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Vintage Gift Tags

I have really been into looking at vintage photoshop brushes.  I decided to buy a few and create some bookmarks and gift tags with them.  So far they are going great.  I am feeling exhausted the more my son gets into his toddlerhood.  My time has become even more limited.  Not getting a lot of sleep because then I work after his bedtime and between designing and dinking around on Pinterest I am staying up too late.  One more month to go.  I feel like I don’t want to get too excited about my husband coming back, in regards to having more time to work on art.  I cannot think that will be the magic pill.  I need to focus on working more productively.  This is all on me.  It is my thing which I have always wanted it to be.  I must take full responsibility in my lack of time management.  There are people who work two jobs have kids and do art on the side.  So I will continue to set goals.  That works for me because I always like a challenge.

Sea Turtle on Aqua

Another new print for sale! Sea Turtle on Aqua.  This one is made from Prismacolor Premium pencils and printed out with Epson Velvet Fine Art Paper.  I love these color pencils, they are so creamy and bright.  The Epson paper makes the print look like the original drawing.  I love turtles and especially sea turtles.  I go to a lot of the aquariums around the country.  I am going to Orlando in the future and hope to take some more photos of sea life. Here is the link to purchase a 8 x 10 print.  http://www.etsy.com/listing/92497909/sea-turtle-on-aqua

Listening to Customers

I have done some custom work for my art prints.  I enjoy creating things for other people and the thing that helps the most is remembering to listen to what your customers have to say.  So many times they put all the creativity on the artist or the customer wants so much done and redone that the hours just re-working your art do not add up.  I want to satisfy them but I also want to keep the integrity of the art.  I usually will offer specific customizations when I feel like I have the time to do them.  Or I have prints that are already finished that I only will add custom text.I think the key is to be up front and confident about your abilities from the start.  But make sure to leave room for the customers comments.  I just got done doing a piece and I put a background that I thought fit the animals I was drawing.  I neglected to remember that I had specifically asked for their choice in the background and later going through all the contact messages I realized my error.  In that event I figure even if I have to re-do it from scratch it is my mistake and better be done right and still in time for the deadline if there is one.

I could have showed her the blue one be done with it.  She didn’t say anything and said she liked it. But I find if you find a mistake on your part it is best to suck it up and communicate as soon as mistake is found and rectify the situation as soon as possible.

When I realized she wanted bright purple instead, I did it and re-sent it to her with a choice of the two, admitting my mistake.  She choose the purple with the word love in her feedback.  As I was printing it out the color was really growing on me.  There was something about the whimsy aspect but also how the color seemed to wrap their intimate silence around the mother and baby in a somewhat cozy way.  I realized if she hadn’t said anything at all I would have taken the same old, same old route with it.  Ice blue with Arctic animals.  If it wasn’t for the customers pull away from the ordinary, my image would have been… blah.  I am glad that I had to re-do it to get to the better piece.

This print can be customizable on Etsy  http://www.etsy.com/listing/92635863/wall-decor-personalized-gift-unframed

Zebra Print

My newest Zebra print. I think I will do the entire alphabet and sew them in a book for children. I will make it smaller than the 8×10 prints. But not too small  http://www.etsy.com/listing/92105859/zebra-on-green

Monkey Prints

I have put two of my Gorilla prints in my Etsy shop. These are older prints I did in school with Oil paint on paper. I love these fun Gorillas! I am glad they have kept so well so I could scan them into my computer. These prints are really vibrant if you are looking to put some color on your walls.

You can purchase these 8×10 prints here http://www.etsy.com/shop/LittleMonique.

At Sunrise

I get up very early, because some little guy gets up very early. The sunlight rising into the living room always warms my heart. Little guy and I

Making Art When Injured

I am trying to continue making art with my injured forearms. My wrists are feeling better but I still need to ice them. The problem is that I cannot rest
them all day. I have to take care of my baby as I am the only caretaker for him at this time. He moves so much now. I cannot believe how much he is growing. His daddy would be so proud, but I am glad he is still too young to miss him. A year is a very long time. But it is good to catch up on my artwork but slow going. I feel like I wasted so much time in my younger years trying to be a cool artist, when instead I should of actually been making art whether it was cool or not.

In Art School we were taught to reach in deep.  I was a master at it.  The need to be recognized as someone who can make good art, not just art, weighed down on me.  It weighed on my shoulders to re-create what I thought was my greatest success as an artist again and again.  My standard set for myself was if I poured out enough I just might just save the candles burning at both ends.

At the time when I was younger, I felt emotionally injured. I thought this was good for my art.  I thought this is what makes it shine.  But I actually had days, weeks, months were I didn’t feel like doing that over and over.  I asked myself a dozen times could I make happy art?  Would it be successful?  Was the angst of my twenties my crutch or my haven?  Many times I sat looking at a blank board wondering what my first step was.

We all have been heartbroken, saddened and rejected.  I just knew how to expel it out visually.  It was easy, but the older I got the less I felt that way.  Soon they were tallied memories in the back of my mind.  I tried drawing portraits but they never had the depth that the others had.

My problem is I cared too much about what people thought of me.  My narcissism catches me at the door before I leave.

