The Adventures of KJ & The Dreamy Giraffe

Adventure #106: KJ Is Back In An Office

Dear You,

So, back in Adventure #105, I mentioned a big commission project that I couldn't show off. 

WELL. 

Here are the details!:

Though all I've fought to do since I quit "the real world" is to support myself with my art and to prevent having to ever, ever again work a conventional 9 to 5...to stay OUT of offices -- it seems that I'm going to be back inside one, in a fairly big way.

Well...my art is anyway!

I am doing quite the collection of custom 11" x 14" paintings for a pediatric dental office in the northeast U.S. 

The process has been an absolute blast thus far and the dentist who commissioned the pieces is an absolute dream to work for.  I worked in a pediatric dentist myself for a while, while in college, so I know firsthand how scary those visits can be for little ones and it makes me so happy and honored to have my art on the walls of such an office, where maybe it can help calm some nerves and cheer some fearful hearts!

This is going to be the biggest number of my paintings in one place (other than my own house, that is!) and it's so exciting to  think of there being sort of a little gallery of my work!

The super cool thing about it is, though, that the majority of the paintings are going to be of the staff, with a painting for each employee, done in my style, based on their appearance and personalities and interests.   That was all the dentist's idea and I think it's such a neat one.

We're doing them in batches of three and are still only about 2/5ths of the way done...but the first fifth has been packaged up, sent off, arrived safe and sound (THANK GOODNESS!) and seen by everyone, so it's no longer a top secret surprise and I can finally share those with you!

So...without further ado...here they are!

There's a female dentist at the practice, so of course, I had to paint her as the tooth fairy:

 

(I had a really difficult time deciding what color the tooth fairy's dress should be, so I asked in the Etsy forums, and got a variety of opinions -- so I just made her dress ALL THE COLORS!)

I think the story behind this next one is the sweetest.  There's a girl who works there whose parents are both deaf, so she is fluent in sign language.  When I found out about that, I absolutely had to do her painting incorporating some kind of sign language...the sign for "I love you" to be specific!

 

And, though I don't like to play favorites, sometimes you just can't help it...and I think this one is my favorite out of these three.  I had such a difficult time with the unicorn, at one point, I really and truly believed I wasn't going to be able to do it.  BUT I did!  And I completely love him.  I will definitely be doing more paintings with unicorns in the future!

 

Well...as I said, we still have quite the ways to go, so I have painting to do, so I better go get busy!

Have a super duper weekend!

KJ

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled adventure...

for a picture of some puppies, taking a snooze:

I'm just not feeling very adventurous today, I'm afraid.   In fact, I may just have to go take a snooze myself.

But if you, like me, are having an unadventurous kind of day,  I hope the above cuteness made you smile, at least a little bit!

Adventure #105: KJ & A Month Of Sundays (& Saturdays, Too!)

Dear You,

I was SO productive this weekend and I'm positively bursting to show off what I got done.

But I can't.   It's a big commissioned project, that's sort of a surprise, so I have to keep zipped lips for the next month or so, and it's killing me not to be able to share!

But I CAN show off the art I did the OTHER Saturdays & Sundays this month.

A few weeks ago, my 2 & 1/2 year old niece, Kaylee, spent the weekend at my house, and we painted (okay, I just put the colors she picked out on the brush --- she did the rest):

Drew circles and houses:

 

Traced her feet, hands, and whole cute little self (which is much, much, much cuter than the outline would indicate!):

And did projects (that's what she calls any art that's not painting or coloring):

She seems to be developing quite the creative streak already.  And not just when it comes to art!

The other night, she, my mom, my sister and I were at Red Lobster, and she got out two little packets of creamer and was pretending that one little packet of creamer was The Mommy and one little packet of creamer was The Daddy and was making up this little dialogue between them (one of them kept asking if they could go to Monkey Joe's tomorrow and the other would respond "SURE, we can!").   The funniest point of the whole show was when she dropped one of the creamers one the floor and look at us and said, "I want a new daddy!"

Adventure #104: KJ Plays Tag (But Makes Up Her Own Rules)

Dear You,

I've been tagged by the charmingest of Sams and my favorite Good Girl and Ali J of aussiepatches (though that one was a while back, but I didn't get around to participating back then).

Rules of “tag”:
1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. DONE!
2. Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.  DONE!
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. 
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I've done this before (here and here) and though I'm a quirk-filled individual, goodness, it's hard to do this without repeating myself!  But here goes:

Okay, those aren't my real answers.  But that's a nifty little thingamabob I found on Good Girl's blog and thought it was too funny, so couldn't resist.   I couldn't get the HTML to work right, but if you'd like some humorous trivia tips about your very own self, you can get them here.  (And if you can figured out and tell me how to post the results to my blog properly, it'd be much appreciated!)

