A New Clock

I created this design for a custom order and now you can have one too! I just listed the Doctor Seuss Clock in my shop this morning.

The colors are a bit different from the standard Eye Pop brights, but I think they look great, and the entire design has a Dr. Seuss feel that would be awesome in a child's room.

The clock features my original mandala design, hand painted using high quality acrylics in golden brown, leaf green, bright white, and lavender, and outlined with glossy black.

This earth-friendly clock was made from an upcycled 12" vinyl LP record.

Here are a few photos of the process:

I love how the outline makes the design really pop! Good thing I have a steady hand...

Classic Mandala Delights

Indian Trunk
Paisley
Rivets
Carrots
Flurry
Dracula
Hot

I took pictures of some more of my Classic Records and am currently working on getting them listed in my Etsy shop. I am now up to 100 listings and I almost don't want to list anything else for fear of disturbing that most excellent number. So help me get back down to 99 or something, please!

These original paintings on recycled vinyl records are $95 each and can be custom made into either a clock or a bowl for a small extra charge. Please get in touch with me if you'd like to find out more. Thanks!

Centaur Guitar's Summer Concert Series #3 with Advisory and Cootie Platoon

Chuck filled in as drummer for Advisory today at an outdoor show at Centaur Guitar. Cootie Platoon played too. Here's some choice photos and even some homemade videos! (I made us a youtube channel - it's http://www.youtube.com/DartgunAndVignettes.)

And yes, that is an Eye Pop mandala on the bass drum head!

Jolly Times at the Jolly Inn and Other News

Dartgun & the Vignettes played a kickass show last night at the Jolly Inn - many thanks to all those of you who came out for the show, it was a blast!

Emie was sweet enough to take the above picture, and then my stupid camera battery died! So this is all ya get.

I am working on designing some brand new clocks - I got a custom order through Grasshopper 510 in Chicago - it's just for one clock but I am going to create a small line around it for my shop, and will post pictures soon!

I also have some other weird things in the works. I went to SCRAP with Julie and bought 100 of these funky little plastic hinged pillboxes, or whatever they are. My plan is to make stickers of my mandala designs and come up with something similar to my old Mandala Travel Tins, which sold out a while ago and have been discontinued.
So far I'm not satisfied with the process. My original idea was to glue a little round mirror to the inside of the lid, but I can't seem to find the right size of mirror, and I think the size I got is too small. I'm lining the bottom of the insides with a circle of felt - I found some felt with adhesive backing, so that makes it easy, but I had a surprisingly difficult time making a circle template of the right size! Then I finally realized I could draw the circle on the computer and print it out. Duh!

I also thought I would collage the images onto the lids, instead of doing stickers, so it would have a more protective and long-lasting finish. But the prints didn't turn out that great and the stuff I used to coat them doesn't look so hot either. So I'm kind of stuck on that. Ideally I would have laminated stickers, or laser printed stickers at least. I guess I need to go to Kinko's but I don't think they carry glossy sticker paper for color copies...

Anyway here are a couple of prototypes. (Earrings by my good friend Elizabeth Etchepare of Artifacts International - they're actually Chuck's earrings by the way.)

Your thoughts and suggestions for this project are most welcome! I am pretty clueless about things like what glue to use for collaging and stuff.

I have finished a couple more Mandala Record Bowls too - may I introduce Rockabilly and Purple Purple?
What else is going on? I've mostly just been enjoying the hot summer days, hanging out in the backyard, getting some sun and relaxing in the pool! Julius turned 12 this month and Tangereen is planning her 14th birthday party.

I've been working on fun stuff at Trillium - recruiting new artisans, creating newsletters, listing stuff for our new online venture that is launching in August - we'll be selling on the all-new WorldofGood.com, an eBay marketplace - and working with some ladies who will be giving our retail store a feng shui makeover!

I'm also working with LeBrie on a "How to Sell on Etsy" workshop that we plan to offer at the DIY Lounge this fall.

I joined a new yahoo group called Mandala Oasis, which has been inspiring, and I am going to be interviewed by a researcher at Portland State University who is working on a book about Portland's artisan economy - that should be interesting.

So that's all my news, off to work on my new clocks!

Happy Campers - more photos from art camp

Here are some more of my favorite pictures from last week's summer art camp at Buckman Arts Focus Elementary School.




Besides working with clay to make these adorable animals, creatures, and vessels, the kids also did some printmaking...
...and here they are doing the "Surprise Sgraffito" lesson, which involves covering a piece of paper with lots of different colors using crayons, painting over it with black paint, and scratching through the wet paint with tools to create a picture or design.

Mandalas from Buckman art camp

Last week, I taught a series of art classes for the Buckman Elementary "Celebrating Art" summer camp, a gig I got thanks to Jen at the DIY Lounge. The kids made clay pots and clay animals, explored printmaking, did a sgraffito project, and, of course, made beautiful mandalas!





The one below is just incredibly delightful to me, it's so different, imaginative, and childlike.
I will post photos of the other projects in another post - gotta run, it's my first day back at work at Trillium after a week of "vacation" (actually teaching a camp for three hours a day is a lot more tiring than 8 hours at my desk!).

P.S. We are playing a show at Satyricon tonight - come out and play if you are in Portland! It's all ages!

Dartgun is "in the Know"

Last weekend Dartgun played a hot rock show at the Know, a club in the Alberta arts district.

Kat, due to being the owner of a bookstore in Salem, has a weird work schedule and a long commute, so she couldn't make it - but Suzie and I were in rare form, holding up our two-thirds of the Vignettes.
Chad has a broken wrist, but that's nothing to phase this rock solid bass player.
Advisory played before us, and our drummer Billy was filling in with them as well.
That's Emie above, looking cute as ever!

And I love this shot of Chuck and Suzie Q:

My husband is very fond of wearing skirts on stage. He is weird but I do love him. And he plays a really mean guitar. Click over to the myspace page and have a listen, be our friend!

Oh, and check it out - we were recently featured on a podcast called Pubkast -for their 4th of July Special!

Bring on the Brightness

I've listed a bunch more bright new Eye Pop originals in my shop!
The painted record above became this Mandarin Orange Record Bowl:



The green and brown painted record became this Treehugger Record Bowl:


I've also added some colorful new cuffs like these two, called Jack of Hearts and Hot Pink, respectively:



Not to mention a whole slew of new Mandala Suncatchers, like these:


I made a new banner too! I had it "bubblized" by a shop that does that (makes your banners pop). It looks like this:
What do you think?

Click on over to my shop and take a look at all the eye popping goodness!