Before the College of Visual Arts I was at Saint Cloud State University and I told my teacher what I really wanted to do was be a children’s book illustrator.  She told me if that was what I really wanted I should go to a school that specializes in that field of study.  But I also wanted to be like her.  Her cool commanding ways as an Art professor made people yell at her and storm off as she replied back to them “I am giving you what you paid for”. This made my 18 year-old self idolize her. Ana Lois-Borzi was my epitome of what a woman artist was.  Strong and hardworking her artwork was something I only read about in contemporary art books.  It had a sensitive confessional quality that was feminine and masculine altogether. Her intellect, beauty and Spanish accent drew me in to whatever she was interested in. She was honest, to the point and when she talked about painting it was as if she was falling in love all over again.

At the College of Visual arts I got the opportunity to work at the “fine art side” while majoring in illustration.  Their illustration department at that time I felt, did not have the same qualities as the fine art department did.  And once I could take more illustration classes they dropped the children’s book class altogether.  I ended up delving deeper into contemporary feminism art. Like my mentor I started building installations and my senior thesis was about multicultural identity issues of artists like Frida, Ana Mendieta, and myself, not illustration.

After school I created deeply pained self portraits of my heart-sick infestations of love lost.  They were good and I felt like they were my most successful… and then I stopped for six years trying on and off to restart my art flame.  I often wonder if I got caught up in the moment or did I just give up on the dream.  But if art imitates life then the art I was doing was not prevalent anymore. Ultimately I gave up the idea of being the artist that cruised the art world à la Tracey Emin.

Recently I received an opportunity to take time off work and jump-start my art career.  With my husband backing me I was able to do whatever I wanted in my art making abilities.  I only needed a plan.  My choice was, do I continue with my huge art boards painting oils and trying to cruise the gallery scene?  Or do what I wanted a long time ago, when I was a young girl untouched by the disasters of myself and society?

I reached in deep and decided to start my own stationery company using my art, my designs and mostly geared towards children’s art. I have never look back since, never been happier.

Tendonitis

I assume many working in the arts will understand how frustrating tendonitis can be. I have battled it for about ten years, stemming from three
summers working on an assembly line during my college years. At the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul I saw a few flare ups. The worst, when I took five studio classes in one semester (Illustration 2, Multimedia, Drawing 5, Book Arts, and Painting 6). At the end of finals, I had retreated to spend a week on my parents couch with a bottle of ibuprofen, ice, and tendon bands on. On the positive side the person who said I could never handle such a load can eat his words. I ended up with two A’s, two B+’s and a B.
This summer my tendonitis flared up like usual when I spend too much time in front of the TV with the lap top, but nothing I thought I needed to worry about. Until the fight of my life…with a pack n play. Many with kids understand the greatness of the pack n play and the sometimes need to feel as if throwing it off a tall building would make the world brighter.
This was the moment I wanted to give it a send off. It had worked great, and then suddenly when my parents wanted to take a quick trip to Iowa and stay in a casino hotel, nobody thought to break it down until the moment everyone and in the car ready to go. Actually I take that back, I specifically called them the night before to do it since it was over at their place. Well My dad couldn’t get it and calls me in, I fight with it and it finally goes in the trunk. I can feel the tendons starting to really flare. Three ibuprofen’s down everything is good. We visit my Aunt and then head to the hotel, check in as my baby is melting down past his bedtime.
Right away my parents run off like two kids to the casino leaving me alone with a crying kid on the bed, and the fight of my life setting the pack n play up. I will not set him on the floor with his hands and drooling mouth on everything surface they see. The floor of a hotel room is the last place I want him on top of, other than the hotel bathroom floor. So I hurry checking him, then fight, check him, fight and the more frustrated I get. I am practically throwing it around knowing at any moment he could quick flip off the bed. But as it is he is crying too hard to really be rolling around because he doesn’t like the loud racket and semi psychotic moment I am having. I finally put my foot on the bottom brace and push down while pulling up the sides and at lasts it locks. UGH! I put him in and now he is too wound up go to sleep, so he rolled around and fussed forever and finally… he’s asleep.
By the next morning my hands feel pulsatingly numb, tingling and hurting like hell. I rest, ice and medicate for the next seven days, but taking care of my son full-time from morning till bedtime keeps them from fully healing in a timely matter. I finally go to the doctor and get some Prednisone for five days and my hands on the second day finally feel better, but since my tendon is all swollen when I twist it out the tendon rolls over the bone and still snaps it. But unlike the searing knife in bone pain like before it now feels like a dull pain. I am hoping to get some more drawing in at the end of the five days. This is the worst it has felt and my fault for not getting the flare under control when it was creeping up. Plus the new arm/wrist exercises I was doing with dumbbells mixed with hormones whacked out from just finishing breast-feeding made this into an atomic bomb. I am just lucky it was a really bad case of tendonitis and not something more damaging. But as all artists know the show must go on and I must be more careful in the future since this is my lively hood.

Making New Art

I am in the middle of making new art and setting up the business side of things and I cannot believe how slow it moves when you are taking
care of a baby. I am the only one taking care of him right now so even though I am a stay-at-home-mom, I relish the time when the clock strikes 7pm, well that and nap time. When my baby boy goes to bed I want to check my Facebook, watch TV, and eat, but I must find the strength to focus and work a little on my blogging and art. I am looking through all these wonderful art blogs and becoming inspired and excited to start fresh with new work.

My Website

littlemonique.com

I have decided to revamp my website blog and focus on my up-to-date children’s  illustrations that I am working on. I also have put together journals and
would like to blog about my process. My goal is to have as many products as I can and then to sell them. My decision to do this sets all the work I did on my last website back a bit. I think this will be a better path to having Little Monique take on more of a boutique atmosphere than just a portfolio of older artwork.