yay!money!

Remember when a while ago I won 250$ in the apartment therapy tutorial competition?!that was about a month ago and the money stayed in my paypal account till now, I already had one nightmare about not spending it fast enough. There were just too many choices and wonderful things on Etsy that I want and I just couldn't decide.

And so, though the reasonable thing to do would be to spend it on some heirloom piece that would service me for a long time, like a leather bag or spend it all on 25 pounds of fudge, this money kept making me think of the first sale I ever had on Etsy. It was on late November, when I decided to pick up my long abandon store and make and list at least one thing every month to see what happens. Now, making one thing and listing it a day look like an easy work day, but then it looked like quite a challange. I've been doing it for 2 weeks, trying to promote and getting pretty discouraged, and then I sold a sock puppet I made to the awesome Queancy Pearson. It suddenly made all this making-money-of-art thing looks possible and that though it was a bit of a rude awakening to list things that I loveingly made for pretty small change and still not having people rush to buy everything, a little reality worth so much more then a hige fantasy.

And so I thought that the best thing I can do with a 250$ in Etsy money would be to give this awesome experience to other sellers and make them realise that they to, can make some money from making stuff.

So, for the next couple of weeks i'm going on a shopping spree in stores who never had a sale (I might bend the rules if I see something I really want and the store had very few sales so far), I'm going to try not to spend more then 25$ in each store, and try ot give this cool experience to 10 people. Also, I'm going to review the stores I'm buying from and hope that the blog feature will get them some more exposure.

I'm going to try one more thing in my search of stores that didn't get any sales yet - If I come across any that don't make sales for a reason that look obvious to me, I'm going ot critique them, again hoping the exposure would get them some attention.

If you are or you know any cool shops with no sales yet that you would like me ot critique or buy something from, please comment here. I can't promis to buy or critique any of those, but I will take a look at what they make, so at least they'll get some views out of it.

Illustration Friday - Theater

The word of the week for "Illustration Friday" was Theater. I used to love theater in high school, I don't really like acting but I love studying the plays and history and going to the theater to watch plays.

One of my favorite theater genre is "comedia del-Arte" which is basically the root of all modern comedy.The characters are almost always the same, and the plots are very similar, the show doesn't really follow a script but just put up a story guideline that allow the actors to make fun and joke and improvise all the time.

In this illustration I wanted to not only show the characters of the play, but mostly to give the feeling of a theater - the way that theater is a little perfect world of it's own, and so I created a couple of shadow boxes made of paper showing a few of the characters from Comedia del-Arte.

There were supposed to be 4 pieces in this series, but, building stuff out of paper is a pretty fragile thing and one box didn't make it, so I had to change my plans. looking at the figures in the box made me think of those butterflies in display cases and so I decided to give this a shot as well.

New mugs

Some projects happens because i plan them in my mind for a while until they ripe and I go, get supplies, make the time to work on them and follow my plan step by step.

Some project happens because I found something inspiring or a cool new material or just cause my hands were bored.

I guess this was a combination of both, I had the idea of making a tea or coffee set with a bunch of cups and not just one or two and have them all with similar pattern but different colors. Somehow it looked like a too large project and I never got around to it.
Then a few days ago, I was in the salvation army store getting some cloths and idea for a shoot tomorrow, I found a set of 5 large mugs, each was 79 cents! I just couldn't leave them in the store. They very rarely have matching pieces, so I was happy to take advantage of those.

Then it was just about putting the time into it, so yesterday, in the first work days I had since I got sick I just set all day and made those. I really couldn't be happier with how they came out! secretly I hope that one person would decide to splurge and buy them all, I love how those look together.

Mother day's freebe prints

I don't celebrate mother day myself. about 2and a half years ago, when I moved to NY my mom stopped talking to me. Mother's day was never a big holiday in Israel, but here, I keep hearing about people's plans for it and all the cool brunches they are taking their mom to, and I feel really strange not doing anything about it. I guess it's my version of being single on Valentine's.

So for a while I didn't want to make anything special for my Etsy store to celebrate mother's day, but when I run out of those bunny prints really fast and wanted to do that again, I decided to make something that will represent what I want mother day, and my relationship with my mom to be about, which is all about feeling happy and safe.

So I made not one, but two special mother day prints! one with a mommy and a baby penguin one with a mommy and baby goat. You can all have one (until I run out) either by spending some money or by spending some luck and time.

