…reading back in my Buzz stream and reading back in the Buzz streams of the people listed below and commenting on the Buzz post that you learn from or liking it as that action will bump the Buzz post to the top again allowing new Buzz users to see it and learn from it to.

I’ve been on Google Buzz for close to a month now and find it both invigorating and challenging at the same time. It’s taken me out of the safety zone of both Facebook and Twitter and thrust me into a new world where everyone with whom adopted the technology around the same time that I did, have become my Buzz friends. We communicate and share ideas. We argue, we learn and grow together. We made the rules.

These folks will teach you a lot about Google Buzz

Clicking their name will take you to their Buzz Stream while the second link will take you to their blog if they have one

• Thomas Hawk – photographer extraoridinaire and a man who understands how things work from a user perspective
• Andy Beard – voice of reason for all things internet… points out fallacy and backs it up with fact.
• Louis Gray – Reads likely as much about technology if not more than Robert Scoble and offers educated opinions on what he reads and shares on Buzz
• Mashable – enough said!
• Dirk Talamasca – for the lively and happy conversation within my own Buzz stream and on others. He is the first person I’ve met who really lives in Second Life.
• Kurt Starnes – highly recommend for great conversation and to learn the little nuances of posting to Buzz
• Robert Scoble – Reads likely as much about technology if not more than Louis Gray and offers educated opinions on what he reads and shares on Buzz
• Stephanie Wanamaker – Buzzes the best questions of the day
• Jody Swaney – not afraid to speak up for what he believes in. This Grandfather also won the first giveaway I hosted on Buzz
• Chaotic Neurons – most excellent sense of humour
• M. Farber – His Buzz stream is a treasure trove of visually stimulating Google Reader items. He also authors a blog
• Linda Lawrey – Most helpful in solving problems and for being most neutral in discussions. Sees both sides of the picture!
• Chris Messina – Google employee and open web standards advocate
• Angel Leon – He burst onto Google Buzz creating the Mooooooooar Follower rage. If you weren’t there when it happened… well… that content has since been removed. His stream is colourful with opinions on technology and this father to be shares his every day life to.
• Chris Loft – very first person to ReBuzz my content. He is an artist and musician and finds and shares some of the best and lesser known visually stimulating content on the web.
• Masha Du Toit – one of the first artists I met on Buzz (YAY!) who is actively using it to. Her Buzz stream is most pleasing to the eye.
• And definitely follow the Google Buzz Team to keep up with it all!

I tend not to follow people who import their Twitter streams, BipFM streams, MyBlogLog posts or FriendFeed streams or who are simply echo chambers of content already published on the web who do not offer an additional insight on what they are regurgitating.

I follow people who have something original to say.

From what I gather I am one of the few visual artists actively using Buzz today.

I began an are you an artist actively using Buzz thread… if you are one to please add your name to the list.

I would never have met any of these people if it weren’t for Buzz. Keep that in mind when you begin using Buzz and your time their will be most enjoyable. Buzz is about conversation. It is about learning. It is about sharing and discussing hot topics. It is about breaking away from the norm and not being afraid to do it. It is about open web standards. It is about blogging. It is about business. It is about being yourself.

It is about the future of the web and it’s happening right now in real-time.

You can follow me on Buzz here and follow the discussion happening about this blog post in real-time on Buzz.

About two weeks ago I got two brand spanking new journals to draw in! Happy!

The Fabriano Quadrato Artists Journals are 9×9 inchs in size and are no where to be found in North America. I scoured the internet until I located some in the United Kingdom but sadly the company did not ship outside of Europe. I contacted artist Lorrie Whittington who resides in the UK and together we began a Facebook assault to see if other’s were interested in going in with us to buy them. A big thank you to Lorrie with whom I coordinated the ordering and buying of these skecthbooks with!

In the end we found four others including ourselves and purchased eight journals. Lorrie ordered them and then repackaged and shipped me four which in turn I sold two to a close friend of mine. With the shipping each journal ended up costing me about $31 USD which is fantastic! The journals themselves are filled with muti-coloured Ingris paper and are square in format which is my favorite shape to draw on.

And Great Art is now sold out of the 9×9 inch (22.5cm by 22.5cm) size to with only the smaller size remaining in stock! I wonder if we bought the last eight Lorrie?

The Ingris paper inside the artist journal is well suited for ink, pen, marker and pencil.

All the drawings above I created with Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens, Pilot Hi tec C and Pilot Gtec C4 pens and Le Plume II Markers or a combination of them.

As a side note, Lorrie and I have never met in real life but I certainly do call her a close friend. We talk weekly either on Twitter, Facebook and in email. We met on Etsy. Thank you so much Lorrie! xoxo

Don’t you, as an online content creator, wish you were paid just a little when you mention a product that you use everyday. I think I’ve mentioned Pilot G-tec pens a gazillion times on this blog, with Apple, Faber Castell and Arches following close behind. I’d be a little better off if these companies paid me just a little.

I think in part, I don’t mention these companies more, because I’m not being paid, regardless of how much I use their product. I find myself leaving their name out of posts and simply writing created with india ink, watercolor and paper rather than created with Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens, Windsor & Newton Watercolor and Arches Watercolor paper. I wonder how many of you when out shopping for supplies and/or products, thought of that blog post, Etsy listing or Tweet which mentioned that product you were out shopping for directly or indirectly, and purchased said product.

I guess it comes down to being a more educated populace when buying things today both online and offline than say we were even 10 years ago. I read and research everything I buy first online, and trust the judgment of my friends and family when buying products to. Word of mouth is best my friends.

I sometimes wish I had sponsorship on this blog from a company. And it’s not to say that I’d only say good things, it’s just to say that I’d be more inlcined to mention you if I was paid for it. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on your product and have been advertising you for years.

I don’t need convincing that your product is good because I already love it so why would I diss it? This whole situation of online advertsing makes me sad. I use ad blockers when I browse the web. It doesn’t catch everything and little bits of advertising do slip through on occasion but it’s usually advertsing or sponsorship on a blog that takes the form of being related to the content on that blog. Therefore, it’s really OK in my eyes.

This is the the way future online advertsing should go. Companies should be contacting those of us who already tweet, blog and share the products they sell for free and compensate us for it in the form of blog sponsorship.

Do you know how many people have gone out and pruchased products I’ve mentioned? I know, because they’ve emailed me to thank me or asked where to buy it. This takes time and right now I’m doing it for free!

Companies I’d love to work with:

Pilot Pens
Faber Castell
Windsor & Newton
Arches
Staples
Epson
HP
Apple
Prismacolor
Kroma Artist Acylic
Uline
Clearbags
Pepsi

If you want to work with me, do get in touch by emailing eastvanesica {AT} gmail DOT com.

I will not work with companies that resell their advertising dollars and/or use third party affiliate or text link schemes. Your sponsorship would be a simple logo placement or design I create in my sidebar without beeping or flashing of any kind. Your monthly flat rate sponsorship would allow me to do more of what I love best; create, share and in the end, talk about your product, which I already love.

Stop and think about how targeted your advertising dollars would be. Between Twitter, Google Buzz, Flickr, Facebook, Fanpage, Etsy, Blog and numerous other sites that I actively participate on, you would reach a substantial targeted audience. And above all, everything I write on this blog and elsewhere is the honest to goodness truth written in my own words.

PS – This article was initially inspired by a post I read by Duncan Riley on the Inquisitr entitled One thing that needs to change in 2010 and later I was inspired to finish it after reading a Buzz by Louis Gray on the future of Twitter Ads.

The photo above is a of a new line of greeting cards that I finished designing, printing and packaging last weekend. There’ll be three different sets to choose from which I’ll talk about soon.

The life was sucked out of me on 12th Avenue. The incessant traffic noise I wrote about on more than one occasion in my journal. It didn’t ebb and flow there but rather marched no cannon balled and madly screamed back and forth along that magnificent tree lined East Vancouver Street.

I remember mere moments of stillness when the traffic did stop for a light or for a pedestrian brave enough to cross through four lanes of congestion. I stared at the magic Holly tree growing just outside the bedroom window late Sunday nights. It sparkled. I’d never seen Holly trees before living in Vancouver. They can’t grow here in New Brunswick due to the much colder climate.

Sunday nights were usually the nights when 12th Avenue was calm. It was like heaven… a stillness; still loud but the noise pollution was noticeably reduced by a few decibels. The rest of the week, twenty-four hours a day, cars and SUVs zoomed by!

On this particular stretch of 12th Avenue that I lived on there were signs posted warning against wide loads and transport trucks as they were forbidden to drive on this stretch. More than one of those majestic trees had their trunks sadly scraped and torn off from a crazy wide rig. I hated the traffic in Vancouver.

My senses were overwhelmed most of the time by the traffic. I couldn’t seem to focus on anything much less sleep, even with ear plugs shoved deep into my ears. I got so fed up that I called the landlord of the house we lived in and begged him to replace my bedroom windows with solid glass blocks which he did and in turn made the room a firetrap with no secondary escape. You see, my bedroom was level with the street and but 20 feet away from madness.

The traffic didn’t scare me. Don’t get me wrong OK. It was the noise associated with the traffic that mangled my mind.

You know I don’t have Tinnitus in Saint John. I had it the whole time I lived in Vancouver regardless of where I lived.

I sat on the front porch and drew and wrote much of the time while the traffic wizzed by. I drew a lot and took lots of drugs to cope. I sometimes think the circumstances of my life lead me down the road to addiction. Things seemed to compound one of top of the other and I honestly didn’t have time to recuperate until years later except on those nights that we all went dancing or to Wreck beach during the day.

I would sit on the back porch to and watch my patient next door neighbor tend his garden. He inspired me to take up gardening later on the following year in another residential location of course. I couldn’t understand how the noise didn’t bother him or his family. I had a friend over one night and asked if the noise bothered her. She replied no; continuing on to say that she lived under a freeway in Japan and that this, was quiet.

And i guess it’s all relative to what you grew up with. I grew up in an industrial area where loud alarms, box car trains and deep guttural refinery, Drydock and port clatter into the air. After moving away from 12th Avenue to Franklin Street which was closer to the water and the port of Vancouver I slept like a baby while my boyfriend did not at times as the noises were.unfamiliar.to.him.

The journal drawing I drew sometime in May of 2003. The digital rendering is something I’ve been working on over the last year using Adobe Photoshop. It’ll be completed soon and limited edition archival prints will be listed for sale. It is called The Winds of Change.

I don’t know the exact date that I drew this on but it was sometime during mid to late 2009 while sitting on the couch in the living room and likely it was late at night as it is right now when all is quiet with the moon shining and snow melting and everyone is asleep and there is no phone ringing and no cars whizzing by and all I hear is but Missy Two Shoes the cat snoring in her basket.

I love the night more than any other time. I naturally gravitate towards it regardless of what timezone I live in. My brain seems to turn on at 3AM when I’m able to process copious amounts of information and the ideas just seem to flow onto paper more freely.

I find myself drawing daily lately and it’s both a blessing and curse at the same time. The more I draw, the less money I make as I’m not online as much. And this has got me thinking about what to do about that.

I find money to be a conundrum at best. I’m almost finished my 2009 bookkeeping and it’s refreshing to see growth but it’s disheartening to know how much harder it is to stay on top of things, namely the technology as it is ever changing. When you are an online content creator such as a blogger (hey, that’s me and perhaps you) you have a double edged sword against you when compared to the person who simply uses the technology to say be entertained, shop or to keep in touch with friends and family. I need to stay on top of new technology or I will fall behind. And truth be told I read more geeky tech stuff and do more searches and watch live broadcasts and blogs pertaining to SEO, social media, google wave and now buzz and ipad stuff than the average person. I find it enlightening and entertaining at times, even when I don’t understand how to code or program or why the big guys can’t agree on cross platform compatibility. Seriously!

I simply don’t read girly magazines, decor blogs or anything clothing and style related. I find they skew my perception of reality to much and more importantly mess up my brain into thinking my artwork needs to be a certain way… the Etsy way? I do read novels and more and more they are science fiction in nature or an adventure with a female heroine being the main character.

So what do I read while drinking Pepsi? I read BoingBoing for the perverse and newsworthy, ReadWriteWeb for the opinion, solutions and ideas, theUrbanSherpa for short stories and Penelope Trunk, whom I just discovered today! Wow! I pop into Wired on occassion and read the Thesis blog and Forums. I subscribe to both GapingVoid’s and Communicatrix’s email newsletters as I find them both intelligent and fascinating people.

Growing up I was more of a Tomboy who enjoyed camping and fishing just as much as I my brother did.

