In follow up to a post from exactly a year ago, I have re-listed my mugs for sale. They are print on demand fulfilled by Threadless. I've ordered a number of mugs from Threadless myself and some I've been using for at least two years. I'm happy with how they have held up, so I am excited to offer them for sale.

I've officially added a Chicken Cam Playlist to my YouTube channel. The chicks are about two weeks old. I'm not completely sure because we bought them on the 15th from Wilco and they were probably a couple days old by then. We're having a lot of fun observing their behaviors and guessing their genders.

Ten years ago I ordered chickens, but they never came because of it being too hot or too cold or something. Then I found out that I was pregnant and decided to put the chicken plans on hold. A decade later I went to the fair and there were the bantam chickens. My heart melted and I knew it was time to try again. I did what everyone should do. I told the kids we were getting chickens before I talked to my spouse about it. They were sold... so how could he protest. So, no he isn't excited about the chickens, but he seems to be tolerating and supporting the plan pretty well. 

I checked with Wilco and they were getting their silkie bantam chicks in May. In February we ordered the Eglu Go Up coop. It came surprisingly fast and we spent several days putting it together. 

I decided to get bantams because they are small and sweet and they melt my heart. I settled on silkies because they are soft and they can't fly. So I figured my garden would be safe from them. I don't plan for them to have unsupervised time outside of the run, but I didn't want to worry about my garden if the kids have the chickens out. 

Then I realized that if I just protected my raised beds, I could get more breeds of bantams and it would keep the cats from pooping in my garden too. 

On a Friday after dinner, we set out to Wilco to pick up some poultry wire to start work on this protecting the garden plan... and they had chicks. They even had silkie and cochin bantam chicks. After some back and forth in my head that really was quite painful, I changed my plans. We picked out 6 sweet little chicks and brought them home. 

We won't know for quite some time if they are girls or boys. Bantams come straight run and you often have to wait for them to either crow or lay an egg to be sure of their gender. So we may not get to keep all six. 

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I love eggnog chai. I love twinkly lights. I love cats curled up on laps. I love puzzles. I love puzzles with cats. I love the feel of cozy fabrics like wool and corduroy. I love singing with my kids to candlelight. So of course I am a total nut for the magic of Christmas.

I'd like to apologize to Thanksgiving for the neglect because Christmas starts in September (or sooner). This year has been no different, but I do have some specific plans and preparations in mind. 

1. Concertina Christmas Caroling Flash Mob... not sure if we can call it a mob... but I'm practicing a bunch of easy Christmas songs in the key of F on my concertina. I have the intention of dressing up in a renaissance fair-esk costume and playing uninvited downtown.

2. Origami Ornaments... I'm folding a massive quantity of origami  (all the same upside-down version of a lily) to hang on our tree this year. My son is more adventurous than I am and he's contributing a random assortment of dragons, cranes, butterflies, and whatever else there is a good YouTube tutorial of. 

3. Hand Printed Tea Towels... each year the day care staff at our church get their stockings filled for the twelve days before Christmas break. I pick a day to take a turn to stuff their stockings. One year I printed tote bags. Last year I stuffed them with the small version of my calendar. This year I have tea towels picked out that I'll either screen print or block print with my stamps. I haven't decided yet if I'll do them all the same or make each one different. I have a lot of designs to choose from.

4. Music Box Houses... I started collecting music boxes over the last few months from the thrift stores and from Glaser Ceramics.  I tend to take the music box out of the usually ugly and breakable ceramic object it came in. Then I've been gradually making new cases for them in houses made out of various sizes of craft sticks. Once I got about four done I was running into an "if you give a mouse a cookie" situation. I needed a perfect place to put them. So I took the quilt rack down off the wall in my living room and devised a plan. In the end I went with my 4th or 5th version, but I'm very happy with it. The wreaths were free and made from grape vines on my parents' property. The floral wire I used to connect them were left over from pre-pandemic wreath making parties. The little shelves were made from paint stir sticks that I had purchased for other projects months ago. I did have to buy the lights, but all in all a pretty cheap project for me. I harvested the vines on Wednesday evening and the whole thing was done by the time I went to sleep on Thursday. I love projects that come together quickly. 

It's exciting! Can't you tell by the look on my face? Good news! This short one minute YouTube video just features my calendar (not my face). Enjoy!

I am working on adding a few new products to my Etsy shop. They are all going to be print on demand through my printing partner, Gooten. I think I might have to get one myself. I've been wanting a new water bottle that will actually fit in the side pocket of my ‎Fjällräven backpack and I think this will work.

These 16oz metal water bottles are insulated... and incredibly cute!

A year ago we took the kids to the Kitsap Fair and as it was getting dark we were all exhausted. But I remember looking longingly at the bright lights on the spinning rides. So this year I came back to the fair at night without kids and I was able to take some photographs.

I went to Sandpoint, Idaho about a month ago and spent time visiting with family and wading in the river.

When you take the 7:40pm fast ferry from Bremerton to Seattle and you take the 10:30pm big ferry back it gives you about 2 hours to take pictures. My sister and I have been participating in the 52Frames photography challenge. This week the prompt was "Reflection" and the waterfront proved to be ripe with potential. 
I brought my tripod along and I was able to take some Live Composite photographs and some that were just Long Exposure. 

I've had my Panasonic Lumix DC-G95D since last December, but I'm still working my way through its many features. One of the reasons I bought this model was because they advertised it could take great pictures of star trails. This magical ability can be attributed to the Live Composite feature. I'm pretty sure that Photoshop will do something like this, but I appreciate how easy and streamlined it is right here on my camera. Also, I don't have Photoshop.

