The Every Other Day Sketch 2015 - Days 3 & 4

Hi there. How are you?

I'm proud to report that I have been keeping up with my Every Other Day Sketch practice.  (I'm actually a little ahead of the game and already have my next 2 sketches in the bag!) I think I can sustain this project throughout the year. Yes!

I actually drew this sketch in the vertical format. But now as I look at it, I'm liking it better as a horizontal.

I'm totally loving Day 4. It's elegant and has a nice flow and shape.  I was so jazzed about this one that I even tried to start a larger version of this drawing on a piece of cradled hardboard, but it's just not the same. I found myself freezing freezing up when I left my sketchbook. "This one has to be good so that someone buys it," says my brain. My work suffers when that happens. I'll have to get over that anxiety and fast as my first art fair of the year is in early May!

Until I can loosen up a little more, I will continue to sketch away in my sketchbook. Thank you for stopping by and seeing what I'm up to.

Until next time. Ta-Ta!

The Almost Daily Sketch 2015

Hi there. How are you?

Happy 2015!! (How can it possibly be 2015 already?? I swear Y2K was just 5 years ago!)

I'm happy to be back here on the blog...I'm hoping to have much to share with you here in 2015. First up, my new sketchbook. 

For the better part of 10 years I have been keeping a sketchbook. It's always in my purse and when I've got a spare moment I can pull out and doodle away. I am terribly brand loyal and have not used anything but a Moleskine to sketch in for years now. This year I decided to switch it up a bit.

I came across "The Daily Sketch Journal" at the local TJ Maxx. (Love that place! Do you ever dig in the papergoods/craft supply section? It can be a gold mine!) I've been wanting to challenge myself to do a daily drawing project for some time now.  This book gave me the impetus to do it...Sort of. By end of New Year's day 2015, I knew I wasn't going to be able to stick with making a drawing every day. My doodles tend to get complicated, and I can easily spend a few hours on each one.  I reckoned that could commit to drawing one every other day. So that's the plan! One drawing, every 2 days.

Here are my first 2 entries. What do you think?

What I like about the "Daily Sketch Journal" is that there are no dates on the pages, just a Day number and a space to write the date. No pressure to draw every day that way. The book actually only has room for 356 drawings anyway, so it's looking like it will take me about 2 years to knock this one out.

On the downside, this sketchbook itself is a little larger than I'm used to, but I can still get it into my purse, so I'll make it work.  The other minus to this sketchbook is the weight of the paper. As it's a little thin, drawings can sometimes bleed through the pages. (Please excuse my dirty fingernails! I was cleaning most of the day. Ugh.)

I really neglected this blog in 2014. Going to try and rectify that in 2015. This sketchbook will give me some weekly material to share. Wish me luck.

Until next time. Ta-ta!

P.S. If you'd like to see more of my sketchbook, do follow me on Instagram. I post there much more frequently than I do here.

Annual Holiday Sale is here!

Hi there. How are you? A belated Happy Thanksgiving to you!

I hope you had wonderful time celebrating with friends and family.  For the first time in many years, Matt and I are actually not traveling for Thanksgiving. We got to celebrate right here in Carbondale with some dear friends. I can't tell you how exciting it is for me to be at home all weekend. I am a huge homebody!

Holiday BOGO Sale! 

With Thanksgiving each year comes my annual sale. All of my paper goods (prints, calendars, or cards) in my Etsy shop are BOGO! Buy one get one FREE! Yippee! 

Here are the Details:

1. For every paper good you buy, choose another of equal or lesser value for free.
2. Place all items in your shopping cart and press APPLY SHOP COUPON CODE.
3. Enter code BOGO14 and you're all set!

The sale runs now through Sunday November 30th.

Click HERE to shop!

Thank you for your continued support friends! Ta-ta for now.

4 Mullins and a Swede: a Travelogue of Italia In October - Part 2

Hi there. How are you?

I'm back this week to fill you in on Week 2 of our trip to Italy. Click here to read about Week 1.

Next stop on our Italia tour was Pompeii, the ancient Roman city near modern-day Naples that was buried by ash in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. 

Pompeii was truly fascinating. It's amazing how well preserved the painting and architecture is. You truly get a feel for ancient Roman life in this massive archeological site. We spent 2 hours exploring and could have easily spent more, but it got a little "burny" out. (It was in the 80's for much of our trip.)  

After a night spent in Sorrento, we drove south all the way to Reggio-Calabria (the very tip of the boot.) After much trouble finding the port and buying a ticket, we took a ferry over to the island. This was quite an expedition! It's a major pain to get to Sicily this way. I wouldn't recommend it! 

Our first night on Sicilia was spent in Taormina, a popular tourist destination on the north-east coast of the island. We celebrated Matt's 40th birthday here with a fabulous dinner featuring seafood and canoli. 

Our next destination with Aragona, the hometown Great Grandpa Carl Cacciatore,  my mother's paternal Grandfather. I'm sure if we would have done some research, we could have dug up some far removed cousins (my great grandfather left Aragona around 1905). We did make a stop in the town square and visited the church that my great-great grandparents were married and came across this World-War 1 monument. If you're from Rockford, you probably know most of the names on this list. So many families from Aragona have emigrated to Rockford in the last century! 