OH and I drew this imploding abstract with a Pilot G-tec C4 pen inside a 5 1/4 by 5 1/4 inch Hand•Book cream coloured paper sketchbook. And maybe one of these days, CSS, php and javascript will make since to me but until then I’ll continue to learn and use technology to the best of my ability or in the least let it inspire me creatively.

Much of my most recent works which are not posted online (yet) are explorations into how I see the online world… it’s ever changing and blossoming landscapes, it’s groupings and re-groupings, it’s deaths and mass migrations, assimilations, the births, the friendships, the metaphysical and above all the humanity engrained within cause me to ponder why and how it’s all happening in real-time. It’s beautiful don’t you think?

I began this post at 3AM in the morning and finished it this evening at 10PM.

I drew this abstract with a Pilot G-tec C4 pen inside a 5 1/4 by 5 1/4 inch Hand•Book cream coloured paper sketchbook while sitting on the bus in July no June 2009.

One of these days I’ll buy a new camera so that I can take better picture as my camera is Haha don’t laugh only a 3.2 megapixel.

Just before Christmas the children’s book Every Someday written by Amanda Lenker and illustrated by me was self published on Blurb in soft cover, hard cover and hard cover with dust jacket editions. It’s a fantastic little book and your kids will adore it!

On blurb you can preview select parts of how Every Someday reads and looks like.

Pricing

$19.95 for the soft cover
$29.95 for hard cover
$34.95 for hand cover with dust jacket

The book measures 7×7 inches and is 24 pages.

You can view the initial drawings and ideas of the two main characters Something and Nothing in this previous sneak peak of a blog post.

We hope you like the book as much as we enjoyed working together on it. We have future plans which we will share as they materialize.

Until then, do go and buy the book and travel into the world of Somewhere and Nowhere! The book pictured above is the hardcover edition.

We are actively searching for a book publisher. If you are a publisher please do get in touch with us. We also wholesale Every Someday if you a retailer and would like to carry the book. Email us at everysomeday {AT} gmail DOT com for the details. Thank you.

Size – 8.5 by 11 inches (21.5cm by 27.8cm)
Medium – Acrylic with varnish on acid and lignin free paper

I drove to Michaels one snowy day not to long ago and perused their isles of dream’s. I really did get lost that evening in that store, along with the other 12 or so women and a few men who had ventured out into the cold. It’s funny how in an art store it’s so quiet. It’s akin to walking into a library.

You open the door… you walk in and instantly smile. La-te-da.

Grabbing a shopping cart you pander to the area first that initially you made your way to the art store for in the beginning, when that thought struck that you needed something no wanted those wooden beads and paper to paint on.

You meet another person in the isle and she smiles and you just know how happy and serene they are feeling to. It’s like being inside a loop that every so often you reach out of to touch an archival pen or pick up that earth toned paper pack wrapped in plastic that you ever so gently peel the corner away from in order to feel the texture and weight of the paper and peek around to make sure an employee doesn’t catch you. Then you turn the pack over and read the fine print; the details on weight, colour and manufacturing and wonder what dreams you’d create on it’s surface and gently lay the pack into your cart.

After a half hour your cart is filling up with beads, wooden boxes, paper, pens, coloured pencils, varnish, blades, twine and other little odds and ends that you need.

You proceed to check-out adding up in your head how much this will cost you. Good art supplies are not cheap. Then you dig out any coupons you clipped or printed out to help offset the final total. You pay the $88.54 and walk out the door, drive home and unpack the bag of treasures you purchased until the day comes when you sit down and use them.

That is where I find myself today. Using the art supplies. Sometimes it’s not what you are creating that is important but the joy that you find in playing and practicing and honing your skills for when you are inpsired to create a finished work.

In an attempt to steer away from drawing flowers I told myself to draw anything but flowers.

It was NOT easy.

Size – 8.5 by 11
Medium – India Ink on acid and lignin free paper

Sometime last year I updated my Facebook account saying something along the lines that I couldn’t draw and wasn’t finding any inspiration in life. A cousin of mine, Marc, commented on that Facebook update by simply stating “Doodle”. This is one of those times when I wish Facebook had an internal update search engine as I can’t and will not go back through hundreds of Facebook updates to find Marc’s comment. That word though, and comment have stuck with me when I feel overwhelmed and can’t seem to be productive.

These are some recent doodles. Don’t laugh or do laugh but they are what’s coming out on paper at the moment. They were created with india ink, pen and/or acrylic on acid and lignon free coloured papers and measure 8.5 by 11 inches (21.5cm by 28cm).

I think we as artists get too concerned with what the end product, piece or artwork will be instead of just enjoying the act of getting there. I’m honestly having one of the best weeks creatively speaking in a long time with regards to writing, drawing and painting. I attribute this to the Doodle!

There’s a book out there entitled the Doodle Dictionary written by Nancy Nelson and Alice Landry (Circa 1992). I bought this book while attending UNBSJ in 1992. It is a black and white notepad style 4 3/8 by 7 5/16 inch ‘A’ to ‘Z’ illustrated (doodled) dictionary of common doodles and their meanings. I just discovered that my little doodle dictionary is likely worth a lot of money. LOL! Do a search for it on Amazon or Ebay. The book is selling for sometimes $190.00 but can be found for as little as $5.00!

My copy is even marked up with red edit and grammar corrections that I’ve scribbled into it over the years and other insight’s that I discovered about doodles adding the context of the book. My copy is not for sale.

Anyhow… it is an adorable little book

What do you find yourself doodling?

Read more Artist Tips

Each Winter I seem to migrate no hibernate into my dreams, put paint brush to hand and begin painting floral and embellished little artworks. Stroke after stroke I load the paintbrush and simply paint. I think it dawned on me that much of my recent angst was due to not letting my mind flow freely and for me that means creating sometimes anything.

While living in Vancouver I dearly missed Winter and the quietness it brought about. The seasons their blend into each other with Winter being but a blip of minor cold and incessant rain in December and January. There is no distinct separation of Fall to Winter and then Winter to Spring. And this really affected my psyche, as for 30 years I was acclimatized to distinct seasonal separations and time lapses. That first year I remember thinking when does Winter start or end for that matter? And when does Spring arrive? Yes, the Magnolia’s and Cherry tree blossom’s bloomed but the grass was green in February when I arrived, and it was 11º Celsius when I a stepped off the plane in a bulky Winter coat thinking I’ve arrived in paradise. Is this really Canada?

In later years I was able to plant and grow vegetables outside in March on my rooftop deck. It blew my mind away. I do miss that. I don’t miss the 45 day stretches of grey skies and rain nor the associated dampness. It may be colder here in Saint John, NB during Winter but we do get sunshine every week and sometimes for days on end in between the snow, rain, sleet, slush, freezing rain, flurries and blizzards. It’s a year round kaleidoscope of weather here!

Last week Saint John saw it’s temperatures rise into the double digits while this week we are plummeting into the Antarctic again. But it’s sunny outside and warm in my studio. I finished painting these little boxes the other day.

If I got to choose, I’d live in Saint John from September to April and in Vancouver from May to August. Who knows… someday I might just do that.

Set of Three Boxes
Large box – 2 11/16 by 2 5/8 inches (68mm by 66mm)
Medium Box – 2 1/8 by 1 5/8 inches (55mm by 41mm)
Small Box – 1 1/2 by 1 inch (39mm by 26mm)

Medium – Gesso, sandpaper, Kroma Acrylic and Delta Ceramcoat Clear Indoor Varnish on hardwood

If you could live in two different places where would you live and why? Does the weather or season affect your creativity?

…along with Unusual artwork by Christy Zaragoza and Nature artwork by Holly Ward Bimba. Each set of lockets features five different interchangeable lids.

This was one of the huge secrets I’ve been keeping from you for months until the catalog came out! You can also find the sets of lockets which are handmade by Polarity on the Uncommon Goods Website.

Happy Day!

If you or your company is interested in licensing my artwork for use on your product do drop me a line.

And I should know because I am an addict.

Four and half years ago when I was being treated for GHB addiction my doctor asked me what I planned to do for money. At the time I was just discovering the beauty of blogging and all the possibilities that it held: a way to share my ideas, artwork, meet and converse with like-minded people and perhaps earn an income. I had already made the decision to never venture back into the applied arts world of graphic design and was looking for a more holistic way to live that in turn complimented my ideals and would allow for personal growth but more importantly, live as an artist.

The doctor asked how much time do you spend online? I replied saying about eight hours a day as I was deep into the depths of learning and researching and testing CMS’s which in my eyes was no different than attending school, college or university. The Doc agreed. And to this day I still spend about eight hours online each and every day. She offered me a piece of advice… when the work or learning ceased and the obsession, compulsion, or excessive psychological dependence of being online outweighed those two then perhaps it was time to question what you are doing.

This leads me to Etsy. I’m addicted and not in a good way. This isn’t passion. It is addiction and it’s ugly.

Can you spot the difference?

Being on Etsy did make me feel happy. I was contributing to a community of artisans and learning about the inner workings of Etsy; namely setting up shop, taking photographs, scanning art, printing it out, advancing and honing my skills and above all collaborating and connecting with people who loved my art enough that they would buy it! It was and still to this day is exhilarating.

Today, I find myself spending so much more time on Etsy. I feel like I’m always hungry and beating a dead horse and competing just to be seen amidst all the other wonderful sellers. It’s become a ruthless nightmare attempting to understand the ever changing SEO updates, renewing and relevant search. The flagging system, desperation, spamming, resellers, abuse of tagging and admin favoritism are well beyond what an insane person can ignore. And the lack of adequate seller tools such as batch editing, non-existent coupon codes, the inability to not add live links to our listings and shop announcements and no streamlined listing process and enforcement of the TOU is something Etsy should be ashamed of in 2010.

I myself feel ashamed that I am no longer doing to do what I do best… creating, sharing, helping and connecting with other sellers, buyers and fans of my artwork. Without you guys I’d be lost. And therein lies the proof of the addiction. I’m not connecting well with you on Etsy.

I’ve stopped listing new artwork on Etsy, stopped madly renewing into the abyss and stopped frequenting treasuries, stopped reading the insane forums, stopped communicating and all in that order. The less I did on Etsy, the happier and healthier I felt and the more I connected with you on Twitter, Facebook and here on this blog and the more I realized the goodness there and here. I’ve begun researching into e-commerce and feel the need to write and keep a journal again.

I’m no more scared and broken financially than I was four and half years ago.

When something affects your life so much that the negatives are far outweighing the positives then you must go deep inside and reconcile it before it spins maddeningly out of control. I shut my Etsy art shop down today for at least one or maybe two weeks: perhaps indefinitely.

At first I thought it was Twitter or Facebook causing me to feel this way and yes, it was a part of it because of the incessant onslaught of auto-fed tweets from other Etsy sellers, all of whom I’ve unfollowed, but by no means was this the root cause of the addiction. Etsy, sadly, is.

And what is artwork if it can’t be received? Nothing.

Give me some time OK. Keep reading. I’ll be updating. Plans are in the works and I’m excited.

I seem to float between drawing on paper and the need to paint three dimensional objects that are useful. Each little wooden box starts out naked… then I clothe it in Gesso and let it dry and harden overnight and upon waking, sand it smooth before decorating it’s skin.

When my mind is restless and full, it seems to gravitate towards painting freehand patterns to work those repetitive and occasionally obsessive thoughts out of my head. It’s gratifying to see a flirty flower, then pattern emerge stroke after stroke contouring the box surface.

When the pattern is complete I varnish it three times for good luck!

Each little box measures about 1 1/2″ – 2 11/16″ (4cm – 6,9cm).

Recently, I commissioned my father to build 10 trunks for me. These trunks are the old antique style trunks. They measure about 12 to 16 inches in width and are made from his own pattern. I’ll be painting larger and more one of a kind items this year. The trunk pictured below is one Dad built for me about 15 years ago!

I drew each card with Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens (India Ink), Pilot pen (Opaque white ink) and Prismacolor Colored pencil on antique & vintage wallpapers that I salvaged when renovating my house last year.

An ACEO stands for Art Cards, Editions and Originals. They can be created with any medium on any surface but must adhere to the standard size of 2.5 by 3.5 inches.

I am thinking of making a box out of the vintage wallpaper to house these cards in that is similar to this box of cards. Once the box is done I’ll list the whole set in the shop. It’ll likely be priced around $1000.

And below is a detail of three of the cards.

And isn’t life (only) what we perceive it to be?

Update – comments are now closed. I will announce the winner of the four pack of Valentine’s on Tuesday! xoxo

Over the last week I have been working on a couple of new designs for Valentine’s Cards. And they are completed and listed in the shop now. The first is called Hearts on Strings and the latter is entitled The Flamboyant Heart.