Seriously, though:

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1.  I didn't have a boyfriend until my sophomore year in college.  One morning, at the beginning of the semester, I was walking across campus and saw this absolutely gorgeous guy.  And I thought to myself, "I'm either going to marry that guy, or never see him again." Imagine my almost falling out of my chair when, the next afternoon, Mr. Absolutely Gorgeous walked into my fiction writing class and took a seat.  I was wrong on both accounts: I DID see him again, and we did date for a little while (making him boyfriend numero uno), but as you've probably surmised by the fact that I've never mentioned a husband, did not get married.

2. Growing up, I said I'd never ever, ever, ever be a teacher.  My first job out of college was teaching language arts (and one math class) at a small private school.

3. I did not want to be an artist growing up.  If you'd have told me that's where I would have ended up, I would have laughed at you, because never in a million years would I have considered myself even talented enough to sell one painting, much less, you know, to sell them on a regular basis.  To prove this point: The first painting I sold, I put a price tag of $15.00 on it (though the buyer, a friend, gave me $25.00) and thought that was fair.  I think it was a 9" X 12".  Or maybe a bit bitter?  $15.00!!!

Here's the painting:

And how unseriously I was taking it?  I didn't even SCAN the piece before I let it go.  This is just a snippet -- and, as you can probably tell, it's a very bad quality picture taken with my digital camera -- the flash (why didn't I turn it off?) glaring against the varnish (back when I used gloss, before I learned the wonders of satin or semi-gloss).  The painting had text on it that read: In her free time, Stacey liked to paint men on the walls.  Unfortunately, though she gave them hearts, none of them seemed at all interested in being her boyfriend.

4. I hate mouth noises.   Talking's cool, but any other sounds people make with their mouths -- yuck.  Especially chewing.

5.  I have a bad habit of asking loved ones if they're on crack or smoking dope.

6.  I am terribly backed up on my Guiding Light-watching.  I currently have 8 episodes on my DVR -- yesterday it was 13, but I spent most of the day in front of the t.v., painting while listening.  I can't seem to catch it when it actually airs and somehow continuously wind up several weeks behind.  But I can't manage to give it up, either.  I mean, Ricky Paull Goldin is leaving?  How the heck are they gonna write out Gus?  I must know.

7.  One of my favorite books is Practical Magic, by Alice Hoffman -- but I HATED the movie.

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Speaking of books, I also got tagged by Fria for the Literary Challenge.

Rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages). DONE!
2. Open the book to page 123. DONE!
3. Find the fifth sentence. DONE!
4. Post the next three sentences. DONE!
5. Tag five other people.

The nearest book:

Page 123, Line 5:

"William, I am a much better jet pilot than a car driver."

Fekadu laughed loudly and joyously.  William wondered how this poor man could be capable of such happiness, however temporary it was.

"Your stories," said William. "I want to believe you."

"Then believe me," said Fekadu.

That's actually five sentences, BUT the fourth and fifth were so great, I had to tack them on.  Ten Little Indians is a book of short stories I picked up last weekend from a thrift shop.  I've only read one of the stories so far, but so far, so good.

I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you want to play either game: You're it!

Dream on,

KJ

Adventure #103: KJ, The Original Peanut Butter Girl

Dear You,

Long, long ago, and far, far away, when I was a little girl, a friend of my maternal grandmother always called me "The Peanut Butter Girl".

I always thought this was because I liked peanut butter sooooooo much (and still do -- make mine crunchy, please!), but recently, I asked my mom, just to make sure, and turns out I was misinformed.  I earned the name Peanut Butter Girl by looking like the little girl that was on the jar of some brand of peanut butter back in the day.  (I have Googled extensively and cannot for the life of me find out which brand it was and my mom doesn't remember.)

On a seemingly unrelated note: I like painting superheroes.  Along with mermaids, princesses, pirates, fairies, and my versions of fairy tale heroines, they show up fairly often in my work.  And to me, Peanut Butter Girl sounded sort of like a superhero name.  A superhero with very laidback superpowers, for sure, not the type that's out leaping buildings in a single bound or battling dark forces with deadly ray-guns, making bad guys sorry they were ever born.

And so I started dreaming up what Peanut Butter Girl would look like.  What WOULD her powers be?  And, of course, she'd have to have a sidekick, 'cause what's peanut butter without jelly?

And soon thereafter, Peanut Butter Girl and Jelly Bean, her faithful companion and partner-in-(lowkey)-crimefighting were born.  They're not your average superheroes, oh, no! Their superpower is the ability to discern the precise moment someone is absolutely going to freak out if they don't get a PB & J, and to bring aforementioned PB & J to the poor about-to-freak-outter. You might say they're saving the world, one sandwich at a time.

