IF - Celebrate

"Yeah!!!"

Wonder Kids

Just a few sketches I did this afternoon. The word for Illustration Friday this week is "celebrate", so here is my thought process...which for some reason led to a fairy, then some birds, and finally ending on a sleeping mouse. o.O Imagination, a strange thing.

I think I'm going to the girl painting a cross. It celebrates art and Jesus. :) Plus I just think she's so darn cute. That hair is wild, but fun. The boy is a toddler Peter Pan. hehehe

Sarcasm at its Best

My mom sent me an email with this attached...and after I read it I thought "How true is that!". It baffles my mind when I think about the kind of people we have generally become in this country. And I think that daily. Granted no, I don't want to get sick, and I do take precautions, but to live with this going through your head every day, it's exhausting!

Enjoy. :)
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I just want to thank all my friends and loved ones for the educational
emails over the past year...

Because of your warnings I live in a zip-lock
plastic bag with clean oxygen piped in after passing through 18 filters
which are replaced each hour.

Thanks to you, I no longer open a public bathroom door without using a
paper towel.

I can't use the remote in a hotel room because I don't know what the
last person was doing while flipping through the channels.

I can't enjoy lemon slices in my tea or on my seafood anymore because lemon
peels have been found to contain all kinds of nasty germs including feces.

I can't touch any woman's purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of
a public bathroom.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown)
who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the
$15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating
in their special e-mail program .

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out
for me, and St.Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water
buffalo on a hot day.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I
forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five
minutes.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove
toilet stains.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car
so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr Pepper since the people who make these
products are atheists who refuse to put 'Under God' on their cans.

I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

And thanks for letting me know I can't boil a cup of water in the microwave
anymore because it will blow up in my face...disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked
with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a
perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al
Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our
American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number
for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica , Uganda ,
Singapore and Uzbekistan.

I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman-Marcus since I now have their
recipe.

Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown
African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it
bites my ass.

And thanks to your great advice, I can't ever pick up $5.00 dropped in the
parking lot because it probably was placed there by a rapist waiting
underneath my car to grab my leg.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70
minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM this
afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you
to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened
to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's
cousin's beautician..

Have a wonderful day...

Facebook & ImageKind

Today has been a day glued to the computer screen every chance I get. I have been updating my facebook and imagekind accounts. Let's first start with imagekind.

I have gone through and added a frame and mat to each print using colors I feel best fits the piece. This takes a lot of the guess work out for customers. Yet, in the back of my mind I know my tastes are very different than most of the general public. :P But I have done my best. I love this feature because it allows you to see how the whole thing will work out, whether you purchase the print with or without the mat and frame.

I have debated about taking off the image's information so that the mat/frame can come to the edge of the piece. I'm open to your thoughts on this.

At the top is a piece (of two) that you won't find on my site, nor on ArtWanted or DeviantArt. These two pieces were created in response to my grandmother's death in January 2007. The butterflies are a species that she admired, the painted lady. I created this one specifically for my sister. We both now have tattoos that I designed on our shoulder blades, also in remembrance of her. My grandmother was very involved with our lives, and was the only grandparent I came to have a close relationship with. My other grandmother and grandfathers lived out of state. The second piece you'll find in the gallery is titled "A Lily for Lucy". One of my grandmother's favorite flowers was the calla lily. This was a personal piece.

I wanted to share these paintings with you and everyone else, not only because I personally loved the process and subject matter, but because I wanted to share a part of my life that meant, and still means, a lot to me.

As for Facebook, if you're on there, you can now follow my blog through NetworkedBlogs: http://apps.new.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/warrior_princess_dream/


You can also become a fan of my work on Facebook by searching for my Page. Just type in my full name and you should find it. Not exactly sure how that works, but I have no doubt it's findable. :)

Prints! Prints! Prints!

May I say it again, I have prints! Low and behold, I was able to use ImageKind after all. I thought I couldn't. Bah! Not so!

I have 18 images up to order, and whats so great about ImageKind is you have a lot of control over what you're purchasing. Prints (about 8x10) start at $14.49, but the size goes as large as the file will allow. You can frame, mat, place the image on canvas, and so many more things that I could never provide myself. They handle all of the shipping and printing, and have a great reputation. And in the spirit of Valentine's Day, I have six(6) pieces relating to love available. So please visit my gallery at:

http://sarabutcher.imagekind.com

Another great feature are the greeting cards. You have control as to where the image is cropped, and no need about my information, for on the back they place a copyright and a link to my gallery. How cool is that?

One last special note, there are two pieces in the gallery titled "A Lily for Lucy" and "Painted Ladies". These pieces are mixed media and unlike anything else I've created. There are a total of 5 paintings created in this process, and two are available for purchase.

Valentine Night (wip)

I never do valentines. I don't mind handing them out, last year I bought CareBear valentines to give. Although I paint cute lovable things all the time, to focus on Valentine's Day always comes to me in many frustrating ways. I guess it's because there's such a cliché attached to it. Or maybe because the day was created for only money making purposes. I dunno. But this year I really wanted to create something.

I was going to make cards to sell on Etsy or on my site, yet instead the cards evolved to this one 5x7 painting. Love is an action, not just a word, and not just a feeling. Here the fairy lad is expressing his love for the fairy maiden by tying her flower bonnet. Brian always does little things like this for me, and I always feel so loved by him and know that it is a true expression of his care for me.

Doodles

Yay, some sketches! :P Started a new sketchbook too...I think that's the quickest I've gone through one in a LONG time.

The Snow Lion

One thing Brian and I enjoy doing together is creating snow sculptures. Last year was our first snow sculpture, an angel. We wanted to be different and I live right on the corner of a very busy street. So it made sense, to us anyways, to go grand. Little did we know that the snow angel was just the practice piece, because this year we blew it out of the water.
We knew we wanted to do something larger, now that we had an idea as to how to go about the project. Shovel, lots of gloves, waterproof boots (which I didn't have :( but didn't care :D ), and maybe something to look off of. We decided to create a large guardian lion, or royal lion. Those lions that sit on your porch or on your front stairs. He stands about 4 to 4.5 feet tall, been photographed over a dozen times by common goers, had a few pats on the back, was displayed on the local news, brought smiles, brought laughs, and has just given Brian and I a sense of fulfillment. It's been fun watching people's responses and being able to bring some joy so simply to the community. :)