Each set contains six matching greeting cards and six envelopes. Each card measures 4.25 by 5.5 inches (10,5cm by 14cm). They are blank inside so that you can write your own special greeting.

Mini Giveaway

Leave a comment on this post and you’ll be entered to win a set of four greeting cards. The set contains two Flamboyant Heart’s and two Hearts on Strings cards. This set of four greeting cards were my test prints until I got the colours corrected. Rest assured they are still cute as ever! I’ll draw the winner on Monday night.

And if you really want to make a big statement with the one you love, don’t forget that I create Tickled Pink Hearts in miniature greeting card sets of eight as posted earlier. These little sets although tiny take me longer to produce than their larger cousins.

Each set of Valentine’s themed cards are listed in the Valentines 2010 Section of my shop along with some other items I feel would make beautiful gifts for Valentine’s Day to the ones you love. Order early as my supplies of each item is limited and then there is that shipping part to! I want them to arrive on time for gift giving.

Recently a few customers of mine have posted their photos of artwork they have purchased from me to their Facebook account and tagged said photo with my name. Oddly enough they are all from men.

The first is from Chris who purchased Baby Shower, for his wife when he found out she was pregnant, for their babies nursery.

The second is from Andrew. He purchased both Radiant Melana and Grace.

The third is from Scott who has purchased multiple pieces for gifts. The artwork he tagged is of Set It Free which you can grab the 5×7 version for free from the Free Downloads page.

Thanks so much guys for showing me how you have displayed my artwork. If you have pictures of my art on display feel free to send them to me. I’d love to see them! My email is eastvanesica _AT_ gmail {dot} com.

And conversely do add me as a friend on facebook for regular updates. i’m hoping to get a Facebook Fanpage set up and running soon. I’ll announce here when it’s live!

UPDATE – KJ McLean from MyCreatedLife just emailed me her photo of Milton the Fish, Annabelle the Fish and Emily the Fish! so cute! Love your kitty cat staring up at them! Thank you KJ!

This video is in response to Shayla Maddox’s Video!

In late December 2009 when I began painting Christmas ornaments, Shayla began painting pretty ornaments to. We talked on twitter and decided to exchange ornaments with each other.

Hope we can make this an annual Christmas tradition Shayla!

Go see Shayla’s light reactive paintings in her Etsy Shop or say hi to her on Twitter. Her husband, C. Jacob is also on twitter and has an Etsy shop to!

Just a quick little note to say that I spoke on the phone with Andrew Won, VP of Customer Service from Media Temple on Thursday afternoon shortly after posting the Open Letter. And we worked everything out. They are a great host who seem to be very forward thinking. Do read their comments in the Open Letter to them below.

As a result of this conversation, I do plan to continue hosting my blog with them. And while they can make no promises that this sort of thing could not happen again they did assure me that they are doing everything possible to keep it from happening again.

I must say, that the fact that they took the time to DM me on Twitter, email me and in the end ask for my phone number to personally call me holds value in my books.

When I first migrated this blog to Media Temple they were instrumental in helping get it up and running. Their excellent fully searchable knowledge base combined with their unprecedented support system via ticket and phone gave me the tools I needed to get the migration done. I learned about .htaccess files and PHP 5 and how to install a Wordpress blog. I’ve hosted with other companies in the past and these guys and gals even though bigger (at last count hosting 250,000 sites) are not forgetting about us smaller one’s.

I look forward to and hope to be a part of their Community Pages that Jason McVearry, Community Director at Media Temple spoke of in his comment. And secretly hope that maybe, someday, my logo will appear somewhere on the site.

Anyhow, thank you MT!

Dear MediaTemple,

Today is Day 5 of server outages, latency in load times, ftp problems, time outs and 403 and 404 errors. You have been excellent with updating both the status blog with the *issues aforementioned that are affecting Cluster 4 Segment 1 which is where my blog is hosted with you and in updating my private support ticket right from the beginning. And you were very kind with that offer you DM’ed me on Twitter, however I’m reluctant to accept it as this downtime has made me feel threatened to continue hosting with you… to be honest.

I’m not a bandwidth hog nor do I even use your email services and the latter being a choice I’m glad I made as your email services seem to be most affected with these most recent outages. But what if… I needed email? I am paying for that service right?

Two days ago when I thought cluster 4 Segment 1 got the green light I began working and updated my Wordpress blogging software to 2.9.1 to keep my blog secure and lost all the text based widgets from my sidebar. I’ve never had an issue with updating Wordpress before and have never lost any sidebar widgets during an update until two days ago. It looks like I don’t buy handmade, have an Etsy shop or belong to 9rules with the middle one being the most important as that little art shop supports me financially and was the most clicked on image on this blog.

My hosting is set to expire with you in a couple of weeks. And sadly, I don’t know what to do because I’m not a tech person but an artist who simply enjoys creating content and sharing that content with her readers. If I can’t share I’m not happy and neither are my readers.

I’m feeling angry, sad and disillusioned about you. I’m not sure how to proceed.

Perhaps you could place my logo on the front page of mediatemple.net, alongside your coprorate clientele and show how much you appreciate my business and let your future clients see the human side of MT. You can grab my logo (which under normal circumstances is **located in my sidebar) right here within this post. How about that! And maybe you could place two other business logos chosen from the affected Cluster 4 Segment 1 and put them up there to.

You could even go so far as to begin getting to know your smaller business clientele who in reality are the backbone of your company on a monthly basis by interviewing a few of us and publishing that interview to your blog. Get to know us and help us grow and in turn you’ll grow to because we’ll need bigger services from you

Because at the moment we little one’s are talking on twitter and we don’t seem to be too happy.

I’m a business owner and deal with the same things you are dealing with right now. Do the right thing MT.

Thank you for reading.

sincerely,
Jessica Doyle

*issues have been occurring during the last year, however this one has gone into record breaking overtime
**please read paragraph 3

Last year I wrote my 2009 goals list and recently updated that list to reflect upon what I did and didn’t do in 2009. I hope to continue this annual tradition and invite others to do the same.

1. Pay for and apply to get my Canadian Passport (I haven’t been outside of Canada in 16 years)
2. Offer art lessons online
3. Paint a lively mural on the bland white washed wooden garage located in the backyard in the summer time and research alternative energy sources (wind turbine, solar energy) and turn lively painted garage into a year round greenhouse
4. Build a fence and gate around the backyard
5. Pot, haul soil and plant a vegetable, herb and edible flower garden in the backyard and mulch 100 feet by 4 feet of lilac bushes surrounding this property
6. Colourize 10 ink drawings in Adobe Photoshop
7. Paint one of a kind usable art objects i.e trunks, ornaments, boxes, knobs…
8. Record two video’s per month and post them to both Youtube and this Blog
9. Integrate Lijit Search, Discus Comments and Facebook Connect into this blog making it easier for you and me to share opinions and find the things or posts you like
10. Upgrade Thesis theme to the latest version and learn to or pay a designer to customize it for me
11. Barter art for clothing and other handmade goods and services
12. Take care of student loan debt
13. Travel somewhere alone… maybe Brazil, New York and/or Ireland
14. Budget to hire an accountant or bookkeeper bi-monthly
15. Do my best to have two to three rooms rented at all times
16. Introduce 5 new (utilitarian) products with my art printed on them i.e. clothing mmmm yeah!
17. Make a huge effort to meet people in Saint John with whom I connect with (I know you’ve got to be out there!)
18. Do random acts of kindness both offline and online
19. Walk away from and distance myself from those people who want to see me fail
20. Argue honestly and express anger without feeling threatened
21. Wait until summertime to buy rumoured 5 mega pixel iphone and/or rumoured apple tablet (to this day I have never had a cell phone and it’s just getting to the point that I need one)
22. Listen to music that inspires
23. Accept that Catholicism is not something I completely believe in
24. Join the growing movement lobbying the City of Saint John to build grocery stores in densely populated areas of the city that are within walking distance
25. And above all to learn more about you

I tag Shayla, Christopher, Lorrie, Range, Johanna, Cara, Pamela, Biffy Beans, TaraFly, Esther & Estella, Karen Faulkner, Think Bakery and Kreativlink to write your 2010 goals list and publish them to your blog. This list can be as long or as short as you want it to be. Please tag a few of your friends to do the same and link back to the person who tagged you.

Happy New Year!

Cathy Horner from Johnson City, Tennessee with this comment that I drew randomly last night using a random number generator!

Cathy is a multi-media artist. Go and visit her blog!

Congratulations Cathy and thanks so much to everyone who entered and for sharing what you were thankful for in 2009 with me. There were a record breaking 210 comments and 47 Tweets on the post!

I am in the process of writing my 2010 goals and will share them with you as I did with my 2009 goals all tomorrow!

On January 2nd of this year I wrote a 2009 Goals List. I am revisiting that list now seeing as 2009 is quickly coming to a close. In blockquotes is the goal and just below is the update…

1. Get my site off of Wordpress.com and back to self-hosting

I accomplished this goal. I self host a wordpress blog on Media Temple.

2. Increase sales in the shop to 5-10 per day

My sales numbers remained steady at 1 – 6 sales per day throughout 2009, however the dollar value of each sale did increase.

3. Fall in Love

Still searching for that ultimate love… I’ve met some wonderful men along the way but none that truly make me go wow! The year is not done yet!

4. Buy a 4-Family home in Uptown Saint John, live in one unit and rent the other three out

I purchased a 4 bedroom house in East Saint John (5 minutes driving or 25 minutes walking from Uptown Saint John) and rent out 3 of those 4 bedrooms to people. I share 2 bathrooms and a kitchen with them. My tenants have their own living room as do I.

5. Blog 7 to 15 times per month

I certainly met this goal! Yay!

6. Update Flickr 2 to 3 times per week

Well, it seems my use of flickr has evolved and I tend to update it irregularly with sometimes only one picture or with many illustrations all at once. And I’m happy with that!

7. Finish paying off massive 11 year Student loan debt – I’m so close I can taste it!

It seems there is a still a little debt remaining which I must take care of in 2010. You think you are done but you are not…

8. Introduce Flat rate shipping into the shop

I did this during the summer of 2009. You pay the shipping on the most expensive or heaviest item in your cart and each additional item thereafter only costs you a penny to ship! Go shopping now eh!

9. Introduce ready to hang Stretched Canvas prints and larger sized prints into the shop

The larger sized prints began showing up in the shop about three months ago. Canvass prints will be there hopefully in 2010!

10. Introduce new art (yes, I’ve been busy creating new pieces)

Many new artworks were introduced during the year inlcuding the The School of Fish, The Sultry Seahorse (a personal favorite!), Absynthe 99, Christopher the Fish, Set it Free, Hope (Peace Edition), Martha the Elephant, And a wave of sadness washed over me, The Indigo Urchin and Friends, Pussy Willows, Knowledge #1 and #2, Rolling Roses, A freind said these flowers look like breasts, Evolution, The three little kittens, Soft, Point, Float and Spring Magnolia’s… and many many more…

11. Get to four years sober off of GHB in August

And I did just that and grew some potatoes instead!

12. Do not develop another addiction

The addiction I battle is smoking. I did my best to quit in 2009 but to this day am still smoking. And I smoke OUTSIDE and diligently wash my hands before handling art and supplies. My house is a non-smoking household at all times!

13. Hire a housekeeper once per week once I’m in my new pad because as my art is created clean, neat and tidy and shipped out to you in the same way my housekeeping skills are not so

I am the hired housekeeper of this house.

14. Do 2 small custom design jobs per month

Yes, I did this.

15. Sell 1 large original artwork per month

Yes, I did this to.

16. Be featured in the local newspaper

I did something better by attending my first local art sale!

17. Be featured in a National women’s magazine

I have the proper contacts now and hope to fulfill this in 2010.

18. Be featured on a huge blog

My artwork was featured on numerous blogs this year, namely, Design Milk, Cuteable and OMG Posters! Thanks so much to everyone who featured my artwork this year! xo

19. After Falling in love maybe make a baby

Um, yeah… it’s looking more and more like I’ll need to go to a sperm bank. On the other hand I’m not sure I even want to see kids in the picture…

20. After massive student loan debt is paid off continue to live debt free except for paying the mortgage which will be paid off by tenants which will in turn, turn into my own financial security in 25 years when I retire

I’m working on this one people!

21. Maintain healthy weight of 130 to 135lbs

Yes, I met this goal!