There will be one free print per order for anyone who buys anything from my shop.

Or - you can win a print for absolutely free if you check out the hand painted dishes section of my shop and suggest the next animal I should put on a tapas plate that haven't been used before.
I'm going to raffle one print of each, so there will be 2 winners, one gets a goat and one a penguin.

Please leave your e-mail when you comment so I can contact you if you won!

Raffle will be held on Mother day, May 10.

Impossibility

So strange to blog 3 times in one evening after not doing it for so long, but I guess I'm trying to clear out my desk from all made but unpublished yet artwork. So, maybe 3 is a charm! which I think it is since while I was scanning those I had an etsy sale from someone who bought a tarot deck and a cup!

This is a 3 drawing series I made a couple of days ago, they are meant for illustration Friday, the word of the week was "impossibility". It's interesting to try and illustrate an impossible thing. I was thinking of what would be the most impossible thing to do, and I thought of my memories and my past and how hard (and actually impossible) it is to see reality as it is and life as they are, rather then through the filters of memory and emotions and old thinking patterns.

Eye Level Gallery BQE

We went to the photodrifting BQE show at the Eye Level Gallery last night. It was really fun. I've never had a photograph in a show before and it felt really nice to see it on the window in the gallery. There's something really cool about being in a gallery opening that doesn't involve my main artistic medium, somehow it was a lot less stressful then if this would have been a painting or a drawing.

Also, I finally got to meet JP - the awesome curator and founder of Photodrifting, it was so nice to finally match a face and a voice to an online persona! thanks JP for making this happen!

I'm trying to remind myself of how much fun this was, and that i'm doing good, I just got news that I was rejected from the About Glamore Fairy tale show - which I really really wanted to be in.

And the winner is....

A couple of weeks ago I announced a blog freebe raffle, the winner would get one of my hand painted rabbit prints.

I got back from LA a couple of days ago and feeling a bit under the weather, but I held the raffle yesterday and I'm proud to announce the winner is Tatertot374.

Congratulation to the winner! and thanks everyone else for your awesome ideas, I already tried a couple of them - the frog cup, which was Blanche idea, sold a couple of days ago, and i already made a second set. And yesterday I also tried a Raccoon, cause i couldn't find a good enough image of a skunk, as Nichola suggested.

Don't be too sad if you didn't win, this was so much fun I'm already working on a new print and will announce a new freebe give away in the next couple of days!

Pie Level

Pie Level, originally uploaded by Aya Rosen.

I have a piece in an art show opening on Saturday April 18, in a very cool space called "Eye Level" which overlook the BQE.

The show is all dedicated to the BQE and was arranged by the Awesome JP from photodrifting.

I'd love to see any NY flickr friends around!

More info about the show:
eyelevelgallery.com/
and about photodrifting:
www.photodrifting.com/

It's the first time I'm exhibiting a photograph and it feels very strange! part of me wishes it was paintings or drawings, but also, it feels very exciting to think of my photos as something good enough to be in an art show.

frog tea set

frog tea set, originally uploaded by Aya Rosen.

I'm doing a blog give away in which people who wants to participate suggest the next animal for me to draw on a tea set, one of the first suggestions were a frog! so I gave it a shot today, and I'm really happy with how it came out. Frogs are really fun to draw, somehow every deformity makes them look even more frog like.

If you want to participate, see your idea (maybe) being drawn on a tea set and have a chance at winning a rabbit print, read this blog entry.

Talisman

A series of drawing for illustration Friday. The word of the week was "Talisman". I had a few ideas, both about repealing evil spirits and something general about jewelery and comfort objects. Eventually I just decided to make some drawing that invoke different things I wan more or i want to preserve in my own life.

New-York-Mag

New-York-Mag, originally uploaded by Aya Rosen.

Last week (I think) I got an e-mail from Adam at Etsy. He asked me to send a high rez image of my bottles for a possible New York Magazine feature. I was really excited and ask a bunch of people to cross their fingers for me without telling them what it's for - I was too scared of getting disappointing.

So, today I went into the magazine store and looked for the article and there it was! the bottles in a really cool spot on the page! Wow!

I haven't slept at all tonight, combination of work, totally messed up sleeping schedule and insomnia, this feels like a very odd dream.