Monday, June 30, 2008

Books!

books
books - adult version

This big book project started with a huge piece of set paper that was left on the floor, ready to be folded and thrown away after a shoot last week. I hate throwing out paper, it always feels like a horrible waste, especially since this piece was almost all clean and the gray color Ned's using now is really beautiful.

So, I decided to cut it down and use the paper to make stab stitched books, it was too hot today to make anything that takes too much concentration and it was nice to work with my hand, cutting and hammering for hours.

While I was working on those, Ned and I were making jokes about selling the set paper to some perverts on ebay, who would want to own a piece of something the model's body touched, like this whole strange dirty underwear and a picture thing. So though we decided not to sell the paper on ebay, we did make another set of notebooks together, using the images from the shoot as decoration for the front of the book. I really like how they look and the idea of something physically present from the shoot get to be inside the book.

18 books in one day!

Damn! my arm rally hurts... but I think it was worth it!

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Inspiration Bags freebi gifts!

Freebi inspiration bag
I have 20 cool inspiration goody bags to give away to anyone who buy anything from my shop, each bag contains a lovely unique notebook, a mini set of inspiration cards (5-6 cards) and a hand painted book mark. Also lucky number 13 will receive an awesome surprise prize that's handmade by me and priced at about 30$.

This great goody bag can be yours with any purchase from my shop - just type in the code InspireMe in the "massage to seller" box when you place your order.

This coupon is available while supply lasts. there are 20 bags so be quick about it!

My store is: http://louchelab.etsy.com


Freebi inspiration bag

Freebi inspiration bag

Friday, June 27, 2008

Fierce - Illustration Friday

Fierce

Fierce

Illustration Friday word of the week was "Fierce" it reminded me of a part of a part of a golden dawn text I read a few years ago, describing a path through an ordeal - the whole sentence was:

The Fear of Darkness & of Death
The Fear of Water & of Fire
The Fear of the Chasm & the Chain
The Fear of Hell & the dead Breath.
The Fear of Him, the Demon dire
That on the Threshold of the Inane
Stands with his Dragon Fear to slay
The Pilgrim of the Way.
Thus I pass by with Force & Care,
Advance with Fortitude & Wit,
In the straight Path, or else Their Snare
Were surely Infinite.

It made me thing of a knight passing straight on a narrow bridge over a pit full of monsters. And how the best way going through a difficult patch is focus on yourself rather then on all the problems.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Experiment 02 day 2

paintings

I'm on the second day of the experiment of renewing 10 items a day. The first conclusion that I got is that it's not easy... if I want to renew something every hour it means sitting in front of the computer all day. I sort of do that anyway, but since I get up pretty late, and somehow renewing after 11:00 seem to generate a lot less views, it's really challenging to remeber doing this every hour, maybe I should set an alarm!

Since I didn't update this yesterday - there's a lot of items in the list...

Items renewed
Tuesday
3:30 The Key to your Heart - Art kit - 35$ - views 26
5:00 The Great Gatsby - Reader Kit - 27$ - views 21
5:30 Summer Birds ACO - 10$ - views 20
6:40 Greek Portrait - Original Painting - 40$ - views 17
9:15 Fly away Business card case - 20$ - views 27
11:10 Sewing Machine card holder - 20$ - views 41
12:00 O solitude - Original painting - 45$ - views 33 (it was also in a treasury!)
2:00 Rocky Raccoon - 22$ - views 27

Wednesday

2:00 Summer apple Art Kit - 35$ - views 14
3:30 Opossum sewing kit - 20$ - views 20
6:00 Heart - Original Art - 40$ - views 27
7:30 Little squirrle Notebook - 17$ - views 10
8:30 Spider Mum leather bound sketchbook - 25$ - views 14
9:15 Black Lilly - Minor Arcana Tarot deck - The Swords - 40$ - views 9
10:00 Spring Tricycle Glasses case - 28$ - views 8
10:30 Lone wolf notebook - 27$ - views 5
11:00 Art Nouveau Journal - 3o$ views 6

Item listed
Black Lilly inspiration cards - pocket size - 37$ - views 25
Saint Larissa - original art - 18$ - views 2
Sadness - original art - 18$ views 10
Larissa and birds - original art - 18$ views 7
Black Lilly inspiration cards - 80$

Hearts 1113 (how cool is that!)

Sales
So far none! which is a little disheartening, it feels strange spending so much time on etsy and nothing sell. Usually the last week of the month is slower for me, maybe this wasn't the best time for this experiment...

