This weekend I FINALLY got around to doing some painting. I don’t know what it is, even though I am always thinking about art or writing it can be so hard for me to find the discipline to get my but in the chair and actually do art/writing. I really need to work on my discipline so that I do one or the other every day. On the bright side I am getting better, a few years ago I would go months between paintings/writing.

At any rate I was able to do some painting. I’m working on a picture gift for D, who knows it is coming but not what it is. It is especially important for me to get my but in chair as I am a month late in giving it to her. You can see some of the progress photos below. Sorry they aren’t better photos (the first one cropped part of the picture on the right), I didn’t have the time to take good ones. I am hoping to finish all the foreground flowers and their leaves by the end of the day today.

As for writing, I am still slowly chugging away at it. I finished the character sheet for one of my protagonists and am currently working on a character sheet for the leads best friend.

Open Studio, Writing & Stones

Wow, two weeks since my last blogging attempt - that is fairly pathetic. But since I promised myself, no pressure when I started this up again, I won’t worry about it. I have been busy though.

The last three weekends I have been doing Silicon Valley Open Studios. Open Studios is this very cool program where artists of all mediums open up their work spaces to the public. Its free too, you just have to pick up a map and choose which artists you want to see. Our open studies last for three weekends, with each weekend focusing on a different part of the Silicon Valley.

I saw so much cool stuff including this one lady, Carol Lois Haywood, who likes to paint boats. If you think you might be interested in visiting on open studios event, try googling for one in your area. A lot of places have them, but they are annual events so you may not have noticed them.

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On the writing front I have finally finished Sunne’s character sheet, Sunne is one of my protagonists. Now I am working on my main character’s best friend. I found the character sheets in the writing book, The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing. So far I’ve found the book to be really helpful – the character sheets have really made me think about my characters and their motivations. Now if I could just find the discipline to write every day – oh well, here’s to trying.

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Finally, here is one of my most recent painting, as requested by Ms. Carol Lois Haywood, a fellow artist. The painting is called Stones at Sunset and measures 12 1/8inches x 16 1/8inches. I entered this painting into my first art show at the Triton Museum in Santa Clara. It was a very cool experience that I hope to repeat some day.

The painting is not for sale, though I do have magnets of a crop of it that I am selling for $2.50 plus shipping. The magnets measure 2inches x 3.5inches. E-mail me if you are interested.

Logo and Signatures

So I’m trying to put together some kind of logo or signature for the back of my greeting cards, magnets and other items I want to sell. I haven’t had much luck. The logo needs to be something easy that I can stamp or stick on. Also, what I want the logo to be. Should I use my full name? Part of my name? Or make up a company name to use?

One option is a logo I created a while back, if I use that design I’ll still need to figure out a way to either turn it into a stamp or put it on a label. I don’t want to hand draw it, that would be a pain in the but!

All the labels I’ve found (and by label I’m talking about the address labels and such that you can print of a computer) aren’t the right size – meaning that at some point after printing I would have to cut them all to size before attaching them. This would be a BIG pain.

The other option I have come up with is turning the logo into a stamp. I know that you can buy stamps with your own design from Kinkos and other places. But I’m poor and that can get expensive. Lately I’ve been fooling around with the idea of making the stamp myself with some block printing supplies that a friend gave me. At first I didn’t think this was an option because of how fine I want the text to be.

But, after spending most of a Saturday fooling around, I finally came up with what you see left. Three stamp versions of my design. I don’t think any of them are perfect but I do think they could be. I just need more practice. You can also see some of the stamps that my stamps made below( I hope that made sense – just look at the pictures).

I’m still not sure this is what I want my final design to be, but have yet to come up with any other designs. Any suggestions?

Of course I could just do the easy thing and say Made by Julia with a web address. We’ll see.