The Adventures of KJ & The Dreamy Giraffe

Adventure #94: KJ & The Monster Mash

Dear You,

What's Halloween without a monster?

Here's mine:

I think I'm going to call her Estella...and I believe she's a bit of a reminder that sometimes the things that make us shake with fear, when faced, aren't so scary after all.  And she makes me want to paint more t-shirt wearin' sweetmonsters.

Goodbye, October!  I loved you, but not to play favorites, I'm expecting November to be even better!

Love,

KJ

P.S. This was my entry for Monster Mash, and I hope, I hope, I hope I didn't turn it in too long for it to be included!

P.S. X 2: For any Ghouls Just Wanna-ing To Have Fun, there's another Halloweenie post before this one!

P.S. X 3: NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow...hopefully this will be one of those things that's making me shake a bit with fear, but won't be scary at all when faced.  We shall see!  It's been so long since I've written any substantial fiction...I'm excited, but a little bit intimidated, too, but hopefully it's like riding a horse, you don't forget how. (Or is that riding a bike?)  

Adventure #93: KJ Gets Her Holidays Mixed Up

Dear You,

Happy Halloween! 

Look what I made yesterday to celebrate the occasion:

Yeah, I know what you're thinking (though I'm ordinarily not in the mind-reading business):

Uh, KJ...typically, snowmen are not used as Halloween decorations...you should be saving that for December, and Christmas, and cold weather!  In October, you should be carving pumpkins!

Ah, but my friend...that IS a pumpkin!

That's my entry for the Pumpkin Junkin contest.

My friend Sheila came over yesterday armed with two pumpkins and we spent the morning junkin' and it was so. much. fun. 

 Though working for yourself can be stressful and worrisome sometimes (as I think I've mentioned once or twice ;)), doing this totally reminded me that creating is my passion and I love it so much, so so very much and I am so blessed to be able to do my art for a living and that I should be enjoying each day I get to do this and NOT ever let the stress and worries overshadow those facts.

Anyway, we were sitting around, staring at our pumpkins, and brainstorming, and I said, "You know, we should've gotten three pumpkins, and we could've collaborated and made one big project instead of two small ones...we could've made a SNOWpumpkin!!!"

And Sheila kind of looked at me like I'd lost my mind (Sheila, if you're reading this, you DID, but I don't hold it against you).

And then it occurred to me that there MUST be two more different-sized round objects around the house that I could paint white and use in lieu of two other pumpkins -- I could make a snowpumpkin all by myself!

And shortly thereafter, Funky Junky was born!

I really wish I'd taken pictures of all the "junk" I used before it was transformed, but I was too excited to think clearly and plunged in before I thought of doing that.

Here's Junky's Ingredients & Recipe:

1 Pumpkin

1 Very Old Round Sewing Kit Container Thingy

1 Round Bottle of Herbal Essences Hair Product Bottle

Paper Towels

Parts of 1 Old White Silk Shirt

1 Rubber Band

1 Bottle of Off White Acrylic Paint

1 Jar of Snow Texture stuff (I think made by DecoArt)

1 Bottle Sparkle Acrylic Paint

1 Bottle Bead Texture Gel

1 Medium Small Little Round Cardboard Craft Box

1 Small Small Little Round Cardboard Craft Box

1 Wooden Flower

1 Blue Safety Eye

1 Green Cat Safety Eye

1 Mini Clothespin

1 Orange Marker

Some Ribbon

Some Curly Brown Hair-Like Stuff

Some Little Birdies

1 Arm that I suppose is supposed to be used in creating some sort of a doll

1 Foam Paintbrush

Some Claytoon Modeling Clay

A Few Strands of Purple Fiber

Assorted Buttons

Letter Tiles

The pumpkin, which I painted white (warning: acrylic paint on a pumpkin's surface takes quite a while to dry!) makes up the base.   It was also coated with some bead texture gel and sparkle paint, just because I like sparkle and the bead texture stuff. The Very Old Round Sewing Kit Container Thing ( which was at one time my late grandma's and Kaylee (my two year old niece) calls "the yellow ball"...well, she did call it the yellow ball...it's not yellow anymore, because, well, as we all know, yellow snow is not good snow) makes up the midsection.  I covered it in the Snow Texture stuff, which I luckily had a jar of sitting around in my studio (it pays to hoard!).  The Herbal Essences bottle was emptied, the spout thingy taking off, and wrapped in paper towels to build it up a bit.  Then I wrapped that in part of the old, cut-up silk shirt and held it together with a rubber band.

