Joggers for Julian - Time to Fly

Now that spring is finally here (although someone should tell Minnesota that... seriously, snow?), my office is getting ready for the big Time to Fly event for Children's Cancer Research Fund. This will be the third year in a row that we have participated in the event as Joggers for Julian in memory of Julian Golden. You can read more about Julian's story at JulianGolden.com. Julian is an amazing inspiration, and his legacy burns brightest during this event where we have consistently raised a great deal of money for CCRF. To help me meet my fundraising goal of $250, I would like to offer to paint a portrait of a pet to anyone that donates $50 or more through my donation page.

Here's the deal:

• Donate $50 or more to the Time to Fly event via my donation page
• I'll get an email notifying me of the donation
• I will do a happy dance, sadly there will be no witnesses
• Within one week of your donation, I will contact you via the email that you provided when you made your donation to discuss the details of your pet portrait and get reference photos

Rules, restrictions and mumbo-jumbo:

• This offer is limited to pets or animals in general only. Trust me, you don't want me painting your child or your favorite vacation spot.
• Reference photos must be supplied by you and you must have legal rights to them. Please do not pull an image off of the internet and say you want that painted. That's not nice.
• Art will be done using the supplies I currently have. I'm not made of money at the moment and don't intend on buying a bunch of new supplies to feed this whim. Check out the list below for available options. You aren't limited to paintings!
• All pieces will be completed in the year 2013. If you are thinking about making this a gift, I will do my best to work with a deadline. But please tell me in advance.
• The size of the piece may be limited by the amount of your donation. I'm not going to do an epic three canvas triptych of Fluffy riding into battle for $50. Email me if you want more specific sizing information.
• I reserve the right to photograph and publish the finished painting, progress photos and/or your pets name on this website. I respect your privacy and will not publish your name or email information.
• If you are not located in the Twin Cities area, we will need to arrange shipping. All shipping fees to be paid for by recipient.
• I reserve the right to cap this offer at any time if I get overwhelmed with requests. Although I have my doubts people will be lining up for this. PROVE ME WRONG!
• This offer ends on June 22nd. All funds must be raised before the Time to Fly event. Paintings will be complete in the year 2013.
• These rules are subject to change if I think of something else important.

Mediums, supplies and options:

I have A LOT of art supplies. Over the years I've sampled waaaay more techniques than any sane person would bother with.  That being said, you can pick and choose from any of the fun options below. I am notorious for mixing mediums and would love to explore your ideas.

• Acrylic paint (Canvas sizes available: 8" x 8" or 8" x 10", larger canvas options available for larger donations, email me for details)
• Chalk pastel
• Stencils/spray paint
• Scratchboard (Sizes available: 8" x 8" or 8" x 10")
• Munny dolls
• Watercolor
• Water soluble pencils
• Charcoal
• Espresso watercolor
• Embroidery
• Digital illustration
• Decorative paper
• Watercolor paper
• Yupo paper 
• Gloss varnish
• Spray fixative

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I was inspired to do this by my co-worker, Annette who is having a bake sale to help raise money. If you want some of the most amazing cookies in your life, head over to her site and give more money! If you decide you want cookies AND art, I could be convinced to have your donation to Annette's bake sale count toward your donation for art too. I would need to confirm your donation with Annette before beginning and the balance of your donation would need to be made on my donation page so I can get closer to my goal too!

• Why are you still reading this? Go Donate!

Drawing abroad

A few months ago, I was able to take a bit of a vacation from life and while exploring Europe I had the honor of attending a Dr. Sketchy’s in the far away land of Hamburg, Germany. The location was the 439 Bar in the northern part of town in the middle of a residential area and the host was the fabulous Hedo Luxe. My travel partner and I were getting ready to hop a train to Berlin, but before we left I was determined to experience what other branches did with the Dr. Sketchy’s concept, even if it meant catching the last possible train (which is generally a terrible idea and should be avoided at all costs).

Although it wasn’t a terrible hindrance, I missed the whole introduction besides my name and Minneapolis because I don’t speak a lick of German. But Hedo Luxe was a wonderful host and wore the most spectacular costume so I didn’t care too much! He even played Prince for us to make us fee at home.

We were blessed with two models that day that took turns posing for us. The stage was set up between the bar counter tops which gave almost everyone a good view to work from.

The first model had a nautical theme, which seemed appropriate to us because Hamburg is a harbor city and we had just learned a lot about the city’s growth because of trade and the creation of the new Harbor City within Hamburg. The second model was wearing a cute, lacy black combination with flowers in her hair, holding a feather teaser…but don’t let me get away with just describing them…enjoy some pictures!

By the end I had a few fun sketches to commemorate the evening and entertain me for the train ride to Berlin while I colored them in. I may or may not have purchased these pasties too…  They are pretty much the most amazing souvenirs one can buy on vacation!

Next time you’re on vacation, near or far, remember to use the branch look-up on the website to see if there are any Dr. Sketchy’s events going on near you. You are sure to meet some great people and it might be the perfect way to get away from feeling like a tourist…

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@NikkiPilkington's #30DayBlog challenge: Day 5 - "Be their Guest" Link to other blog will be here when it is approved and posted :)

Yes I'm jumping around a little...I wanted to get this one up since it was written... :P besides I'm waaaay behind in writing about this trip...

