400

Ava's cute face inspired the stencil on this little notebook. I am considering making some to sell. What do you think?
I am stressed out lately. There is no good reason why. Things get kind of hard when I'm taking classes because I end up not being home very much. I am really really loving my classes, but I will be glad when the semester is over. At least my saturday class is only 8 sessions, so pretty soon my saturdays will be all open again.
On the good news side, as of yesterday I have 400 hearts! Wow! Business has been super brisk these past few months. I feel like I am finally coming into my own as an artist and an Etsy seller. Thanks to everyone who has helped me along the way, and to you lovely blog readers!
mel

Cool Down, Rev Up

January 11th, originally uploaded by Lili's One-a-Day.

Yes, it finally cooled down! Only 69 degrees today.
So...production has been at a standstill at Roska Handmade headquarters. That means there have been no new notebooks to drool over. I'm sorry. Things have been pretty busy lately. I am a little bit tired out from my classes already, but I am really glad I'm taking them, they are both going great. I can tell I am going to learn so much in my bookmaking class, the professor is really great, she is super passionate about bookmaking; plus she is fun and goofy to boot, so the six hour class just flies by. And my design class, while not quite as exciting, is really helping the way I look at my processes, especially how and from where I draw inspiration. I am rediscovering my love for collage! So now I have all kinds of ideas swirling around in my head for new projects! The one I am most excited about is a calendar. I would love to do one because I really love calendars, they're a practical way to have a rotating display of art. Way cool. I did some searching on flickr today for inspiration and am getting really amped. I'm thinking about doing a printed one, either gocco or linoprint or some combination of those, so I can do a limited run of those, and then also doing some with original collages. Yeah, I'm being a little ambitious. But I have a tendency to do that. Man, I can't wait to get started!

mel

GLST

Yesterday I happened upon a documentary on PBS about Emile Norman, By His Own Design. Although I've seen Emile's work many many times, I'd never heard of him before, and after watching the documentary I was really surprised that I hadn't. Not only is his life story incredibly inspirational and romantic, he also created one of the most impressive works of art in San Francisco, the mosaic window in the Masonic Temple on Nob Hill (detail below).

Norman is a genius artist who was completely self taught, who, when he could not find the material he needed, invented a new kind of epoxy. That's the kind of innovator he was, and still is.
Also interesting to me at this time , since I'm taking my first Gay and Lesbian Studies class right now, is that he is something of a gay icon. He was born in 1918, and was out when people didn't do such things. He and his partner built themselves a house in Big Sur, where they lived openly (and happily) as a couple and he has been an inspiration to other gay artists. Since this is Gay (and Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered and Queer) Pride Month, I think it is happily appropriate that I have encountered all kinds of cool LGBT culture stuff in the past couple weeks, which I can share with you, like the Norman documentary, a really interesting (and kind of depressing) article about John Cheever in Believer magazine, a cute show on Logo called Exes and Ohs, and the upcoming movie Chris and Don: A Love Story, which I am looking forward to.
Anyway, the point really is that I highly recommend the Emile Norman documentary, or, if you don't have a chance to see it, at least visit his website to see examples of his amazing work, or, if you live in San Francisco, take the cable car up to the top of Nob Hill and check out the Masonic Temple in person. You could even make a little day of it; the Temple is right across the street from Grace Cathedral and the Flood Mansion and just a block or two from the Fairmont Hotel, home of the Tonga Room and their famous Lava Bowls. Yum.
mel

I Heart You, Porkins

Sigh. Ok, geeking out alert! I don't know why, but I am having some nostalgic Star Wars withdrawals. I guess watching Star Wars used to be a pretty common occurrence for me; my roommate and I both loved it, she had it on DVD and I had it on VHS. You know what though? My roommate moved to Sacramento and took her DVDs with her, and we got rid of our VCR and all our (my) VHS tapes when we moved. For the first time in probably 10 years or more, I do not own the original Star Wars trilogy! I can't just watch it whenever I want, which is pretty sad. Something must be done, or my once formidable store of Star Wars trivia will dwindle out of existence. I'll have to check out netflix and see if Star Wars is one of those movies you can watch on their website. Probably not I guess.

Anyway, enough of that geekery! Sorry for that. So, oh my gosh you guys, we have so much catching up to do! Obviously, I failed at NaBloPoMo, but that's ok, because while I was doing it I had so much fun. I have total faith that next year I will succeed! I'll be training all year. The awesomeness of the Jens Lekman show was enough to make up for my failure. It was sooooo good. I am so glad that I was able to go, and that I got my tickets early because it totally sold out! I recommend to all of you, if you get a chance, go see his show! He sounds awesome live, the energy is so high, and you can tell that he loves music, and the joy is infectious. I don't want to go on too long, especially since I don't have any pictures to share, but I will post this link to a song from his new album, and I hope you'll all click and listen to it. Click Here Y'all.

In more "music" "news", I am seeing two more shows next month! Both are at The Great American Music Hall, which is a super awesome venue that is only a few blocks from my house! First is Jonathan Richman (love love love) and second is Stephen Malkmus. I am a little leery about the SM show. Pavement is my all time favorite band, and I have been known to embarrassingly, drunkenly call Stephen Malkmus a genius, and I love the first SM solo album to DEATH....but I kind of hated the last two albums. So...it's kind of a shaky proposition. I hope it doesn't suck. And Steve is going to go with me! Even though he never goes to shows! I'm going to be keeping my fingers crossed. I know Jonathan Richman will be awesome, I saw him once before, actually twice, and I'm sure this show will be even better because it's not at some douchey bar in the Mission.