All three of these parts were just sort of precariously stacked together, using a bit of Claytoon to hold them here and there.  (Good grief, this is boring!)

The craft boxes, which were painted black, make up the top hat, the foam paintbrush was cut in a mitteny-shape, the clothespin was painted a carrot-like orange for the nose, and everything else was just sort of junked on thereafter!

Junky has had two accidents, but luckily unlike Humpty Dumpty, I was able to put him back together again! 

This entry is a part of The Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun Halloween party ("a creepy Bloglandia event").   Head on over here to check out all the other partyers!

The Ghostess With The Mostess,

KJ

P.S. There's more pictures of Junky behind the cut...a camerashy snowpumpkin man he is NOT!

Adventure #92: KJ Is The Next Contestant On "Who Wants To Create America's Next Top Arena-girl?"!

Dear You,

Fistacuff-ed lately?

Fist-A-Cuffs is a blog, that, according to its tagline is "Where drawings are voted to the death and the streets run black with ink."

Basically, brave and/or adventurous souls sign up to compete, characters are created and then go head to head until only one, the victor, is left standing.   There's voting and smack talking and I'm not explaining it well, but it's very cool!

Now, I've not quite mustered up the guts to don my boxing gloves and jump into the ring...

but I TOTALLY mustered up the guts to enter the "Arena Girl" competition, which was to design a character based on the following restrictions:

1. "PG" this is an all ages blog, so easy- we like our gals classy here.
2. She must be holding a blank- FACA shaped {logo} card.
3. She must have F.A.C.A. on her costume.
4. Make her file size the same as mine. A .jpg file that is small.
5. label the email "FACA Arena-Girl."
6. Make sure your name and link is available within the email.
7. Name your creation.
8. Light on the parodies, try to make something original.

Soon, there will be a vote and the Top 12 (last time I counted there were fiftysomething entries) will be chosen to  hold the numbered cards before each match of the upcoming Fistacuffs round.  FACA4 (the upcoming round) is tag team AND will be the first one I've followed since the beginning, so I'm excited for it to get going.  Maybe next time I'll actually sign up to participate!

You can see an example of a past Arena Girl here.

ANYWAY, my hopeful Arena Girl is Jewels Jenkinson:

 

I like how she turned out quite a bit, and wanted to be able to use her for something else, as well, you know, a back-up plan in case her career as an arena-girl doesn't pan on, SO I did a little tweaking and now, voila, she's a print!:

 

(And she's in the shop, as we speak!)

Make love not war!

KJ

P.S. Glamorous just doesn't look RIGHT spelled that way, but I've checked and rechecked, and it seems the rest of the world thinks that whether or not it looks right, that IS the way it's correctly spelled.

Adventure #91: KJ, The Mermaidballerinasuperheropiratefairy & The Seahorse Prince

Dear You,

Finally, at last, I finished the painting I wrote about here, the one for Creative Challenge #71 in the Etsy forums, the one that was supposed to represent my shop, the one that I said was like a self-portrait of my innards?  That one. 

I also said that I'd take pictures of it as I worked on it and I swear, I remember taking at least a dozen, but my memory card argues that I only took two.  Two!

The Dynamic Duo:

And, complete:

And detail:

(Pssst...she's in the shop, just in case anyone was wondering. ;))

The type of girl who really, really wants to believe we can be anything (and everything!) we want to be,

KJ

P.S. Oh, and Johanna, never fear, your mental picture of me is not THAT off -- I'm a dark-headed giraffe, not a blonde!

Adventure #90: KJ & That Time Of The Month

An old, pre-entry comic-like thing:

(In case you can't read my handwriting:

Girl One to Girl Two: Why are you wearing a turtleneck?

Girl Two to Girl One: Why are you holding a man's toupee?

Girl Three to Herself: Why are my feet so freaky-looking?

And the answer to all the girls' questions: Because Kathy (b.k.a KJ) shouldn't draw in pen.)

----------------

Dear You,

I've been thinking about worrying.

The end of each month is always one of the most worrisome times for me, because the end of each month is closely followed by the beginning of the next month and I don't know how it is for you guys, but for me?  Every single bill is due either on the first or the fifteenth...the vast majority on the first.  So...not having a steady paycheck, there's always the breath-holding, toe-tapping, oh-my-goodness-oh-my-goodnessing, starting around the 26th.  Will there be enough money?  What if there's not enough money?  Oh, my goodness, my car's going to be repoed and I'll drop to a size four because I won't have anything to eat and then I'll be skinnier than I ever dreamed of being (hurray!), but I'll be naked because I'll have no clothes to fit and no extra cash to buy any.  Woe is me.

