir. I don't mean to be a Moleskine snob, but for sketchbooks they can't be beat, and I have shopped around before settling on them three years ago. Plus they fold flat and that is a huge plus in my book when it comes to writing and sketching.

And now I have been using my mini legal pads all the time which is not only freeing since they are so cheap compared to my moleskines but because if I like a sketch I can just rip it out and use it in collage. The yellow lined paper is interesting. Moleskine paper is great for a sketchbook as it is thick and sturdy but I am not about to rip any of those pages out!

Low and behold all this sketching is beginning to pay off. I just finished a sketchbook that took me well over a year to complete and looking at the first pages and the last pages just shows how far I have come. From mere doodles, not careful studies. Though I do thing I should do some still life object studies to tone up my skills. Maybe I will crack open Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain and take a peek at it.

I gotta go, I have orders to pack up and a big day ahead of me. I hope everyone has a great start to this final week of January.

The end of a sketchbook

morning moleskine
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

My demons are at me again. Just need to keep busy to keep the negative thoughts away as they can only do harm.

Felt like giving up on the collage challenge, today is difficult for some reason. Yesterday would have been hard too if I hadn't done it first thing. Not so today instead I woke up and did this sketch comprised of various doodads from earlier sketches. I have a tweaked version on printer paper ready to be burned onto a Gocco screen once it is dry enough and I get the chance.

It was then that I decided what I want to try for my collage. I knew that I didn't want to use another ACEO blank or another canvas panel as I used those twice in a row. I also knew that I want to go through materials that haven't been used in awhile and incorporate them. Crayons! Maybe I am more into the whole multi-media aspect than strict collage. But there will be collage in it somewhere.

If you haven't already please run over to Modish to check out my studio in their Modish Handmade Spaces feature.

Sketching instead of carving

Moleskine Sketchbook and Microns
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

A little late to blogging today, but that I am able to do it feels like quite an accomplishment considering. We had an appointment with the pediatrician this morning and our time was spent getting ready for that. It went very well. After losing some weight after the birth (totally normal) she is back up past her birth weight and an inch longer!





Sadly I was not able to do any carving or printing yesterday so true to my word I filled a page of my sketchbook with doodles basically. Most of them are junk but sometimes something good comes out of it. But I certainly don't have a sketchbook worthy of showing off the contents of! It is a good way for me to wind down since even though the day is exhausting I get so wound up!

The reason why I never got to my studio isn't because I didn't have the time or energy because I did, it was because whenever I did have the time I found myself obsessed with cleaning the house. Putting away laundry and just getting things in order. Things that I couldn't do when I was pregnant for a very long time. Plus Jon had to do some work so I did have a little less time than I would have liked. But today he should be free other than getting the oil on the car changed and maybe a run to IKEA to pick up a small changing table for our bedroom and eventually my studio. I will never use my printing press to change a diaper I promise! The baby area is very much separate from the work area. She has her corner and I have the rest.

But I am continuing to list stuff on Etsy and on Flickr. I don't want Flickr to become nothing BUT baby photos just like I don't want that for my blog. If it wasn't raining and overcast I would love to take some time to photograph some of my magnets and mirrors. Next time we have sun I need to remember to do that and take a bunch!