Giraffes

A few weeks ago our Neighborhood had a garage sale. We did not have anything to sell but our neighbor suggested that Maesyn sell Cinnamon rolls again. So we set up our station. Maesyn and Jake had their little chairs and they sat ready. Our neighbor offered some stuffed animal to Maesyn and Jake. I had to tell her "No" because we arready have a tote and 2 baskets full. She insisted and we ended up with a small bag of suffed animals. (ase well as 2 sun hats a back pack a little purse and some mini ballet shoes stuffed with potporui- she did this while during Nate's watch- she knew I would say "NO" again- we have too much stuff-junk-). At any rate... At one point during the morning Jake lost his new giraffe and Maesyn made this poster.
Unfortunalty I wrote a phone number on it.
She is so good at Giraffes that I have been asking her to draw more and more.

More of Maesyn's Fab Artwork!!

Maesyn was sitting in her little rocking chair while Jake and I watched a movie. She was busy drawing this wonderful picture. She was so excited about the flowers that she drew. She said they look like the ones that we have. She also told me that the last one is a leaf flower. I suggested that she color it so that Dad could hang it in his office. She went right to work. Notice how each petal is a differnt color?
Then Jake brought all of the crayons into the living room and dumped them on the floor so his doggie could sit in the box.
I love her artwork. I need to make a scrapbook of JUST MAESYN's ART. I'm sure I'll have one of all of my kids work.

Bathroom Art

I hope Laura does not mind, but I wanted to share this cool piece. Silhouettes are very popular in decorating at the moment and this is a very classy piece, if you ask me. I cannot wait to hang it in my bathroom.

Fridge Art By Maesyn

When Maesyn showed me an amazing drawing while I was in the bath this afternoon
(that's right, I did not get around to bathing until after lunch)
I asked her to hang it on the fridge with some magnets from the front door.

When I got out of the bath I saw this:
The drawing is of the condos that we stay in when we go to Mexico.
When ever she does work that she wants to give away or surprise someone with she will fold it over and over again- thus the creases.

Tea Pots

Don't you wish your kids were in my clay class?
Check out this site.

Call to all Artists and Crafters

I just e-mailed a letter to some of my friends requesting art. However, I realized that I don't have the e-mail addresses of all of my artsy fartsy friends and some of you might have some hidden talent that I do not know about. So I am extending this request to all of my friends and strangers out there in the blogospher that might look upon this post.

Here it is:

I have a request. I am a little stumped with bathroom decor beyond mirrors, shelves with bottles of pretty soaps and baskets. The one thing that I really like are toilet pictures, drawings and paintings. I have been doing toilet drawings and paintings for years and have given them as gifts on occasion. I'd like to have more than just my own art in my bathrooms now. Currently I have some watercolors of toilets in one bathroom and the other has a picture of me nude at the toilet (don't get excited ya'll...i was 18 months old) with toilet paper everywhere because I was toilet training. The picture is from 1980- so it is square cut with round edges. At any rate.. I would love to acquire some more toilet art... so I'd love to commission all of you- if you have time- to make me some toilet art. PLEASE. I will pay you back with my own prints that are in my Etsy shop- just tell me what you want. You can decide on what your work is worth and tell me the appropriate trade. Let me know if you have any interest. all types of 2d art will be greatly loved.

Oh, and the first one to post a comment saying that they are in gets to pick an additional card from my shop!!!

Letters and Drawings By Maesyn

My good friend and Artist,Vincent Fritz, suggested that I post more of Maesyn's drawings or even give her a drawing blog.
I am not so great at keeping up my clay class blog, so I decided to post her work in our family blog where I am always posting new things.

did you notice the pause in my typing just then? Mr. Bo Jakles (aka Jakie brother) just came in to request "giant peach" and gave me some gratuitous neck luvin', cheek blows and kisses. Then he jumped on me for a while and kissed me some more.
So here are some of her latest drawings. Feel free to click to in large and please look forward to more of these in the future.

Maesyn. Have you ever met a man called Miro?

Maesyn loves to sit and draw and write in her many notebooks.

Today she drew this:
Maesyn, Beautiful Master (she titled it herself), 2009

And it made me think of this:
Miro, Woman, 1976
Well, not this exact painting.
But when I saw her art I did think: "Miro"

Handmade Christmas

A handmade Christmas should start around July, not November. Here are some of my nativities. I had 6 people on my list that I wanted to make the standing nativities for. I made 2 extra big ones and 3 smaller ones and several nativity tiles- but when you work with clay you have to expect surprises. Here is a sample of my work. I was so rushed that I forgot to take pictures before i gave them all away. Hopefully i won't be too excited to give the rest away and can get Sarah over to do a photo session of them.
I plan on making these until each family member has one- and when I get them again I will begin making the additional figure- or make them dish sets if I have a wheel- what ever they want.
Nativity Tile. (Sorry, blurry) Terra cotta clay with celedon glaze (first glaze fire) and then black wash (second glaze fire) .

Earthenware nativity with iron saturate wash. Love it
nate thought it would be good to have a dark backdrop- so they held up jake's jeans.

Here is my experience this year. Much is to be learned about this stuff.

• One nativities broke too much to be recovered while being driven to the kiln at my Mother's house. The Joseph is still in tact and can be used in another nativity.
• Next time I need to transport them while still leather hard and not brittle- or better yet..GET MY OWN HOUSE WITH KILN SPACE!!!!
  
• One whole nativity has been glazed 2 times and is still ugly. It will be glazed again in the next firring.
• Did not make a baby Jesus for one of my smaller nativities (not pictured)
• Broke the 2 other babies for the 2 other small nativities while loading the kiln
• One small nativity lost a mustache- i think i need to toss that Joseph- but not until i make a replacement.
  
• put an ugly celedon glaze on 2 of the nativities. One is a larger one that no one took- both will be re glazed.
• Need to make a custom nativity including elements of other nativities minus the ugly celedon glaze for one family member (happily- i want them to love it and i like making them)
• need to make another Mary for a nativity that crashed to the tile floor after being opened on Christmas Day.
  
• need to make one more nativity for my sister in law that gave me an i-pod- after realizing how much they cost i told her i'd pay her back with pottery- she can pick exactly what she wants.
  
• Made some ugly nativity tiles. I won't make them again, just the pretty ones shown

Things I have learned:

• Start earlier much much earlier.

I plan to sell these on my etsy shop and at Bohemia in Tuscon. But if they are to be priced the same as my other pieces the larger nativities will be around $100. So I think I'll make a few of those and then a lot of Tiles. I think they can be around $15 or so and then I'll make some smaller nativities that are not so labor intensive and sell them for less than $50. (umm...there is a family/friend discount- very generous discount for those who have been asking about buying nativities).

Etsy shop now open

I've had a goal for a few weeks to open my Etsy Shop. When I finally had the time I came down with a cold. I went to bed at 8pm last night. This morning I decided i'd print away- cold and all. So between drinking air born, and gypsy cold care tea and sucking ricola... i was able to do this.
Rolling ink on the lino- my hair is air drying- it is not greasy... maesyn took this pict.

arrange work on the table to dry while jakie brother ate some butter bread
a few of the dragonfly cards
maeysn wanted to help so much, so nate had her stuff the envelopes
some of the finished work.

here is where you can find my stuff.