While you can see the photograph building on the display, you just have to guess when to stop. When you're watching fireworks, you don't know how long they are going to last or what is coming next. If you stop to soon, there isn't anything to see. If you stop too late, it is one big ball of light and that isn't interesting. There's a counter on the display that tells you how many exposures you've done. But once you're done taking the picture, that information seems to be lost.

I've got big plans to try this out with

• The Seattle Great Wheel
• Traffic Lights
• Light Painting
• Star Trails

It was my day off with Thing #2 in tow and we wandered out to the Curley Creek Estuary. I believe that this is a purple shore crab. The water is starting to fill up with cargo due to the strike at the local port. I've always loved seeing the big ships out there and I finally found a website that will tell me more about where the boats are from and what they are up to. 

Another quality control update for my Threadless shop. I haven't been happy with how the print quality has lasted on black background mugs. The mugs that I've had for just a couple months show black streaking through the white design after just a few washes. I haven't had any trouble with the white background mugs. In fact, I've had my Couch Pickle mug for a year now and it still looks great. I'm gradually going through and updating the designs I offer. I no longer offer any mugs with a black background. Also, at one point I had a couple dozen designs up. Now I have a lot less. I plan to add more back as I gradually tailor the designs for white background mugs. Here's the two latest that I've fixed.

This weekend I had the opportunity to volunteer at Wayzgoose. It's an art festival in Bremerton that uses a steamroller to take printing to epic levels. It was fun to art with other people and make 3' x 3' linocut prints.
It has also properly motivated me to make progress on some of my own print work. I have 6 screens in various states of cleanliness. After I get the remaining old emulsion off, I need to mix up a fresh batch and apply a nice thin layer to dry in a dark place. Then I need to burn my designs onto the screens. This is a really nice project for the summer because it just isn't fun standing outside in the cold January rain spraying a screen with a hose.
But before I get to all that, I need to decide what I want to put on the screens and order the transparencies from the office supply store. I'm putting a lot of thought into my choices because I want to keep these on the screens for a very long time.  The little screens are great for kids shirts or onesies. I like to have a few cute designs hanging around so I can easily make baby gifts. The two big ones are great for adult shirts, tote bags, tea towels, or ? Then there is a long skinny one that I'm not super sure what to do with. I'm also thinking about applying to carve a 3' x 3' print for Wayzgoose next year... so there is scheming for that. Plus I figured that somethings are just better the size of a stamp (I have several 4"x 6" blanks) and I can just do them that way. This is a screenshot of my Sketch document that I'm using to visualize the hypothetical collection I'll have in the end. Also of note, I would do two different house stamps. One to print the background first and the next to go in with the outlines.

A few weeks ago I took a bus/train trip to Portland with my sister. We'd meant to take more pictures than we did and I didn't think I had any to share from the trip really. But now that some time has passed, I wanted to share some favorites

Step 1: Outline ambitious goals.

• Write and illustrate a children's picture book
• Produce 2024 wall calendar

Step 2: Declare these goals to the world in the form of a YouTube video.
Step 3: Life happens causing an avalanche of non-productivity.
Step 4: Do anything creatively that still feels good.

• Sketch in the tiniest sketchbook so that I actually have a chance to fill a page.
• Start a sketchbook journal where I write/illustrate news headlines from my life. I try hard to miss the real news and focus on the quirkier stories.
• Make banners/garland to hang in my house. I've been posting a lot about these on Instagram.
  • Try out new mediums. My favorite being drawing with water soluble fountain pen ink and then strategically washing over certain spots with water.

Step 5: See if what you did can somehow accomplish the goals you outlined in Step 1.

• Scanning these berries that I plan to turn into a banner/garland gives me some fun ideas for my calendar and maybe even a creative way to illustrate a book. We shall see.

I am officially in the very long process of updating my designs on Threadless for mugs. Here is a new one. My daughter had a "duck" mug that I think was actually geese. She loved it and she dropped it. So this is my attempt to replace the mug. I think she'll love it. For a while when you go to my threadless shop it will look like I don't have very many designs for sale. Gradually, that will change as I add more back in. 

The park next to my house isn't pretty. The sidewalks are cracked. The bathrooms are closed. The storm drains get clogged.

But the fog hangs like a veil concealing blemishes and deficits. When the world is covered in a haze, it is easier to take in what you can see. Somehow the "less" is even richer. Trees that normally blend into the landscape emerge prominently, declaring their existence. A row of rocks calmly fades into the distance.

Do our brains work the same way, when there is too much to take in, too much to deal with? Should we curse the fog that rolls in or should we embrace it? Sometimes our brains work the way they should. They override systems and keep us from doing too much... seeing too much at once. Unfortunately sometimes brains don't work like they should. What was once a valuable self preservation tool, is now a crippling wall preventing the cognitive thought necessary to live.
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Whenever I think...
"Why don't they just take their meds?"
"Why don't they just get a job?"
"Why don't they just stay away from drugs?
"Why don't they just..."
... I will try to remember that they are stuck in the fog. They can't see the door that's 6 feet in front of them because there is a white wall.

2024 is off to a start and the first two weeks haven't allowed much time for art. It is hard to explain and I'm aware that there will be many times that family will be take priority over my creative work. However, I'm becoming painfully aware that if I don't prioritize my creative work, I probably won't be able to function. 

So on that note, let's talk about plans for my 2024 calendars. There will be two calendar versions in two formats this year. The two formats will be the same: large format and small self-print. The first version will be simply the same as 2023. I'll just re-date it for 2024. The second will be a completely new set of art.  I am most excited about an art style that reminds me of linocut, but is done with black ink. Here's an example of one I did a year ago from a picture I took in Arizona 16 years ago. However, I want to dig into my local area and so all of the scenes will be on the Kitsap Peninsula.