Good late morning to all.
As I sit here drinking my morning tea I want to give a bit of a shoutout to the wonderful TeaNoir from Etsy who sent me some lovely tea along with a handmade stuffed platypus for blee the other day. I ordered from her a number of months ago and she remembered what my favorite tea and gifted me with some. Have I ever said how Etsy is filled with many wonderfully kind people? Well, it is! Thank you doll! Her "Juicy" tea is a lychee flavored tea and it makes the best iced tea.
I'm feeling a bit better emotionally ever since I called the midwives yesterday to talk about getting induced. Let's just say that I didn't have to fake breaking down over the phone, all the frustrations came out with Judy. She is one of my favorites and she talked me out of inducing right away and giving blee a few more days to come out on her own. But since she is working on Monday and that is the day before I am 42 weeks anyhow we did schedule an induction for then. So eviction papers have been served. It is such a relief to not only have this date but to know that even worst case I get to be induced with somebody that I know, trust and feel very comfortable with. I see my normal midwife Lara tomorrow for a standard visit. If I go into labor prior to Monday I really hope she is working!
On Tuesday my good friend Chuck came for a visit from NYC and I was able to meet up with him, Mary and some other people for dinner before they all went to Karaoke at the Milky Way. I was certainly not up for that part but dinner was great. I got to handle and play with an iPhone for the first time and that was a lot of fun. I was pretty down on them before despite my love of iPods because of the price but now I get it. I still think they are too rich for my blood, but I admit that they are damn sexy little machines that I will covet from afar.
The last of my pine cone pieces sold yesterday and this is bittersweet. I am both happy and sad about it. That they are popular is great but now they are gone and I don't know if I can print in this state, but I would really like to have some for the Open Studios at the end of September. Since it isn't too hot today I may try to do some printing. Am I totally insane? I miss it so but it is murder on my hips and the rest of my poor broken body.
Showing posts with label tea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tea. Show all posts
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Tea Addiction
I'm a huge fan of tea. One might even call me a tea junkie. Loose leaf and unsweetened tea hot or iced that I brew at home. But this summer I discovered the first bottled tea that isn't sickly sweet and have gone and gotten myself addicted. Honest Tea Peach Oo-la-long is like Peach Snapple without all the nasty high fructose corn syrup and with a real tea taste. It is just lovely. Plus it has Opus from Bloom Country on it! We were in the area of a grocery store that carries it so I popped by to pick up my Opus tea and the case that is covered with the Honest Tea branding was completely empty of any Honest Tea. It had some new brand in it with a cartoon granny labeled sweet tea instead. Sweet tea is evil. Had nearly three times the calories of good old Opus tea. So we went on a hunt for Opus and found him stocked that the Whole Foods in Alston/ Brighton. I bought every single bottle they had in stock. I'm still going to stick to drinking my home brewed unsweetened lychee tea most of the time but this is a nice treat.
I must clean my studio once I finish typing this entry. Yesterday at the library while I was photocoping images for the Gocco I met this nice Latino lady that appears to be some sort of an art agent. And she is very interested in checking out my work. I really can't say much because her accent was so thick I only understood about 50% of what she said to me. I nodded a lot. She seemed very excited to run into somebody that does woodcuts and that made her talk even faster and that did not help. I bet the whole time she was wondering why a nice Latino girl like myself would have a problem understanding her. I live in a Latino area and I have slightly dark skin with dark hair and eyes so people just assume that I am Latino. I'm not and I don't speak a lick of Spanish either.
The goccoing did not go well. I did everything with the photocopy by the book. I gave it some time to dry then I used a hairdryer on it for a few minutes. Used the blue filter and a backing card behind the image. I used the riso bulbs not the flash bulbs from Kmart. It burned, but the burn was just terrible. Only outlines of the image here and there got burned. Realizing that I have tried pretty much every method that is supposed to produce a master and failed I knew it just had to be bad screens. I called the company and they are sending me a new batch of screens and bulbs Priority Mail at no charge. So I am not done yet! I'm just on break for a few days.
Time to tidy up!
And I have nearly twenty packages to mail today. Thankfully many of them are in groups so it won't be quite so bad.
I must clean my studio once I finish typing this entry. Yesterday at the library while I was photocoping images for the Gocco I met this nice Latino lady that appears to be some sort of an art agent. And she is very interested in checking out my work. I really can't say much because her accent was so thick I only understood about 50% of what she said to me. I nodded a lot. She seemed very excited to run into somebody that does woodcuts and that made her talk even faster and that did not help. I bet the whole time she was wondering why a nice Latino girl like myself would have a problem understanding her. I live in a Latino area and I have slightly dark skin with dark hair and eyes so people just assume that I am Latino. I'm not and I don't speak a lick of Spanish either.
The goccoing did not go well. I did everything with the photocopy by the book. I gave it some time to dry then I used a hairdryer on it for a few minutes. Used the blue filter and a backing card behind the image. I used the riso bulbs not the flash bulbs from Kmart. It burned, but the burn was just terrible. Only outlines of the image here and there got burned. Realizing that I have tried pretty much every method that is supposed to produce a master and failed I knew it just had to be bad screens. I called the company and they are sending me a new batch of screens and bulbs Priority Mail at no charge. So I am not done yet! I'm just on break for a few days.