Yet...somehow, the first of the month comes, and the bills get paid, someway, somehow, and it's okay.

I've been doing this for a little over two years now, and it's always okay.  There've been months when I had to borrow some money from my parents (and that kills me a little), there've been months when I had to put a bit more on the credit card than I would like (and since I never even HAD a credit card before I started doing art for a living, that kills me a lot), there've been probably more months than not where I had to do without something I wanted.  But it's been okay.

For twenty-five or twenty-six months, it's been okay.

So...in the past, it's been okay for THAT many months.  So why, each month, no matter how many months pass, do I continue to freak out and worry and convince myself that THIS month will surely be the month where everything falls a part and I will bounce checks and find myself on my hands and knees in the lobby of a local law firm, begging and pleading for them to give me a Dictaphone and a desk?  

Each month that little voice in the back of my head whispers, well, this is it.  You're not going to make enough sales and the phone will be shut off, and you won't be able to use the internet, and then you're out of business, kid.  And each month, it turns out to be a dirty rotten lie.  The doubtmonster is a liar.  The past evidence supports that as a fact.

What I'm trying to say is...why is it so easy to believe the worst case scenario, which has never happened, over the not-a-fairy-tale-ending-but-okay scenario that's been reality over and over and over?

It's kind of like trusting someone who continually breaks their promises. 

I'm not saying nothing bad will ever happen, because that's simply not true...but personally, for me, and I hope for you, as well, looking back, though there have been some awful times, though I've had my heartbroken, though things have been a struggle here and there...my good memories far outweigh the bad.

SO I wish I could just program my head to automatically expect the best, instead of being fearful of the worst. 

I want to renew these affirmations, which I wrote in...well, you can see the date.  I want to stick to them and really, truly believe them.

 

(The pre-entry comic-like thing was drawn on the same day as this affirmolist was compiled, so when I said it was old, I wasn't lyin'. )

Now, all together, let's repeat:  All is well, all is well, all is well.

KJ

P.S. If I ever get to the point where I'm billing people, I'm totally going to make my bills due on the 22nd.  And in other news, I finally cleaned my monitor's screen so every website I visit isn't polkadotted anymore.  Yay!

------------------------

& relevant quote for this entry:

"Do what you can, with what you have, right where you are." - Theodore Roosevelt

Adventure #89: KJ & The To Do List

Dear You,

So, forever and a day (which is quite a long time!), on each and every To Do List I wrote up, the following To Do would appear:

• Yoga Girl

That is Yoga Girl, as in Y is for Yoga Girl, the missing Alphababe. 

And finally, finally, yesterday, I made myself sit down and finish her up.  Because A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X & Z does not a complete alphabet make.  Close, but no cigar, as they say.

So, anyYay,

• Yoga Girl

is now:

• Yoga Girl

Here's she is, which means the first series of Alphababes are D, O, N, & E. 

(I thought about putting her in a more adventurous pose, but in the end, settled on something simple and serene.)

Last Friday, I took a break from the To Dos and went to breakfast with my friend (since 7th grade) Sheila for her birthday.  She turned 30 and that requires a celebration, even if that celebration only consists of a croissant combo and chat at Burger King.  I don't know what to tell you.  We are party animals.  

Anyway, somehow, I wound up with NaNoWriMo getting tacked onto my list of To Dos.  NaNoWriMo, for those of you not in the know, is National Novel Writing Month, where a bunch of overly ambitious and quite possibly crazy aspiring writers pledge to pen a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.  Now, these days, the only breaks I have time to take are potty breaks, so I really don't know how I'm going to manage 1667 words a day, but I guess I shall just have to learn to multitask better or forgo the potty breaks.  Could they not have chosen a month with 31 days, at least?

Seriously, I'm kinda excited about it.  I made an attempt at doing it back in...1873 or something, but didn't get finished.  Actually, I barely got started.  But 1667 words a day isn't really that much, is it?

Other things on my To Do List (and if they aren't on yours, they should be):

• Penelope of Illustration Friday is hosting something called Monster Mash 2007.   The Deadline is October 31st, so you've still got time to get in on it!                       

