I painted this while listening to the rest of the S Town podcast yesterday. 

If you haven't listened to it yet, I highly recommend you do so. It takes a couple of different turns during the 7 episode story. I thought it was going to go in one direction, then another, and ultimately it goes on to something that I wasn't expecting.

It's a great story. Heartbreaking and funny and just a little odd. If you're like me, and live in a relative bubble, this will be a bit eye opening. How people in the rural south live and interact with one another. 

It's a little addictive, hence the whole painting in a day. So once you sit down to listen to it you'll want to listen to another and another. I suggest putting a whole day aside for it. Seriously.

The new painting is now available in my Etsy shop too! 

Thanks to everyone who participated in my Etsy Anniversary Sale! It was a success! 

My next sale won't be until Thanksgiving weekend so mark your calendars!

This was my booth last year. Look at all that grid wall! 

I'm almost done getting ready for this show. I hope it's as successful as it was last year.

Fingers crossed.

I designed new business cards a couple of weeks ago and they came just in time for this show. I finally joined the rest of 2016 and added some of my social media sites to my card. I'm really happy with how they turned out. I love the image on the front. It makes me happy every time I see it. Chloe and Clancy forever. :)

Anyway, more show prep today and some Etsy orders to pack up. Hope everyone is having a good week.

I really hate when my body is in pain. It's been a struggle for me to do work this week because my back has been hurting me. I went to the doctor on Wednesday and she suggested a chiropractor if it doesn't get better. I'm going to wait another week in hopes that it improves. It's so frustrating, not to mention, uncomfortable. 

Hopefully it goes away soon. I really want to get into my garage and paint. I also want to be able to take Chloe for long walks and go running again. I feel like my body is failing me. I can't do the things I like doing and it's bumming me out.  

Anyway, I've been adding a couple of old prints back to my shop! The Hive and The Wait are back up. Not sure how long they'll stick around, but it's kind of fun reintroducing prints back into my Etsy shop!

My Etsyversary is in a few weeks! I've been selling on Etsy for nearly 9 years. That's so crazy to me. Thinking back on how much Etsy has changed has kind of blown my mind too. I was updating tags and titles for SEO on the two prints I relisted and was amazed at how I only had two tags for them. I used to sell a lot of art on Etsy and I can't believe I only had two or three tags for my old listings. Now it's necessary to use all tags as well as use as many keywords as possible in the title. 

Anyway, look for a big sale announcement coming soon to celebrate my 9th year selling on Etsy. Hope your Monday is going well so far!

New print in my Etsy shop! I thought that Mother's Day card would make such a nice print, so I made one and it's now available in my Etsy shop!

It was absolutely beautiful in Portland yesterday. I spent some time outside working in the yard and playing with Chloe. She loves the sunshine and savors every opportunity she has for a good lay about in it.

We did watch the Super Bowl too. Nate and I actually won a super bowl party at our neighborhood bar in a raffle. We don't really like football but it was still fun to invite some of our friends to the bar to watch the game and the commercials on a big screen. I wasn't even really paying attention to most of the game until the half time show, and I only really watched that because Beyonce was in it! And she's going on a world tour! What?! She's not playing Portland, unfortunately... I've already looked into it. 

Maybe one day she'll come here... Oh well :) Happy Monday, peeps. Hope it's a good week.

There's a new print in my Etsy shop! Yay! I drew this illustration of Chloe and my friend's cat, Clancy. Clancy has been one of the only cats who really tolerates Chloe. Although, not at the level that's featured in this print... I wanted to create an illustration that pictured Chloe's dream come true of having a cat friend. She just looks so happy. It's hard for me not to just love this picture.

I'll be making bigger prints and a card with this image on it.

I also adding this new greeting card to my card design lineup! I made a print of this years ago and I thought maybe this would make a better card than a print.

Hooray for new items! I'll be listing a couple more tomorrow too!

My first illustration of 2016! Portland's Steel Bridge. After almost 2 decades of living here, it still inspires me. I'll be making prints and postcards out of this image. 

As you can see my mind is drifting towards spring. The cherry blossoms blooming along the waterfront is one of the prettiest sites in the city. I'm still loving winter and the cold weather, especially after the hot summer we had, but I do enjoy some lovely spring temps too.

I'll post when the prints and the postcards of this bad boy are available in my Etsy shop! Today is my Friday, so I hope everyone has a great weekend!

<3

I'm thinking of discontinuing selling original illustrations in my shop and just focusing on greetings cards and prints. I would still be making originals, I just won't be listing them for sale in my Etsy shop. I think that it would help streamline my store. Of course, I would still have the originals on hand in case someone was interested in purchasing it.

