This is another one of my entries in that contest.
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I've started doing a series of signs on wood.
In the early 90s I used to make a lot of signs and sell them in a store on Haight Street when I lived in San Francisco.
I love painting on wood. Once I mentioned this to someone and they launched into this long series of instructions for how to paint on wood: first, sand the hell out of it. Then put on many, many coats of gesso until it is totally smooth.
But that's not painting on wood, that's painting on gesso! I like painting on naked wood, so that the grain shows through. Sometimes I use transparent colored glazes on it so the wood shows through even more.
A lot of what I like is the way the paint absorbs into the wood very fast. If you gesso the wood, you don't get that beautiful absorption.
Anyway, here's my Cosmic Cafe sign on etsy
This is Cousin Oliver the cat "The Muse that mews".
He does inspire a lot of my art but he also wants to be picked up all the time so he can stick his head in my hair.
He also doesn't like it if I wear anything in my hair, such as hair clips, headbands or hats. He will remove them with his teeth!
This is a painting I did for a Christmas Card contest. You can order cards with it and I also have the original available on Etsy:
Mojave Desert Christmas Painting
I did a lot of other artwork today but my scanner is not working all of the sudden so I'll have to put it up tomorrow.
This is a silly new painting. it's 7x5 inches and is actually the sketch for a larger version I'm planning.
Sky Fish painting for sale
Have a lot of art in progress and did a lot of work today as well as watching cartoons and cooking, and eating, and not exercising. As of tomorrow I consider the holiday over and I'm going to go back to long walks, cardio and eating healthy which I was doing so good on before. Next year I think we will go out to eat and then not have to deal with feeling like I want to make tons of food and then dealing with the constant temptation of the leftovers.
I used a different color scheme than I usually do, but I like it. I call it a contemporary abstract floral because I was trying to make something modern but nonthreatening, something you might find in a hotel or restaurant. It sort of looks like that, at least more than a lot of my paintings.
Contemporary Abstract Floral Painting
I've been busy painting. I'm almost done with my cat and desert themed Christmas painting that I am going to use on my cards.
I sold a painting today!
Since I don't have anything new I thought I would put up one of my older pieces that I think is really nice. It's a mirror but when I scanned it, it came out black!
Pink Peony Mirror
Isn't this a fun painting? It's one I started about a year ago. I had the backgrounds painted and they didn't look like they would work. Now I put on some foreground colors and black outlining and I love it!
I'm especially fond of the way the lilacs came out. That technique of painting lilacs is something pretty new for me.
Flower Fun abstract floral painting for sale
I took a long walk today and it was beautiful. The snow is all melted and it's fall again. Everywhere you look there are carpets of brilliant yellow leaves. It's not so pretty for people who have to rake and don't like it though.
I just got my first spam comment! Now I feel like a real blogger. I haven't been really worried about spam because I figured if anyone left a spam comment I'd just delete it. To my surprise, this blog does not seem to have an option for deleting comments, unless I'm missing something really obvious here. So I turned on the moderate comments setting, which means that I have to approve comments before they are added but at least no one is going to put links to porn sites on my blog.
To get rid of that comment I had to delete my whole post and put it back up again.
More Psycho Kitty! This time in blue on a yellow and red background. Canvas panels always scan so badly! The original image looks so much smoother.
Psycho Kitty art for sale
Untasted has made avatars out of a lot of my paintings for her avatar community on LiveJournal. So if you use avatars for LiveJournal or any other blog or message board, check them out: Melsky Avatars
I bought four cardio exercise machines on craigslist and they are being delivered tomorrow! I'm exited about it. I have been staying pretty much on my plan, based on Body for Life, and I have not been overeating and have not missed any days exercising. The plan calls for eating six small meals a day, with a serving of carbs and protein in each one, doing twenty minutes of interval cardio three times a week, lifting weights three times a week, and one free day where you get to eat whatever and not exercise. I have not been weighing myself but I can tell I'm losing some fat. It makes me happy that I'm looking forward so much to getting these new cardio machines because I think they will get a lot of use and give me some more variety. Right now all I have is a Nordic Trac.
Here's my painting for today.
Psycho Kitty is a reoccurring character that pops up in my paintings a lot.
I started drawing Psycho Kitty in high school. I used to doodle a lot. Psycho Kitty originally had an owner named Druid Bob but I stopped drawing him.
Psycho kitty represents the insane side of all cats, like when they run around and chase invisible things.
Psycho Kitty painting for sale on Etsy
I wrote the longest item description for this painting on Etsy. I hope it doesn't put people off. It's kind of weird but I think people who like my art might think it was funny. At any rate, it's what was on my mind.
Fantastic Eclectic Fragmented Mysterious Painting for sale
Here's my painting for today!
Cat Crown Fish painting
It's trading card size, 2.5x3.5
It's supposed to snow tonight.
Another desert painting. I wonder sometimes if I ever moved back to the desert if I would paint a bunch of stuff inspired by Toronto and Syracuse. I've noticed that when I leave a place or a time in my life that I dream about it. For a long time my dreams were set at my grandmother's house in La Mesa, California. There was almost always something bad happening in the dream, the house was on fire or people were breaking in. In one memorable dream Bruce Springsteen was breaking in through the laundry room!
I didn't dream about San Francisco much until I left it. I dream about the desert surprisingly little for all the impact it has had on me artistically. Now I have started to have some dreams about Toronto. It's like I'm filing things away and sorting them out since I am no longer there.
It's been a lovely fall day today. I went on a long walk and took some photos of leaves and stuff. There is enough fuel for the artist's imagination here. I love fall colors and old buildings.
