swallowfield

old school and lemming jam

this week has been a blur in the best way. the kids have been at an awesome arts camp all week and have been weaving and cartooning and making 3-D constructions. love that! we did some strawberry picking with friends earlier this week and brought home a ton - since then there's been strawberries on cereal, strawberry pie, and strawberry jam. have you seen all of the different recipes around blogland? i couldn't resist. and a bunch of strawberries went into the freezer for when we can't remember what the sweet and juicy real ones taste like.

i also finished up my piece for the old school show at uppercase gallery, and i'm liking how it came out. 

i think more stuff happened in there too, but who knows. i'm looking forward to a weekend of planting and cleaning around here. enjoy your weekend!

i survived renegade '08

we're back! and i have to admit that i feel sort of overwhelmed thinking about how to write about what we experienced this weekend.

when we got to brooklyn on friday evening i was feeling calm, optimistic, happy and organized. we stayed with good friends and had a nice evening of wine and thai food after the kids all tucked in for the night. their brownstone in brooklyn is lovely and homey and makes me dream of living in the city, someday, in a house like theirs.

saturday morning was a blur of getting there, set up and busy-busy-busy, then the fair was hot and bustling. really, really hot. friends visited, sales were steady and great. i was so happy to meet julia rothman and grace from design*sponge when they came by our booth. my kids were happy to get to go and play in a water park with their buddies.

the sunny hot day turned to a torrential, epic rainstorm around 4:30 or so. i'm not even kidding. there was scary lightening and hugely insane amounts of rain. i lost some work. we were stuck in our booth until after 7, when the rain let up a teeny bit and we booked it for the car. i felt terribly for the vendors who lost more work than i did - some lost so much that they were unable to come back the next day. my kids were super troopers and were cheerfully optimistic about getting everything into the car, plus they loved being in the rain and splashing around.

the rest of the evening and the following morning were spent trying to dry everything off and clean and salvage what we could.  there were definitely some moments of sitting in the dark and feeling tearful, wondering if we'd go back the next day. we decided to give it a try, and went back on sunday armed with tarps and low expectations. there was a quick thunderstorm around noon that almost did my mental health in, but then it became sunny and lovely and busy for the rest of the day.

i think someone could make a nice little profit selling 'i survived renegade 08' merchandise. in my mind's eye i see raindrops, a tidal wave, lightening bolts, upside down tents, little bits of yarn and plush owls floating in the water.  i heard several people talking about the idea... let me know if someone does - i'll wear a tee with pride.

i was really pleased with how i did overall, and also feel completely exhausted in a bone-weary + slightly pathetic sort of way.

i'm sure there's much more to say, but i'm too tired to talk about it. :)

renegade craft fair: this weekend!

this week has been a blur of prep for renegade, but i think aprill and i are finally ready to hit the road in a few hours.
stop by and say hi if you visit the fair!

i'll have 28 original collages, a mess of prints at special prices, and a whole bunch of new necklaces with my designs on them. i am really excited about the necklaces. they sidetracked me in a weird way when i should have probably been thinking about other stuff, but now that they're done i think it was worth it.

 

ps: part 1 of 3 of the design*sponge regional roundup on portland, maine came out this week, and i was so happy to be asked to be a part of it along with some of my local favorites. can't wait to see the next two installments!

 

i hope you all have a great weekend! i am loving the gorgeous weather and blooms everywhere.

just popping in to say hello

i feel like i just finished writing a post, but it seems a whole week has actually gone by. huh. i've had my head down working on getting ready for renegade craft fair next weekend in brooklyn.

this will be my second year doing renegade - last year i was a total deer in the headlights, so this year i'm excited to have a better idea of what to expect and, um, frankly - what to do. i have some new fun things i'll be showing for the first time there, plus a bunch of new originals and lots of prints of old and new work. i am sharing my booth with my good friend aprill, the talented force behind lulubeans. there are a few other maine folks headed down again this year, too: ferdinand and pinecone and chickadee, both favorites of mine. there are so many vendors i want to visit - you can see the list by clicking here, then clicking brooklyn, then vendors.  it's hard to get out of your own booth much, but i'm hopeful i'll get around a bit over the two days to see + touch some of the great stuff i've ogled online.

here are some new small collages that will be headed down there with me.

other things i've been doing this week:

wrapping up a bunch of commitments at the kids' school

a fun night of arty/crafty hangout time with friends

watching weeds season 3 while working

listening to page france

i hope you have a great weekend!

wee drawings

wee drawing no. two
Originally uploaded by swallowfield

happy friday! the giant rhodedendron bush in my front yard is crazy in bloom all of the sudden, i've crossed a lot of things off a rather annoying to-do list this week, there's some fresh mint in the fridge that may make it into a mojito or two sometime this weekend, and i am in a very happy place.

i wanted to tell you that i started a little series of wee drawings on the pages of a few different vintage books, and i'm listing them in my etsy shop as i go. a lot of people email me about buying original drawings, which up to now i have not posted in the shop, so this is a new avenue for me. these are small and affordable and i'm having a lot of fun making them - i hope you like them too.

