Whoops!

Sorry I have been remiss in updating this blog. Since getting home from the US, life has been a little crazy. I am finally catching up on things since I dropped my husband off at the airport this past weekend. He is back in the US for corporate training. I miss him, but I do enjoy having so much time to myself (weird artist tendency). I've been working on some really cool wave encaustic paintings, they'll be sets of 3. I totally can't wait to have them finished. And I'm still waiting for all of my supplies to come in so I can do even more! Hopefully this means I'll be able to go a bit bigger *gasp*! Hopefully the cost of shipping won't completely bury that. But, I definitely keep that cost down as much as possible, so that you can appreciate the art! I digress. Hope everyone is doing well and having a great summer!

Here is my latest work, Casting Away. It really reminds me of the water you see in the shallows of the ocean or when you are casting into the creeks in South Carolina. Makes me miss home...

BS Art Studio on Modish!

Wow! So I have been working on getting some exposure for my shop, so I decided to *gulp* advertise. Well, one of the people I decided to work with was Jena from Modish, and look at the spotlight that she did on my store. I am so excited! It looks fantastic! Oh, by the way, you should go and check out my website. I've totally revamped the store, taken into account that all of my work is ORIGINAL, and it is now all framed :)

Original Art vs Prints

I've been writing for another blog about the benefits of buying handmade. Tara over at Scoutiegirl had a wonderful blog post about why she buys handmade:

"... but I feel pretty good when I walk out of the house wearing something that no one else in my county has in their closet. No amount of Louis Vuittons or Chanel suits or t-shirts plastered with chain store logos make up for the sameness that the rest of the world lives in." - Tara from Scoutiegirl

Well said! Do you like to be 100% original? I get tired of seeing the same things everywhere. I hate walking into someone's home and seeing the exact same print that was available at Pier One, or Pottery Barn, or Ikea, or, or, or. Trust your instincts, be yourself, have an opinion and be original!

So what is the difference in between a print and an original painting? Well, a print is a reproduction of a painting. Virtually all of the artwork that you see available in chain stores are prints. This means that at least one other person, if not hundreds of other people, have the exact same thing hanging on their walls. On the positive side, if you absolutely love a very popular artist and their artwork is super expensive, prints are an affordable way to have something of theirs hanging on your wall.

An original painting is exactly what it says that it is - original. You can smell the paint, feel the texture, see the brilliant colors and brush strokes in a way that is impossible to capture with a print. You can feel the hard work and energy that went into creating the painting. Sometimes you can even see the process that the artist had in creating the painting when you look at the original. Many of the Great Masters even have brush bristles that got caught in the painting. Can you imagine having a brush bristle from Monet?!?! (But then again, I can't quite imagine owning a multi-million dollar painting by Monet either).

Perhaps the best part of owning an original is the feeling that nobody else has the same thing that you have. You, and only you, have that one piece of artwork, and you don't have to share. Others may like that artist as well, but no two will be exactly the same.

Giveaway!

Congratulations to Alisa Toth! You won (3) Mixers!
(Please contact me bsartstudio [!at] gmail [dot] com to set up shipping]

Thank you everyone for such wonderful participation. Aaaand, just for being so awesome, I'm having free shipping for all the entrants now through May 22nd!

Just visit my Etsy store here.

Giveaway

Hey Guys!

The Giveaway is now closed, thank you for the awesome response! I had a friend's birthday yesterday, so I will be putting everyone's name into random.org later on today and posting the winner of the Giveaway. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.

Best Wishes,

Shelby

The Buyers Guide to Handmade

When we were 7 we were getting in trouble for doodling in the margins during class.  Our feet were tapping, dreaming about getting home and opening up the craft closet to make friendship bracelets, crocheting, collaging - just creating - anything.  Some of us took a detour through the corporate world, others figured it out earlier - but we all have learned to make a living doing what we love.  It isn't easy, a thread running around our email chain is currently talking about how one of our members works from 12am-12am.  Last time I checked, that was 24 hours.  Another member counts it a lucky day when she gets 1-2 hours sleep.  Me?  I'm starting all over again, so the challenge is getting my store back up and running.  Almost from scratch.  

We do this full-time because we love it.  We would have it no other way.  If we were back in the cubicle, we'd be getting in trouble for doodling in the margins again.  Daydreaming about creating when we should be filing a TPS report.  

Handmade.  It is what drives us.  