22. Take a 2 week long vacation

I went away for one fabulous week in April/May with my Mom to Southern Ontario. Here are the pics! I’ve taken little weekends here and there and hope to next year get an actual Canadian passport and travel far far away!

23. OLDisNEW vintage will be getting a massive update

This is a work in progress… believe me there will be more fantastic stock in that shop this coming year! I have loads of it!

24. Earn more than poverty level income in Canada for the first time in four years

I am earning more but am also spending more because I own a house

25. Most of all I will continue to strive to be happy and believe in magic

This is an ongoing process… that will continue for the rest of my life.

Anyhow, it was a great year! I’m so happy to have met you all and glad you are here and a part of my life!

xo

There are six 2010 Art Calendars remaining in my studio as of today. I will not be making more until I create the 2011 art calendar! And earlier this year, I made a video talking about the art calendar.

This fourteen page twelve month calendar features a different illustration for each month, including the Sassy Sea Urchin and the Four Seasons which mark the change of each season. It was designed and illustrated by me, Jessica Doyle.

I printed each calendar page using archival Epson Ultrachrome ink on premium matte paper, meaning it will last a lifetime. The pages including a front and back cover are bound together with a sheer nylon ribbon here in my studio located in Saint John, NB, Canada. The pages are 4.25 by 11 inches (10,8cm by 28cm)

Best of all… because of the way I designed this calendar, the reproductions can easily be trimmed for matting and framing afterwords.

It’s available on Artfire and on Etsy. If you would like more than one please let me know and I’ll adjust the quantity in the listing for you.

Dear Diary,

Aug 12 - Moved to our new home in New Brunswick. It is so beautiful here. The northern woods are so majestic. Can hardly wait to see snow. I love it here.

Oct 14 - New Brunswick is the most beautiful place on earth. The leaves have turned colors – shades of red and orange. Went for a ride through the country and saw some deer. They are so graceful…certainly they are the most beautiful animal on earth. I really love it here.

Nov 11 - Deer season will start soon. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill such a gorgeous creature. Hope it will snow soon. What a beautiful place.

Dec 12 - Snowed last night. Woke up to find everything blanketed with white. It looks like a postcard! We went outside and cleaned the snow off the steps and shoveled the driveway. We had a snowball fight (I won), and when the snow plow came by, we got to shovel the driveway again. What a beautiful place – I love New Brunswick.

Dec 14 - More snow last night. I love it. The snow plow did his trick to the driveway again. It’s so great here.

Dec19 - More snow last night. Couldn’t get out of the driveway to get to work. I am exhausted from shoveling. Fucking snow plow.

Dec 22 - More of that white shit fell last night. I have blisters on my hands from shoveling. I think the snow plow hides around the corner and waits until I’m done shoveling the driveway. ASSHOLE!

Dec 25 - Merry Fucking Christmas! More friggen snow. If I ever get my hands on that son‐of‐a‐bitch who drives that snow plow, I swear I’ll kill the bastard. Don’t know why they don’t use more salt on the road to melt the bloody ice?

Dec 27 - More white shit last night. Been inside for 3 days – except for shoveling the driveway after that snow plow goes through. Can’t go anywhere – the cars stuck in a mountain of the white shit. The weatherman says to expect another 10” of this crap again tonight. Do you know how many shovels of snow 10″ is?

Dec 28 - The fucking weatherman was wrong. We got 34” of that white shit this time. At this rate, it won’t melt before next summer. The snow plow got stuck up the road and that bastard came to the door and asked to borrow my shovel. After I told him I had broken six shovels already shoveling all the shit he pushed into the driveway. I broke my last shovel over his bloody head.

Jan 4 - Finally got out of the house today. Went to the store to get food and on the way back a damned deer ran in front of my car and I hit it. Did about $3,000 damage to the car. Those fucking beasts should be killed. Wish the hunters had killed all of them last November.

May 3 - Took the car to the garage in town. Would you believe the thing is rusting out from all the fucking salt they put all over the road?

May 10 - Moved to Georgia. I can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would ever live in that God‐forsaken province of NEW BRUNSWICK.

author unknown…

A few months before my grandmother passed away I spent an evening with her and did some baking. Together we created this muffin recipe that I originally scribbled in a Moleskine journal. I’ve since formulated it into a proper recipe. Get your mixing bowls ready!

You’ll need two mixing bowls; one for the liquids and one for the dry ingredients. Preheat your oven to 350˚F (175˚C). You will also need 12 muffin or cupcake paper cups to line your muffin baking pan with.

Smaller Liquid Bowl

• 1 cup bran (add to mixture to let soften)
• 1 cup 1% or skim milk
• 1/2 cup olive oil (or 1/4 cup margarine plus 1/4 cup of olive oil)
• 2 mashed peeled ripe or frozen, thawed and peeled bananas
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/2 tablespoon of vanilla

Mix all wet (and bran) ingredients together until evenly distributed and move onto the dry ingredients.

You can freeze your ripe blackened bananas in your home freezer. They’ll last upwards of six months this way. You do not need to wrap them. Simply leave the peeling on and place in freezer. Thaw them in the microwave and then peel them when needed.

Larger Dry Bowl

• 2 generous cups of all purpose flour
• 1 generous teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 generous teaspoon of baking soda
• 1/2 cup of white sugar or 3/4 cup of unpacked brown sugar (I prefer the latter)
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 heaping cup of frozen or fresh blueberries or cranberries plus about 24 loose berries (don’t add these to the mixture yet…)

Make sure to sift the baking powder and soda, to break apart any little hard balls, into the flour evenly before adding the other dry ingredients. Mix dry ingredients together.

Add your liquid mixture to the dry bowl and stir until almost moist. Then add your half cup of blueberries/cranberries and evenly mix them in. Put paper muffin cups in your muffin baking pan. Using two soup spoons add the mixture to each muffin cup. Add two or three loose berries to the top of each muffin gently pushing them into the mixture. Let the baking pan sit with mixture inside cups for 10 minutes before placing into oven.

Put your muffins on the middle rack inside oven. Check them in 20 minutes using a toothpick. Simply pierce the top of the muffin with a toothpick and if any batter remains on the toothpick when you pull it out they still need to bake a bit longer. I find with my oven the muffins take about 25 to 30 minutes to cook. Each oven is different so use the toothpick to check in on them. that cooking time listed is for 24 muffins. I’m guessing it’ll be closer to a 20 minute cooking time if you only bake 12 muffins. To bake 24 muffins simply double the recipe.

This recipe makes 12 muffins! I made 24! Yum!

My art shop is open however I am on packaging holiday as per my shop’s announcement. To be honest this is hard to do but everyone including me needs to take a vacation from work at times… hence the muffin making!

On Boxing Day evening I headed uptown with Karen to share a drink at Happinez before going dancing at one of the local clubs where we were to meet up with Lisa and Jilian.

We began walking down King Street so that I could stop at my branch’s bank machine to avoid banking fees to withdraw cash for the evening’s festivities. I placed my bank card in the ATM like I’ve done thousands of times, punched in that I wanted $80 and promptly took my card and left the bank lobby closing the door behind me.

Standing outside the bank’s doors I realized I was only putting into my wallet a bank card and no cash or receipt. I stared in through the door’s windows and saw my $80 still sitting in the dispensing slot! I again dug out my bank card to swipe to get back into blasted banking machine lobby and ran to grab my money. My hands were but inches from that money and the machine sucked it back in! Karen laughed. I did not laugh.

I still do not have that $80 and the bank is closed today.

I’ve got the receipt and I’m sure the security camera caught the stupidity on tape!

The photo is of the Christmas lights I hung in the sun room with a reflection of living room in the door.

I finally finished painting those balls I began earlier. Five are going as Christmas gifts to friends and family. I am keeping one for myself and I’m also doing a trade with the uber talented Shayla Maddox for one of her hand painted balls.

And I’m aware that the sound is not the greatest in this video. Blame it on the giant pimple!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Hope you’ll all enter the end of year art giveaway worth $165 of handmade by me goods!

d

Comments are now closed… I’ll be announcing the winner tomorrow!

Well, thank you so much for reading this blog and commenting, listening, tweeting, facebooking and for buying my art. I’m honoured to have you in my life. Simply leave a comment on this post about what you are thankful for this year and you’ll be entered into my End of Year Art Giveaway.

The prize package is $165 worth of handmade by me goods

$26 – 2010 Art Calendar (12 month handmade print sampler)
$24 – Limited Edition ABC print in 8.5×11 inches (not yet available in the shop)
$20 – Do you love me print (8×8 inches)
$5 – Milton the Fish Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays greeting cards
$8 – Framed Sunflowering Times ACEO mini print
$24 – Children’s Scrap Paper Pack
$7 – Package of Mushrooms (Pastel Edition) Miniature Greeting Cards
$12 – Day Dreams (5×5 print)
$24 – Spotted Eddie (matted to 8×10 inches)
$15 – Set of four Beachy Beachy Beach greeting cards

For bonus entries you can do one or all of the following:

• Tweet about this giveaway to your followers
• Share it on Facebook with your friends
• Post it to your blog
• Email it to your friends
• Subscribe to this blog via email or RSS (if you are already subscribed simply leave a separate comment stating so)

Each time you do one of the above make sure to come back to this post and leave a comment stating what you did and link to it if possible and you’ll get that additional entry. Please write each additional entry in a separate comment as I’ll be using a random number generator to draw the winner!

This giveaway closes on January 2, 2010. The winning comment will be randomly drawn on January 3, 2010. This giveaway is open to all residents of earth. The winner has 48 hours to claim the prize package once notified by email before another winner is drawn. The winner will be announced publicly on the blog.

Merry Christmas Everyone! xo

• Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens, five each of super fine nib, brush nib & medium nib and two Fine nib all in black and one package of four sanguine and sepia colours
• Pilot G-tec C4 Pens – two Black ones please
• Moleskine Colour a Month Daily Planner
• Medium Length Winter Coat (maybe a red semi formal but casual coat) in size Sm/Med or 5,6,7,8 it depends as women’s clothing is weird that way
• Warm Winter Gloves (not mittens) in dark grey or black
• Fabriano paper
• Canson Paper (various colours please)
• Arches cold press watercolour paper (at least 140lb in sheet form not a roll)
• Selection of crazy funky artist papers as there is no paper in Saint John
• #6 round long handled paintbrush
• #1 round long handled and long haired paintbrush
• Books to read that inspire me or take me away to another land for a little while (no mystery, no romance and certainly no horror)
• #11 X-acto knife blades and a spare holder for the blades
• A pretty shoulder bag in charcoal grey from my Etsy favorites and other pretty things from there to
• Two Pilot CHOOSE 0.7 nib (opaque white ink gel pen)
• Five pairs of black socks that come half way up to the knee (not to thick and size 7)
• Clothing from Ureshi
• iPhone (with video) and plan
• $1,000,000
• A boyfriend – you know who you are! Come visit me already…
• Handmade sketchbook that is square in shape or at least a little larger (minimum size 7×7 inches and not spiral bound – must lay flat when opened too any page)
• A much greener option other than heating my home with an oil furnace, electricity from the local oil burning electric plant, burning wood or natural gas

I’m willing to barter with you if you are the maker of these items. In exchange for your product I’ll write a blog post review for you and/or you can pick what you like form my online art shop.

Merry Christmas! xo

The original pretty mandala art shown above I created with white gouache and black india ink on red Canson paper. It measures 5×5 inches (12,7cm by 12,7cm) and is listed in the art shop.

It’s so funny how cats can and do create little nests for themselves anywhere and everywhere. And come Christmas time when the boxes and bags of decorations come out they will indeed find happiness within the gold, red and green decorations.

Oddly enough she let me tie a bow around her neck and didn’t even try to take it off. I did remove the bow before turning in for bed yesterday as I was worried she would hang herself or something… if it got caught on a something you know…

And yes she has regained the use of blinking her right eye after that nasty cat punctured her head. Thus far that muti-coloured feline has not turned up on the backyard deck again.

Each year, well almost every year I sit down and paint Christmas balls for gift giving as I finally did finish setting up that area in the living room to paint at earlier this week. I needed an area that could remain creatively messy. Thus far I’ve painted four Christmas balls and sadly have run out of Varathane to top coat them with. I’ll need to make a run to the hardware store this weekend. Yes, I use hardwood floor varnish on any piece that I paint with acrylic.

I think painting is like riding a bike. You really don’t forget how to do it but it does take about four balls to get back into the groove of making those itsy bitsy paint strokes. I use Kroma Artist Quality Acrylic made on Granville Island in Vancouver and you can only buy it there to. It’s a wonderful milky acrylic and heavily pigmented for a brilliant colour and a smooth finish.