Money spend
Renewing 3.40$
Listing 1$
earned 0

I do hope it picks up soon!

I did however had a cool promotional idea after coming across this cool site, and I'm excited about working on it tomorrow!

Treasuries!

Good treasury night! I made one and got included in one! how cool is that!



This is a cool treasury I was featured in!



Check my Virginia Woolf treasury!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Project Renewal - day 14 (the end?!)

Inspiration cards - pocket version

When I started the renewal project (renewing 5 listing a day for 2 weeks) I didn't have a result in mind, I did however wanted to make some sales after my store reached a total stand still, and I also wanted to try and get a sense of the best time to renew and whether it works best to renew in different times over the day. Also, I guess I wanted to be excited about my etsy store again, which was just making me frustrated because nothing sold for a while.

I think this experiment achieved all of the above. I made 8 sales in whole (not the best 2 weeks I ever had, but definitely, pretty good) 5 of those were on the first week and 3 on the second week, I don't know if this is a definitive answer about whether batch or spread is the way to go, but I think that spread is better, out of the 3 sales I had in the second week, non of the itemes were recently renewed.

Also, in the first weekend I had very little views or sales, so I decided to skip renewing on the second weekend, I don't know if that was a fact, maybe I was just getting discouraged toward the second weekend, but I do think people tend to shop more on the week days. As for what hours are the best - I really couldn't tell, it seem that every item had about the same ammount of views whether it was renewed in a batch or on it's own, or in the morning or in the evening. There's really no way of telling so far.

Documenting this experiment in the blog, did made me get excited again about the store, I crafted a lot and made a bunch of new drawing, and created a new item all together (the new inspiration cards, which took quite some time!)

Here are the over all numbers from the 2 weeks of experimenting:

Items sold:
Strange summer - Original art - 15$
Summer Birds ACO - 10$
Black Lilly inspiration cards - pocket size - 37$
The Black Lilly Deck of Tarot - 60$
Your Money or Your life journal - 30$
Love in the Time of Cholera - Reader Kit - 27$
Oliver the Fox - 45$
Past-Present-Future - a triptich - 40$

Money earned in those 2 weeks - 254$

Items listed
Red fox notebook - 17$
Mac the Moose - 22$
Black Lilly inspiration cards - 80$
Maps and Legends - Reader Kit - 27$
100 years of Solitude - Reader Kit - 27$
Son of a Gun Journal - 30$
Stand and Deliver Journal - 30$
The Black Lilly Deck of Tarot - 60$
Black Lilly - Minor Arcana Tarot deck - The Swords - 40$
Black Lilly - Minor Arcana Tarot deck - The Cups - 40$
Lone wolf notebook - 27$
Little squirrle Notebook - 17$
Rocky Raccoon - 22$
The Great Gatsby - Reader Kit - 27$
Punchline - Original Art - 35$

Hearts - 1095 (the day I started I had 1042, so that's 53 more, which is very nice indeed...)


Money spend:
money spend on listing: 2.80$
Money spend on renewing: 12$
Total: 14.80$

Basically I spend 15$ on renewing and listing, and made a little over 250$, which I think is pretty cool.

I'm going to keep up the experiment for another 2 weeks in which I'm going to play double or nothing, and spend 2$ a day on renewing 10 items. We'll see how it goes...

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Two Dreams


A couple of nights ago I had 2 dreams.



In the first I was back in Israel, in my old job and apartment, hanging out with my friends, I was single again, and felt a lot like the way I felt when I was single, before I met Ned, in that crazy exciting phase after I came to realizing that I like it on my own. I was talking to my friends about the past 2 years trying to remember what was going on, how I came to be there, I couldn't remeber Ned or being in New York, I kept trying to remember, I knew I wasn't single, and that I didn't have a boyfriend, that something else was going on as far as relationship goes, but I couldn't remeber what it was.



The second dream was a strange erotic dream in which I was having sex with myself, I was on the couch in our studio and making out with myself, there was two of me, one was me like I am now an the other was different, but they were both me. Ned was working on his computer and was half aware of the two of us having sex. At some point he was trying to get involved but we kept pushing him out of the way.







Dream10
Dream08
Dream 01
Dream06

Inspiration cards

inspiration cards

I had a small idea on Monday, I planned to give the whole thing about 2 hours work and see how it goes.

Well, that's how it started and before I knew it I was in illustration craziness, producing about 15 illustrations par day, scanning and working from noon till sunrise.