So what makes handmade stand out from mass-produced items?  It has to do with the individual vision of the maker.  The care that goes into the entire process, from design through crafting, the hard work that we put in to ensure our product is made with the utmost care and quality.  We don't ship our idea off to someone else to complete.  You won't see our items in Target or Ikea or in every other person's house.  That is a totally different market.  

And yes, there are some casualties of things being handmade.  But there are casualties of things manufactured everywhere.  (Chinese drywall anyone?)  Over the next few months I'm going to be working with our team (Full Time Etsy Crafters) to help educate everyone on how to be a smarter buyer - how to tell the good from the bad, the original from the mass produced.  

But in the meantime, I'd love to know - why do you buy handmade?  What is the value you see in it?

By the way, the image above is one of my teammates whose work I am currently drooling over - JPatPurses

Artistic Inspiration

I have so much fun making these contemporary art Mixers. One of my favorites things is color. Give me a Sherwin-Williams fan deck and I am a happy camper. It is pretty gross. Buut, I do know that I use some different color combinations in some of my artwork, so I thought I would share the inspiration from my Curry and Ginger series. Just because it is red and green, does NOT mean it has to be the holidays!

Here are some examples of Ginger from the Singapore Botanical Gardens. Who knew it was such a versatile and beautiful plant?

Just keep swimming...

There is something so awesome about having friends over and being able to entertain. We had a great group of friends over last night (I'm still cleaning up all the fun we had!). Having everyone over really made my husband and I appreciate everything that we have. Amazing friends, health, happiness, a good home...

As I look back on the past two years, it has been quite a ride. I remember when Hurricane Ike hit and we lost power for 3 weeks. Then the stock market crashed, and I had to go help my parents with some things for three months. In the middle of all of that, my husband got a new job and I put him on a plane to Asia while I packed up our home, and tried to sell just about everything we owned. Etsy fell by the wayside as I put our entire life in a self-storage unit. I wasn't sure where we were going to live, how reliable our internet connection would be, if I'd have space to make work, if I could get supplies... the list goes on.

But with a dash of optimism mixed with lots of fact finding and hard work, I've got BS Art Studio up and running again. Life. Is. Good.

Is Art a Luxury?

I was perusing the blogosphere, and I happened upon a great blog: ScoutieGirl.  She had a wonderfully thought-provoking question: is art a luxury?

If I was living in the US still, my immediate answer would probably, of course not!  Chec

k out Etsy and My Store, followed by some sales pitch.  But after living here in Asia, and seeing some vastly different ways of life, I think twice before answering.  Singapore is surrounded by third-world countries - which are just lovely places, but not as developed as the US.  Nevertheless, many of the people in those places are concerned not with the best artwork to hang on their walls, but more basic things like clean water, food, and making a living (a lot of them still don't have electricity, much less hot water or Air-con.)  

But even in these places, crafting and art flourish.  It may be a small embellishment, a decorated tray, a small altar, or even local art.  I think there is something innate in humanity that drives people to create and embellish.  About having a place to call home, taking pride in it, and making it as pleasant to live in as possible, whatever your means.  

On a side note, if you want to see more about what it is like living in Asia, you can visit my other blog here:  Dillon Factor

Are your walls hung?

So, one of my husband's biggest gripes about marrying an artist is that our walls are always bare. Whoops. In our old house, we literally had huge paintings on the floor lying against the wall for storage, but nothing on the wall hanging! He has been gone on an business trip, so I took the liberty of transforming one normally blah wall into something fab! All it took was six Mixers and a couple of frames. A huge blank wall has been turned into something fun and funky :). And yes, my wall is a distinct shade of spa green/mint ice cream. Our apartment came furnished, and 1 gallon of paint costs $80!

Anyways, here are the pics:

Beach Treasury!

Here is a really awesome beach-themed treasury from cari4jc1:

Treasury Time!

Pretty excited!  This is the first treasury that I have been featured in since I re-opened the store.  Having someone pick one of my paintings for these always gives me a wonderfully warm and fuzzy feeling.  Many thanks to aubepine for picking Bali Wave (it is the one in the top right)!

Fun with Photoshop

First of all, thank you so much to everyone that has entered the Giveaway! The response is just awesome.

Yesterday I put off some school work (I'm working on my MFA), and decided to have some fun with Photoshop. I call it productive punting. Stuff that needs to be done, but not the most productive thing you could be doing at that moment (like homework...)

In any case, I thought you all would really enjoy seeing how amazing the Mixers can look on a variety of different wall colors. This really made me happy! You can combine just about any of these in the same general hue and they'll look great in a ton of different rooms! It really brings a new definition to an art collection. Plus, if you are fickle or get tired of them, you can always get a new one or two and change the look completely!

