On Vacation

I'm a bit scared, I'll be honest.

It's not normal to close your business for any period of time, and if it is, it doesn't feel like it when you do.

I purchased an Epson Stylus 1400 a couple of weeks ago. Put aside the anxiety of having yet another large format printer, and was pretty excited about it!

Got it all set up (after taking the studio apart trying to figure out where the beast was going to sit), printed my first page, and it had a band of ink at the bottom....just like my Artisan 50! The whole reason I started looking at printers was because of that band of ink.

I just couldn't believe it. A brand new $300 printer was already spitting ink.

The next day I decided to give the poor printer another chance, and the prints came out perfect. Oooookay. It became a pattern. I gave the printer a week. Every other printing "session" was like before. One day, bands of ink, next day...nothing. I decided to risk my business and not settle for this printer. I am sending it back.


B&H Photo was amazing and are paying for the return and giving a full refund. It was my intention to purchase another one just to see if what I got was a lemon (there are several of those in the Epson line), but I was told they don't sell it anymore. Say wha?!

And it's true, they don't. Looks like Epson is pushing everyone to buy from their new line. Sheeeah right, already bad reviews.

So I decided to give myself some more time than a week to solve this. My business runs on prints, and I can't afford to do large quantities at a time. It has to be on demand. I have started to freshen up my Imagekind gallery for now, so prints are available.

I thought about just purchasing another Artisan 50 and printing my limited editions through Imagekind or another on demand printer. I feel like I was just in this boat about 6 months ago. I'm not positive what is going to happen, but the shop will be open on way or another on March 19th.

Works in Progress

Week in Watercolor

Spent a couple hours figuring out designs to place into the background. The gorgeous patterns of the East are insane! It was pretty overwhelmed but found some that were simple enough for me to understand.

I can do complex hair, but find it increasingly frustrating to do geometric or intense patterns. Something I must practice more often!

I resolved the bottom half of the painting and added the famous red cord (or sash for this piece) from the story. I think it tied (no pun intended) everything together beautifully.





Life Song's Sneak Peek