This is the story that started the whole thing, a memory from a really moving moment a few years ago. I was in a dinner party for a friend who was getting married the week after, it was an all girls evening in some restaurant in Israel. One of the girls brought a deck of tiny cards and each of us took one, each card had a word on it that was supposed to be relevant for that specific moment.

The girl who was getting married picked up a card but only after the whole deck was passed it turned out she had 2 cards in her hand, one was "birth" and the other was "independence" it was just so right, especially a couple of weeks after the wedding when we all found out that she was already pregnant at the time of the party.

So, I decide to make my own deck of small massages from the universe deck of cards, and I call them Inspiration deck - it's a 52 cards deck, each illustrated by me. and they are meant to give people inspiration, direction and interpretation to a moment in life. All it take is just take a card out of the deck and contemplating the massage it brings into your moment.

And this is the result! a 52 cards deck! If I knew how complicated this project would become then I would never have started it, but I'm so glad I did! because I love the result.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Experiement day 10

red fox notebook

Yesterday, I thought it would be a good idea to renew the 5 items I've been renewing each day at around noon and see if I get more views. In the evening I checked, a book that had 26 views suddenly had 250! I thought I just cracked the secret to the whole renewing thing, but then noticed that an art kit with 67 views, has 51 all of a sudden, and then, scrolling down, it seem that nothing had the amount of views it was supposed to...

A search in Etsy forum showed that there was some big system update and now, the whole thing is supposed to be working better. However, as far as recording views, this was not a good day... So today I repeated the experiment and renewed 5 items at around noon.

So far, in the 3 days of batch renewing I had no sales, I'm disappointed, I wonder if it's because my presence is less noticeable or maybe because renewing every hour or so, made me also comment in the forum, change the featured item in my shop and be more active in Etsy in general. Also, it might be because I haven't listed any new thing in the past couple of days, a small project turned into a huge project somehow, I hope to finish it by the end of the weekend.

So, here is the numbers for today!

Item renewed (Noon)
Birds lover ornaments - 8$ - views 12
Pelvic - Original Painting - 40$ - views 13
Stand and Deliver Journal - 30$ - views 11
Pink Squirrel - Art Kit - 35$ - views 13
Pocket knife Card Case - 20$ - views 12

The interesting fact is this - renewing at 8:00 PM and renewing at noon had just about the same result - even though the listing at noon had 8 more hours to go, I think that it means that overall renewing in the evening is better then during the morning, cause there are more people on Etsy looking for them. As before, renewing 5 items at once didn't cause the items in the back of the list to get less attention then the one in the front.

Item listed - Non, still working on a big project, pretty happy with the way it's going, I illustrated 32 different things in 2 days! that's a lot!

Sales - none...

Hearts - 1081 - 10 hearts in 2 days!

So, numbers so far:
money spend on listing: 2.40$
Money spend on renewing: 10$
Money earned: 204$

I think I might have to publish some teasers for the new project tomorrow, I'm too excited about it not to...

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Experiment Day 8

Mac the Moose

This is the first day of the second phase of the experiment I started a week ago. In the first week I renewed 5 items each day in different hours. In this week I'm going to renew 5 items again, but this time I'm going to renew everything it a batch. Today I did exactly that at 8:00 PM. So far there was no selling tonight, but hopefully, I'll have some surprises in the morning...

Here are today's numbers:

Items renewed (8:00 PM)
Duck Mini Art Kit - 22$ - views 14
White teeth - Reader Kit - 28$ - views 12
Deer Glasses case - 28$ - views 11
Art Nouveau journal - 30$ - views 11
Lucky in Love Business card case - 20$ - views 11

Item listed
5:30 Mac the Moose - 22$ - views 36
6:00 Red fox notebook - 17$ - views 16
7:00 Lone wolf notebook - 27$ - views 9

Item sold - sadly, non...

Hearts 171

The interesting thing is that out of the 5 items renewed, they all got about the same amount of views, somehow I thought that it might be a lot for the top one and non for everything else, it means that most viewers to my store get to it through searches, front page, time machine and so on and not go straight to my shop.

So, numbers so far:
money spend on listing: 2.40$
Money spend on renewing: 8$
Money earned: 204$

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Experiment day 7

Little squirrle notebook
This is the last day of stage one of the renewal project. It went pretty well so far. The bad news is that the 2 item sale from yesterday got canceled. It was a funny story of birthday present, 2 confused people, one of which trying to surprised the other, and other misunderstanding. So sadly, I'm a little behind. However, the good news is that a deck of tarot card got bought this morning, just out of the blue, I didn't renew that one or anything - but I'm sure the renewing did help.

