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.

Orchids and Creepy Baby Angels

I went through and uploaded some pieces to my long-neglected DeviantArt account. There's a lot more that needs to go up there, too, but I thought I'd share what I got up there here, too. These are some resized versions to fit nicely in the blog, but there's links to the individual deviations as well if you'd like to see them  larger. Everything interesting after the jump!

Quit Your Day Job.

I know things haven't been very active around here lately, but I've been kind of busy breaking my back for peanuts. I finally worked up the nerve to quit one of my two regular jobs, and have resolved to be more productive and more active online, and am in the process of putting together a little website as a hub to unite all my disparate little pages.

I've never had to quit a job--I've been seasonal help, I've been laid off, and I was fired once, but this is the first time I've ever had to submit a formal two weeks' notice and all. It was kind of weird. Anyone have a good quitting story?

(The melonheads prints turned out nice, by the way. Pic and link after the jump.)

Back!

I'm back. Sort of. The Etsy shop was updated today with a new card and get this--I did some adjustments and am now offering FREE domestic shipping on just about everything in the store, and even better FREE WORLDWIDE shipping on all prints, cards and stickers! How awesome is that?

Following a couple of new blogs as well, and I'm going to play catch-up on reading! (I've worked about two weeks without a day off, my new place is still a wreck and something in my car is making an awful noise, bear with me here.)

Movin' On Up, and a Question About YouTube

Just FYI, I'm losing my mind this week trying to move and balance both workplaces. Packing up my art materials is always the hardest part, because I know the minute I tape up the box is the minute before I'll have an idea. The great thing about the new place is that I'll finally have a space dedicated to being studio space; a nice finished basement where I'll have space and no television or video games to distract me, so here's hoping that I'll be more productive as a result.

It's a silly question, but I was playing around with the video function on my camera the other day. I know a lot of artists have livestream channels where they invite people to come and watch them paint or draw. I don't really have a webcam, but how interested would anybody be in art and crafting video tutorials? I know YouTube is inundated with that sort of thing, but honestly I've seen several that aren't done particularly well, or they are, but pretty obviously aimed at the stay at home scrapbooking mom/grandma type. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I often have a different perspective and background than a lot of the people I see presenting these things, so I feel like it might be more interesting and more engaging for people who tend to veer away from demographic--applying these sorts of techniques to alt fashion accessories or to modeling for tabletop gaming, even if it's just a change in the aesthetics and the subject matter, or directing and reviewing resources like books, websites and retailers. Hell, I'll do bits on whatever it is people suggest. I just keep finding more to do when I've already stretched myself thin!

Anyway, I look forward to reading your opinions and catching up on everyone's blogs sometime next week!

In Which a Lesson is Learned

So, I finished carving the melon heads yesterday, and I went to do a test stamp. I pulled up the carving, and there was only a very faint ghost of ink on the paper, and the stamp itself was still black. So, the regular, super-tough battleship grey lineoleum? Not great for stamp carving, as it turns out. I should have done it on a medium with more "squish," but the other linoblocks I have are soft to the point where I didn't feel comfortable leaving it out to be stamped with over and over again, afraid that it would break down or tear pretty quickly. On top of that, the lineoleum seemed to suck up the oil-based ink. I tried cleaning it afterwards and it doesn't want to budge. Rather than go to my linocutting supplies or the admittedly small circular plastic-y stamp blanks I have, I'm going to get a hold of some of Speedball's SpeedyCarve material, which comes highly recommended by other stamp carvers.

You can take a look at the (mostly) finished product after the jump. I may yet do some fiddling and clean out some of the undercutting.