Time to tidy up!
And I have nearly twenty packages to mail today. Thankfully many of them are in groups so it won't be quite so bad.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Working small
Yawn! I have been up for hours yet my brain still hasn't caught up. The problem with taking medicine to sleep is that it does leave me with a bit of a medicine hangover that is hard to shake. But if I don't take the medicine I don't sleep and that is much worse. I'm drinking a pot of tea not. I hope everybody else is having a more alert morning, soon to be after noon than I am.
I haven't carved a new block in so long. The last block I finished carving was the large maple leaf block over two months ago and that wasn't even a new design but something I had started back in November. So I have been doing doodles on paper and on wood. And I can't even remember the last time I carved a block specifically to be used for art cards and only art cards. So now is the perfect time to focus on that, they are quick to carve and the wood is so small the money lost if I mess up is piddly. Not much of a time loss either. The lack of any sort of real risk is something I find freeing when I am in a creative slump.
I carved this face on a 3.5"x4" block of scrap wood. Bigger than an art card so that when I use it I can place the blank cards in different spots for different compositions. On the other side of it I have poppies. The image should look very familiar since it is the same poppies I have been offering in a 6"x6" size for over a year now shrunk down. I was doodling and had a drawn but uncolored and unshrunk shrinkydink pendant lying on my desk that I happened to glance at. I also had a blank art card that I picked up and placed near the future pendant. At that size it would suit an art card quite nicely I realized. So I transfered my drawing onto the wood, got out my magnifying visor to help me carve the tight spaces and carved it.
Now I have quite a few new images to print once I clean off my desk. Then I can print. Other than that today should be pretty quiet and laid back. I think I am going to meet Jon at the Museum of Fine Arts tonight to check out the Edward Hopper exhibit they are having. That museum hasn't had an exhibit that interested me since the Gauguin exhibit back when we first moved here four years ago! Then we will get dinner somewhere in that area. Our favorite Thai resturant is around there but I think both of us would like to find someplace new.
I haven't carved a new block in so long. The last block I finished carving was the large maple leaf block over two months ago and that wasn't even a new design but something I had started back in November. So I have been doing doodles on paper and on wood. And I can't even remember the last time I carved a block specifically to be used for art cards and only art cards. So now is the perfect time to focus on that, they are quick to carve and the wood is so small the money lost if I mess up is piddly. Not much of a time loss either. The lack of any sort of real risk is something I find freeing when I am in a creative slump.
I carved this face on a 3.5"x4" block of scrap wood. Bigger than an art card so that when I use it I can place the blank cards in different spots for different compositions. On the other side of it I have poppies. The image should look very familiar since it is the same poppies I have been offering in a 6"x6" size for over a year now shrunk down. I was doodling and had a drawn but uncolored and unshrunk shrinkydink pendant lying on my desk that I happened to glance at. I also had a blank art card that I picked up and placed near the future pendant. At that size it would suit an art card quite nicely I realized. So I transfered my drawing onto the wood, got out my magnifying visor to help me carve the tight spaces and carved it.
Now I have quite a few new images to print once I clean off my desk. Then I can print. Other than that today should be pretty quiet and laid back. I think I am going to meet Jon at the Museum of Fine Arts tonight to check out the Edward Hopper exhibit they are having. That museum hasn't had an exhibit that interested me since the Gauguin exhibit back when we first moved here four years ago! Then we will get dinner somewhere in that area. Our favorite Thai resturant is around there but I think both of us would like to find someplace new.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
After days of rain the sun is out and everybody in the house is feeling it. Especially the dog apparently!
I'm hoping that the sun is also out in Brooklyn now because yesterday Kate finished making my one of a kind mirrors, big magnets and some other nifty items but it was so grey she couldn't get any good photographs of them.
Speaking of good photographs I was hoping to snap a picture of the Tea Noir that arrived yesterday but my camera batteries are dead and have to be charged. Yay for her living in the same state as me I got my tea faaaaast! I will be enjoying iced Lychee tea again very soon. It looks and smells wonderful.
I finally updated this blog so not only does it no longer look quite so shabby but I also updated my links on it. Now people that I respect like Jennifer Gordon,Jenn Schmitt, and
Tamara Shea are finally getting linked to! I'm trying to keep my links more artsy than craftsy. Tamara makes jewelry sure, but she makes block printed jewelry so I had to include her! I'm still tinkering with how I want it to look. Anything big missing?
I'm hoping that the sun is also out in Brooklyn now because yesterday Kate finished making my one of a kind mirrors, big magnets and some other nifty items but it was so grey she couldn't get any good photographs of them.
Speaking of good photographs I was hoping to snap a picture of the Tea Noir that arrived yesterday but my camera batteries are dead and have to be charged. Yay for her living in the same state as me I got my tea faaaaast! I will be enjoying iced Lychee tea again very soon. It looks and smells wonderful.
I finally updated this blog so not only does it no longer look quite so shabby but I also updated my links on it. Now people that I respect like Jennifer Gordon,Jenn Schmitt, and
Tamara Shea are finally getting linked to! I'm trying to keep my links more artsy than craftsy. Tamara makes jewelry sure, but she makes block printed jewelry so I had to include her! I'm still tinkering with how I want it to look. Anything big missing?
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