So here are the numbers for today:

Item renewed
10:00 - Maps and Legends - Reader Kit - 28$ - views 33
11:00 - O solitude - Original painting - 45$ - views: 16
12:30 - Morning - Original painting - 25$ - views: 15
2:00 - Rocky Raccoon - 22$ - views: 13
4:00 - Summer apple Art Kit - 35$ - views: 4
8:00 - Heart - Original Art - 40$ - views: 20

Item listed
Lilly squirrle Notebook - 17$

Item sold
The Black Lilly Deck of Tarot - 60$

Hearts 1067 (weepee)

So, result so far:
money spend on listing: 1.80$
Money spend on renewing: 7$
Money earned: 194$

Tomorrow I'm going to try the second phase of the experimen, and renew all 5 items in a batch!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Strange weekend (experiment is on day 6)

RenegadeCards

Very odd weekend, it was very very hot and very very strange! The first cool thing that happened this weekend was the Reneged craft show. In which me and Ned spend a lot of hours on both Saturday and Sunday, we had an amazing time, a lot of chance meeting with friends from cyberspace, wonderful art and craft and just plain fun.

Toward the end of the first day, it started to rain, we were hungry, so we run into Urban rustic to get some food and shelter. The food was great, but when we got back to the apartment, it turned out we left all the windows open and everything was wet, the computer, projector, phone, everything...

After a while it turned out that the only serious damage was to the modem and that we can't connect to the internet. Almost all my communication with people is done online and though I could renew a few items through the laptop with the cellular modem, I couldn't really scan anything or do much otherwise, we spend most of the evening trying to figure out where we can get a new modem and maybe a new phone for Ned as soon as possible.

Eventually we found that the only time warner cable store that was open was in a huge mall in queens and in the morning we took the bike there and got a new modem, it was crowded and strange to see all those people and chain stores I usually don't see in NY.

Back in Brooklyn, we spend the rest of the day in the craft fair again, meeting an awesome person I've known online for about 2 years and never met in person and enjoying ourselves. And later on, going out to dinner with Ned's parents for Father's day.

Renegade02 copy

So back to the experiments, for both yesterday and today:

Item Renewed
12:00 Fly away Business card case - 20$ - views 17
3:40 Cup of tea Tissue Cozy - 20$ - views 8
8:10 O solitude - Original painting - 45$ (was bought before I could check the views!)
11:40 Soft Core Pornography ACEO - 10$ - views 22
Sunday
12:40 Black Lilly - Minor Arcana Tarot deck - The Swords - 40$ - views 15
6:30 Jimmy The Wolf cub - 28$ - views 15
10:00 Greek Portrait - Original Painting - 40$ - views 8
12:00 Samuel The Slow Green Turtle - 22$ - views 11
1:00 Sewing Machine card holder - 20$ - views 5

Item listed
Punchline - Original Art - 35$ - views 26

Sales
2 (maybe) I mean, there are 2 new items sold in the list, that were not paid for yet, I got an e-mail explaining they want something else, i think it might get solved and I'll get the money...
Those are the items that were sold:

Maps and Ledgends - Reader Kit - 28$
O solitude - Original painting - 45$

A couple of conclusions - listing or renewing in the evening (about 7:00 till 10:00) get views up faster then in the morning - though somehow the things that got renewed in the morning sold better. Also, the weekend does seem slower then the weekdays.

Hearts 1060 (the same as it was on Thursday)

So, result so far:
money spend on listing: 1.60$
Money spend on renewing: 5.80$
Money earned: 206$

Punchline

Punchline

The illustration Friday word of the week was Punchline, this one was really hard for me, I'm not a huge fan of jokes and my drawing style isn't really what one would call humorous. I thought about doing something about blonds, but eventually decided to relate to one of my favorite quotes "A loaded gun in the first act should be fired at 3rd" which is also knowing as "Chekhov's Gun" - a principle in writing, which means don't put anything is a story that doesn't help the plot.

It's for sell in my store.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Project Renewal - Day 4

Rocky racoon

It was such an amazingly beautiful day in NY today. And I was out through most of it, that's why I haven't listed anything new yet, it's after midnight and I had a couple of glasses of Preseco, and I might or might not get to make anything new tonight. It was a pretty good day though, Ned and I had a meeting at Elite Modeling agency and we'll start using some of their girls for shoots, which is really nice, also, we found a good option for some frame for an upcoming art show, which is also a good thing.