                                                                                     &

•  Also with a deadline of October 31st, is the First Annual Pumpkin Junkin' hosted by the wonderful Holli Conger.  The aforementioned friend Sheila is supposed to be picking up our pumpkins today and we're getting together Tuesday morning to tackle junkin' some punkins!  I'm super psyched about this one, and it only adds to the psyched-ness that there's a prize, and it's a piece of the wonderful Holli Conger's wonderful work (and it's a piece I've loveloveloved since I first saw it on her blog ages ago!). 

So...I'm off to get to doing!

KJ

P.S.  Most of the (series one) Alphababes are in new homes now, but B, E, J, L, N, Q, R, & Z are still available in the shop.  Y will join them shortly and O is at Glitter & Grunge.  If anyone's interested in getting their letters on. :)

-------------------------------

Update: I got a phone call from Sheila a l'il while ago and pumpkins have been purchased!  Whoo hoo!  There will be photos Tuesday, once they're junked up...those pumpkins don't know what's about to hit'em!  

Adventure #88: KJ & The Price Is Wrong

Dear You,

Just in case you aren't up on your daytime gameshows, yesterday was the first episode aired of "The Price Is Right" hosted by Drew Carey (who also hosts (or hosted) "The Power Of Ten").

Kaylee (my niece) loves "The Price Is Right" (which she calls "Bob Barker") and was not pleased by this change.  She kept saying she wanted to see Bob.

And when her mom (my sister) explained to her that that was "The Price Is Right", she said, "No, that's "Power of Ten"."

And let me clarify: This child JUST turned two.

Anyway, Mr. Carey, if you're reading this, I"m sorry but basing this solely on yesterday's reaction of one toddler to you taking over for Mr. Barker, the outlook for your career as a game show host really looks pretty grim.

Ooh, and MiMi (my mom) told her that we would send Bob an e-mail telling him Kaylee missed him and then all day, Kaylee kept turning to me with this very serious face and saying, "Send Bob e-mail."  Perhaps I will...I think he'd like to hear about his littlest fan (who is right now sitting in my lap saying, "Kathy sending Bob an e-mail.")

No pictures of big-eyed girls today, since I'm without access to my scanner, BUT The Giraffe's Away Sale is still going on in le shoppe.   Just until tomorrow, though!

Love,

KJ

We Now Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Adventure For a V.I.A

(That's Very Important ANNOUNCEMENT, in giraffespeak).

'Tis rare that I put my work on sale (boy, that sounds a bit more snotty and pretentious than I intend for it to...actually, my intent isn't snotty or pretentious, I promise!), but last Saturday night, I participated in the Saturday Night Specials that go on in the Etsy forums and it was so dreamy, I've decided to do something similar again this week, so I am pleased to announce:

The FIRST EVER When The Giraffe's Away, Everyone Plays Two Day Event!

I'm going out to town this morning and will be gone until sometime Wednesday.  While I am away:

--- Buy an Alphababe, Get a Free Print (Your Choice)--

--- All Prints 1/2 Off!! ----

 

--- All Originals (Not Including Alphababes) 10% Off --

 

-- 1/2 Price Shipping, No Matter What You Buy! ----

It'll probably be this time next year before this sale runs again, so if there's something you've been eyeing, now might be the time for you to make it all yours! ;)

Please wait for an updated invoice before paying!  I will have access to e-mail, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask. You will receive your updated invoice on the same day you order!

All orders will ship Thursday, October 18th!

Regularly scheduled adventures will resume regularly Thursday!

IF I Was An Open Book...

Illustration Friday

10/05/07

This week's topic is: Open

____________________________________________________________

                                                                                  (click to enlarge)

I wasn't going to participate this week, because I couldn't come up with a single idea for the theme, but then I DID (an open book with the characters sitting on it) and I mentioned it to my mom, whom I may've told you before is The Dreamy Giraffe's Head Consultant For All Things That Require Consulting and who I'd asked to help me brainstorm on this one, and she said, "You won't believe this, but I was thinking of an open book, too!"  So an open book it was, though the idea wound up being a bit different than I'd originally dreamt up -- don't you just love it when you're reading a book and the characters start going AWOL midway through?

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& hey, this week's Illustration Friday is a wee bit special...25 entries will be chosen to go in an actual gallery show at Open, a bookstore and gallery  in California, the sponsor of this week's topic...and YOU, yes, YOU, can help decide which 25!  It's all voting, by secret ballot, so if you'd like to go put in a vote for me, please do!  (But only if you really, really wanna!) 