These are some finished balls I’ve painted from years gone by that I’ve kept for myself. I think I’ve painted close to 150 different balls that family and friends now have and decorate their trees with.

And this just made me laugh to much not to post this here on the blog!

If you’d like to add me as a friend on facebook. Feel free to do so! It gets quite lively over there at times! Haha!

On Sunday, Saint John received it’s first snowfall. And with that comes the task of clearing of said snow from walkways, stairs, driveways and decks. I was pooped after shoveling, only to have to clean up the house afterwords.

Each Sunday, I strip the tenants beds, wash linens and towels, vacuum, clean the bathrooms and basically restock toilet paper, hand towels and other common goods that are included with the rent. I’ve got it down to a science, after doing this for the last four months and it takes me about four hours from beginning to end to do the housekeeping chores. I look it at as my part-time job. I claim the income from the rentals and pay much extra for residential insurance as opposed to regular home insurance which will not cover you when you rent to more than one person within your own home. And I rent to up to three people at times. At the moment, I have two tenants; one long-term and one short-term and am hoping to have another tenant by mid-next week who is coming to Saint John from Montreal for a work contract.

By doing it by the book, I am able to claim a percentage of all cleaning supplies, toilet paper, heating, power, cable, internet, furniture, bedding etc that the tenants use. On top of that, because I run and operate a business within this home I needed additional business insurance and therefore can claim all related utilities, basically a 1/4 of the main floor of the house. I can claim about 4/5 of my home as business due to the rental and art business combined, and do pay dearly for the insurance of both. The paperwork of running two businesses is a another job unto itself!

I raised the rents from $125 per week to $150 per week as the expenses were a bit more than I initially calculated. However, when compared to other room rentals available within the city my rooms are on the higher end of renting but they are legal, clean, bright, spacious and well maintained.

And I guess, that is what matters.

Needless to say, come late Sunday night I was exhausted after shoveling snow for two and half hours and then cleaning house for four hours, as both are very labour intensive. I definitely do not need a gym membership.

Begin RANT – I was just today declined for life insurance. Don’t ever get Crohn’s disease and/or mental health or addiction issues as you will be declined if you are self-employed and single in Canada. This is frustrating. I can’t get health insurance and now life insurance to, unless I am employed by a company who offers group insurance or am married and under my partners plan. Thank god I live in Canada where at least health care is free. We do need to pay for dental, eye care and prescription drugs (which would be covered if you had insurance) but anything else is free. BUT STILL I’ve been in remission from Crohn’s for 12 freaking years and clean of addiction for four years! End RANT

UPDATE – Mom just frantically phoned and informed me that it is not employee of the month but a monthly “Choosing your Attitude” and that there are three people per month chosen for this because of their great attitude. I still like to think of it as employee of the month though!

Well, I need to say how proud I am of my Mother over the last few months and how thankful I am that she is in my life.

She was nominated for employee of the month where she works and this is her month! There are over 1000 people who are employed in her office; this is a huge honor for her!

Each month, whomever is nominated and chosen is given a ceiling tile to paint and is also asked to write something that means something to them. The ceiling tile is framed for one month and placed in a prominent area for all employees to see along with the write-up and a photo of the employee. After the month is up the ceiling tile is placed into the ceiling with the other tiles from employee of the months’ gone by.

These are her words and above is her painting:

Attitude

Someone said to me one time
‘It takes one to know one’
so to the person who nominated me, ‘right back at you’.

What we see in another is a reflection of ourselves.

It’s All About Attitude……..Wow, so true,
and we’re all learners.

I have to get up about two and a half hours before my shift starts in order to
psych myself up to come in here to work.

No, not really,
however, I do like to see day break when the sun comes up AND
I also love to see a beautiful sunset.

It’s not for us to fully understand the whys of all our life’s circumstances,
but for sure I need all of you in my life right now or I would not be here. It’s that simple.

It’s an amazing journey and I love it.
We are all part of this humongous mosaic and it’s really quite extraordinary
so I choose to just enjoy being a part of it. When the time comes to move on and it will,
so be it.

There are frustrating times, but those are challenges for me to overcome somehow,
and from which I can choose to learn and grow.
There are sad times and happy times, each with it’s own blessings,
both of which I continue to appreciate as the years go by.

My encounters with another human being each day are precious moments
and just a tiny glimpse into someone else’s life.
These contacts are given to me. If perhaps someone has a frown one day,
I try to remember to look beyond and deeper,
because I’ve been there too or it could be me in their shoes,
like the song ‘Rainy Day People’ by Gordon Lightfoot.

Louella

I love you Mom and congratulations! xoxo

Words and painting in this blog post are copyright protected © 2010

…to my home.

For a Merry Christmas open studio & art sale
Friday, December 4, 2009 – 7:00PM to 9:00PM
Saturday, December 5, 2009 – 11:00AM to 4:00PM

Hope you can make it even just to say hi to Milton the Fish!

Original artwork & illustrations, matted prints, framed art, open and limited edition prints, miniature prints, 2010 Art calendars, regular and miniature greeting card sets and handpainted art boxes will be on hand.

Oh and ho ho ho!
My address is 40 Park Avenue
Saint John, NB

There is plenty of free off street parking or if you are taking the bus my house sits directly on the East/West bus routes.

View Larger Map

Merry Merry!

Something happened over the last month and my handpainted boxes began selling on Etsy. This makes me smile as I love painting little boxes to hold your precious items in.

I’m setting up a painting station in the living room directly between the sunroom to the right and studio on the left just beside the bookshelf. I need an area that can get messy with needing to be cleaned up.

Although, I have a large studio every inch of it is used for something other than messy creative work. I have the computer desk for the 27″ iMac; the printing table with two printers, the drafting table which is used as my cutting and packaging area, all of which can not have water, paint or bits of paper, sandpaper, wood, dust or paintbrushes hanging around on their surfaces.

So, I’m expanding into the living room today and I’ll be painting directly underneath an illustration I created years ago entitled:

The Old Men in the Tree
who’ll grant you a wish…
one
two
three…

Each box set is listed in the Handpainted boxes and objects section of my art shop.

I recently surpassed 1000 sales on Etsy and to celebrate I’m offering for the next 24 hours a buy 2 get 1 free sale on all open edition and limited edition prints listed in my Etsy shop. Thank you everyone who helped me reach that goal!

The top 5 sections in my shop that are marked with B2G0 are included in the sale.

All you need do is write your third choice of print of equal or lesser value to the lowest price item in your cart within the message to seller at check-out.

Happy Holidays!

xo

A little while back I announced that the Sassy Sea Urchin and George the Fish were available on a recycled locket set by Polarity. They are no longer available due to some exciting news which I can’t tell you about… yet.

To take their place I offered Polarity the rights to use the Four Seasons Tree Series to feature on a locket set with four interchangeable lids. Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall…

The set is stunning and for sale in her shop now! If you notice that the set is sold that I’m linking to simply search for “Jessica” in her shop and you’ll find another set listed or contact her if a new set hasn’t been re-listed yet.

And if you are looking for the Four Seasons archival print sets (8×8 inch and 5×5 inch size) they can be found in the Print Sets Section of my shop.

Polarity also writes and authors a fantastic blog! Go and say hi to her!

Well, now that a few days have passed, my mind seems to be calming from the experience of prepping, setting up, selling, tearing down and unpacking from the Art’s and Craft’s Sale held at Harbour Station this past weekend.

I’m not sure if my mind has calmed much if at all. It seems to be on hyperdrive these last few weeks between trying to find new tenants, managing this household and selling on Etsy and wondering where I fit into this world.

I guess I fit right here in my home, both online and offline.

The show was good. Not as good financially as I had hoped for as I am short two tenants but not as bad as it could have been. My booth display needs work for future shows yet it was presentable and people saw my artwork, commented and bought. That in itself; the getting of feedback and of having your work received by a public you’ve sheltered yourself from, for so long was invigorating, exciting and downright thrilling at times.

I met some fantastic people who surprisingly either follow my blog and/or new of my Etsy shop and dropped by to say so. I met students of art, mothers and daughters, my ex-husband, extended family members namely cousins (as I have close to 40 first cousins), old school mates from secondary school, other artists and crafters, shop owners and a few folks from government art agencies and many new faces! It was so nice to meet, talk with and see you all!

And I earned enough that I was able to pay a bit to both my Mom and Dad and Tricia for their help during the weekend. That felt great!

I’ll be doing it all over again in 2010 having booked and paid a deposit to reserve my spot for then. Hope to see you next year! Until then my online art shop found at http://www.etsy.com/shop/JessicaDoyle is open 24/7 and whatever you order is carefully packaged by me and shipped directly to your home from mine.

Cheers! Thanks everyone! xo

Do keep in mind that online Holiday Shipping and Ordering Deadlines are approaching quickly.

Wow, what an insane couple of week’s it has been getting ready for this giant upcoming sale. I will be selling my originals, prints, limited edition prints, ACEO (wallet size) mini prints, matted prints, calendars, greeting cards and miniature greeting cards. Also on hand will be a nice selection of framed and ready to hang artwork.

Rhodas Christmas Festival of Arts, Crafts, Food, and Antiques at Harbour Station in Saint John, New Brunswick

20 Nov 2009 , 12:00 PM – 9:00 PM
21 Nov 2009 , 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
22 Nov 2009 , 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM

If there is an original illustration, mixed media or artwork in my Etsy shop that you have been eying I suggest buying it before the weekend as they will be traveling to the show with me.

Tens of thousands of people attend this annual show. I’m beyond excited. Every last penny I had went into producing enough stock for the show and I met my goal for production late last night or should that be early this morning at 3:30AM.

My Mom and Dad (John) are helping me with set-up on Thursday night. Mom (Louella) will be working the booth with me on both Friday and Sunday. My bother’s girlfriend (Trisha) is working the booth with me on Saturday. Do come by to say hi and see the art in person!

The screen shot above shows a selection of original miniature art and prints which make great stocking stuffers!

Unlike, in the world of offline shopping one can literally shop inside warm stores until December 24th and still have time to package and deliver that gift to it’s special recipient in time for holiday gift giving. Well, this scenario does not hold true for online shopping… however you do get to shop from the comfort of your own home and in return you’ll receive a beautifully packaged piece of artwork delivered right to your door.

Please do take a moment and read the following and place your order early while my stock lasts. I ship from Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and will be making extra runs to the post office daily, if needed (and I hope it’s needed) over the next couple of weeks.

Ordering Deadlines are as follows from my Etsy Shop:

If you live in Canada – December 15th
If you live in the United States – December 5th
If you live in Australia or New Zealand – November 28th
If you live in Asia – November 28th
If you live in Africa – November 20th
If you live in South America – November 20th
If you live in Central America – November 20th
If you live in Europe – November 28th

I do offer Expedited, Xpress and Priority Shipping if you miss these ordering deadlines. Simply contact me on Etsy for the applicable rates to your country of residence and I’ll adjust the shipping on the listing(s) you would like to order. Anything is possible! I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you need it quick like today… let me know and I’ll get it there for you.

Even with these deadlines in place there is an itsy bitsy minuscule chance that while crossing an international border your order could get held up in customs or experience postal delays within your own country. While I hope this does not happen it is really beyond my control if it does. About one percent of my orders do arrive late for these reasons which is a very good statistic and shipping record BUT all 900 plus orders that I’ve shipped out do arrive to their final destinations.

My customer feedback is 100% positive and I work hard to keep it that way. Please order in confidence knowing that I want you to be as happy with your order as I am when creating, packaging and shipping it for you.

The main art shop – JessicaDoyle
The darker art shop – HangsaLittleLeft

xoxox

If there is something in my art shop that you would like more than one of such as a print, card or calendar just contact me on Etsy and I’ll adjust the quantity available for you to purchase in the listing if I have more than one in stock.

I drew this magical acorn a few weeks ago when the leaves were still brilliantly coloured and hanging on the trees here in Saint John, NB. They have since fallen to the ground and certainly do crunch under ones feet.

Using Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens in both black and sanguin I drew the body of the acorn and with opaque white ink Pilot pens highlighted little details. The paper is Strathmore flower petal paper. The final piece in real life measures 4 1/8 by 8 1/2 inches (10,4cm by 21,5cm). It’s priced at $54 for the original drawing and is listed for sale in my art shop.

Hope you like it! Cheers!

Aren’t they pretty? I completed this series of illustrations late last year. They are available in both 5×7 inch (12,7cm by 17,7cm) and 8.5×11 inch (21,5cm by 27,8cm) sets.

The set is comprised of We Flourish, We Grow and We Reproduce.

