if you know me and my work, you know redwoods are my favorite. since leaving california for oregon 4 years ago, i’ve had this potted redwood to remind me of my roots. there’s no appropriate place to plant her in my current yard.

unfortunately, i think she’s getting pissed off. see all that growth and burning on the ends? help! we both have at least another year before we permanently settle somewhere!

excuse me while i revel in these great photos by rachel h! rachel’s new photo studio is awesome and we had such a good time together during this photo shoot that, to quote rachel: “there were a few really great laughing ones, but they’re all out of focus because i was laughing with you. that makes me giggle.”

if you are/will be in portland in the next two months and need some promo shots, rachel’s offering a few low-cost studio days (july 13, july 27, august 24, and september 21) where portland artists, musicians, and business owners can get high quality b&w portraits made for $125. like all portlanders, rachel is also interested in product or service trades if you have a unique product but not a lot of cash.

sooo, anyone want to interview me for their magazine or blog so we can put all these great photos to use?! there’s many more besides just these!

ps: for those of you that follow me on twitter, this was the day last week that i got back to my studio and just *had* to paint my toenails and drink blush wine. such a diva day!

oh! this is why i joined adx! last night’s laser cutter demo / trial resulted in spiffy new signs for my sales events, etched on the back of some pressboard remnants from an old ikea bookcase that fell apart. for you laser nerds, the [lighter] one is 300 dpi, the other one is 400 dpi. oh yeah. i’m just getting started!

can’t wait for the cnc demo!

so, in my extreme laziness of this past month i totally forgot to post these here earlier!

new from myself and pushdot and plywerk: gorgeous anima digital prints on gorgeous 11″ x 14″ bamboo wood panels for $100 each! these are up on the walls of pushdot studios here in portland through the end of july.

those of you living elsewhere can still get one by emailing ann at pushdot! if sales of these 4 panels go well, i may offer all my artwork on these panels in the near future!

in two weekends i’ll be up in seattle at urban craft uprising. here‘s a little interview in preparation for that, and a give-away!

this morning i walked out of the house to find this bright yellow liquid-yet-stiff stuff on the tree stump. it was beautiful. the brown part is where i touched it and it collapsed.

eight hours later it had lost the brightness of it’s color and had dried out. i scraped away the shell to reveal a hard black dirt-like substance underneath the yellow flakey shell.

this was an amazing talk to listen to as i made breakfast this morning!

thanks susy jack on twitter for bringing it to my attention!

breakfast, by the way, was radish micro-greens and salad with tahini ginger dressing. i forgot to buy groceries yesterday, and was bummed i’d have to go get breakfast out. but then i remembered, duh, the garden! go out and pick some stuff! i love summer!

ready for my day in lake oswego!

i saw this sidewalk chalk drawing yesterday evening and it made me laugh. in this bike-freindly town, not only do the kids draw bikes, but they draw cargo bikes!

despite my best efforts, i am doing poorly at keeping up with my blog duties and minimal daily summer to-do list. i’ve started a new job that’s less hand- and brain- intensive than my studio practice to help pay the bills while my hand and brain recover from the past two years of crazy recession stress and then the necessary [over-] workload to recover from the recession.

while the new job affords me plenty of time to do my own work, so far i couldn’t tell you what i do with my time. this afternoon i “just had” to go buy nail polish and paint my toenails. and i “just had” to buy a half bottle of blush wine to drink while i was painting my nails. more and more, i think i’m inadvertently taking a stay-cation!

but it’s not all a waste of time. i’m incubating some exciting ideas and projects that i’ll share with you once i break through this totally-unlike-me-slacker period. ugh, i hope it’s over soon because i’m started to piss myself off!

another gorgeous book by julia rothman, featuring sketchbook pages from artists, illustrators, graphic designers, and cartoonists.

some of my older sketchbooks and a little interview are featured on pp. 22 – 25!

i enjoyed going through all sketchbook pages and interviews, especially calef brown, jen corace, ben finer, sarajo frieden, katy horan, julia pott and my students’ favorite: jessica hische!

i did this while conducting my drawing workshop this past sunday – some studies of honeysuckle [left] and blue corn flowers [right]. my drawing hand is still numb in a certain spot, so i’m still babying it til the end of the month and not doing any “real” drawing!