Sky Fish Mirror

Sky Fish Mirror, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is a mirror I just finished and put up on etsy

Sky Fish mirror.

I passed my written drivers test this morning on my first try with 100 percent correct. Now I have to take driving classes and then the driving part of the test.

I already know how to drive, I learned when I was 16 and drove for 20 years, so I'm not worried about it.

Sky Fish Heart

Sky Fish Heart, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is a new painting, another one in the Sky Fish series. All of the other Sky Fish have sold so far. It's kind of like the Pieces symbol too, so I'm hoping someone might buy it for that.

Pieces Sky Fish Heart painting on Etsy

I just finished a mirror that matches this and I will put it up tomorrow because I'm too tired to scan it right now.

I have a few more things I've put up lately that I haven't blogged. Oh dear, I am being lazy on my blogging!

This is one of them, a collaged card with Frida Kahlo and a deer.

This is a magnet called CALL ME




















Recently I had thought about going back to selling on Ebay. Well, I just read that Ebay lowered their listing fees and now gallery is free. Great! So am I going to sell on Ebay now? No, because they raised their final value fees (that's what they call their commission off the final price) and you can no longer leave negative feedback for buyers, and paypal won't release your money until you get positive feedback! So, no way. My big fear is that ebay will buy etsy. Shudder!

Last week I took a lot of photos of downtown Syracuse and now I'm thinking about painting something based on them. I'm excited about the new project and I hope it will spur me into getting some offline exposure.

Cross Country Skiing

Cross Country Skiing at Tug Hill, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Yesterday I went cross country skiing at Tug Hill with my friend Adina. We had a great time. The conditions were perfect.

Today I am going to stay at home and work on some artwork and house stuff.

More Miss Gabrielle Ray

Miss Gabrielle Ray magnet, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I've made another item with that same picture. This is made in the lid of a paint can. The color around the rim matches my bedroom walls. It's kind of a steampunk look - that is something that has a Victorian or Edwardian kind of aesthetic mixed with a kind of machine age modernism.

Miss Gabrielle Ray magnet for sale on Etsy

Miss Gabrielle Ray

Miss Gabrielle Ray, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is a greeting card I made with a photo of the Edwardian actress Miss Gabrielle Ray (a lot of her photos say Miss Gabrielle Ray on them, so I always put the Miss in there because that's how I think of her.)

She was a very popular actress and postcard model. There are hundreds of postcards of her, if you Google her name you will see lots of them.

The border and background is hand painted.

Miss Gabrielle Ray card for sale

Something Old

This is an assemblage collage multimedia piece that I did in the early 90s when I lived in San Francisco. My ex boyfriend has it and took a few photos of it for me. It's interesting to look at it now that I'm doing some other collages.

Messy and productive studio

My Studio January 18 2008, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I'm working on some collage/assemblage multimedia mirror frames. I haven't done this type of work in a long time. I'm also finishing up my Sky Fish series. Pictured is the Sky Fish mirror and a Pisces heart painting. I'm working on a two canvas day and night Sky Fish painting that is not pictured.

The painting on the easel is something I started over a year ago and am going to finish now. Soon, I hope!

Oddity City, an abstract floral city painting

Oddity City
Originally uploaded by Melsky

I finished this today.

For this painting, I did two things I don't usually do. I scanned it in different stages of progress. It's also on a new material I'm trying out, it's a think piece of masonite with a textured coating that is supposed to be good for doing detail work. It was ok, but it's more expensive than the canvas I have been using and I don't like it as much.

I may try some new types of canvas, maybe some with a finer weave than I've been using.

Oddity City painting for sale

In progress:



and



and

Oddity City Work in Progress 2

Oddity City Work in Progress 2, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I worked a little more on my painting today. It looks terrible, they always do at this point. It helps me to look at photos of my past works in progress so I don't get discouraged in this middle point.

I'm happy to say all the Christmas stuff is packed away and the tree has been recycled. I think they chop them up into mulch or something.

I'm working on painting the upstairs bedroom. It's a buttery yellow glaze. That means it's kind of streaky and uneven, a bit like parchment. I waver between liking it a lot and thinking it looks terrible.

Crown Martini on Wood

Crown Martini, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is a new painting in my Etsy Store, Crown Martini.

I'm still having my Melsky art 2008 New Years Sale

I just sold two paintings privately, both fish paintings to a very nice person who lives in England but went to my same high school, but different years.

I took a break from listing stuff on Etsy while I thought about where I was going artistically. I had though about not selling any more of the smaller paintings, to possibly do nothing smaller than an 8x10 on canvas. I was thinking about just doing larger, more expensive paintings and selling mainly prints in my etsy store. But I've decided not to do that, at least for the time being. I'm going to start doing larger, more complex expensive works and make prints from that. But I will also keep doing my smaller, simpler paintings of fish, cats, martinis and those sort of things. When I get ready to sell prints more complexly I may get a seperate etsy store for them, like Melsky Fine Art, so I will have a craft painting division and a fine art division.

I'm having a sale!

Mornings at the Money Laundromat, originally uploaded by Tom Q.

I marked down some things in my Etsy store, some by as much as 50 percent. Since it's the new year, I want to get some old stuff out and get new stuff in. I do have a lot of new paintings to put in and those should be going in over the next couple of days. I listed that red cat one today.

Sale will be going on at least until the end of the month.

Visit the SALE at MELSKY ART STORE

Oddity City sketch

Oddity City sketch, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is a sketch of a new painting I'm working on. I'm going to scan it at various stages of it's completion and make an animation of it's progress.

It is on a new material I am trying out. It's white, not blue but it scans blue and shows every erase mark. It is a gesso mixture on top of wood.

I don't really like it so far. I was hoping that it would be very absorbent but it's not.

I'm trying to decide if I should go to California now or wait until the spring. I don't want to miss any skiing so I kind of want to wait until spring. Then again, the wildflowers will be blooming in the desert and I would love to see that. I'm so excited about walking around LA and taking photos.

I'm toying with the idea of doing a book blog. Yeah, I know i have a lot of blogs already. But this is the last one, I swear. I started using a site called Goodreads to catalog my books, but so many of the books I'm reading are odd old obscure things that are way out of print that don't even show up on the searches. It would be kind of cool if you could add images of your covers but you can't.

I've actually had this idea of the book blog for a long time now and need to find the reviews I wrote over a year ago. I wish I had started it when I was writing those reviews!

Heart and Olives

Heart and Olives, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is a multi media painting on a wooden block. The other side is painted too. I'm not sure whether to attatch a hanger in such a manner that it could be hung up with either side showing, or leave it as it is, a freestanding piece. I have a bunch of these that were started over a year ago. I have been looking for them for a while now, and it turns out they were in with my Christmas stuff. So I'll be finishing up a series of ten or so of these.

I'm planning on having a big sale in my Etsy store starting on Monday. Time to clear out a lot of stuff and put in new stuff.

Red Cat

Red Cat, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Another day, another cat. I think I am going to do a big series of these with different colored backgrounds. I may put them up on Etsy. Still trying to decide what to do.

Happy New Year

Three Fish square, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is my first painting of the new year. I haven't put it up on Etsy yet. I'm not sure if I'm going to. I may stop selling the smaller works of art online and just sell larger paintings and then prints or greeting cards of them. I'm not sure where I'm going.