Musings on Etsy selling.

I have a job.
I file things. I stamp things. I stick things in envelopes.
For my filing and enveloping expertise, I am paid $8 an hour.
It is monotonous.

I also have an etsy shop.
I make paper. I make tiny books.
I iron paper to get the surface as flat and beautiful as possible. I pamphlet stitch tiny pages and modpodge tiny covers and learn the fine art of how to use an awl.
I also muddle through the complexity of pricing, shipping, and plugging my shop.
It is challenging, hard, but not monotonus.

I make much less money in my Etsy selling than my job. But I know that every dollar I get through selling my work is a product of my ideas and creativity. That I'm inching toward success as an artist.

Here is my shop!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/laurencreatesthings

Here is a thing I made!

Here is the listing

Here is some paper!

Here is the listing

STARS, IN YOUR MULTITUDE - INSPIRATION POST

Stars
In your multitudes
Scarce to be counted
Filling the darkness
With order and light
You are the sentinels
Silent and sure
Keeping watch in the night
- Stars, Les Mis. 
If you don't know it, please for the love of god look up Rodger Allam's version. And not Russel Crowe's. 

Falling Star (1884) by Witold Pruszkowski (1846–1896).

National Museum Warsaw

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DREAM A LITTLE DREAM - INSPIRATION POST

Artist: Phillipe Ramette

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STOP MOTION - INSPIRATION POST

Sweet, romantic dreamy

 

Make Up from Hikaru Cho on Vimeo.

Cute, playful, unexpected

Honestly one of the coolest stop motion things ever. Also if the human body is offensive to you, and you are incapable of looking at this remarkably made video more concerned about her body than its artistic merits, kindly leave my blog now and never return.

RED AND TERRIBLE AND RED - INSPIRATION POST

“…many would say that she was beautiful, but she was not. She was red and terrible and red." ~ George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings.

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TO PLUG OR NOT TO PLUG?

I go to art school, and plugs are everywhere! I've been contemplating getting them, but I'm not sure if I want to commit to the whole ear stretching thing, which can apparently mess up your precious earlobes for life if something goes wrong. Also I'm not sure if I like the look as a whole, or just like the plugs as objects.

Anyway, here are some I've been drooling over...

By Onetribe

Bhudda Jewlery

 

 by Glasswear Studios

by Somatic Glass

INSPIRATION BARF- STOP MOTION

Sweetly surreal.

Luminaris from Juan Pablo Zaramella on Vimeo.

ETSY WISHLIST

Perusing the listings of fine Etsy goods is my pastime.

Not that I have the money to drop on most of these things at the moment, but a girl can dream, right?

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I love the way that these spats buckle around the knee. 

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The detail of the back of this hand-tatted necklace is beautiful. I think shoulders and backs are beautiful this design really plays off of it.

The structure, texture, and color on this is just lovely.

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This looks like something out of Beauty and The Beast

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I wish I had long hair so I could use beautiful things like these! Sadly, I don't think this will work for my pixie cut.

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Such a beautiful little decorative thing.

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I like how the dye job slowly highlights the lace structure.

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I love the structure of these cups! They look so linear

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Delightfully unexpected jewlery 

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WINTER CHARCOAL- AN OUTFIT POST

A fairly straightforward outfit for a day in the Studio

 

Boots- Doc Martens.

Shorts- Target

Tight, socks, belt-?

Tank- Old Navy

Button Down- F21

Necklaces- Thrifted

LA VIE BOSTONIAN - THE THINKING CUP

On the Green Line, there is a stop called Boylston.
Near the stop called Boylston, there is a little coffee shop called "The Thinking Cup"
It has the most amazingly flaky, crunchy, delightful scones I have ever tasted in my entire life.
That is not a hyperbole. That is not an exaggeration.
They are like tiny flaky pasty heaven.
Coffee's good too.
Plus they do cool things in the foam.
Also wonderful macaroons.
But the real treasure are the scones. Truly, I have found scone nirvana at this place.
(Did I mention the scones?)

NOTES FROM ART SCHOOL

A few observations from my first year in the paint-splattered, charcoal-dusted, grungy place I call home.