Anyway, here's a link to today's painting: A Sunny Day in the Mojave with Joshua Tree
This is my painting for today, Lilacs and Roses
I had a hard time sleeping last night. Sometimes I can't stop worrying about things. I've been tired today but I did a lot of laundry and cooked things for my husband to take to lunch at work. Now I'm going to sleep.
I grew up in San Diego, and there were amazing sunsets. Not just near the water, it seemed just about anywhere you were the sunsets were amazing.
In Los Angeles too, I remember being in the car on the Harbor freeway and looking out over the tops of the buildings and seeing row upon row of palm tree against the sunset. So beautiful, though if you could have seen those buildings close up they would be fearsome. ( a high crime deteriorating neighborhood)
The Mojave desert had the best sunsets. Every night I would go out there and take photos until I discovered that every night was a jaw-droppingly amazing sunset and I got a little less intense about it.
When we moved to Ontario and were living by the lake the sunrises were pretty but the sunsets were just so-so. I guess it was the way we were laid out by the lake.
Then when we moved to Toronto I couldn't see enough of the sky. Same here in Syracuse. I'm sure there's pretty sunsets and sunrises in both places, probably by the lakes.
Today I took a walk and saw sunset colors on the fallen leaves. They are really amazing right now, carpeting whole lawns and parts of the street. They are falling faster and sometimes cover parked cars.
Sunset Palm painting for sale in my etsy store
I was looking for a painting I did a while ago and I couldn't find it. I found this one instead! I had totally forgotten I ever painted it. It's funny to find art that way.
I like this one and I should do more rabbits.
I'm working on one with fish - big golden copper goldfish on a swirly blue green water background. I really like it. I tried to have it finished so I could list it today but I decided not to rush it.
I'm also doing some California Desert Christmas card designs.
I hope to visit California soon.
I'm so happy. This is a new painting that I started and finished today.
I started other art too that is not done yet that I'm very excited about.
I'm working on some designs for Christmas cards so I can enter a contest. I'm going to order them as cards too.
Roses in a Blue Green Vase for sale on Etsy
When I was little I wanted to be a florist. I used to make little bouquets out of flowers from our yard. Now I'm grown up and I paint florals.
Fantastic Floral on Etsy
It snowed last night, but just a tiny bit. I took a long walk and enjoyed it.
Day five and I'm still at it!
Persistence/procrastination is my biggest problem. That and crack. Just kidding about the crack. But I have a hard time sticking to things every day, even something small.
Oliver is looking at a blow up of a magnet I just finished. It is today's Etsy listing: Red Cat Magnet
(In case you haven't read the other entries, I'm doing a thing where I put a piece of art in my store every day and blog about it every day in November.)
I also am in the middle of cleaning my studio. Here's the before photo:
Day 4!
I've been experimenting with shrink plastic, usually known by it's brand name Shrinky Dinks. Most people who grew up in the 70s and were at all crafty are familiar with this stuff.
It's very fun to watch your drawings shrink in the oven. They twist around and then get thick. I bought one pack of this and am doing a bunch of ornaments and some magnets, but I'm not going to make it a permanent part of my stuff.
The direction I see myself going is digital. I want to start painting digitally using my paintshop program and a wacom tablet and selling prints. That way, once I create something I keep making money from it. I plan on building up a little catalog. So now you know my secret plans!
Martini Ornament on Etsy
Day three and I'm still here. If I didn't have my goal to put something in my store and post every day I'd be in bed now. So it's good to have goals.
This is a painting I did last April. I was living in Toronto at the time and hoping to get more of my work into local stores and galleries. That never happened. Toronto was just a bad place for me artistically. It was a hard time in my life. I'm doing a lot better as an artist in Syracuse in terms of meeting people in arts organizations and galleries and such. Plus I have a much better space for my art. It's a smaller space than my Toronto studio but a better layout, and since this house has so much storage space I don't have to try to cram a lot of stuff in here. It has nice big windows too.
I do miss a lot of stuff about Toronto, like the transit system! I miss being able to walk to so much stuff, all the restaurants, the exciting feeling of being in a big city.
Anyway, back to the painting, it's here:
Toronto Day and Night Painting
It's actually two paintings! I think they would look really cute side by side.
Tomorrow I have goals, besides putting up something else on Etsy and writing about it in my blog, I am going to clean up my studio and send out some cards I made.
It's day two and I'm still at it! Who said I had no persistence?
This is a magnet. It's an original painting. I'm experimenting with a new technique. First I draw the leaf pattern on blank paper with pencil. Then I paint a transparent sunset colored glaze over all of it using various shades of red, orange and yellow with glazing medium. Then I paint the background in black.
The smaller things I've done in it are coming out good. I have two larger paintings I'm working on right now with this technique and they are harder. It's mostly because I am trying to use larger leaves and they don't seem to look as good.
Here is the listing for this one on etsy:
Fall Leaves Magnet
I have been neglecting this blog but I've decided to post every day for the month of November. I'm putting new art in the Melsky Art Store on Etsy every day, and I've decided to post about it every day too.
This was inspired by NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. That's a thing where people pledge to write a novel every month. That has been very popular, and spawned several spinoffs, like a thing called Art By The Inch where you pledge to paint a certain amount of square inches every day, and a thing called NaNoBloWriMo where you write in your blog every day. So I thought I would make one of my own where I put art on Etsy every day and then blog about it.
So my pledge is to put art up on Etsy every day, to write about it in my blog, and if I happen to miss a day to make it up and not just abandon the project.
My cat Oliver has pledged to help me by being my muse and mascot for the project.
So here is my entry for the first of November, All Saints Day:
Joshua Tree Sunset
I'm on a desert painting kick again. This one is in quite the 70s colors, don't you think? I spent a lot of time in the desert in the 70s as a child.
