moonshine 2014...

effy's done it again... this time with a year-long course - making 2014 a year to go down in art history.  i can vouch for the woman behind moonshine, she's an artist, a teacher, a friend, a cohort in silliness, a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen.

i think you'll enjoy it.


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this is an affiliate link, i do make a commission if you buy a class through this link.  but that's not why i'm touting this class.  effy's a great teacher.  there is a ton of content.  you will learn lots of good stuff, with tons of great art techniques.

whirlwind...

i don't even know how to go about describing the past few days.  i decided (with much support and push from loved ones) to go forward with The Awkward Girl.  cards, shirts, aprons... all sorts of things.

i copyrighted the name and image, and acquired the domain name and website. 

i opened a cafe press store, and started a facebook page.

my eyes are bleary, my brain is fried and i'm not sure if i'm coming or going. 

my facebook page got over 240 'likes' within a 20 hour period. 

someone pinch me.

the store:  The Awkward Girl at Cafe Press

the facebook page:  The Awkward Girl on Facebook

the website:  www.theawkwardgirl.com

one of those non-artsy posts...

i am a fairly calm, serene, happy person.  with many things i try to see both sides.  there are exceptions, of course... and there are a couple of soapboxes i will stand on.    this is one.

last night i was scrolling through facebook, and i came across a thread started by an old high school classmate.  she's someone i don't know well, but she's always seemed quite pleasant. 

this thread turned my stomach and brought tears to my eyes. 

she was ranting about 'why on earth a huge fat girl would wear her hair in a bun'... 'doesn't she know how awful she looks?'

others chimed in and just totally ripped the bun wearing girl to shreds.  i actually gasped at the cruelty that was being spewed out...

my anger just bubbled over... i was angry and sad for a couple of reasons. 

one, who made this girl judge and jury over how someone else wears their hair? why does it even become a blip on their radar how someone else looks?  is it their business? does it affect them?

two, seeing two of the people involved that i thought were kind, nice women turn into 16 year old 'mean girls' made me sad.  realizing that not everyone is a nice person, that a mean girl in high school can grow up to be a mean adult. 

does it make the mean girl feel superior to denigrate another? why? all it does is make the mean one look like a petty, judgmental human being. 

and this was someone doing it privately without the bun woman even knowing (i'm assuming).  thank GOD the bun woman didn't know... she certainly didn't deserve that kind of cruel attack. 

unless her bun and her weight were injuring the mean girl in some way. *insert rolling eyes here*

it brought me back to high school when you could look around and see the popular, pretty girls making fun of girls they deemed 'less than'.  sometimes behind their backs, sometimes right to their face...

what character defect in a human makes them think that this behavior is acceptable?

their own self esteem is so low that in order to feel superior they have to tear someone else down?  how phucked up is that?

i posted about this on facebook and the response was overwhelming.  i knew i had to write more about this subject, and went back to the mean girl's wall to get the wording correct.  to my surprise the post was gone...   i'm guessing, (and hoping) that she saw my post and realized i was talking about her.  i'm hoping it made an impact on her.  and that perhaps she will think twice about thinking and talking badly about another woman's looks.  

i thought about private messaging her last night just to point out how unnecessarily mean she and her friends were being... and was about to do that today when i saw the thread was deleted.  so i'm guessing my message got across.

kindness and compassion go a long way.  put yourself in someone elses life for a moment before you try to tear them down.  you don't know what their journey is.  and it's not your job to tell them that they are not 'enough'.

because everyone is enough. 

*climbing back off my soapbox now* thanks for listening. 

the awkward girl #3

i will be marketing this series in greeting cards, aprons... perhaps totes... prints... whatever else i can think of.  if you're interested, please let me know by leaving a comment here, or catching me on facebook. 

btw... although The Awkward Girl is physically modeled after my friend tina, i AM the awkward girl... her messages are from my heart. 

awkward girls rule...

and unite in their awkwardness.

i feel such a kinship with my awkward girls.  i sat on the couch last night after a long day at work, emotionally drained, picked up my artists pen and a copic marker and went to town.  an hour later awkward girl 2 was born.

i've set up a zazzle store, and plan on doing t-shirts, totes... etc. of the awkward girl series.

happy accident...

when i was creating the girl with the multi-color hair, i used Dylusion spray ink to color the slips of book paper that i used to create her locks.  i used  few different colors, and spread out the pieces of paper on a random blank artist canvas panel to catch the excess spray.

and anyone who has used these most delicious sprays knows there is excess.  *hanging my head in front of my sprayed wall*

after i was done spraying i set the panel aside... planning on painting over the mishmosh of color to create a new canvas.

until i looked more closely and decided that it was pretty nice all by itself.  i thought of my goddaughter and her request for an ethereal, dreamy, pink, purple, butterfly canvas for her apartment in NYC. 

so i covered it with a thick layer of gold tinted mod podge, and while it was wet, i ran my rubber comb thingy all over it in swirly motions...

the butterflies are rubons, and then i took my tombow paint pen and made dotted swirls. 

still working on it - just tweaking here and there... happy accident. 

awkward girl...

sketching the 3 awkward girl cards (post below) inspired me to draw a larger scale girl.  had a couple of people express interest in having her done as a doll, so i think i will research that further.  i'd actually wear a tshirt with her on it... you? 

this is a 9x12 sheet of bristol, medium was marker and graphite.