Let's get to the crafting, shall we? After all, this isn't a music blog, dude! There is some exciting crafting stuff to discuss, first, I made a sale! Very surprising, because I hadn't listed since the beginning of October and I was sure no one was even looking at my shop. I guess I was wrong. People are looking at my shop a bit now, because I finally posted new items! Two new notebooks, take a looksie:

Well, people aren't really looking that much. I have a bunch of new notebooks just waiting to be listed though! I'm really excited because I haven't had new stuff in so long, and I'm really proud of these notebooks, I think they're really cool and well made.
In case you were wondering, things are coming along very well with my homework. I'll post a picture when it's done, so y'all can let me know if you think it sucks.
love ya!

mel

boo hoo pt. 2

I hope things work out better today! I don't know what happened yesterday, my post just kept getting deleted. I guess, technically, I've now failed at NaBloPoMo. Boo. It shouldn't really count though, because I was trying to get a blog post up yesterday! It wasn't my fault! I guess I should have tried to post earlier. I think weekends are going to be the hardest because on weekdays I'm at my computer all day, so it's not so hard. On weekends though I'm usually out all day. This is definitely going to be a challenge.
Anyway, this was another unproductive weekend. I don't know why I've been so uninspired to work lately. I hope my passion will reignite soon and I'll get some cool new books made. I am excited about my art class, we're doing photo collages and then blowing them up and drawing them. I already made my collages, they're pretty neat, but it's going to be hard to decide which one to use in my final project. If anyone is thinking of taking a drawing or printing class at CCSF I would definitely recommend taking one with Robin Kaneshiro, he is really really great teacher. I love this class so much.
Along with the NaBloPoMo, this month I am also trying to cut down on the amount of times I eat out. Right now, we eat dinner out almost every night, and I eat lunch out at least half the time. It's really bad! So, we're really going to try hard to cook more. I cooked tonight and last night. Both times it was super delicious. Last night we had a kind of tamale pie/taco casserole thing and tonight we had miso chicken and mashed potatoes. Yummy. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I can sustain!

mel

Native American Summer

I've been a bad blogger! It's this hot weather, it makes me lazy! Not only have I not been blogging, I haven't been doing as much crafting either. I've really slacked off on my books. I've made some buttons, because those are a little less time consuming, and more knitting. Actually, I'm more excited about knitting than I have been in a long time. While I was in Sacramento, my mom showed me real quick how to crochet, which is something I've been meaning to learn forever. I love granny squares! I think I might also be ready to try to learn to knit in the round again. I want to make tote bags, and I really want to make a crazy quilt, to use up my stash. The other thing I would like to do is make hats and blankets for charity. If that is something that interests you, here is a link to some programs in the San Francisco area http://www.imagiknit.com/charity.html from one of my favorite yarn shops in the city.

I went to the art store today, which was actually kind of embarrassing because I had just been there yesterday and I saw the same people working there, and I don't really know why that is embarrasing, but it is. I was picking up some drawing fluid and screen filler. I had read about tusche in this really cool old screenprinting book that Steve got me for my birthday, and I thought it sounded like a clean, easy way to make screenprinting screens. Unfortunately, tusche is hard to find, and when you can find it, it's pretty expensive. Today I was looking at the Make It! blog and she was talking about drawing fluid, which I had never heard of before. I looked it up and wikipedia and, ta da! it is like an even cleaner, more modern type of tusche! I am really excited to try it out. My adventures in screenprinting so far have been more like misadventures.

I have to work on my homework before it's time for pub quiz. I have to draw one room in my house in partial blind contour. Ugh. I hope it takes less than an hour.

mel

busy busy

Yesterday was a busy busy day! I took a half day at work, which was really really nice. Then I tried to buy some muslin for my sewing class on Saturday...but that did not work out. Then I did a million loads of laundry and got stuff tidied and then my friend Erin came over for some heavy duty crafting. It was super fun. I really like having "craft nights." I made ten more of my "gumball" sculpy magnets and for some reason it took me about three times longer than the other day when I made seven. But they turned out pretty nice. Ooh, and we watched the new Laguna Beach (which is now set in and called Newport Beach or Harbor or something), and it looks exactly like the first season, meaning awesome.
Oh oh! I bought a new digital camera yesterday! I'm so psyched! It's a HP photo M something or other. It was on a really good sale, and the reviews seemed mostly positive. It's coming in the mail, hopefully by next week. I can't wait! I am so anxious to get my Etsy shop up and running. Also, I bought some Crayola Fabric Crayons today, because...well, I don't know why, because I am a sucker for that kind of thing I guess. Novelty products. I am excited to try them out tonight though. I am envisioning an awesome big rig truck and one of those funny Toyota trucks, in red...I'll let you know how it turns out.
mel

Classy

Last night was the first class of the drawing course I'm taking at City College. I'm excited! We're going to be using India Ink! This class is mostly so I can take a printmaking class next semester, but I'm hoping it will inspire me.

I made a cool notebook for my friend for his birthday. It was my first try using a record sleeve as the cover, and it turned out ok. The paper block turned out kind of wavy, and there were a few loose pages. I'm going to try again tonight, with book tape. The problem that I didn't think of before is what to do with records after I use their sleeves. My mom sent me this, which is pretty cool. I think I could take this basic idea and really run with it. When I was in Occidental last weekend I came upon Renga, and they had neat coasters made of just the label of old records. If you live in the North Bay Area, or are visiting there, I definitely recommend stopping by Renga, it is the cutest little shop in a really unexpected place.

I am hoping to have some pictures up on this blog soon. I need to get in some more practice with my digital camera, but by the weekend (I hope) you will be able to see examples of my work on this page.

mel