have a wonderful weekend!

butterfly garden

this is a collage i made a few days ago. it's loosely based on a photograph of the butterfly garden at the charlotte rhoades park in southwest harbor, maine. we went to a butterfly release there last summer and it was pretty special - i had never seen that many butterflies at once and i loved it. (while i was trying to take some pictures during the release my kids made a few visits to the sweets table of refreshments, spun out of control and we had to beat it out of there in a hurry, but but that's another story. and probably why i never posted any pictures from that day. it wasn't pretty.)

there are a lot of lovely flowers around right now. i can't stop taking pictures of them.

some thanks:
i was honored to be a part of design for mankind's gorgeous e-zine this month. take a gander if you haven't seen it yet, it's chock full of great inspiration.
and i was flattered and really appreciated being written about on the hallmark magazine blog.

oh! and thanks for your nice comments on my last post - glad you loved the cake! i hope it turns out well for you if you make it.

ps: meg is so funny. this is part of the reason why i love her so.

blooms + and a little interview

i've got a serious love affair going on with lilacs right now. they smell so delicious!

i also have a little bit of new art to show you:

and a new interview on stephanie levy's blog (thank you so much for asking me, stephanie!):

have a lovely weekend.

unexpectedly good stuff all around

my painting class was great fun last weekend. i got to do 16 hours of encaustic painting over two days, and i loved it! i have long been drawn to encaustic work, and had tried at one point to figure out the technical stuff on my own so i could give it a whirl, but it was too much for my little brain.  i'm glad i waited - the instructor was terrific , and  i learned proper safety precautions to boot, which is probably a very good thing. it is not very often that i love the smell of art supplies (i don't share the love some friends have for eau d'permanent markers - you know who you are) but the wax used in encaustic painting has a delicious aroma. plus, all of the  steps involved in the process and tools i learned to use made me feel kind of cool - i admit it. i wasn't a girl who was super handy with a paint stripping heat gun before, but now...you should see me. :) i think i might need a holster for it or something.

here are some experiments from the weekend:

being at the art school all weekend reminded me of how much i love school, and the occasional chance to step out of my everyday life from time to time to try something new.  it made me feel kind of totally giddy. and when the class was over i had an excellent  mothers day sushi dinner with my family, who even got dressed up for the occasion. i can't get chase to take off his sweatband to wash it (it's totally gross + crusty, but he loves it,) but the rest of him was unusually clean + dressed in completely random clothes that he thought i would like.  my heart melted into a puddle on the floor, joining the miso soup that was also spilled under there. 

other things:

• my art space(s) are on modish this week. thanks jena! things aren't currently looking so tidy. you're not invited into my basement until i do a little cleaning, okay?

• i've recently noticed that waxed handlebar moustaches are back in fashion. who knew? 

• my friend betsy brought me back some stumptown coffee from her trip to that other portland. my favorite!  and while she was out there, she happened to meet one of my favorite bloggers. i love small world stuff like that!

• i planted some seeds today. what do you think the chances are i can nurture their little souls into something + not kill them? time will tell.

• my good friend nicole's funny + excellent parenting zine, hausfrau*, was adapted into a one-woman show by another very talented friend who performed it for the first time last night at portland stage company as part of their little festival of the unexpected. i got to go, and it was incredible. local people, i highly recommend you go and see it on saturday if you can.  (*and did i tell you she has a hausfrau book coming out next year? i can't wait.)

old sap

it's been a busy week. does may feel crazy busy to everyone else, too?  i'm heading into a full weekend, as well - i'll be taking a weekend-long painting class i've been waiting a long time for, and i'm really excited about it. (more on that next week, especially if i like as much as i think i will.) 

the kids are super jazzed about mothers day all of the sudden, which is just about killing me. it might be my "woman-time" right now (did you watch 30 rock last night? so funny) but i suddenly find myself getting all teary at the mothers day commercials that are meant to make you all teary. i used to give myself more credit, but not anymore. i'm turning in to sappypants-mccheesymom. i loved this post over at angry chicken about mothers day, too. an early happy mothers day to all of you mothers out there - you have a hard-ass job and you deserve a little something special that will make you feel happy and loved.

this is new today. i woke up with it in my head, and felt happy that i had the chance to sit and make it come to life. i love it when that happens! 

have a wonderful weekend.

::

thanks to grace for writing about my laptop skin on design*sponge!  that was cool.

i'm feeling kind of quiet + bored with myself this week, but have been busy making things... so i'll share those with you instead.

i've been thinking a lot about wanting to pair old iconic images with modern design elements. this is a loose interpretation of an old steamer ship coming into port in bar harbor around the turn of the century.  it's my first attempt at drawing a steamer ship.

this is my representation/loose interpretation of pollinating. or something. it's design-y, and i had fun making it. :)

enjoy the beautiful spring weather...we're off to little league.  +  black flies...