I ponder life often during this time of year as the trees and flowers are all but grey and dead around me as they enter their long hibernation this Winter only to come to life during Springtime. One would not exist without the other.

Each of these prints is available in a gift set or individually within the small or medium sections of my art shop.

And when you purchase either the 5×7 or 8.5×11 set by November 15, 2009 simply write “We Series” within the message to seller upon check-out in my Etsy shop and I’ll ship your set for free to wherever you live in the world! Shipping will be reimbursed after payment in full has been received. This offer is only good for “We Series” sets and not valid with any other offer. Do keep an eye on this blog for deals not found anywhere else until Christmas. xo

And if you are interested in buying the original miniature illustrations of the We Series they still secretly exist! I had them archivally matted. But they are not listed in my shop. If you are interested in them they are $125 each and I’ll put up a reserved listing for you on Etsy. The originals are delicate and much softer in colour and hue. Hope to hear from you! Thank you!

Just swimming in the sea…

School of Fish was created in late October 2009 with Windsor and Newton watercolour, Prismacolor Verithin coloured pencils, Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens (india ink) and Pilot Hi-tec C pens on Arches watercolour paper. All materials used are archival.

They are the Sultry Seahorse’s posse!

This original artwork measures 8×10 inches (20,5cm by 25,3cm) with a small white border around it making it easy to frame and mat.

The original School of Fish illustration is listed for sale in my Art Shop. Limited Edition Prints will be available in the coming weeks.

Saturday night I held a gathering and potluck at my house to celebrate my 36th Birthday with close friends and family. About 15 people came. Later that same night when five of us remained we began playing on the iMac using iSight to record ourselves. Ha!

Thanks everyone who came over to celebrate with me! xoxo

And thanks everyone for the wonderful gifts! I think every second person brought me a flowering plant to put in the sunroom. I had a wonderful time

PS – if you have pictures from that night please email them to me.

And it’s still flowering! I moved it into the kitchen from the living room and set it on the central island there, as my coffee table (old vintage blue trunk) gets filled quickly with knick knacks, namely art supplies as I sit and doodle on the couch.

I’m officially renaming this Christmas Cactus, Birthday Cactus. The cactus will likely be moved again tomorrow. I’m hosting a little potluck with friends and family Saturday evening to celebrate my 36th Birthday (which is on Sunday) and we’ll need the island for food and wine.

I’m baking salt & pepper wings and also making from scratch two vegetarian quiches. The salt & pepper wings were on sale tonight at my local grocer. They are uncooked but oh so tasty.

I am rather loving the price checking war going on between Sobey’s and the Atlantic Superstore at the moment. Fifty percent of the groceries I bought yesterday were reduced to beat the competitors price. And here in Saint John, NB there are only those two chains of grocery stores to shop from with various locations scattered around the city. They can continue to battle it out. It’s fabulous for my wallet. There does exist the odd veggie, fruit and meat market but they are very far and few between and only located in the Historic Uptown core.

Happy Friday everyone!

I am happy to introduce two new sets of miniature greeting cards featuring the magnolia blossom and the pussy willow blossom. The introduction of these two blossom themed sets brings the total number in the series available to collect and use to ten!

Use them for gift tags, scrapbooking, dollhouse miniatures or anything else your heart fancy’s.

Each was created using my original pussy willow and magnolia ink drawings. They are printed with HP Vivera inks on heavy matte paper. The envelopes and seals were hand punched, folded and glued together by own hand(s) shown in the first photo for size reference.

Each set includes:
•8 cards (2 of each blossom)
•8 white envelopes
•8 seals (colours may vary)

Greeting card size – 1 3/8″ x 7/8″ (35mm by 22mm)
Envelope size – 1 1/2″ x 1″ (38mm by 25mm)
Seals size – 5/16″ (8mm)

Each set is listed in the shop within the paper goods section. Do remember that holiday shipping deadlines are fast approaching especially for international orders that are traveling outside of Canada (which is where I live). I will be posting these deadlines soon. Order early if you want your order to arrive in time for the holidays. Thank you!

Some of what I draw or create gets lost in the shuffle deep in the recesseses of my studio or sells before I get a chance to publish it to my blog. Mia is an illustration I created last year with india ink and watercolor on Canson paper. The original sold earlier this year with three other large originals, a handmade box of mini prints and a set of four seasons.

It was the largest single sale I ever made on Etsy and the second largest art sale in my life in regards to art sales and prompted the writing of a rather poignant post. The largest I ever made was the sale of the original Grace acrylic painting which sold for $1250CAD.

Art is worth money. It is worth the investment. And I guess that is what you need to think about when you buy art. It’s not something that you’ll likely buy and throw away in a few years. Art is something that by definition of being art should over time gain in monetary value and in the least hold it’s value long after the artist is dead. When you buy art, especially from an artist who is actively creating and alive and more importantly sustaining themselves on their art, you are in fact allowing them to continually learn, hone their skills and perhaps one day earn a living wage from their art because their skills are such that it demands a value higher than minimum wage.

I’ll be turning 36 on November 8th. I always dreampt that one day I wouldn’t need to do graphic design anymore. Sadly, it took falling down to my lowest more than once to realize this dream. I’m far from earning in Canadian Standards a living wage. But I’m getting there.

What does that feel like to earn more than $50,000 a year?

Next year I want to earn $50,000. Scratch that. I want to earn $100,000 Net.

This year will be the first year that I will earn more than poverty level income in years. I can’t count how many years I earned less than $10,000 since graduating college in 1996. I can count how many years I earned more than $20,000 but less than $25,000. TWO.

And I don’t know why Mia made me think of these things. Or maybe it’s because I’m dealing with making large monetary decisions, more than I ever had to in my life. I run two businesses; that of art and that of renting rooms and the housekeeping of those rooms.

A big chunk of money is something that for me, gives my mind rest. It gives me the fuel I need, to recuperate and create anew again. And to be honest I haven’t had a rest in months.

I plan to work my but off until next year and then, hopefully take two weeks too slow my brain down followed by another two weeks which I’ll spend in Brazil or Mexico. No, not Mexico. I want off the continent! I’ve never traveled off the continent.

If I get to earning that much money I will be hiring a bookkeeper. YAY!

I’ve carried a lot of guilt around about earning money. It’s an anxiety; a shame. Something I wrote about the other night but did not publish because it’s one big long run-on sentence. Maybe I’ll publish that secret tomorrow to let it go and move forward.

As an artist or a supporter of the arts how do you feel about an artist earning a living wage? I say a living wage as minimum wage is not a living wage by any Western standard.

Mia is now a beautiful limited edition print available in the shop

Every now and then one must break away from the routine of cute, pretty and expected and dive down into the unknown, scary and nightmarish!

Happy Hallowe’en friends!

xoxoxo

PS – no cat’s were harmed in the writing of this blog post

UPDATE – the original has sold. Limited Edition archival prints in 8.5×11 inch paper are available now in the shop.

The Sultry Seahorse was created with Windsor and Newton watercolour, Prismacolor Verithin coloured pencils, Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens (india ink) and Pilot Hi-tec C pens on Arches watercolour paper.

This original artwork measures 8.5×10 inches (21,5cm by 25,3cm). Yes, I’m beginning to illustrate bigger, slowly working my up to painting large wall art again.

You can see the beginning of this artwork in the last post.

The original illustration is RESERVED already however, limited edition prints will be available shortly in the shop.

I phoned Apple computer on Thursday evening and told them my story. I remained calm and didn’t get angry as getting angry doesn’t do a damn thing. I asked if I could exchange the 24″ iMac for the new 27″ iMac. The supervisor on the phone agreed with me and waived their 14 day return policy and gave me a special code. I do need to pay a 10% restocking fee and also pay to ship the 24″ iMac back to Ontario but in the end I am getting the 27″, 3,06Ghz, 1 terabyte hard drive iMac in return. And special thanks to my good friend Ian for visiting on Thursday night and helping me make my decision.

And the quality of this video isn’t my normal quality as I’m on a bit of a timeline crunch to get this computer packaged up and shipped back to them so that I do indeed get my refund.

Also, I’m working on two new illustrations; a school of swimming fish and a seahorse.

And I’m looking for two new tenants as two of my current tenants are leaving due to their work contracts being finished. I’m also toying with the idea of getting an actual roommate, someone who works from home to, as I have another secret room which could be used as a second studio, which I’ll blog about later.

Have you ever seen so many buds on a Christmas Cactus?

My mom gave me this cactus when I moved into my house a few months ago. She has three or four of them growing in her house. I sat the cactus in the sun room and forgot about it. I really did forget about it. I didn’t water it. I didn’t talk to it. I didn’t touch it.

About a month ago my mom was visiting as she has been known to do on occasion and walked into the sunroom and quickly stomped out of the sun room through the living room and into my studio horrified, cactus in hand exclaiming “IT NEEDS WATER!” I looked at it all withered and spiny and starving and giggled “Mom it’s a cactus and not a succulent.”

She placed it back on the corner stand where it was originally dieing. That night I went over and looked at Herbert (yeah, I’ll call him Herbert) thinking, maybe you do need a little water. I carried him into the kitchen, filled a bowl of water and sat him in it. He drank for a good hour and afterwords I returned him to that corner stand in the sun room.

Two weeks ago, Herbert had little itty bitty buds. I gave him more water and moved him into the living room.

Today he’s full of buds! And he’ll likely bloom right around Birthday time and not Christmas time.

I purchased a new 24″ iMac 2.93Ghz, 600GB Hard Drive from you on September 4th, 2009 for $2,149.00 CAD plus an additional $199 CAD for extended insurance coverage. I love my new computer and have loved using apple computers since 1993, when I first used a Quadra in art college.

Here is where the love stops.

I see today that you announce a new-better-faster 27″ iMac 3.06Ghz 1 TERABYTE hard drive priced at $1799.00 CAD that includes a standard wireless keyboard and mouse.

I began crying this evening because this is the third time that I have purchased a new computer from you and this is the third time in 10 years that within 2 months of my purchase you release a new version at a cheaper price point with much more bling and I am not compensated for being ripped off.

The first time I bought a Graphite iMac DV Special Edition 13GB hard drive in the summer of 1999 which was quickly outdated with a new iMac.

The second time I bought a 15″ Titanium Powerbook 60 GB hard drive 1GHZ G4 OS10.3.9 that didn’t come pre-installed with an airport card which I had to buy in January of 2004. The version you released immediately after that had OS10.4, more power and had the airport card pre-installed.

And now you’ve gone and done it again by releasing a new iMac. Seriously Apple, I’m upset and not feeling the love right now. I could use that extra $350 to heat my home this winter and the extra screen space and power and extra hard drive space to create and store pretty illustrations and graphics on. To top it all off, I can’t even use my Firewire 400 external hard drive or my Adobe Creative Suite with my new iMac because it only accepts a Firewire 800 cord and CS1 is incompatible with Snow Leopard.

I’m not impressed, and wish I could stop the tears from flowing down my cheeks. You could have told me to wait another month and half before making my purchase. That would have been the honest thing to do.

Three time’s a charm eh?

These hands made it into the 9th round of blogs accepted into the prestigious 9rules Network. I got so excited that I shared my happiness in the Etsy forums. The following is what I wrote in that forum post as it succinctly sums up how I feel:

Never Never Never Give Up!

Three and half years ago I applied to http://9rules.com a prestigious blog network that showcases the best content from the independent web and I was rejected.

Two and half years ago I applied again and was rejected for a second time. Both times with no reasons listed as to why.

I always wanted to be part of that network. They inspired me. And I never gave up hope, kept faith and continued to improve my blog all the while finding my own little niche on the web.

On October 1st they opened for round 9 submissions for 24 hours only as is their practice. I submitted my blog, http://jessicadoyle.com for the third time and was ACCEPTED yesterday! I couldn’t concentrate at all yesterday as I was so happy!

This means so much to me to be recognized for the hard work I’ve been doing on my blog and business.

Never give hope when faced with rejection. There was a reason you were rejected and perhaps that reason is you weren’t the right fit or your content and focus wasn’t refined enough.

The latter I believe was true with me. I was all over the place with blogging topics when I began blogging in early 2006. It’s taken over 3 years to find solace and happiness in what I publish online. Continue to believe in yourself and others will to. Peace…

About 9rules

1. Love what you do.
2. Never stop learning.
3. Form works with function.
4. Simple is beautiful.
5. Work hard, play hard.
6. You get what you pay for.
7. When you talk, we listen.
8. Must constantly improve.
9. Respect your inspiration.

Thank you 9rules!

