Well, it’s been a productive few weeks here at Art Office! Each of us are diligently working on our own projects and goals, trying to set and keep reasonable expectations for ourselves. I’m going to give you a run down of what everyone is working on, but to be frank, I can’t remember it all. I try to keep minutes at our meetings, but often I’m just too busy listening and completely forget to write things down. I want to get better at that. Maybe I’ll make that a goal for next week: Take better meeting notes. That’s a grand idea.

From what I do remember, Tracy Towley is working on some sewing projects this week. She finished a table runner last week which looked profesh as heck. She also is trying to improve her lettering skills, and she has a book that’s guiding her toward that end. Tracy did a block print last week for Open Studios, in which she accidentally carved the word the wrong way, so it printed backward. I felt for her, because I have done that exact thing toooo many times to count. You’d think after doing relief printing for three years, I’d have the hang of carving things backwards, but you’d be wrong! It’s the old brain’s fault. We’re just not used to doing things backwards. It hard.

Hope is doing an Instagram challenge where she’s painting all fifty state birds! I’m pretty blown away by them all, and she’s pumping them out so quickly! If you want to see them, you can find them on her Instagram page. One cool thing Hope has been doing is literally charting her time, as in–– tracking and inputting data into a pie chart! This really tickled me, and inspired me, because I know, if I were to track my time like that, I would see a lot of procrastination . . . heheh. Anyway, here’s one of her birds:

Leigha has been making some really cool “empowered women” illustrations in Procreate lately. If I’m remembering correctly, she’s also doing some personal comics, which I love. Anytime an artist can accurately depict a scene from their own life, it gives me chills. I mean, that’s all I want to see! Behind closed doors, into another person’s daily existence and secret thoughts. M-m-m! Good stuff! Anyway, you can see Leigha’s work on her Instagram as well. Here’s a comic she drew and somebody else wrote:

Candace just finished building a frame, stretching canvas over it, and giving it a good gesso. She works in LARGE scale, which is so cool to watch, during our In-Studio or Open Studio sessions. This Wednesday, she was already starting to paint on the canvas she just finished. To be honest, even while I was working at Blick Art Materials, I didn’t understand why someone would want to stretch their own canvas. It seemed like a lot of work for something that you could get for cheap ‘n easy. Candace has done an excellent job of explaining the process and motivation behind knowing your entire craft. I’m impressed, and schooled lol!

Emily Jalinsky has quite a bit on her plate. I don’t know what all of it is, but I do recall that she has several commissions right now. During her Instagram takeover this week, she highlighted a lot of the “not-so-sexy” parts of being a freelance artist, and–– yet again–– I was totally inspired. She has all of her art organized into binders, so she can easily pick one up and focus on nothing but it for an allotted amount of time. So cool.

And me? Well, I’m working on a few things. I’m making a thank you card to send out to all my adoring fans–– I mean lifesavers–– who helped me out during my surgery and beyond. I’m also working on an illustrated video that’s going to be part of an Art Office fundraiser coming up this Summer. It’s basically going to be a slideshow with a voice track, but some of the illustration slides will be “animated” in the rudimentary way I know how. It’ll be cute. I hope.

And that’s all for now! Catch ya next week! Happy Spring Break!