What's stopping me?

Blogging isn't something that comes naturally to me, I'm afraid. Big surprise. I often don't feel like my life is interesting enough to write about, or that I have significantly valuable things to share with the greater web community. It feels like blogging just takes time away from DOing things. But I'm wondering if maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. What if writing about what I'm doing could be the motivator. Recording instances of progress, a change in thoughts or processes. The more I DO, the more I have the write about... Writing is just the break in between, the resting place for the project. An opportunity to consider next steps and think out loud, get feedback and interact with other artists.

This weekend, while I was visiting Chris at Dunn Brothers, I was working on various projects at my usual table. I had a handful of people walk up to me and start up a conversation about what I was doing. My projects ran the gamut, T-shirt deconstruction, bra alteration (for Burlesque, risque I know ;) ), wire wrapping a crystal for my friend, working on illustrator tutorials and watching video tutorials on fire dancing. Both nights I gave my business card out to at least one person and I thought to myself "What good does this do? Even if they remember to look me up a day from now, I don't have anything interesting on this damn site." Admittedly, my blog is a hodge-podge, mish-mash of whatever seems to be going on when I start to feel guilty about not blogging enough. I probably spend more time on this blog complaining about not blogging than actually writing about the interesting things I have going on... *irony*

My biggest hiccups in blogging:

1. Pictures - Taking them, uploading them, editing them for the web, writing the blog and inserting them into the blog takes a good chunk of time. At any point I find myself easily distracted by something else on the internet.
2. Self-esteem -  Going back to the idea of not having anything to contribute, as it's a fairly common fear I have across many aspects of my life. There are so many people out there that write beautifully, that are doing interesting things and take BEAUTIFUL pictures. The feeling of "how can I compare to that?" slaps me across the face when I think about wanting to blog again. I just need to remind myself that I don't have to "compare" to that. My work is my own and putting it out there can really only help me.
3. Time - This site needs an overhaul. Which is something I've recently been working on gradually. Changing the layout, the navigation, categories, tags... I still have to take pictures of recent projects to add them to the Art sections, write overviews for The Wildcat Sanctuary, Travels and probably update my About page. Making myself spend at least 15 minutes a day on these tasks helps me to be a ninja about getting it done. I may not notice drastic changes right away, but it's certainly improving week by week. I also need to tell myself that blogging doesn't have to take an hour of my day everyday.

Some questions for those of you who blog:

1. What inspires you to blog?
2. What do you write about?
3. Do you have a schedule you adhere to or do you just write as things happen?
4. How much time do you spend on it?
5. What is your biggest challenge to overcome?

I'm just curious to know what other people are doing. Thanks for your input and for reading!

I'll leave you with a recent project and hopefully I'll get around to posting more about this soon :)

Gettin' Trikky with it

As some of you may or may not know, I've been working on setting up an event called Musical Notes and Brush Strokes for The Wildcat Sanctuary this coming Saturday (June 18th) at the Excelsior Dunn Brothers from 8-10pm featuring the fabulous Dana Thompson. We'll also be displaying a gallery of art by local artists that have donated their work for the benefit of TWS's residents. Not only that, but we'll have live painting by my beautiful and talented friend Mandi Bettenhausen. How exciting is that? Part of the art show will involve the display of these great Trikky dolls that will have been painted and decorated to the heart's content of the artists that make them. Mine is coming along pretty well, although not nearly quickly enough... really I should be working on that right now, but I'm rather enjoying hanging out blogging out on my friend David's porch. It would be a SHAME to get paint on his swinging porch chair...a shame...

So for now, here are some progress images of my doll. His name is Rocky and he's from my most favorite web comic ever, Lackadaisy cats. Perfect for our upcoming Jungle Boogie event when the theme will be the Roaring 20's :)

He's starting to look a little crazy... so it's perfect!

Ekaterina Stencil

In keeping with my tradition of being a terrible blogger, I thought I'd update for once :P The trip to Germany that I haven't blogged about  was really inspiring after we did a walking tour to view a lot of the amazing street art that is everywhere in Berlin. When I got back, I simply had to give stenciling a try and this is my first of what I hope to be a few...why did I start with a tiger? I don't know...I like to challenge myself... or I'm a masochist...not sure.

This stencil is also gracing my ipad cover because I'm feeling bad-ass. I should scan that and post it in a few months...

Spraypaint (Montana) on canvas.

Featuring Ekaterina from The Wildcat Sanctuary.

December Dr. Sketchy's featuring Gina Louise

Last month's session was awesome as always. Gina Louise graced us with her "Yummy Yummy Yummy" performance and lots of good times were had. Some pretty amazing drawings were submitted to the contests and people won great prizes from Blick art supplies and other fun sponsors. These are the sketches and drawings that I did. Check out the Twin Cities branch Dr. Sketchy's website to keep up to date on events and blog posts about the sessions!

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