On a sadder note, nothing got sold today... I was really hopeful after the great 3 sales the day before, but nothing happened. I did renew 5 items and got some views, but it's all still there
(how frustrating...)

Item Renewed
12:00 Henzel the Fox - 45$ - views:20
2:00 Summer Crab Tissue Cozy - 20$ - views:9
3:00 The Black Lilly Deck of Tarot - 60$ - views:9
6:00 Lizard in the sun - Glasses Case - 28$ - views:8
7:30 Spider Mum leather bound sketchbook - 25$ views:12

Strange numbers - right?!

Items listed none

Sales none

Hearts 1060 96 more then yesterday, isn't that cool?)

So, result so far:
money spend on listing: 1.40$
Money spend on renewing: 4$
Money earned: 143$

When I posted about the experiment in the etsy forum, a lot of people said that this in inspiring and that they would like to try this at some point as well. I haven't tried it for a while, even though I knew it was a good way to get things to pick up. I'm not sure what held me in reserve, but I was scared to invest a pretty small amount of money in a way that would probably benefit me. I urge everyone to skip their next cup of fluffy starbucks drink and a unhealthy pastry
and spend those 3-7$ on renewing. Really, it works! even if I don't sell anything else through this experiment, I intended to spend 16$ on it and already earned 143$ - it's worth it!

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Project Renewal - Day 3 - Great Success!

Reader kit

So this is day 3 of the 1$ renewing and listing experiment! And after one successful day of making a sale of a painting and one day with nice amount of views but no sales, this day was the best of all!

When I got up in the morning, I had the first sale waiting for me, and then, while hmmm... me and Ned were having sex, in the afternoon, there was another one, that person bought 2 items! so 3 sales in one day, that's not half bad!

I tried listing in later hours today and so there are less views now, they accumulated much faster, especially the ones renewed at 9:00 and 10:00 PM.

Another really cool that's been happening in the past 2 days, is that this project is
getting me motivated to make things. Yesterday I made 3 books and today I finished 3 reader's kits, after the last one in stock sold today.

And here are the numbers...

Item Renewed
2:00 Pink Squirrel - Art Kit - 35$ - views: 25
4:00 Wide - Original art - 25$ - views: 18
9:15 Spring Tricycle Glasses case - 28$ - views: 12
10:00 Pocket knife Card Case - 20$ - views: 11
11:00 The Key to your Heart - Art kit - 35$ - views: 8

Items listed
Maps and Ledgends - Reader Kit - 28$
100 years of Solitude - Reader Kit - 28$
The Great Gatsby - Reader Kit - 28$

Sells
Oliver the Fox - 45$
Your Money or Your life journal - 30$
Love in the Time of Cholera - Reader Kit - 28$

Hearts
1054

So, result so far:
money spend on listing: 1.40$
Money spend on renewing: 3$
Money earned: 143$

So I'm really excited and happy and just hope this will go on the way it's been!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Project Renewal - Day 2

Stand and deliver journal

Second day to the project renewal started today at about noon, when I renewed the first item, and then about every hour, I renewed another and another. The other 4 items were things I took off the active list for a trunk show and came back. Here are the numbers of today:

Item renewed:

Stand and Deliver business card case - 20$ - views: 15
Summer apple art kit - 35$ - views: 20
Art nouveau journal - 30$ - views: 16
Love in time of Cholera reader kit - 28$ - views: 26
Deer glasses case - 28$ - views: 5

Item listed
Stand and deliver journal - 30$ - views: 3

Sales
Not so far...

Hearts
1052

I have 2 more books that I made earlier today and Ned's taking photos for them now. So it's going to be 8 listings for today which is pretty cool!

So, result so far:
money spend on listing: 0.80$
Money spend on renewing: 2$
Money earned: 40$ in one sale yesterday.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Project Renewal day 1 - update

Scared - Sold!

Right after the last blog entry launching the project renewal, I went out to dinner with my in laws, we went to Diner, their favorite Williamsburg spot, which is really really great and all had a very special and wonderful meal. I wish I could remeber the name of the wine I had to recommend it, but for the life of me, I can't remeber what it was, but it was great.

After dinner we all went to Brooklyn Bridge park. Ned's father is talking about brining the tripod to Brooklyn and take some pictures of the Manhattan skyline at night, and this time, he brought it and we all went. Ned's parents lived in NY mosto f their adult life, and yet it was the first time they were in Brooklyn bridge park, which is probably my favorite NY spot. It was beautiful! the sun just set and the park were full of people - couples, groups, old, kids, tourists and local, enjoying the breeze from the water and the quietness and calmness of the park.