(From Illustration Friday's website:

How do I vote?
Log into the forums (or create a new account if you don’t have one already), then go to the Link Viewer and scroll through the entries to find your favorites.)

& a close-up (or two):

 

Adventure #87: KJ's Self-Portrait (But Not Really)

Dear You,

Saturday's early morning easy breezy peasy errand-running and productivity was so nifty, I decided to do it again, so here I am, blogging at you from 5:55 a.m.  (Sidenote:  Normally, I do not go to the grocery store twice in one week, but Food Lion is having a crazy sale on Del Monte Summer Crisp corn, which, is the best corn you will ever eat out of a can.  In fact, it's almost as good as corn you'd eat off the cob, straight out of someone's garden.  Well, not STRAIGHT OUT of the garden, but y'know, cooked and stuff in between the removal from the garden and the eating.  It's 4/$2.00 when it's normally 4/$3.78.  Math isn't my strong suit, but that's practically half off, y'all!)

There's already been a glitch in my early morning easy breezy peasy errand-running and productivity repeat plan, though, and I lost about ten minutes freaking out because I couldn't get my camera to turn on.  I pressed on and it...did nothing.  Now, I know, I know, a bright person would've just replaced their batteries and moved on with life, but I had just replaced the batteries a week or so ago and had only used the thing once since, so before going to fetch more batteries, it was logical to me to take a few moments to imagine the price of a new digicam on next month's credit card statement and have the appropriate panic attacks.  And then I was so worried I couldn't even take the time to run into the kitchen to get brand new batteries, I just ran around the bedroom, muttering "oh no, oh no, oh nonononononononono" and yanking batteries out of other random battery-operated thingys -- the remote control, the mouse, my Craft-Lite Cutter -- and shoving them in the camera.  And it STILL wouldn't turn on.  But then I forced myself to take a deep breath, went to the kitchen, and got brand new batteries...and I have pictures to show you that were taken this very morning, so obviously: All's well that ends well.

I am SO jazzed about the weekly Creative Challenge at the Etsy forums.  It's Creative Challenge #71 and here's the rules:

Anyway, this week's challenge is to create something that shows what your shop is all about. A signature piece or show piece if you will. Something that shows what you want your shop to be known for or what your shop stands for. Think outside of the box. Have fun and be creative.

(You can see the thread in the forums here, if you like, to see other people's responses as they roll in.)

At first, I was way intimidated by this one, because

1) That could be kind of limiting, like asking you to describe yourself in five words...

2) The Dreamy Giraffe is ME, my art is ME (as hokey as that sounds) and creating one piece to show the world what The Dreamy Giraffe is all about is kind of like pouring my heart and mind out on a canvas and saying, "LOOKY HERE" (which more hokey: is sort of what I do with every painting, I guess, but times 28907879978) and

3) Honestly, if I could only show people ONE of my paintings and have them know what The Dreamy Giraffe is all about, it'd be a painting I've already painted, Humpty Dumpty Was A Girl.  That one is my all-time favorite, I think it pretty much sums up my art, The Dreamy Giraffe, AND me.  My immediate reaction was: I can never top that one.  And if I did, it would absolutely be like a self-portrait, that showed my insides (not the gross body-partsy ones!) instead of my face.

 

But, not a girl that's going to back down from a challenge (okay, I might initially back down from a challenge, but then I'm right up on that wall:  Iwillnotfall, Iwillfnotfall.), I started brainstorming.  Then I started sketching.  And here's what I've got so far:

 

And here's a picture without the shadow that looks like a claw holding a box (but is actually my hand holding my camera, which triple yay! still works!):

 

If my camera keeps camera-ing and my memory (actual memory in my head, not memory card in the camera) does not fail me, I will try to take more pictures throughout the day and update this post. 

Ooh, and hey, if your familiar with my art, if you wouldn't mind, let me know your thoughts 'cause I'm curious: If you were going to tell people about my work (oh, how nice of you, I love you, can I get you some cheesecake?!) and could only show them ONE painting that YOU think would convey exactly what my art is all about, which one would you show them?

Later gators,

KJ

P.S. Ms. Good Girl, provided that BRILLIANCE isn't from a movie or something and using it won't get me sued or thrown in the slammer, you've got yourself a free print.  Let me know what colors (any color you'd like) you want the one with your phrase to be.  And Mrs. Brown-Eyed Fox: I totally agree and it makes me very happy that I'm not the only one in the world that feels that way.  When I'm drooling daily at 3:00 p.m., I'll now know I'm not alone.