Orangewillow

My blog has moved to http://wendy-owens.com

So I am just in love with our new puppy Coco Chanel.  She joined our family Dec 27th and has been a joy.  She has the perfect personality for our family and she’s super smart.  It did not take her long to learn that the quickest way to come in from the freezing temps outside was to go potty.  She now runs straight out, does her business, and straight back in.  How many 11 week old pups can you say that about?  So in honor of our fantastic little pup I am offering a sale in my shop called a Doggy Days Sale!  Buy one dog print and get another dog print free of your choice.  I currently have 7 options of doggies in my shop but will be adding more soon enough.  They have been sketched but still need inked.

In addition with the baby coming at the end of March I am unable to maintain my normal craft fair season schedule.  As a result this will free up a lot of time for me.  Of course I am also starting to sew some clothes for the kids as well as knit so I do not have a an abundance of openings but I do have enough time to start taking on some possible custom work.  If you have an ink drawing or painting you would like a quote for please feel free to contact me to discuss the project further.  wendy@orangewillow.com

The animal ABC’s book is almost done, two illustrations left to go.  I am also debating on creating my own typography for the book but only for each large letter.  I will decide on that part once the illustrations are completed.  Eight of the new illustrations are below and prints of them are available in my shop.

Now onto New Years resolutions.  I have given it a lot of thought and have decided to make no resolutions.  To me a resolution is setting yourself up for failure.  People fail and once they do put their resolution on the back burner until the next year.  In 2009 I will be growing my family with the addition of a beautiful baby girl and it has me thinking about life and the way we live it.  Instead of a resolution I am making a commitment to make a true effort to live differently.  I talked this over with Josh and he is on board supporting this life change, what is it?  To live a more DIY, crafty, family friendly lifestyle.  I want to make more of my children’s clothes, cook more meals, sew or knit more things we need around the house, and just all around enjoy creating a carbon footprint conscious, homemade lifestyle while getting the kids involved.  We want to finish the basement to make the sell of our current home more desirable and Josh is going to pitch into this new lifestyle by trying to learn how to do much of the construction himself (I will help of course once Baby Ella is here).  In addition to this we will be attempting to document all the wonderful crafts and projects with pictures .  These are great family memories we will be creating and I want to make a better effort to document them.

So we are already a week into 2009 and while working on my new years resolutions list I thought it might be a good idea to post some great pics from 2008 and the holiday season.

Zoe enjoying soup at her favorite place to eat, P.F. Changs

Baby Ella at P.F. Changs

So I have been hard at work creating new work and listing it in the store.  I have been babysitting my mom’s sweet little dog, Grace.  I think that has caused me to get back on my much loved animal kick.  I am hoping I created some new work for old time fans.  Animals are such a blessing to life and I really hope my work conveys that.  I myself have six fish (2 tanks) and my beloved dog Sable.  After my daughter is born and a little older we plan to add another dog to the family but since a baby is a full time duty it seems selfish to add a puppy during a period like that.  We also want to wait until my daughter Zoe is old enough to take some of the responsibilities of caring for the puppy such as feeding.  I think it will build character and help her understand animals are to be loved and cared for.

This holiday season I hope many families are giving animals a lot of thought and perhaps considering giving an animal in need of a forever home a family to love them.

Any favorites out there?  I think I like the frog but that Boston Terrier warms my heart.

So time has been flying and as usual with such a busy life my blogging is what suffers.  Rather than dwell on my absence I want to do a catch up post in an effort to get back on track.  I never got a chance to post the fun picks from halloween and with it being such a great holiday I wanted to take the time to do so.

From left to right the Pumpkins belong to Zoe, Me, Baby Elinor, Josh, and Brayden.  Zoe dove into the pumpkin carving with gusto and was happy to rip out the guts.  Brayden however stuck one hand in, grabbed a few seeds and promptly wanted his hands cleaned, pretty funny.  Josh jumped in and helped gut the pumpkins while I carved but the kids picked their own designs for the faces.

Lit up at night in all their spooky glory

Heres Zoe all dressed up on halloween waiting for Mamaw, Papaw, Uncle Mark and Aunt Tammy to come trick or treating with us.

I just love this picture of Zoe and my mom walking hand in hand, so cute!