Sometimes the creative work overflows into the living room from the studio and onto the floor on top of a carpet my mom hooked in the early seventies. I love lying down or sitting on the floor surrounded by inks, papers, glues and best of a all a children’s story entitled Something & Nothing, propped up against Missy’s antique cat sleeping basket for easy reference.

The story is written by Amanda Lenker whom I met on Etsy. She was one of my customers. Her mom is also a customer of mine and carries my line of miniature greeting cards in her gift boutique located in Florida. And Something & Nothing is a wonderful story of hope and friendship. Amanda sent me the story asking me if I’d be interested in collaborating, I read it and wrote back YES!

The illustrations are a combination of drawing with pencil, collage, ink, watercolour and colored pencil. Each one is a little world onto itself.

Below are illustrations one to three in the early collage and inking stage.

And a close-up of the third illustration.

There are seven illustrations in total which are almost complete and that I’ll share with you very soon. So happy!

Hope you are all enjoying your day today!

Today I am thankful to be alive albeit sick with the flu.
Today I am thankful to have you in my life.
Today I am thankful to be earning a living with my art.
Today I am thankful to own my own home.
Today I am thankful Missy is better and blinking that eye again.
Today I am humbled.

And there is so much more that I am thankful for but I am sick and moving a little slower than usual and must step away from the computer to begin the weekly housekeeping of the tenants rooms today so that later I can relax at my folks place for turkey dinner. Yum! xo

Back in 1993 I drew this whimsical alphabet poster on bristol board. Sadly, I didn’t know about using archival inks or paper for that matter back then. And had a tendency to illustrate right to the edge of the paper I was drawing upon. The black ink I had drawn around each letter had faded off over the last 16 years. At least I was smart enough to use Prismacolor colored pencils to colour it with.

I spent most of last week re-tracing the black outlines in india ink that surrounded each letter and then after scanning the entire piece into Adobe Photoshop, touched it up fixing any tears and rebuilding missing black outlines. Below are the before (showing the new india ink outlines but before the touch-up in photoshop) and the after shot.

It’s vivid and beautiful now featuring both an upper and lower case alphabet.

This is a limited edition print run of 100 only. Each print is signed, numbered and titled on the front by me and dated on the back. It will arrive with a certificate of authenticity. Each print is professionally printed on an Epson R2880 using pigmented archival inks on premium matte paper.

The paper size is 11 x 14 inches (28cm by 35,5cm) and it has a border surrounding the image making it easy to frame and or mat. The side borders are a little wider than the top and bottom margins as shown in the opening image.

It would make a lovely addition to any child’s bedroom or classroom. Hope you like it! And it’s available in my art shop.

These coupons were cut and saved by many people in the early 20th century including my Great Uncle George! There are various marks and cut edges surrounding each coupon from removing it from the original label.

Each coupon was cut from the paper wrapping surrounding a tin of Babbit’s Cleanser sometime in the early 1920’s. I came across a small stack of them recently hidden away inside a tin that I have since sold. There is both French and English text printed on the backside of the coupon. Use them in your art, your scrapbooking projects or to collect.

Each coupon measures 2 1/2 inches wide (7cm).

You can get your coupons on OLDisNEW.

In 2004 during an intensive year of college in British Columbia we were asked to illustrate a poster in an older illustrative style with hand drawn letters. Absinthe 99 is the result of that assignment.

That year of college was one of the most brutal and rewarding times of my life. I had applied and was later accepted into an advanced multi media program at Langara College. I took 21 courses in one 12 month period including advanced typography, history of design and colour theory. By the end of that year I was addicted to GHB (sedatives). Add to that, my boyfriend was manic, and suffering through immense panic attacks and depressive episodes and unable to work, let alone feed himself until later that same year… it was all I could do to cope with the situation I found myself in. If anything, the strict regimen of college that year heightened and brought to the surface my inward disorder with the world around me. In 2007 I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and a few underlying learning disabilities.

I believe all those people who succumb to addiction have their reasons and people it really does not happen overnight. It begins innocently enough when one can’t get out of a predicament and that predicament then folds in on itself evolving into a monster! And truth be told I’ve never drank absinthe… someday maybe… I also hold the belief that once an addict you are not always going to be an addict. I do believe to get better you must live a more holistic lifestyle. And for some, that does mean remaining sober indefinitely. Addiction is simply a way of showing us there is a problem that needs to be dealt with or you will die.

Maybe, it’s the reading of 2012 by Daniel Pinchbeck that is reawakening those memories and you know what? I’m glad because now they seem fresh and perhaps today I can make sense of them as my mind is clear, and life is good. For too long I discounted those experiences as trivial and felt bad that I had traveled into the depths of my soul using substances (other than sedatives) to enlighten and open up channels that did exist in reality when I was a child. And I sometimes think, that Attention Deficit Disorder is a result of those perceptions being systematically taught out of us by society.

This year, as I settle into my home I’m finding memories are surfacing of those years; many good and some pretty awful ones to. I’m simply accepting them for what they are and digging out the artwork that was created during that time, for in it holds the key to moving on, letting go and growing once more.

I created 11 by 14 inch prints of this illustration and they are available on HangsaLittleLeft… my darker art shop… muahahahahaha!

It’s been a while since I introduced a new fish to the family. I finished drawing this male fish last weekend and was stumped at what to name him. Later that day, I was thinking about a friend of mine while out walking and the fish just suited his personae. So, without further adieu… I present Christopher the Fish. Isn’t he darling!

He measures 5×7 inches (12,7cm by 17,8cm) and was created with india ink and opaque white ink on grey Ingris paper.

You can buy Christopher and hang him on your wall!

By the way, Christopher writes at The Urban Sherpa and also will be launching the first edition of 3 Blind Elephants, a new media literary journal in December. He is accpepting submissions until October 31st for the first issue.

Yaelfran from Argentina contacted me in late August to ask if I’d be interested in submitting a drawing to the We Are… series of colouring books she produces monthly. Of course I said yes! What artist doesn’t love illustrating for children! And to quote the listing:

I can’t tell you how exited I am about this wonderful project.
“WE ARE…” is a monthly publication, that showcases Etsy’s artists illustrations in black for you to paint or just to keep as they are.

Every month we will featuring a group of 15 illustrators who will showcase their interpretation of a different theme. There will be also SPECIAL EDITIONS, like HALLOWEEN or CHRISTMAS ones.

This publication is printed on 250 gr paper, with a professional printer. It’s size is 4 x 6 inches closed. A very sweet size that gives you the possibility to take it with you in your bag, wallet, pocket, etc.

You can also separate the pages (by trimming them carefully) and have different and gorgeous postcards!!!!!

And below is the drawing I submitted to We Are Healthy of raindrops falling on a flower and a vine helping them both grow healthy.

Etsy Artists in this edition:

Pepperminte
Apak
Ohmycavalier
Heidiburton
Matilou
Kathannah
Marmeecraft
Geninne
Erindollar
Juliapott
Hisss
LittleRobot
JessicaDoyle
TheDreamyGiraffe
SuspectShoppe
eekdesign

You can buy the colouring book in Yaelfran’s Etsy shop.

ENJOY!

Title – Infinessence
Artist – Jessica Doyle
Medium – Drawn with Faber Castel india ink on vintage wallpaper I salvaged from my home
Size – 8×8 inches (20,3cm by 20,3cm).
Date of creation – September 2009

I couldn’t bare to throw out all the wallpaper we took off the walls. Much of it came off in large sheets; big enough to draw upon. I rolled it up, bagged it and saved it. The bottom most layer of wallpaper dates back to Circa 1920.

The Original is listed.

Title – Connected
Artist – Jessica Doyle
Medium – Drawn with Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen on Ingris paper
Size – 8×8 inches (20,3cm by 20,3cm).
Date of creation – September 2009.

The original is for sale on HangsaLittleLeft.

Earlier this week I finished designing my first ever calendar featuring twelve of my most popular prints. It looks lovely hanging on the wall or sitting against a window or on a shelf.

This fourteen page twelve month calendar features a different illustration for each month, including the Sassy Sea Urchin and the Four Seasons which mark the change of each season. It was designed and illustrated by me, Jessica Doyle.

I printed each calendar page using archival Epson Ultrachrome ink on premium matte paper, meaning it will last a lifetime. The pages including a front and back cover are bound together with a sheer nylon ribbon here in my studio located in Saint John, NB, Canada. The pages are 4.25 by 11 inches (10,8cm by 28cm)

Best of all… because of the way I designed this calendar, the reproductions can easily be trimmed for matting and framing afterwords. And it makes a wonderful gift.

It’s available on Artfire and on Etsy.

… Zulaika Alvarez!

I’ll be packaging Set It Free over the next couple of days and shipping it out to you by the weekend. I hope you enjoy the print!

Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts on what you would like set free with me. They made me smile in knowing that we are not all that different, in that we do share many common worries, fears and hopes for today, the past and our futures.

xo

Comments are now closed…
I’ll be announcing the winner on Tuesday! xoxo

To enter this giveaway, simply tell me what you want set free
To grab the free download, navigate this way
To win the prize, be the lucky one drawn

Thanks!

Oh… and the prize… number 1/40 limited edition 11×14 inch print of Set It Free valued at $42. It will be numbered, titled and signed on the front and arrive with a certificate of authenticity.

You can enter as many times as you like BUT you need to tell me something else that you want set free each time that you leave a comment below. It could be your soul, for a loved one who is sick to be better or a wish for that dream you had to come true.

You can download the print your own 8.5×11 inch PDF of Set It Free as many times as you like BUT it’s only for personal use (the full copyright policy is in the download).

This giveaway closes on September 21, 2009 and is open to all residents of earth. Winner will be announced on September 22, 2009.

PS – if you like this post consider tweeting, blogging or facebooking about it or subscribe to my feed for free updates delivered to your favorite reader or email inbox. xo

Many anniversaries precariously show their face to me during this time of year when summer begins to end and everything alive turns crunchy beneath your feet as it withers and dies.

What am I trying to say? August 26, 2009 passed just as any other day yet it did mark four years sobriety and it was nine years ago that day that I moved out and left my ex-husband. September 5, 2009 still looms in the near future and with it comes the painful memory of my appendix rotting and doctors telling me there was no sign of Crohn’s and that it was just a bad case of gangrenous appendicitis. Right! Three weeks later in 1997 I was having 11 inches of bowel removed and weighed a ghastly 98 pounds. Sorry, but you doctors at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Halifax should never have sent me home to Fredericton. I wasn’t even eating solid food eight days post-op after you silly doctors cut and stapled my abdomen crooked.

If I had remained a wife, September 5th, would’ve marked my eleventh wedding anniversary.

Today… today…
I, saw him again
Today
Today…

So what do you do when memories cloud your judgment? I turned inwards and let it ride and grew some purple skinned potatoes with my mom.

More than ever we as human beings need more peace and tranquility in our lives. This isn’t to say that excitement and even struggle are not a part of it, yet there comes a time when we must move on and change our lives for the better, even when it hurts.

I feel optimistic that the hard work I’m doing will create a more fulfilling life both spiritually and financially. For too long I relied on a second income and help from a spouse only to leave one and be left by the other. I guess that evens me out. And I do hope to meet the right person someday as it does get lonely.

Very recently, I broke up with man whom I’d been dating on and off for close to eight years when we were both single. I fell in love with him. And after talking with a close friend the other night who suggested that maybe I was lusting after and not loving this man; did I realize the first to be true. She to, in turn is going through an extended break-up and I’m so grateful to have her to talk to for where I live there isn’t many single women in their 30’s who don’t have kids, to talk to or single men that I click with for that matter.

So, I’m releasing hope into the world today.

And you may remember the original drawing of Hope in pastel hues of pink, blue and green…

I played with this drawing quite a bit in Adobe Photoshop to get her to a beautiful yellow ocher colour. I’m pleased with how she turned out. Hope is a limited Edition. There will ONLY be 40 printed. You can get her in the shop.

The best intentions to write this post yesterday withered as the day progressed, and sleepiness combined with the inability to concentrate swept over me. The excitement of winning first place and having three room rental tenants move into my house on the same day was slightly overwhelming.

I slept for 10 hours last night.

Thank you to everyone who voted for the Sassy Sea Urchin; all 299 of you! And congrats to all the other finalists. A record breaking number of people turned out to vote in Etsy’s What Would You Hang on Your Wall Contest as reported in the Storque article featuring my artwork!

Special Offer – Mention this blog post in the message to seller upon check-out and you’ll get 15% off your total purchase (excluding shipping costs) from me. If you’ve been eying an original artwork or box this would be the time to purchase it. The 15% off will be refunded via Paypal after you have paid. This offer expires on August 25, 2009.