When I started selling on Etsy, almost 9 years ago (!!!) I only sold originals. They sold really well for me! My buyers kept asking about prints so I slowly started making and selling them in my shop. Now I mostly sell prints of my originals and I rarely sell the real deal.

I think that by limiting the amount of originals I have for sale will help streamline my shop and make it a little more cohesive. By streamlining my items I'm hoping that it will be helpful for people shopping in my store. Less distraction, less items to sort through, less questions they may have. All good things!

Last week I added a few new pieces to my shop!

These goats are now available as an 8x10" print as well as a blank greeting card.

I've been listening to a lot of Taylor Swift today. Say what you want about pop music, but it's hard to deny that her album 1989 is super catchy. I really like it. Give it a listen. I bet you'll find at least one song that you'll like. 

I've had a busy week packing orders and making new art for my Etsy shop.

More new pieces! I'm on a roll this week! 

The ol' Etsy shop is getting stocked up! I'll be having another Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale in a few weeks. It's one of the only sales I have all year. I'll be announcing it here as well as Facebook and Twitter, so stay tuned!

Thursday is my Friday so have a good weekend, friends! 

It's early morning and I'm sipping on a nice cup of coffee. Early start this morning because there's a lot to do today! First thing on my to-do list was listing these two new mini watercolor paintings.

I'm trying really hard to get my shop stocked full of original art for the holidays. I can't believe that Thanksgiving is 23 days away! Then Christmas will be here! It's all so overwhelming so I'm just focusing on making new items and getting them listed. 

I'm learning that not all these little freehand watercolor paintings are going to be successful. I was really luck when these four little ones turned out well. I've worked on several more that just didn't turn out so well...

Maybe I'll post them tomorrow to show. I feel like even if they're not that great, there are certain elements that will work in a different painting. 

Have a great Wednesday everyone! 

New things are happening in my Etsy shop today!

Hooray! 

I'm really liking these two new pieces. I'll be posting a couple more different pieces tomorrow.

In other news, it's been a little over a month since I've had any ankle pain! I've been running a couple of days a week, 3 slow miles. I'm hoping my Achilles are 100% better, and that I'm out of the woods. However, I know this injury is tricky and if I'm not careful, it can come back. So I'm just going really slow right now and trying not to over do it.

If there's one thing that this injury has taught me is that patience pays off. I stopped doing any physical activity for over a month. I just stretched and did my ankle strengthening exercises. Even though I felt like I was going to loose my mind, it paid off in the end.

The other thing that I'm taking away from this experience is that cross training and stretching are so important when you're a runner. Strengthening and stretching all your major muscle groups will make you a stronger runner and you'll be less prone to injury. Lesson learned!

Fingers crossed that my ankles continue to be awesome and pain free! 

Hope everyone had a great Halloween weekend! It poured buckets here in Portland. Many areas were actually flooded and we didn't get many trick or treaters. That's okay, more candy for us!

I wasn't really sure where to start today. I had a lot of ideas but just didn't seem to go through with any of them. So, instead I just found some little pieces of paper and decided to paint free hand. No sketching, no references, just going for it.

I like how they turned out! I'm thinking this is a new way for me to work. Sometimes I rely too much on sketching and reference pictures. I think it's good to get away from that and just go with my gut and memory.

I'll be posting some of these in my Etsy shop tomorrow!

I finished up these two cuties on Saturday. I'll be making some prints and a new card design with them. I think they're pretty cute!

I'm hoping to have prints of them by the end of the week!

I'm also slowly adding some new versions of some of my prints to my Etsy shop. These are giclee prints printed on canvas and stretched on stretcher bars.

They came out really nicely!

I'm not quite sure how many of these I'm going to make just yet. I think it depends on how well they sell. I feel like my Etsy shop has been in need of a somewhat new kind of product and I think this is a good direction. I think one of the most important things about running an Etsy shop, or any kind of business, is keeping things fresh with new products and designs. 

So, hopefully these sell really well and people really like them!

You made it! It's Friday! Whoohoo! Here are the things I've been working on this week.

First my friend Tony's portrait. 

This is the photo I'm working from. So far, I really like how it's turning out!

I also completed this raccoon watercolor painting a couple of days ago.

I'm trying to work on both my personal work as well as cute animal stuff for the big Crafty Wonderland Holiday show that's coming up in December. Lots of stuff going on. I'm excited and really enjoying the work I've been doing this week.

Hope it's a good weekend for everyone!