Holiday closings / shop now if you're gonna

Friends! A bit of consumerism this Monday morning. Just wanted to let you know that the Thimblewinder shop is closing NEXT Monday, 12/20, at noon. This gives you a week to do any pre-holiday shopping, and gives me time to mail things to you before I start my holiday holidaying.

I mean, maybe you need this scarf as modeled by Elvis, so that you're properly outfitted for a Blue Christmas:





Think about it.

Stuff I Made

Hi all! Bazaar Bizarre was great, even though I have a cold I had a really great day. I wanted to let you know that there is a lot of stuff left over, so if you couldn't make it to the BBB in person, there is still an opportunity to check this stuff out in my etsy shop.

Bazaar Bizarre Boston this weekend!

Hi guys! There hasn't been too much going on here lately because there's been so much going on in my studio lately. Bazaar Bizarre is this weekend, and I've been working on all kinds of stuff that YOU (yes. you.) can purchase for yourself or others on Sunday. Exciting! Here's a peek:



You may have heard about my winner medals, as I've been talking about them pretty much nonstop since I started making them this summer. But now, in addition to winner medals and CUSTOM winner medals, I'm putting winner medals on other things, like the pillow above, which I like to call "Sleep with a Winner" ha ha.

Oh yeah, and the custom winner medals will be in full effect at BBB this weekend. Because sewing them at the fair would be kind of nuts, I'm taking orders and will mail them to you by the following Monday. So you get a winner medal AND some mail. Brilliant!

What else? I'm still not done with the swimmers...



These are silkscreened cotton jersey scarves. They are SO soft and cozy, and work well for outdoor warmth as well as indoor accessorizing. I imagine it would also be nice to wear one of these scarves after you swim a heck of a race at a swim meet, just saying. I made a prototype for myself, and based on the reaction from my swim team I knew I had to make more. So these will be available at BBB, and I do expect to make more in the future.

So that's it! If you're in the Boston area (or anywhere in New England and like to road trip for crafts), you should stop by Bazaar Bizarre this weekend. Hope to see you there!

I drew this: Bazaar Bizarre poster thing

Yup. Drawn for the Bazaar Bizarre Boston, with a back-to-school/reunion/cute school supply theme.

I just learned how to make Ben Day dot pattern in Photoshop (kind of shameful that it took me so long to look it up), so that's used here. Coooool.

What else? I have all these ideas for things I want to draw, but no time to draw them. So the list grows longer...

Crafty trunk show tomorrow!

Attention Boston-and-nearby readers! I'm doing a trunk show at Magpie in Davis Square (in Somerville) tomorrow, 11/13.





Winner medals? Oh, yes, they will be yours.


This will be an assortment of crafty things I make, some of which would be awesome presents for other people or, let's be honest, for YOU, because you totally deserve an awesome present. I'm also bringing some stuff from past seasons (crowns, magic wands) which will be marked down. Party on a budget! You know it.

New zine! Miss Sequential #3

Yes! A new zine!

I finished this one a few weeks ago, but then went on a 2-week road trip between San Francisco, CA and Portland, OR, making stops at both the Portland Zine Symposium and the San Francisco Zine Fest. It was awesome, and I intend to make a zine or comics about the adventure. But that's why you may just now be hearing about this.

Miss Sequential #3 is a 32-page zine about my trip to San Francisco in 2009, featuring lots of travel-journal writing, my drawings, and collages of ephemera I collected throughout the trip. This zine is much less strictly-comics than most of the things I've been working on lately, but it reminds me a lot of the zine I used to write, Red-Hooded Sweatshirt. I think it's great, and I am assured by those who have already read it that you will totally love it.

Now available from my etsy shop.

Alright, alright, alright, alright, alright

Or, rather, OK.





Congratulations, you're OK! Maybe that's great, maybe it's a little cheeky; you decide. Available at the thimblewinder shop. I'm working on some more designs for these, and will be offering monogrammed ones (yes!!) very soon.

So what's the deal with the winner medals? Mostly I just like them. Also, in high school I had this penpal named Jeremy who lived in Massachusetts. He and his pals wrote this crazy zine called The Banana Revolution and gave out winner medals to deserving friends of the revolution. One autumn, Jeremy and his friend drove through my hometown on their way to see They Might Be Giants in New Haven, and called me from the pay phone at Walgreens to see if I wanted to hang out. My friend Liz and I met them at the Taco Bell next to the graveyard (Which sounds totally hot and dangerous, right? I can't believe my dad let me out of the house.), and they gave me a winner medal and took my soul. Just kidding about the soul part-- they were nice dudes, and we hung out in the parking lot and had awkward zinester conversation.