1. You will probably not get through art school without doing something dumb to your hair at some point. For instance, dyeing it so much it turns to a strawlike fuzz, or shaving it all off. Accept this. It's just hair, it grows back.
2. Some of your assignments, particularly in the foundation year, will be mind-numbing and difficult. I could tell you you're learning from them, but I'd be lying. (I drew boxes in charcoal for 3 damn weeks straight. Tell me how that's useful). You are, however, learning the fine skill of punching through frustration, which is extremely valuable no matter what you end up doing in your life.
3. Cafeteria food ranges from "strange tasting but edible" to "no no no why is this in my mouth". Learn what's good and what's not.
4. Good teachers make or break a class. Especially the long studio classes. Suffering though a 1.5 hour English class with a boring teacher is okay, while suffering through a five hour class with a similarly boring teacher is excruciating. 
5. Don't be afraid to switch classes if you have a feeling the class is gonna make you miserable. Save yourself a semester of bashing your head against the wall.
6. Stock up on charcoal and newsprint. You will be burning through those things like crazy.
7. Art supplies left unattended for a few days in workrooms? Your supplies now. 
8. Do NOT use the nasty spray fixative/spray paint in the communal workroom with terrible vents or everybody will hate you. Spray booths and the outdoors exist for a reason.
9. In a pinch, an old magazine makes a decent mixing pallette. And you can throw it away when you're done! 
10. There will be some days when all that's keeping you running is caffeine. That is okay. 

INSPIRATION BARF - Installations

I'm currently taking a class on installations. It's kind of kicking my butt because I'm very used to drawing very straightforwardly not conceptually. Also, all my previous 3D work has been abysmally horrible. This class requires conceptual thinking and 3D thinking. Thus, my brain-tears.

But here are the artists I'm finding inspiring so far...

JON NATROP

SWOON

KARA WALKER

It would seem that I gravite towards work that is figure based, expressive, and intricate?

Currently reading...

I am a serial multi-reader. I start many different books at once, and pick them up when it suits my fancy or not touch them for a couple of weeks if that's what I'm feeling. Different books for different moods! Sometimes you don't wanna slog though a few hundred pages of exposition in Game of Thrones, you're craving some Wilde instead.

So without further ado, here are my current books-in-progress...

1. The Hobbit- J. R. R. Tolkien. I love this book because it's an adventure story told from the viewpoint of a self-professed hater of adventures, Bilbo Baggins. As a person who enjoys warm tea and sleeping until noon, I empathize with him immensely. 
1. SIDE NOTE: I really loved the movie and can't wait to see the next installment. Maybe the hour-long-dwarf dinner party was a little painful to sit through but still, good film.
2. A Storm of Swords -George R. R. Martin. So this fantasy series is actually like crack. Maybe the first 500 pages of each book take their time for exposition, but then for the rest of the book it's actually impossible to put down. Another thing I love about this series is how it's not very easy to pick apart good and evil. The so-called good guys kill people, and the so-called bad guys have their virtues. (Except Joffery. Damn Joffery.) 
1. SIDE NOTE: TV series is also pretty cool, but damn, did they have to make the wedding scene of Khal Drogo and Daeyernes so rapey? It was clearly consentual in the book... 
2. SIDE NOTE: Apparently, having the middle initials R R leads to success in the fantasy genre.
3. The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde. Not very far into this one yet, but I'm enjoying Wilde's writing style immensely.
4. Cleopatra: A Life- Stacy Shiff. A biography to provide refuge from this sea of fiction! Again I've really just started it, but even in the first few chapters I'm enjoying all the historical details. 

Collegical Things

A brief memoir, in pictures, of my first semester in college.

It is a regular occurance to find plastic elephants in the courtyard

I learned how to mix colors and maneuver pallette knives!

The recipes for different paper dyes in the Papermaking studio.

The view from my room at night is lovely. (Usually loud. But at least it's pretty)

Color pallettes = essential for the n00b painter

Wish I could say this was mine. Just a class diagram

Class drawing boards= old as time itself and filthy 

I've got no idea what this is but it's sort of cute.

Stained glass window panels!

These pictures are from a peice made out of sand by a monk. After it was completed, it was tipped into the river and destroyed.

Drawing studio in the morning light.

The view from the 12th floor library in the fall!