Even when Zoe is being rotten shes cute though

In art news I have been reworking my children’s book and trying different techniques to make the illustrations softer.  I am such a heavy ink illustrator sometimes I struggle with this.  I added a couple new dog drawings to my etsy shop but besides that I have only been working on personal art.  I created a play room for the kids and painted a fun picture for each of them.  I also made some tree paintings for Josh which I think he really enjoyed.  I painted a nice poppy painting for our bathroom and am so excited this place is starting to look like a home.  Even though its not the place I would choose to live its where I do live and I need to make efforts to make it as comfortable a home for my family as I can.  I still have a shopping list of furniture I need but I have a good start.  I think I may be entering the nesting phase of my pregnancy a little early.

In Pregnancy news this little one, Elinor has been a tough one to figure out.  I have lost nearly 30 pounds but my tummy has popped out like a basketball.  I am 21 weeks and I must say my tummy was nothing like this at 5 months with Zoe.  I can also look down at my tummy and see Ellie rolling around already.  I go Wednesday for a check up and I am also supposed to go in the next couple weeks for my diagnostic ultrasound which I must admit I am wondering if we will discover maybe I am further along.  That or I am growing the biggest baby ever!

We had an ultrasound today and not only do we have a big, healthy, active baby but it is (as my post title suggests) a girl!  We are very excited (especially Zoe and myself) since we wanted a girl.  Names are in discussion still but we are thinking a great classical name.  Below are a bunch of pictures of the cutie pie or as Zoe calls her “curly shirley” (no clue, just a name she decided on).

Full length picture including pot belly

Yup, its a girl!

love that nose

Heres the baby doing the “O-BA-MA” chant while shaking her fist

I have been busy creating new work and I am excited to finally have some new work to list on etsy.  I did a quick series of fairies in Watercolor.  The originals and prints are available in my shop.

I also started a new oil painting of Mary Queen of Scotts.  Now I still have some detail to add but I need to wait a few days until the paint dries, the only drawback to oils.  In the meantime I wanted to show you some pictures of the work in progress.  This is the first in what I hope will be a long series of important women in history.  I will add new photos after its somplete.

This weekend Pivot will be at Art Off Pike in Covington, KY and also be hosting an after party at the gallery from 5PM - 7 PM.  We will have new work and lots of affordable works of art.  Below is an example.

So whoever created the term morning sickness was very fortunate in my book.  What I am experiencing is all day sickness.  With my first child Zoe I was very lucky to be a little queasy for a few weeks and then had a wonderful second trimester.  This little rascle I am growing has got me wearing motion sickness bracelets and muching on Preggie pops and peppermint sticks.  While the peppermint sticks are so sweet and warm my heart as I dream about fall and winter they provide little relief.  I have already lost 20 pounds and I fear I may be looking at feeling this way for quite some time.  Are there any mothers out there who experienced the same and found a solution they would like to share?  Please do leave a comment with any advice.  BTW, I have comment moderation on to avoid spam so no worries if your comments do not show up right away.

So September has been VERY exciting on a personal level.  I have not been able to create a lot of new art due to being so busy with Pivot, art fairs, and family.  What I really want to talk about is family, specifically my new family.  I have been oozing with happiness and though I don’t often share extremely personal things here I feel like I want to share this happiness.

So I had previously posted about my happy engagement news and last week Josh and I did something a little crazy, we packed up and eloped!  We rented a nice little chalet in the Smokey Mountains and got married right there in front of the fireplace.  It was so natural, peaceful, and no stress.  We got to play pool and relax in a hot tub and just soak in the surroundings; a great way to start a new life together.

What I really want to talk about is being open to scary paths in life.  Some of you know my past and some do not.  I married my high school sweetheart at age 19 and shortly after my daughter’s birth we split up.  Josh was a friend I reached out to during this time as he was going through similar things.  Though Josh had expressed interest in me after my split I resisted due to a past friendship I had with his ex-wife and a friend-ship he used to have with my ex-husband.  It just seemed like too much baggage but he was still a good friend to have.

Over time he watched as I dated some different people and he had a relationship with one of his co-workers but through it all we were good friends.  Timing lined up eventually and even though I was scared I gave this relationship a try and boy am I glad I did.  A relationship with such a close friend has turned out to be so rewarding.  We both have a child from a previous marriage and we are happy to announce we are going to add another addition to this modern family of our own.  That’s right, we discovered we are expecting.  We are over-joyed about growing our modern family.  I am still early (1st trimester) but as we know more I will share it.

I also want to post a thank you to Josh.  My sister and I opened a gallery a couple months ago and he has stepped up and helped work a lot of the shifts and assisted with the street shows.  Success is so much easier when you have a foundation like him to build on.  I will stop gushing now and hope to bring you new art in the near future.