A few weeks ago I took a bus/train trip to Portland with my sister. We'd meant to take more pictures than we did and I didn't think I had any to share from the trip really. But now that some time has passed, I wanted to share some favorites

Step 1: Outline ambitious goals.

• Write and illustrate a children's picture book
• Produce 2024 wall calendar

Step 2: Declare these goals to the world in the form of a YouTube video.
Step 3: Life happens causing an avalanche of non-productivity.
Step 4: Do anything creatively that still feels good.

• Sketch in the tiniest sketchbook so that I actually have a chance to fill a page.
• Start a sketchbook journal where I write/illustrate news headlines from my life. I try hard to miss the real news and focus on the quirkier stories.
• Make banners/garland to hang in my house. I've been posting a lot about these on Instagram.
  • Try out new mediums. My favorite being drawing with water soluble fountain pen ink and then strategically washing over certain spots with water.

Step 5: See if what you did can somehow accomplish the goals you outlined in Step 1.

• Scanning these berries that I plan to turn into a banner/garland gives me some fun ideas for my calendar and maybe even a creative way to illustrate a book. We shall see.

I am officially in the very long process of updating my designs on Threadless for mugs. Here is a new one. My daughter had a "duck" mug that I think was actually geese. She loved it and she dropped it. So this is my attempt to replace the mug. I think she'll love it. For a while when you go to my threadless shop it will look like I don't have very many designs for sale. Gradually, that will change as I add more back in. 

The park next to my house isn't pretty. The sidewalks are cracked. The bathrooms are closed. The storm drains get clogged.

But the fog hangs like a veil concealing blemishes and deficits. When the world is covered in a haze, it is easier to take in what you can see. Somehow the "less" is even richer. Trees that normally blend into the landscape emerge prominently, declaring their existence. A row of rocks calmly fades into the distance.

Do our brains work the same way, when there is too much to take in, too much to deal with? Should we curse the fog that rolls in or should we embrace it? Sometimes our brains work the way they should. They override systems and keep us from doing too much... seeing too much at once. Unfortunately sometimes brains don't work like they should. What was once a valuable self preservation tool, is now a crippling wall preventing the cognitive thought necessary to live.
​
Whenever I think...
"Why don't they just take their meds?"
"Why don't they just get a job?"
"Why don't they just stay away from drugs?
"Why don't they just..."
... I will try to remember that they are stuck in the fog. They can't see the door that's 6 feet in front of them because there is a white wall.

2024 is off to a start and the first two weeks haven't allowed much time for art. It is hard to explain and I'm aware that there will be many times that family will be take priority over my creative work. However, I'm becoming painfully aware that if I don't prioritize my creative work, I probably won't be able to function. 

So on that note, let's talk about plans for my 2024 calendars. There will be two calendar versions in two formats this year. The two formats will be the same: large format and small self-print. The first version will be simply the same as 2023. I'll just re-date it for 2024. The second will be a completely new set of art.  I am most excited about an art style that reminds me of linocut, but is done with black ink. Here's an example of one I did a year ago from a picture I took in Arizona 16 years ago. However, I want to dig into my local area and so all of the scenes will be on the Kitsap Peninsula.

Despite the threatening look the clouds were giving me, I left the house. It actually didn't matter much what the weather was doing. I was alone in the house and that meant that I didn't need to bring anyone with me. I did bring my quiet companion, my camera. So here's a few pictures from the short but happy outing we took.

I do love a good re-cap and goal setting video. Plus I share a bit about what I did with my Inkvent Calendar.

I'm working on getting familiar with my new camera... a Lumix G95. I took it on a family trip to Idaho and I tried channeling my inner James Popsys. If you don't know James... you should check him out. He is an absolute delight.

I successfully wrapped up my summer with this Vlog style YouTube video. I hope you can tell how much fun I have making these. Such a fun process for me and I loved sharing all the things I accomplished. The largest of all the projects was my Alaska Wall calendar that you can purchase here on Etsy. It is beautiful. I'm not biased.

Every morning in August I woke up energized and eager to see what footage the GoPro had captured over night. I had snippets of the time lapses up on Instagram the whole month of August. It was a blast and I finally got compiled into a YouTube video. So fun to see them back to back in landscape format. 
Such a great project to do with kids to learn through observation!

This is a follow up to my previous post: Daylight Long Exposure that has details about how I use the ND filter. Obviously, at sunset you can do a long exposure without using a Neutral Density Filter. However, by using the ND1000 filter I was able to do very long exposures. I enjoyed the smoothing effect much more this time.

I picked up a ND 1000 filter that I could use on our Canon Rebel XS DSLR a couple weeks ago. You can use it to flatten out water or blur parts of your image that are moving because it allows you to take daylight long exposure. Part of the reason for the delay in trying it out was because I would need to use the Manual setting on the camera. This would require my brain. I'm going to detail the steps here so that I can reference it in a couple years when I have forgotten.

1. Use a tripod and a 2 second delay.
2. Take a picture using the No Flash Mode.
3. Take note of the shutter speed and aperture that the camera used.
4. Switch to Manual Exposure Mode and dial in the same aperture that was used for the first picture.
5. Multiply the shutter speed from the first picture by 1000 because this is a Neutral Density 1000 filter. The result is your new shutter speed. I made a chart for handy reference in the field.
6. Switch to Manual Focus and focus the camera.
7. Put the ND filter on being very careful not to screw up all that focusing you just did.
8. Take the picture.

Just to recap... I am not sure I prefer the photograph with the filter. I'll have to try out some different subjects and report back later. Click here to see that post.

Here's a time lapse that I did on the GoPro Hero 8 Black.

I decided last December that I wanted to create a calendar to be ready for the year 2023. My calculations estimate that I need to have it completed by the end of the summer in order to get everything else set up for others to be able to order it in time. I had a lot of different ideas about what calendar to put together. It needed to have a cohesive theme and a consistent style. Should I do urban sketches? What about cartoons or comics? What about using some of my cursive work? Well I think I've settled on doing a combination of collage, cursive copywork, and watercolor. The cow pictured is just an exploration and won't actually be included in the calendar.

I pulled out this old book written by Sheldon Jackson. I'd purchased it several years ago for no other reason than that I went to Sheldon Jackson College. I know at least one month of the calendar will feature words from this book, but I may do it all! We'll have to see how this all evolves. It is always exciting to move past the brainstorming phase of a project! ​

After getting several dirty looks (something I don't appreciate), I came home and decided to make something good come out of it. First I did a little research and learned that it may even be genetic. I liked the "it's not me, it's you" scenerio. Anyways... owls usually have a serious and menacing look and I knew they would be a great bouncing off point. I especially love this on the mug!

So much fun at the ocean last weekend testing out a new microphone complete with a "dead cat" to filter out wind noises. It helped quite a bit, but the winds are strong out there at Pacific Beach. My sister was along on this trip and we took the opportunity to record footage explaining how wind follows predictable patterns at the beach.  Watch and enjoy!

We went out to Pacific Beach, WA this last weekend and it inspired me to make the Beach Bunny design happen this week. This little bunny looks ready for some fun in the sun! It wasn't quite swim suit weather on the coast yet, but there were kites! I've got more beach towels in the works too, including one that gives you dragon wings!

I just love these raccoons! They make me so happy and crack me up! I created them for a fun caption activity in April and I love the idea of getting a pair: one for you and one for your bestie!

Personally I don't connect with the classic image of besties: a cat and a dog curled up together. But, raccoons eating out of cans while they have a casual conversation: ABSOLUTELY!