Here they are, starring in their first adventure, "Peanutty":

 

WELL.  A painting of two peanut buttery superheroes is kind of a quirky painting.  Um, what I mean is, it wouldn't fit as neatly and easily with traditional and  typical living room decor across the world as, say, a nice landscape or abstract piece would.  It would take a certain, special, unique, peanut butter-lovin' individual to have the wall just right for it to hang on.  Not just any setting would do for art with this sort of offbeat subject matter.

I actually kind of believe that each of my paintings don't sell until that right, perfect buyer comes along and finds them.  Like, you know, if a painting takes a year to sell...it's because it took that long for the person who absolutely, positively was meant to have that painting to see it.  (That sounds a little hokey, but, I do genuinely hope that is how it works.)  And that was certainly the case, I think, with "Peanutty".

Adventure #102: KJ & The Most Productive Day In The History Of Time

Dear You,

Look at what I got done today!:

Okay...I didn't DO all this today...but I did get it all done today. 

Hmm?  What?

These are all paintings that I've had sitting around, half-finished, FOREVER, and though I didn't start them today, I did finish them today.  So, though I didn't paint all this in one day, technically, it IS a true statement that I completed all these paintings today. ;)

There's the girl with the blue hair, who is wearing sparkly eyeshadow, but the sparkle was lost in the scanning.  She dressed flashy, the try to spice up the office where she worked, but no matter what she wore or what color she dyed her hair, 9 to 5 M - F remained boring with a capital B.

Then there's the first of my "School Picture Day" series.  This sweet little girl's name is May.

And Green.  Green was her name, the color of her eyes, and her favorite color, period.  She was adopted and had never met her birth parents, so she didn't know for sure, but she fantasized that they were leprechauns.

And finally, the girl who made ordinary things extraordinary.  Better watch out or she might show up at your house, with her glue and buttons, to make some of your ordinary things extraordinary!  (What's pictured here isn't the full painting.  It's an 11" X 14", so I have to scan it in four sections and them stitch them together in my graphics program.)

They'll all be in the shop over the next couple of days (& better pictures of that last one will be up there, if you'd like to see them!).

Love,

KJ

Adventure #101: KJ & The Most Beautiful Sunset In The History Of Beautiful Sunsets

Dear You,

I usually go get the mail sometime around lunchtime.

However, today, pretty engrossed in a commissioned portrait, I totally forgot.

And when I realized I forgot, around suppertime, my first reaction was, "DANG, I forgot to get the mail."

And then I opened the door, and was suddenly oh so very GLAD I forgot to get the mail.

Because, due to the mail-forgetting, I got to see the most beautiful sunset in the history of beautiful sunsets:

(These pictures haven't been doctored or photoshopped in any way...a disclaimer I feel the need to add, because, man, can you believe the beauty?  It was simply the most magnificent display I have ever seen.  Unfortunately, the batteries in my camera died and I missed some shots...there was a lot of bright pink and red involved moments later.  Wow.)

I may just "forget" to get the mail at lunchtime tomorrow, as well!  For now, it's time to go dance with the stars...and change the batteries in my mouse.

Longer letter later, as we used to say in junior high!

KJ

Adventure #100: KJ & The Milestones

Dear You,

I know, I know.  You were probably just about ready to send out a search party, but never fear: I've not been kidnapped by aliens, or runaway with any circuses.  I haven't abandoned my blog.  Okay, I DID abandon my blog, but it was a temporary abandonment.

I've been putting it off, figuring that Adventure #100 was sort of a milestone, and worthy of a super special post...a post with confetti and cupcakes with pink frosting, balloons and fireworks, and maybe some kind of earth-shattering announcement.  

Alas, I've none of that.

BUT, instead, I'll ease back into the blogging with a fairly low-key post about ANOTHER milestone:

It was one year ago today I sold my first original painting on Etsy.

The exact e-mail I sent to my friend Lisa:

AND man, that seems like a decade or two ago, but nope, only 365 days.  That was only my fourth or fifth sale...and now I'm 12 sales shy away from 200.  200!  

I'm excited to see what # the Adventure I post on November 18th, 2008 will be, what milestone I'll be nearing a year from now, and if, looking back then, I'll be amazed that only a year has passed, at all that happened in those 365 days.  My one wish is that no matter how many sales I have, that each and every sale between now and then still makes me feel like I've won the lottery. 

To the next 365 days, reaching milestones, and adventures.  I'll be back to documenting them on a regular basis starting in the a.m. and you're invited!