Grand Re-Opening Giveaway!

One lucky winner will receive a set of 3 of their favorite Mixers, a value of $50 (plus the international shipping *gasp*)

VERY IMPORTANT: THE NOT SO FINE PRINT

Please read this because I do not want to disqualify anyone! Comments will close on May 15th at Midnight EST.
The winner will be posted on my blog and contacted via email. YOU MUST RESPOND WITHIN 48hrs or another winner will be chosen!

VALUE OF ENTIRE GIVE-A-WAY: $50

THREE WAYS TO ENTER:

1. You must choose to follow my little blog PUBLICLY, then check out my sutdio on Etsy and LEAVE A COMMENT your favorite item on the Blog
2. Become a fan of my Facebook page: BS ART STUDIO ON FACEBOOK
3. Tweet about this give-away! Make sure to include #bsartstudio as the topic

• You MUST include an email address or some way to contact you OR check my blog within 48 hours of the close of the give-a-way and contact me otherwise a new winner will be selected
• For a SECOND entry blog about this contest (on your blog) and leave an ADDITIONAL comment to let me know you did that with a link to your blog post!
• For a THIRD entry twitter about this contest and leave an ADDITIONAL comment to let me know you did that with a link to the twitter post! You can find my twitter page here

Please make sure you follow all the rules of the give-a-way

Duplicates and comments not including the above information will be disqualified. Comments are moderated. If you do not see your comment in a reasonable amount of time, send me an email. Please leave your email address in your post! If you don’t want to leave your email address, please be sure to check back on May 16th, 2010 for my announcement on the winner. Please note that winners must respond within 48 hours of being announced/contacted or another winner will be drawn. Winner will be selected using Random.org

If you have any questions please email me at bsartstudio@gmail.com

Thank you for making my shop such a success that I came back for more!

Hi-ho, hi-ho

It's off to work I go! I thought I should include some pictures of what the process is to make my Mixers. This picture below is an example of how the paint is applied:

Although this looks like a royal mess, after I take a heat gun to it, the paintings turn out pretty cool. Plus, I'll add and take away some layers, depending on how t

hey turn out. It is amazing the different effects that you can get. I'm also going to try using a transformer to take the heat gun down to 110 volts. Right now, with using an Asian

plug, it is 220 volts, and I think it is making the heat gun super hot. Kind of like when you take a hairdryer abroad and it blows a lot hotter on the lower setting. Kind of crazy, eh? Anyways, here are two pictures of the finished product:

Hazardous Materials

Ugh.  My husband and I just got back from a wonderful trip to Bali in Indonesia (didn't feel the earthquake, we were asleep), and we both managed to come down with the flu.  Not just kind of a small bug, but THE FLU.  I've been having awful, awful body aches for the past three days, but Joe was a wonderful husband and brought me some chicken soup for dinner tonight!  Yum.  

Luckily, I got a knock on the door yesterday that made me very happy.  The FedEx guy was at the door, and he had my wax medium!  This is the magic glue that makes the encaustic pieces come together so nicely.  Unfortunately, I was having a very hard time finding a company that would ship it overseas.  Has something to do with the fact that it might be slightly hazardous *gulp*.  Who knew that artists were glorified chemists?  

So now I have my medium, and I have my paints, time to get back in the studio!

Speaking of which, here is a pic of my new shelves and what the studio looks like now.  I find it is always kind of cool to see what the inside of a creative space looks like. 

Preview

Supplies will be in next week! Before I leave on Easter Break, here is a preview of the amazing work that will be for sale in the store soon!

Back in the Game!

Sometimes I have to be hit on the head to know what is good for me, as most of my family and friends can attest. After a solid year of being away from Etsy, I have finally realized it is time to get back into creating fun, affordable, abstract art.

The only twist - is that this time I am doing it from Asia! Imagine.

About 18 months ago, Hurricane Ike hit and life as I knew it changed drastically. Within six months of the hurricane, I was putting my husband on a plane to Asia and packing up the house. As I packed up the house, I stored almost all of my art supplies, figuring I wouldn't have the time or space to work on BS Art Studios. I was going to spend my time working on my MFA, creating gallery quality international work.

Well, I have too much time on my hands, and I've learned the value in creating your own destiny. I loved my Etsy store and selling our work to people. I'm still working on my MFA, but I will be doing that only part-time while I re-open the Etsy store and get cracking.

Needless to say, I love it here, and I am so excited to get my store up and running again!