Ned's dad set up and me and his mom set down, looking at the people and the lights and enjoying the park with everyone else. There were some lightnings in the distance that made the clouds look orange and purple and it was just beautiful. Then, about half an hour later, the lightning started to really go wild, the sky were green and violate and without any warning a crazy wind started to blow, a garbage can toppled down and the air filled with sand, pizza boxes and papers. We were running toward the car with everyone else in the park, trying to protect our eye, the camera and my dress from flying away...

When I got back to the building, it was raining really strong. We run to shut down the computers cause there were so many lightning around, but before I did, I noticed that one of the drawings I renew this morning got sold! I'm so excited. I really love this one and I'm glad it's going to a new home.

So far - project renewal is only up for one day and already showing results! 1$ spend and 40$ earned. So I don't know if this is beginner's luck or what, but for now, it seem to be working...

Project Renewal

strange-summer

I was reading some tread on the etsy forum today where people recommended different things to jump start sells and told what they did to make their store work better. One of the things many people mentioned how renewing and listing often helps a lot! I usually list something every day or two, but I'm going to try and do better now.

I've decided to check this theory by spending a 1$ each day on renewing and listing, meaning, about 5 items either new or renewed per day. I'm going to try two things. In the first week of the experiment, I'm going to list or renew 5 items in different hours of the day, while at the second week of renewing, I'm going to renew all of them at once.

I'm going to put in some numbers in my blog everyday to see if this works in any way to make my sells get a little better.

So here's today's numbers:

Items renewed:
past present future - a set of 3 drawings for 40$
opossum sewing kit - 20$
a cups set of tarot cards - 40$
a fox - 25$

New items:
a painting called strange summer, which I did today at a coffee shop while ned was at the gym escaping the heat of the apartment - 15$

Number of hearts - 1042

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Emotional Week


Emotional Week, originally uploaded by lilly1975.

A pretty crazy and emotional week. I tried to put all the feelings and thought into a photo series.

A lot of stuff happened and yet, it feels like nothing happened.

You can see the rest of those here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lilly1975/sets/72157605493203837/

Forgotten

Forgive-Forget

The word of the week for Illustration Friday was "forgotten" I was thinking about it when I was out with the computer writing e-mails back to people. I was writing to my father. He and my mom stopped talking to me about 2 years ago, but then when I was in Israel a couple of months back, I met my dad, we are back on talking terms now, but it's hard, the anger and disappointment is still there.

I was thinking about the old "forgive but never forget" phrase, and how those 2 things, that seem opposite, are actually not opposite at all.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Some cards

tarot
Tarot
tarot

I've been reading a book by an Israeli therapist called "Tarot in psychotherapy" which I got on my trip to Israel. It had a lot of pages and I was scared it would be too technical for me, but sadly, it was quite the opposite. Maybe I expected a book for tarot reader who want to connect it to therapy and end up getting a book for psychotherapist who are interested in divination - I found the interpretation she offered on the cards to be very simplistic and also, very much imposed on alchemical notions and other myth, in this odd post modernistic approach in which when you simplify things enough everything is connected to everything.

The only really interesting part was the preface which was very well written and really inspiring in the writer quoting from Jung and other psychoanalysts and philosophers in relation to mystics and divination.

I'm disappointed that this book wasn't what I wanted it to be, but since i moved on to reading "whale rider" now, I don't mind so much...

Monday, June 2, 2008

Baby

baby

Last weeks illustration Friday came so easy and this week it was really really hard! to me "baby" is not a fun thing to draw, their faces are all pudgy and lacking of any lines to draw also, they all look the same and at best I'll be able to get a drawing of a cute baby out of it...

I thought about it for a couple of days thinking of tricking my way out of it with a baby animal or with something else that somehow associate with babies, but eventually I dug out a book I have called "Encyclopedia Anatomica" which is a photographed documentation of the Museo La Specola in Florance, which is an old science museum that has a spectacular vintage wax figures of the anatomy of men and women (think an older and cooler version of the Bodies exhibit).

I wanted to see if I can find an image of a fetus to draw, but eventually found a stranger and probably nicer looking thing which was a was figure of a baby with his guts open and showing. It's pretty horrid, but something about the face looking really peaceful and how the object was made so lovingly and with great detail made it look much more nice then creepy. So I made a drawing of that.