Visit the hell out of my table (please)

So, if you have been reading Miss Sequential and wondering when you might get to see me LIVE and IN PERSON, I have good news for you. I'll be bringing my comics/zines/self/etc to a variety of fairs and fests this summer/fall:

THIS Saturday 7/17: Art Beat, Davis Square, Somerville MA (with the Bazaar Bizarre)

8/21: Bazaar Bizarre summer fair, Union Square, Somerville, MA

8/28 + 8/29: Portland Zine Symposium, Portland, OR

9/4 + 9/5: San Francisco Zine Fest, San Francisco, CA

9/25 + 9/26: The Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (M.I.C.E.), Boston, MA

I'm planning to have some new stuff out in time for the late August/early September fairs, so stay tuned!

New zine!

Yes, it's really true! I made a new zine.





31, as it is called, was originally conceived as a 31st-birthday party favor for not only my friends attending my birthday festivities (we went to the Barking Crab, it was AWESOME), but also all the faraway friends and family who I wished could be at my party, too. And after a bit of reworking, it's now available to everyone! That is pretty exciting.





Ordering details are available through etsy: ORDER 31 ZINE HERE, or if we're see-each-other-in-person types, you can hand me cash minus the shipping cost. YES.




As this is almost entirely collage and illustration, it's the first art zine I've made, and it's really taken me back to my cut-and-paste roots. I ran out of glue stick for the first time in about 6 years! Crazy.

Interviewed!

So the nice folks over at the Barnard Zine Library interviewed me recently. I collected zines for much of my teens and twenties, and recently donated a large portion of that collection to the zine library's archives. You can read my thoughts on getting into zines, zines I've made, and the importance of archiving zine materials in a library setting here:

Barnard Zine Library: Donor Spotlight

Open Studios: it happened!

Wow, I can't believe it's already been almost a month since Somerville Open Studios! I didn't get a chance to post right after the event, but I think it was a success. Thanks to my friends and family for stopping by, and also to all the neighbor-strangers who wandered through my apartment all weekend. You were all perfect guests!

The night before, my friend Jessie came over and we ordered a pizza and set to work setting up my apartment for the event. We came up with this display in my living room, so people could peruse the merchandise:




It was unseasonably warm on that Sunday, so I made sure to run out and grab a box of popsicles to have on hand for everyone who wandered in. Also, my friend Michelle made that container full of "Puppy Chow" (rice chex with chocolate, peanut butter, and powdered sugar) and we snacked on that all weekend.




Jessie had the great idea to display all my original drawings from Miss Sequential #2 on a clothesline setup across my kitchen windows. People were really into it, and read all the panels as they snacked.




Finally, a quick snapshot of my studio, which was finally set up (after nearly nine months of living in this apartment) in time for this event. It's not this clean anymore!





I'll have more posts soon on the special paintings I made for open studios and the photocopying of a new zine project.

counting down the hours

still working on stuff for open studios! hope to see you there! may 1 + may 2, which are swiftly approaching.

Getting ready for open studios

Hey everyone! Not much posting in these parts lately, because I've been so busy making things for somerville open studios

Here's a sneak peek:



Open studios are May 1 + May 2. If you're in the area, you should stop by and see what I've been working on!

Stuff for sale!

In preparation for open studios and postcard-sending season (you know, you should really send them year 'round, and some people do, but mostly they make the rounds when everyone's gone on summer vacation) I had a bunch of postcards made up from some of my drawings. They are all available in sets of five (five of the same card, no assortments just yet) from my etsy shop.

For you, blog readers, a preview:


We have the swimmers, because I love swimming:





We have the ray-of-sunshine-in-your-mailbox self portrait dedicated to anyone who is digging themselves out of SAD and/or just needs a little sunshine:





And, finally, we have the thank-you card that is either UNSPEAKABLY INSISTENTLY SINCERE, or ACTUALLY KIND OF A LITTLE CHEEKY, depending on who you are and who you send it to. Knowing me, it could be either, or, and all of the above on any given day. It all depends what you write on the back!

Coming soon: New postcards!

Just in time for the postcard-writing season! Watch this space for more info: a selection of my drawings turned into postcards will be assembled into sets and available soon via my etsy shop. Probably next week.

rear window

My friend Ericka broke her ankle a few weeks ago, and was fitted with a walking cast. Ericka is an avid photographer, and does a lot of photography around her city, Minneapolis. As she most often travels by bike or on foot, the boot has definitely been cramping her style. Last week she mentioned wishing she could get out and take more photos, but the boot was hampering her mobility. That instantly made me think of Jimmy Stewart's situation in "Rear Window," and I was inspired to make this drawing.