You know how you move into a new home and you’ve got no clue what was planted or not planted, will grow or not grow, is a weed or not a weed; with the latter being the most important question.

So, I just let it all grow this summer to see what popped up.

Well, this lovely lily opened yesterday along the foundation facing north in the front yard. It really is that fuchsia and vibrant in colour!

Amazing! And it’s amazing that everything surrounding it, is sadly, weeds.

You might also like the backyard blossom…

Well, it looks like the Sassy Sea Urchin was nominated into the What Would You Hang on Your Wall Contest on Etsy. Yay! Thanks so much DailyThreads for nominating me and congratulations on winning the previous A Notebook for All Seasons contest.

And thank you to Lorrie, a good friend of mine for initially letting me know about this whole thing by posting the contest on my facebook wall this morning… I had no idea!

Please do go vote for me

If I win, my art will be featured in the Members Choice Gift Guide on Etsy. The Gift Guides are prime real estate and if you are lucky and talented enough to be featured in one; it’s akin to winning a small lottery and could certainly do much in helping my art sales. And that my friends is what feeds, clothes, pays the vet bills and allows me to continue creating; in essence to do my job and not go insane and cut off my ear like van Gogh did.

If you are not a member of Etsy… do sign up so that you can vote within the next six days. Both my cat and I agree, this, is a good thing!

Twelve year old Missy Two Shoes was viciously attacked last weekend. She is none to happy about losing the ability to blink her right eye after receiving a direct puncture wound to the head between her right side ear and eye.

The carnage ensued on the backyard deck. I heard the mishap and ran to the rescue of my kitty cat. MEOW! I clapped my hands in fright and screamed in delight when the multi-coloured striped feline assailant fled from sight! Poor Missy Two Shoes would not let me come near, content to perch wide eyed atop of the railing. Now, let me tell you this…

I phoned my Mom and Dad to see about borrowing a car and they drove down as they live but a few blocks away. I comforted Missy while Mom spoke on the phone leaving my number with the answering service for the next *on call vet to return our call. I then noticed the mountains of ghastly fluff all over the deck and sadly it was mostly poor Missy Two Shoes’ grey fur. She wasn’t blinking her right eyelid but her third eyelid sure was. I carried her inside to inspect the rest of her body.

She suffered major scratching to her belly and side and a few other minor dispersed scratches.

The vet called back shortly; saying to wash the wounds with warm soapy water and trim any fur from around it to avoid infection and to bring her in on Tuesday as it was a long weekend here in New Brunswick. I could have brought her in that night however her wounds were not life threatening and she was eating, drinking and purring albeit not quite herself.

I washed her wounds and the puncture began bleeding just, a little bit. The next day the puncture wound had scabbed over and beneath the scab a good sized boil had formed. I washed the wound again gently removing the scab to drain the puss and boy did it ooze olive green!

At the vet on Tuesday afternoon he checked her over, gave her a shot of slow release antibiotics and fed her some minuscule little white pills to aid in repairing the nerve damage above her eye. He said she looked good weighing in at 14lbs! She’s a big kitty! I always find it funny that Missy will not walk into her carrier without being tricked into it. And then at the vet when you take her out she damn well wants back in that carrier immediately.

Power Pus!

During the last week I’ve been cleaning that scabbed over for the second time wound all the while watching the furless bump grow into a small grape, and being unable to remove the scab to drain it without hurting her, I just left it in place until it would come off on it’s own.

Well, last night, I sat her on the kitchen table to clean the wound and lightly touched the scab and it blew off into outerspace followed by a green brownish slime landing plop on the floor. Power Pus! I cried “OMG your brains are leaking out of your head!” She sat unable to move, mesmerized likely by the stench of the goo trailing down the side of her furry face. I said “Don’t you run away!” Hoping her amazement would last another 5 seconds until I raced back to her from the sink with a damp cloth to clean her and then the floor up.

Was she ever angry as the realization set in that her brains blew out all over and down the right side of her face. I was thankful she couldn’t blink that right eye for a mere moment as goo was hanging on to her eyelashes. Then the blood came. I didn’t even squeeze or scratch it… it just oozed on it’s own. She wiggled away from me running upstairs to the bedrooms. I ran behind her hoping she’d enter my room and not one of the rental bedrooms, with another wet cloth in hand.

The Happy Ending

She is beginning to move her eyelid (now that pressure is gone) and the wound, albeit bald and covered in dried blood has not turned into another pustule. She’s a happy kitty!

* living in a smaller city means there is no 24 hour drop-in vet clinic

The cat illustration entitled The Ball is Under Controlwas created by me and is available in my art shop

Update – This box has since sold! Thank you! Other one of a kind boxes are available in this section of my shop.

I painted this box to go with a series of three paintings, I finished in late 2008, entitled The Nameless Ones.

This Nameless One’s box has to be my most viewed and most favorited listing on Etsy. It’s been viewed close to 4000 times. And I do wonder why it hasn’t sold yet. I even did a kick-ass job with the photography as it’s graced the front page of Etsy numerous times which could indeed account for some of it’s high view numbers.

It is hand painted by me, with India ink and the finest artist quality acrylic. This box has been gessoed, sanded and varnished three times for durability.

Box Dimensions – 2 11/16 by 2 5/8 inches or 68mm by 66mm

If you buy this box and mention this blog post in the message to seller upon checkout I will ship one, 5×5 inch print, from the Nameless One’s series, of your choice, with it. Happy Friday!

I drew her with Pilot G-tec C4 pens, Pilot Hi-tec C pens, Pilot opaque white ink, water and Prismacolor Verithin colored pencils on 8.5 by 11 inch (21,6cm by 27,9cm) smooth white paper.

I should add that this illustration was inspired by Christopher Dewan of The Urban Sherpa. He’s beginning an online literary magazine called 3 Blind Elephants and is accepting submissions.

8×10 inch Archival prints of Martha the Elephant are available for purchase in the shop.

A Midsummer Sale – Buy 2 get 1 Free

Choose from over 100 Open Edition prints and ACEO mini prints from the top two SALE sections of my shop. All $5, $12 and $20 prints are included in the sale.

Simply write your free choice (of equal or lesser value to the lowest priced item within your cart) in the message to seller upon check-out.

My art makes the perfect wedding, birthday or anniversary gift and kids love my fish prints. Or decorate your own home with it. 8 x10 inch Matting and backing is also available for all 5×7 inch prints making them easy to frame.

This sale runs until August 15th, 2009.

xo

In the kitchen we cut both the upper and lower cupboards to fit the new fridge in place. Doing this decreased my counter space considerably as the opposite side of the kitchen houses a vintage Youngstown Kitchen by Mullino double sink.

Underneath the sink and inside the bottom cupboards there was a piece of vinyl flooring laid down in an attempt to hide the problem and the plumbing was completely disconnected from the right side drain while the left side drain was rotting out. Dad and I replaced them both. And I ripped up the gross vinyl only to be met with the most ghastly smell of putrid slime. I did, honestly almost puke. I poured bleach and began scrubbing. The entire unit, including the cupboards, doors and drawers, is metal. Now that it is clean and disinfected, it just needs a small spraying of Tremclad paint inside.

I’m still searching for proper drapes or maybe wooden blinds to hang in the two kitchen windows as I put most of my effort into covering the bedrooms, bathroom and living room windows. For now, the lime green $2 tab top drapes will do.

To compensate for the lack of counter space I bought an island for $100 used. From the same lady, I also purchased a love seat sofa bed for $100. She was fantastic. While in her home, I asked if she had other items she was selling for she was moving. She gave me for free; three floor lamps, a solid wood desk, ikea shelving, a stainless steel kitchen garbage can and a little colour TV with stand.

Every time I went to someone’s house to look at furniture I always asked if they had other items for sale. And they would always ask what I was looking for and I’d pull out my shopping list. More times than once, they did have other items that I needed.

The kitchen table with four chairs had belonged to my Grandmother and the antique dry sink underneath the window had belonged to my Great Uncle George. Most, if not all my dishes I purchased at garage sales over the years; an assortment of oranges, turquoises, navy’s and brown’s in pirex and stonewear. I did buy new Henkel knives and already had all the cuttlery, pots and pans I needed from previously being married.

The bathroom wasn’t as involved in updating. It had been gyproced and a new bathtub, toilet and pedestal sink were installed in recent years. However, they wallpapered the gyproc and sealed the bathroom with gooey clear silicone which had yellowed. I peeled the wallpaper off, Dad crack filled then primed it and I painted a light semi-gloss taupe colour on the walls. Dad re-caulked after I painted. And while out *garage-saling a couple of weeks ago I purchased a five piece set (still in the box) of stainless steel bathroom bars and hangers for $8. I did buy a new light fixture for $40 as the previous one was brass in colour and just too Victorian frilly looking.

And Zellers sells these fantastic curved shower curtain rods for $20. They give you elbow room! No more hitting the shower curtain while washing your hair.

*garage saling – sometimes referred to as yard saling, this phenomena occurs every weekend, people load into cars and travel around buying other people’s trash and discarded furniture

You can see the before and after shots of both the kitchen and bathroom on my Flickr. And I’ve secretly started a Buy 2 Get 1 Free Sale… more details coming soon…

In between unpacking boxes and creating order from chaos in my home I’ve found the time to doodle more than once in this little burgundy linen covered sketchbook with my favorite pens; Pilot G-tec C4’s and Pilot Hi Tec C’s.

So yes, I’m breaking the silence and beginning to immerse myself into blogging again through posting this little 5×5 inch doodle.

I miss you guys! I’m back and will be sharing much more with you over the coming weeks including more doodle’s, a contest, a sale (to help me buy a new iMac before this laptop kicks the bucket causing me not to be able to share with you or work for that matter) and finished house pictures.

xo

Happy Canada Day everyone!

My art is featured on the fabulous Design Milk Blog. You can enter the giveaway and win!

From Jaime the owner of Design Milk:

Jessica Doyle is a fantastic artist who has generously offered items for giveaway to a lucky Design Milk reader. I have Day Dreams (pictured above) and Spring Tree along with some ACEO’s and mini cards. I will also be sending along a secret surprise with this giveaway!

To enter, please comment on this post.

Contest rules: 1 comment per person. Contest runs from June 29-July 3, 2009. We will choose a winner at random.

I began moving into today… I’ll be taking photos and updating my progress very soon.

xo

The dust doth fly when sanding old varnish off of hardwood floors.

I began writing this post on June 22, 2009…
Now that the wall painting is complete we began sanding the hardwood floors on the second floor of the house. I used the edger at 5 minute intervals. Every muscle in my body was hurting to keep that thing from flying away from me and into the freshly painted trim. I look like a man in these photos. Bahahaa! Note to self – post picture of me wearing a dress at a future date…

So you ask why paint walls and trim before refinishing the floors? Simple; it’s easy to touch up paint but not as easy to touch up hardwood floors. It’s easy to wipe paint drippings off of old floors and if you miss one it’s OK but it’s not easy to wipe paint cleanly off of newly finished hardwood floors. It’s also easy to vacuum trim after sanding hardwood and a pain in the ass to need to tape edges before painting and lay tarps down on newly refinished hardwood.

All in all we sanded three times using three different toothed sanding papers and laid down three coats of polyurethane on the floor with a light buffing in between the first and second coat of polyurethane. The wood lifts after the first coat so it’s a good idea to buff ‘em before varnishing on top again.

We are working on the main floor hardwood today. The studio, living room, sunroom and library all have have hardwood floors. Sadly the walls in all those rooms are plastered with wallpaper, however it’s in decent condition (unlike the upstairs) and whoever lived there previously painted on top of it! I am also flabbergasted at the mess of caulking around all the old original windows and trim in the studio, living room and sunroom. I didn’t notice this until we began working in those rooms yesterday.

And Dad spent a couple of hours removing cheap nailed in place weather stripping from all the outside doors. Couldn’t believe they nailed it in place. Each door now has a bazillion holes surrounding it’s edges. Don’t nail weather stripping. And don’t caulk yourself if you do not know how to do it. I’ll be taking a razor blade to the bathtub and toilet later this week to cleanly peel the caulking off of it. Whatever (cheap clear silicone) they slathered over the original caulking is akin to honeyed sticky glue that is brown and spreads when you you try to scrape it. A razor is the only thing that’ll take it off cleanly without damaging the enamel of both the tub and toilet.

4 days later…

The hardwood on the main floor is dry and can be walked on and the bathroom fixtures are scraped clean with a razor

The tale is being told in pictures on Flickr (70 pictures and counting) and in mighty fine tweets on Twitter. Hope you’ll join me!