The Mothman

A while back, I wanted ideas for a series of linocuts to carve, and horror won, and I feel as I never quite followed through on that, despite the huge "list of art ideas" hanging out on my phone. Above you'll see my initial sketch for the second of these, based on the story of the Mothman. If you'd like to purchase a hand-pulled print, they're available on Etsy. Here's a scan of one of the completed prints--the red paint I used as a background is really rich and transparent at the same time, and doesn't like to be scanned very well:

In September 2012, I actually went to the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, WV and had an absolute blast! Here's some photos from that particular adventure--by which time my Canon crapped out, so all of these are taken with an iPhone 4S, accompanied by the Olloclip in some cases. Under the jump!

That is not dead which can eternal lie...

...and with strange aeons, even death may die!

Wow. So it has been two years give or take a few days since I last posted to this blog, with much upheaval in my life. Our houseguests whose apartment building caught on fire were here much longer than intended, to the tune of a few weeks turning into a few months, and unfortunately there was a lot of unpleasantness about responsibilities, attitudes and money. Suffice it to say, I've been burnt and it will be a very long time indeed before I let my charitable nature get the better of me. The relationship they had broke down and they parted ways shortly after moving into a new place and both of them have since returned to their home states, and frankly I couldn't be happier about it.

In any event, that all got me pretty run down for a long time, very stressed and not in any kind of mood to do anything. It's long been since cleared up though, and I've been busy since I picked up a second job again. Today is a rare day off that my other half and I share, and so we're trying to pull together an outing, and I'm not sure where we'll go yet, but I'm excited to go.

In the meanwhile, here's some pretty stuff to look at. I made thank you cards for some guys at my main job who have been instrumental in my development and actually in getting the position I enjoy now. I thought they turned out pretty neat, and I tried to make each one relevant to the recipient. One loves talking about kayaking and fishing, one's a filmmaker, and one's got a great eclectic, hipstery personal style, and I hope that came across.

If you care about that sort of thing, here's the stuff I used to make them.

Fish and Paisley: Bo Bunny's Lakeside Retreat from the Trail Mix collection, the green paisley from The Paper Company's Classics, Tim Holtz's Distress Ink in Stormy Sky, the greeting is from a stamp set by KI Expressions.

Tattered Ticket: Base card from My Mind's Eye, paper from DCWV's Tattered Time collection, stamps from Inkadinkado's Vintange Expressions and Graphic 45's Le Cirque. I used Tsukineko's Memento ink in Tuxedo Black, some white VersaMagic and the fine strips down either side are Martha Stewart Embossing Powder in Antique Gold.

Cluttered Thank You: Base card from My Mind's Eye, paper from Echo Park's For the Record collection. The stamp is from a Martha Steward collection, stamped in Tim Holtz Distress Ink color Salty Ocean. The grey and yellow washi tape come from My Mind's Eye, and the blue and pink are actually from Target's store brand office supplies.

Curious Crow Interview + Comments

ETA: Idiorhythmic's Shop For all you lovely lolitas and alternative fashion lovers, there is a seller on Etsy who is trying to raise the funds to save her home and hopefully prevent an ugly custody battle. She's been in the dealer rooms of many conventions in the Midwest, so chances are you may have seen her work before! In any event, many of her waist cinchers and corsets have been marked down in price by $40-60 dollars, which is a great discount and a great chance to help someone in need. She also has a ton of cute and affordable wallets and bags, scarves and bustles!

(Now back to your post already in progress.)

I got a heads up from Butters at Super Shiny Jelly that folks were unable to comment on my blog. Changed the layout from a third party back to a native Blogger skin, so give me a shout out if you can so I know it's working!

I recently had my interview with the Curious Crow, and I worked like mad to get everything moved over to the new shop for it. I also had several relatives and friends that gamely volunteered to model for jewelry pieces. Honestly, I think my shop is looking better than ever--my inventory is at an all time high, my photography skills have improved dramatically, and just having a better camera helps, too. I even finished a new collage/multimedia piece that I'm very pleased with. It's a portrait of Ada Lovelace, which you can see after the jump. There are some detail shots on the Etsy listing too, so you can read more of the text and see the glitter and gold shimmer.

Suddenly, cats. Thousands of them.

The new DA and the new Etsy page are now officially up and running. There's a few items left in my old mpatrick shop on Etsy, but I have most of my expired listings redrafted and ready to go on Tencrowns.

In other news, the chaos that swirls around my life has struck again--a couple that I'm friends with had their apartment building catch fire the other day. They're staying with us until they can get the deposit money saved up for a new place, having brought along their two cats and a kitten that was found in an unoccupied unit of their building. (The firefighters asked them if they knew who it belonged to, and they weren't sure, so they took him anyway.) So there are currently four cats at home alone with me as I am trying to work and they would all like my attention. On the whole though, I think it's a positive change--they only had smoke damage, so their stuff was safe though smelly, and they'd had a number of bad experiences with both their neighbors and the management. I'll be very happy to see them in a safer neighborhood.

Bad and Good

Lots to talk about that has kept me generally away from the internet: there was a stroke in the family, things are not looking good. The car I had for two months blew something in the engine, and apparently the same engine is used in some little racecar, so used parts are in high demand and hard to come by. My roadside assistance left me sitting on the side of a highway for a little over five hours--naturally this caused me to miss a whole day of work--because the first vendor they sent couldn't find me and didn't bother to call to clarify my location, and another one had a shift change of some kind and never even entered my order into their system, so I didn't know that nobody was coming for me until the hour and half timeframe they were supposed to show up in had passed. It was nothing short of magical. I then got to spend my two days off from the day job in which I should have been working on art kicking tires.

On the plus side, I now own the nicest car I've ever had, and got a good deal on it. It's a bit of a mom-mobile, and a bit more boatlike than I am used to driving, but everything in it actually works and the body's in good condition, which is something I've never had before.

I have an interview with the Curious Crow in a couple of weeks! I have a series of six stamps to plant, with one left to carve! I also now have my own YouTube channel. After screwing around with Windows Movie Maker for a bit, I cobbled together some brief footage of our trip to Indian Run back in June. Some constructive criticism would be much appreciated. (PS, there's links hidden in there.)

Cornhenge and Indian Run Falls

 If you live in Central Ohio, chances are you probably know the exact place I am talking about when you read the word "cornhenge," even though that isn't its actual name. (It's actually Field of Corn.) I sure as heck knew where it was, as I have probably driven past this weird art installation/monument a thousand times in my life. For those of you lucky enough to not be stuck in Ohio, I took some photos both of the Field of Corn installation and the scenic nearby Indian Run Falls, which I had no idea existed. I thought the sights of these two were pretty cool, but we also picked up Spirit Stone Frog's "Haunted Heather Glen," CrazyGirlz's "Happy St. Patrick's Day" at another Dublin landmark, and jeeves' "Go! Fight! Win!" Photos after the jump!

Here's a shark.

Not much to say at the moment except that I have a miraculous day off this weekend, and plan to do some treasure hunting! I'm also in the process of consolidating my various little webpages under a single name so that it's less confusing.