There Was a Dream and One Day I Could See It

Ahhh, this drawing. Long story. When I moved in downstairs, Sarah made it her mission to convert me to listening to the Avett Brothers as constantly as she did. This took about one listen to their latest album, "I and Love and You," and I was totally sold. We went to see them in October and I was completely blown away and MAY have almost cried during their first song because it was so overwhelming. Awesome music, great performance, good-looking dudes.

Fast forward to me and Sarah having a typical conversation on instant messenger a short time later. The topic of "The Hottest Thing You Can Think of Right Now" was discussed. This was item #2: The Avett Brothers showing up on your front stoop with a basket of fresh eggs.

Stay tuned, there are more where this came from.

Happy new year!

Documentation of Historical Events

This year I decided I wanted to give mostly handmade gifts for the holiday season. This would allow me to spend more time than usual making things (since it's for someone else, I have to put in the time!), and not go too crazy, budget-wise. Of course, I underestimated the time needed to hand-sew the binding on a quilt for my parents (next time I'll know to plan for my initial estimate plus 3-5 hours), which cut into my time for other projects. With a strict deadline looming, I knew I had to sit down and draw until it was done:



This is a portrait of my grandfather Edward in the Army in 1944, just after receiving a medal at Anzio Beach. He recently sent me a few photos of himself from that era, and I was excited to use them as drawing inspiration. After one disappointing attempt at a realistic drawing, I decided to go with my heart and make it cartoony. My grandfather loved the drawing, but told me that I'd drawn him wearing the wrong boots. It's ok, he didn't make me re-draw them.

I've enjoyed playing around with some watercolor for the shading and am going to try to implement that in a few more projects I'm working on right now. Color can feel so daunting when you're used to working in just black and white, but I like the challenge of stretching a limited palette to its full potential.

Prints now available!

Bazaar Bizarre was great, and I've finally had a chance to list all the good stuff that was left over from the sale. Namely: prints! I made prints of a bunch of my favorite drawings from this blog. You can check them out at thimblewinder.com














Also, today I signed up for Somerville Open Studios! That's not until May, so stay tuned for more info over the next few months. I'm sure I'll have a lot of photos of my process to share.

progress!

I've been ridiculously busy working on stuff to sell at Bazaar Bizarre Boston this Sunday! I don't even want to think about how many hours I've spent hand-sewing little projects in front of the television.

At this point, my inventory of finished projects includes sixty of these little guys you saw in my last post:



Silkscreening + hand-sewing = the proper balance of assembly-line and time-consuming.

If you can't make it to the Bazaar Bizarre, don't worry, anything that's left over will be up in my thimblewinder shop on Monday.

More about BBB later!