After so much non-stop sight seeing, we needed a little break. Agrigento was perfect for that. Lovely beach, lovely people. We were the only tourists on the beach there. Such a great day! 

Our next stop was Marsala, the hometown of my mother's maternal grandparents. To be honest, there wasn't much to see there, so I didn't take any pics there. We stayed in a lovely resort built out of a former villa.

Our last Sicilian destination was Palermo, the capital of Sicily. It was heartbreaking. The streets are dirty, the air is polluted. The city is literally crumbling. There is just no money to properly take care of things. I hope that something can be done to save the architectural treasures there before it's too late. 

Now, not all of Palermo was bad. We witnessed the most epic Sunday evening "passeggiata" of all time! (Passeggiata is an evening walk.) After spending the afternoon walking around the mostly deserted streets of Palermo, we were amazed at the transformation that took place as the sun started to fade. The people came out in droves! Young and old alike crowded the closed off streets. The outdoor cafes were packed. There was even a pop-up concert!  I'll leave you with a little snip I captured on my i-phone. 

Hope you enjoyed my travelogue. Until next time. Ta-ta.

4 Mullins and a Swede: a Travelogue of Italia In October

Hi there. How are you?

This autumn has been a complete whirlwind. I'm not quite sure how it's November already. Maybe the fact that we spent about half of October traveling may have something to do with it! 

I was lucky enough to spend 2 weeks in Italy with my brother, parents and husband. (This is where the goofy blog title comes from. My maiden name is Mullin and as my lovely readers know, my husband Matt is a Swede.)  I wanted to share some snaps that I took during our most excellent of travels.

Our trip really began at the Dublin airport, at 5:00 AM on a Thursday. We drank Bulmers ciders in an incredibly rowdy airport bar. There must have been 100 people drinking there. Ireland truly lived up to the stereotypes in that regard! 

Mom, brother Kyle, me and Dad (4 Mullins)

Our first stop in Italia was Rome. We spent 4 days in a great apartment near the Vatican. We did our fair share of site-seeing along with much excellent eating and drinking. 

There's my brother and the Swede (Matt)

This guy was posing for me on the roof of the "Typewriter."

After Rome, we rented a car and headed to Tuscany, my favorite part of Italy! I love the small hill towns and the slower pace of life there. Of yeah, and it's breathtakingly beautiful too! 

We stayed in an agriturismo (working farm with guest rooms) near Volterra. Podere San Lorenzo is an olive farm on the site of an old monastery.  Meals were served in the old chapel. We had some of the best meals of the trip here.  This is the natural pool. Had it been warmer, I would have been in it in heartbeat!

As always, I was on the hunt for good chairs. Italia did not disappoint.

This concludes Week 1 of my Italian travelogue. Stay tuned for Week 2 adventures in Pompeii and Sicilia. Thanks for reading! 

Have you ever traveled to Italia? Tell me about it! 

Ta-ta for now.

PS: If you'd like to read about my 2010 trip to Italy, check out these posts on Venice , Verona and Florence, Tuscany, and Rome.

New Things and Stuff

 

 Hi there. How are you? 

After pretty much ignoring my Etsy shop for the better part of this year, I decided to give it some attention. I've added a whole slew of new prints designed to fit perfectly in Ikea Ribba frames.  At just $9.99 with mat and hanger included, these frames give you a lot of bang for your buck and give a small image a lot of visual weight. I am partial to the white version of the Ribba frame, but they also come in black, aluminum, medium brown and black.

I've also got a new set of illustrated bird cards in the shop. I'm really proud of this bunch! Stay tuned for a 2015 bird calendar as well.

Hope you are enjoying your summer. Any fun adventures in the works? Do share.

Ta-Ta!

Keeping a Low Profile

Hi there. How are you?

You may have noticed, that I have been keeping a low profile on the interwebs lately. Until this past week, I've done very little posting on my Facebook fan page, Twitter, or Instagram.  I haven't posted here on my blog for well over a month now. It was time for me to step back from it all for a bit.

I'd like to believe that being active on social media leads to more sales. The truth is, it really doesn't. At least not right now. It just makes me feel good to get those likes, comments, replies and retweets. But those good feelings are not really what I'm after! Besides that, social media can be such a time suck! How many times have have I sat on the couch in front of the TV while mindlessly trolling my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds? Gross!

I find that I can waste the most amount of time on Facebook.......It's the nosy part of me that likes to know what's going on with everyone else. To make it easier to keep myself off Facebook, I deleted the app on my phone. I still do have the "Pages" and "Paper" app, but I do find that my time trolling Facebook has diminished greatly!

Instead of spending time online, I've been:

• Spending time in my studio, making things and learning about selling wholesale. 
• Spending more quality time with Matt and Jack. 
• Enjoying the hell out of this beautiful summer.
• Exercising every day. (More on that later.)

Now that I've got a little more time on my hands and some new exciting projects to spread the word about, I will be posting more regularly on social media. But I won't let it take over my time anymore!

How do you keep social media from sucking your time? Do tell.

Ta-ta.