Monday, December 5, 2011

Narwhal Fever & Shop Name Change

Hello again!

So apparently a love for narwhals is in the air lately.  Two weeks ago, I created Horatio the Mustachio'd Narwhal, listed him on my etsy, and had him bought up by the awesome Marlo Miyashiro the very next day!  In all fairness, she does have a weakness for cute things, so I probably shouldn't have texted her an in-progress photo.  :)  Here's Horatio (8" x 10," acrylic on canvas), who is now enjoying a very happy life in Marlo's craft room:





Because Horatio was just so much fun to paint, I followed up with a 2nd narwhal painting, Lord Meriwether Gerard Landgrave III, The Most Dapper Gentleman of the Sea.  He certainly is!



Our Lordly little fellow sold the first day of the etsyRAIN show, in the first half of the day!  Egads!

I'm also currently in the process of creating a custom narwhal commission for a lovely young lady who came to the show and was heartbroken to discover that Horatio was already sold (Marlo was gracious enough to leave him with me with a "Sold, But Can Be Recreated" sign to add to my table inventory).  Be on the lookout soon for pictures of a new narwhal with a sailor hat and possibly a pipe.

Because this seems to be pretty popular subject matter at the moment, I've created this listing on my etsy shop:


Come one, come all, and choose the specs for your very own, unique narwhal!  :)  Hoping this will generate some interest, and they're just so much fun to do!

Decided this weekend to change my shop name from RenaitreALaVie to KellyMCookArt.  Don't worry, any links to the original shop name will redirect, and you'll still make it to the proper place.  When I started this shop up, I was at an odd point in my life.  I had just gotten out of a really bad relationship (5 years), and my love affair with art had rather stagnated during that time period, for all sorts of reasons.  Now that I was finally taking my life back into my own hands, I adopted the lovely French phrase, "renaître à la vie" as my mantra.  It translates to, "to take on a new lease of life, " although renaître à l'espoir, "to find fresh hope" may have been more appropriate.  A lovely expression, but not the smartest marketing decision.  Hard to pronounce, and even harder to spell.  Thus the decision to switch to a simpler shop name.  Hopefully my customers will find me quickly and easily now, and I can meet even more wonderful people to work with and share in the joy of art with.

Excessive pathos?  Hopefully not, as art and emotion and life experiences all tend to tie together in ways we would never imagine.  More later on the etsyRAIN show.  :)

Thursday, December 1, 2011

A little bit behind!

I'm behind on posts, but will get to them soon!  A few new paintings, and later a run-down of the etsyRAIN Handmade Holiday Show last weekend, which was AMAZING!  It was wonderful to see so many people's hard work come together, and meet so many wonderful and gracious customers.  Stay tuned!  :)

In the meantime, here are some ridiculously adorable English bulldog puppies.  Just because puppies are awesome.

PUPPIEEEEEEEEEES