Love,

KJ

P.S. If you've not checked out the shop in a while, there's bunches of new stuff and will be more coming everyday!

Adventure #99: KJ & The Bee-u-tiful Bee-lady

Dear You,

Here's the custom painting of the bee-girl I mentioned I was working on Saturday, all finished and ready to fly away to her new home:

Okay, so, I also mentioned on Saturday my inability to get my dreamy giraffe-y little hands on one of the DCWV Once Upon A Time Matt Stacks.  WELL, my friends, I now have my hands on TWO of the DCWV Once Upon A Time Matt Stacks.

See, see, see:

If anyone ever tells you that there aren't giving, generous, bee-u-tiful people left in this world?  You tell them KJ says they are WRONG.

The lovely, sweet, fantabulous Greta who commissioned me to paint the above "The Birds & The Bee" painting as a present to herself for her birthday, read my blog post last week about my wanting Once Upon A Time matt stacks and she went on a mission to all the craft stores in her area until she found them and she bought one of each for me!!!

Now, Greta (whose name I keep mistyping Great, which is as a typo, well, very fitting!) does not know me, live and in person.  A friend of hers bought her a print of mine as a gift and she was so happy with it, she asked me to do the custom bee-lady for her.  For the past couple of weeks, we've chatted via Conversations at Etsy and I'd love to have a chat with her face-to-face someday, but the point is: we have never even met.   And she did that for me.  And that means so so so very much. 

I believe I said in that other post, that one of the best things about doing art for a living is the supplies?  WELL...even topping that, is the awesome and amazing and supportive people I get to meet along the way.

Now I must go do the happy dance!

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,

KJ

P.S. Greta, thank you so very very much.  I really and truly cannot express how much this means to me.  Let me know if it's okay and I'll add a link to your blog in this post.

Adventure #98: KJ Learns She Is Not Perfect

Dear You,

Last week, at the post office, I was standing across the counter from my Friendly Postal Worker, while he was weighing one of my packages, when I noticed something amiss on one of my labels.

"Oh, no," I said. "Can I have that one back for a second?"

You might be thinking the same thing Friendly Postal Worker must've been thinking, as he handed it to me: That I'd misspelled the addressee's last name, or had the street number wrong, or only had four numbers in the zip code.

Um, no:

I'd just left out the comma between Dallas and Texas, so the address looked like:

When I told Friendly Postal Worker that that was the oopsie I wanted to fix, he said, "Ah, you want everything to be just right and proper, yes?"

And I said, "No, I want everything to be perfect."

Which is true, kind of, but ugh, but what a drag is that.  Because is anything perfect?  No.  So that goal always leads to disappointment and letdown. 

So, my fellow perfectionists, let's stop trying for perfect.  Let's just wonderful and fabulous and sweet and understanding and friendly and funny and caring...and imperfectly good enough.  Chances are, after all, no one expects you to be perfect but your very own self!   So, let's be our best, which will never be perfect.  Our best, which includes our flaws, because they are apart of who we are, and without our flaws, we aren't really being our best, because we aren't really being US.  

Where is all this coming from?

Weeeeell, this morning, I was going through my art, getting a bunch of stuff ready to list (oh my gosh, the hoarding -- I had NO idea that I had like thirty something pieces finished or veryveryvery close to being finished -- why don't I listen to the advice I so often give other -- if people can't SEE your work, they can't BUY your work), and I picked up a painting that I've never listed the original of, but have had prints of available in le shoppe for a long, long, long, long time.

And imagine my inner perfectionist shrieking in horror, and possibly curling up into a teeny tiny ball of humiliation and shame, upon  my realizing, that yes, the girl in this painting?  Only has one set of eyelashes.  And it kind of makes me laugh -- because I am normally so picky about each and every little detail -- but, um, yeah.  No robots here, obviously.

 

And, yes, I really and truly listed her that way and all this time have never even noticed.

You can see the actual listing here -- I've not changed it yet, but tomorrow, after I give her that second set of lashes, I will.  Actually, I may take the print down and list the original. 

In other news, I had three really, really, really, really bad nights, totally sleepless nights, so I've sort of kind of fallen off the NaNoWriMo bandwagon.  But I AM going to get back on tomorrow morning.  Thank goodness, I was able to sleep last night.  Actually, I slept most of yesterday-day, then last night.   I don't want my blog to be known as The Drugged Adventures of KJ & The Dreamy Giraffe, but I think I have to say:  I am so very, very, very grateful to the makers of Tylenol PM.  I am just not a girl who can function without her zzzzzzzzzzzzzz's.

Imperfectly,  Well-Rested-ly Yours,

KJ