Sunshine Sometime

It feels as though I've been drawing a lot lately, I just don't have a lot to show for it. This is a sketch I made over the winter, in efforts to make the winter blahs go away. Today I inked and painted it, and pretty soon it will be printed on notecards for me and mine and you and yours.

Right now I'm watching Beautiful Losers, a film about independent artists in the mid-1990s. It's amazing. I'm starting the part about Margaret Kilgallen, one of my biggest influences/inspirations, and it's just really great to see and hear her (and the other artists, too) talking about why they do this and where they're coming from. You know I draw swimmers, well, the other day I remembered Margaret painted some swimmers, too, and for a second it felt like such a tangible connection to someone I'll never get to meet, but whose art has influenced me for many, many years.

Working from Hoth

At my place of work, if you should choose to take your laptop and work from home for the day, it is customary to leave a post-it note with the initials WFH (working from home) on the side of your cubicle.

A few weeks ago I was working from home and made some joke about it being more like working from Hoth, the ice planet from "The Empire Strikes Back." And then, of course, I knew I had to draw it.

This is my second recent piece starring me as Princess Leia. I have a feeling there will be more.

Happy 2010 and Presidentine's Day!

This is what happens when your plans for holiday greeting cards fail, you are distracted when new year's rolls around, and you're not particularly into romantical Valentine's Day sentiments. Watercolor on watercolor paper.

Abe! I must draw you more often.

Hourly Comics 2010!

Drawn for Hourly Comics Day, Feb 1, 2010.

The best new blog I forgot to mention here

Not enough drawings in your life? Well, that, my friends, is about to change. For the year 2010, my friend Sarah Coyne and I are planning to draw something EVERY SINGLE DAY. It's a feat not to be underestimated, but I believe we are up to the challenge. We started January 1, and will be rolling through until the end of December. Follow us, or just check back in throughout the week: two-story sketchbook

Workin' for the Weekend

Hi there! I've been out of commission for the better part of two weeks with a nasty cold. While I haven't been doing as much drawing lately (most of my time has been spent sleeping, watching the last few disks of Battlestar Galactica, and reading In the Woods by Tana French), last night I realized that before I got sick I forgot to scan this, um, tribute.

It took about five viewings of the classic SNL Chippendales audition skit to truly get Patrick Swayze's hips and the flop of Chris Farley's hair. Hopefully it's not too soon! Thanks for the laughs, guys.

Hey, dudes.

Hello! The watercolor madness continues. This week I finished the above painting, which will be on display at the Hey, I Know That Guy portrait show at the WSAC this Saturday night in Somerville.

What else? I'm getting pieces together so I can install a bunch of them on Friday evening at Berryline in Harvard Square. I'm not sure how long they'll be up there, but swing by and have some yogurt and check 'em out.

AND the new zine/comic is now available in the thimblewinder shop.

Miss Sequential zine #2

Yes! Here it is! Months in the making! Miss Sequential zine #2!

This issue is a daily comic version of my everyday September 2009. I wanted to try my hand at a daily comic for a couple of reasons:
1. I like reading daily comics, and find the minutiae of other people's daily lives interesting. i wanted to challenge myself to find something interesting about every one of my own days.
2. I was somewhat doubtful that I'd manage to make a second issue without something like a DRAW EVERY SINGLE DAY directive.



This zine is 36 pages, 5.5 inches square. Pricing is as follows:

$4 to be mailed to North America
$5 to be mailed somewhere outside North America

(if we see each other in person, you can hand me $3 and we'll call it even!)

Now available in my shop HERE.

Droid Daydream

Again with the watercolors. Upon watching the first five minutes of Star Wars for research for this drawing (couldn't remember which arm is outstretched), I was reminded of how totally Girl Power Princess Leia is, and that I need to watch the trilogy in its entirety ASAP.

Crush cards (and prints) now available!

Remember my crush painting from a few months back? Prints and these adorable card sets are now available from my Etsy shop. Check it out! Just in time for Valentine's Day or whenever you feel like letting someone know you care.

Special Delivery

Drawn for the Draw Drawings Every Day show at the Washington Street Art Center in Somerville, MA. The opening is on Saturday and there is more info here.

Can't make it? Check out the GINORMOUS VERSION.