Inside The Studio: The Blog Without A Clever Name

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who has been out to Sutherland’s Markers Market at the end of September. You guys made for an absolutely incredible weekend. It was a beautiful day and everyone was incredible. I had such an amazing day. 

I want to thank everyone for coming out and seeing us at the Triple Bee Sip & Shop event earlier in the month. While the wind did end up causing us to pack up early after it started collapsing and breaking tents and trying to take off with several of my prints and stickers it was a relatively decent day and I am always so happy to see not only the familiar faces but also all the new ones of both guests and other vendors. It’s always the highlight of my day being able to talk with everyone at these shows. I also need to thank my fellow vendors as well for all of their help with my tent that day. Especially those who jumped in so fast when the one corner was refusing to lock and stay and then were incredible help when my tent broke and helped me get it torn down quickly before it could hurt anyone or cause any damage to anyone else at the event. It was mildly terrifying how quickly things went the wind just being kind of obnoxious and annoying to insanity. While I might have been able to do it on my own, I would have lost so much of my inventory and possibly gotten hurt and I am so thankful for all your help. 

This month’s update doesn’t come with a clever title or anything special. Honestly, it’s been really hard getting motivated to write this month's update. It’s been so incredibly busy and yet also filled with so much grief during the last couple of weeks after a sudden difficult situation that I’m not really ready to talk about currently, while also continuing to go to work at my day job and prepping and attending a couple different craft shows. 

I’ve been so burnt out and exhausted from everything that I really struggled with finishing a couple projects for Boo Bazaar as well as the need to write this update. Thankfully after the weekend of October 11th & 12th, I’ll be able to take a little bit of a break between shows and thankfully it is also one my last outdoor shows of the year so things will be a little bit easier moving forward. All shows have their own challenges but outdoor shows are a beast of their own especially in Nebraska during the fall or spring when the larger fluctuation in temperature causes more wind. Stickers and prints can only hold up to so much when the wind decides to bust through taking all it can. 

In other vending news, the current show schedule is the final one. The show I have been waiting to hear back from for months has finally reached out to let me know that I did not get in due to them being full. 

Honestly, I’m not going to complain too much especially since this has been such a busy and chaotic year that I’m getting increasingly more exhausted. I love doing shows and may even try to attend more next year but this year I didn’t plan things out very well and didn’t start working on things until it was really close to the shows starting. I don’t mind the go go go that I have put myself through except for the fact that I’ve hardly been able to take a day to myself and I’ve been having to stay up late most days in order to get things done and that’s not good. 

The mimics are a perfect example! I signed up for this Halloween show late spring/early summer (I forget exactly when and I’m too tired to look it up) and yet I didn’t start working on sculpting them until the beginning of September! I was even trying something new and different with this collection and gave them a theme, Halloween. This collection has done nothing but test me to my very limit. Like what do you mean I decided to have a Mummy, Pumpkin, Vampire and a Ghost! The ghost in particular has been the one really wanting to test me. I started sculpting on it originally forgetting that it would need to open so had sculpted it to look like there was a sheet draped over one of my standard mimic designs but had to remove all of that and start over. 

I then decided to make it a removable fabric costume but that didn’t work well either. The fabric was not wanting to keep its shape no matter what I was doing to it. I saturated it in

and acrylic paint…still was collapsing. I roughly tried essentially soaking it in spray acrylic sealant which did make it stiff enough to hold but then was extremely rough to the touch and was scratching at the paint I was attempting to put on the mimic itself. So, in the end I just scrapped that idea for now and have decided to just paint the mimic and come back to the ghost idea at a later time. So now it takes after Regan from The Excorist. I was able to make a near perfect green collar for the dripping vomit I made sure to include and was definitely kinda grossing myself out especially while I was desperately trying to drip the paint down it’s face. I now want to do an entire horror collection but that will probably be for next year. I’m not entirely sure if that’s what I’ll actually do but it’s definitely something to keep in mind as I finish up this year's shows. We’ll see how well people take to this collection. While I may love it and am excited for it, it does make it less versatile if people want to include it in their DND campaigns.  It’s such a hard decision but I will definitely figure something out soon. 

Halloween Mimics

I have also been working on drawing up the leaves for the border/background of my soon to be card set featuring the Spring Wildlife collection from last year. And depending on how it goes, I am thinking of turning it into either a small notepad probably or possibly a weekly planner pad that will be made next year. With only a couple more shows left for this year I am only really wanting to keep up my current stock and not start making anything new on that scale. New art and making prints and stickers is one thing, but new things are things to look into for next year otherwise I’m going to drive myself insane. Plus, waiting for next year gives me time to look into how to do it without putting an insane amount of pressure on myself. I’ve had enough of that for this year. 

I also finished my Spring Wildlife Zine just in time for Sutherland's Makers Market and have decided that I will be turning one of the designs into a fully finished piece. I want to do it as either a wooden bookmark or I’ll do it as a large alcohol marker and color penciled piece but I haven’t fully decided just yet but I do love painting and think it would be really cute as a bookmark. We’ll see what I decide after I get back from The 3rd Annual Boo! Bazaar: Tim Burton Edition. My brain is mostly just focused on that especially as I sit up here in Lincoln with my family the night before the show. Well, they are vending at their own event and I am working on finishing adding some final touches on the mimics and back end stuff for myself and my shop. I was even able to get photos taken throughout the day so I can get the mimics up on my site! 

I’ll be spending time this week finally getting as much of the new stuff listed as possible since I haven’t had a chance to. I will be reordering a couple sticker designs due to how incredibly popular they have been out at shows lately. My fox from the Spring Wildlife Collection is down to two stickers!

Well, with that all being said I am going to end this blog here so I can get it and the newsletter out on time as well as get back to work on other projects so I'm not working myself so hard right before the next show.