The love of black ink

Bookmarks, bookmarks, tons of bookmarks. I've always liked the shape of a bookmark but I found they were a challenge to design. They were also very time consuming as I make them one at a time.

However, I had  mini artistic breakthrough when making the last batch of bookmarks. I brought out the black marker and made a whole series of bookmarks using tons of black. It really made me happy. It was great just letting go and filling every inch of the bookmark. The lesson I learned is that there can never be too much black. The characters were so much fun to make I think I need to give them their own comic! Now I need to get to work.

Craft show Number 2 and other things

I now have two shows under my belt. A couple of weeks ago I participated in Ravenswing Ottawa. It was an outdoor event with almost 100 vendors plus live music, workshops and activities for kids. It was truly a fun event, my only regret is that I didn't get to walk around and check out the other vendors as much as I wanted.

The weather was a challenge, it was cool and windy which was not too paper friendly. I spent a lot of time running to catch my cards! (well, at least it didn't rain) I amended my table display on site to try to make it as wind resistant as possible. This is something I will need to consider for next time!

I'm so glad I took part in this event as I received a lot of useful feedback and I met a few people who shared my interest in art with a manga/anime influence.

I tried out some new items for this event. First of all I made some fun little key chains out of polymer clay. I can't tell you how long I've had this clay knocking around the house. I finally found something to make with it.

There many different designs but for some reason key-chains have proven to be difficult to photograph. It may be because they are shiny and the camera keeps picking up this weird glare, anyway this is a selection.

I also made a series of bookmarks and postcards. The bookmarks I'll save for another post, but here are the postcards. They sold surprisingly well. I'm glad because I took a chance putting them out there, I'm happy people connected with them. I will definitely make more.

Lastly, I created a comic/zine mini for this event (and for Ottawa Comiccon). I don't know why I never thought of making one before. It was able to just to relax and have fun with it. It was low tech, just a pencil, pen and two sheets of folded paper. I've had this bunny character around for a while and I just knew he (or she) wanted to say something. It's such a relief to have finally figured it out.

This item was my best seller and that makes me the most proud. Telling stories with pictures is where my heart is and I'm happy and encouraged that this is what people responded to most.

Thank you to the organizers of Ravenswing and Thank you to all the people who stopped by my table, I'm glad to have met you :-)