365/2013 - Day 121

BUSY day!

I recently decided it was time for me to downsize a little with my hosting of Art-o-mat machines.  Buckety is going back to Clark Whittington/Artists in Cellophane and I am keeping Greeny (my "baby", my first machine).  Greeny was a great "fit" at the Northville Art House and I loved having him close by -- I truly appreciate the Art House's support and thank them for being a wonderful and fun location.  On the other hand, LIFT Designer Toys and Gallery in Royal Oak (where Buckety was) is a higher traffic venue.  If I am only going to host one machine, it really ought to be where a lot of people will use it -- and that is LIFT.  And for LIFT, it is like they are getting a "new" machine.  The really really cool thing about the machine being at LIFT is that being a designer toy store, LIFT's customers are already aware and comfortable with the blind box concept.  In the simplest terms, Art-o-mat is pretty much a blind box art vending machine.

So...

With the indescribably fabulous help of my friend Joshua (who is now a major wiz at moving my machines) we packed up Greeny for the ride to Royal Oak.

I rented an appliance dolly and some moving pads -- these pads are really great -- soft padded wool, not the scratchy quilted ones.  I made Joshua use extra padding and bungee cords for my baby Greeny.

Joshua tightening the straps on the dolly.

Aww...Carla...you can visit Greeny at LIFT.

Joshua secures Greeny in the bed of his truck...NO rolling around!

Greeny fully stocked at LIFT

Greeny is two columns smaller than Buckety -- he looks so small in comparison.

I was in a bit of a rush to empty Buckety and fill up Greeny so that Joshua could pack up Buckety and get him secured into his truck...I didn't get a chance to take any emptying-of-Buckety pictures.  We also needed to get back across town in time to beat heavy traffic (the highway was actually already a parking lot when we got on...we bounced back off at the first exit) and I needed to return the appliance dolly and moving pads before the rental placed closed for the evening.  We made it just in time -- whew!

Here is what is currently in Greeny at LIFT:

Sherry Paylor -- dog collages

Sue Clancy & Judy Sullens -- handcrafted books

Kelli Busch -- bicycle chain keychain

Took Gallagher -- Tookies finger puppets

Francine Hibiscus Rossi -- raku tiles

Maija Peeples-Bright -- fanciful, colorful animal paintings

Juana Moore -- Doll Party! paintings

Took Gallagher & William Hessian -- Penciled In colored pencil drawings

Ellen Miffitt -- sumi-e cats

I am getting all fired up about being more active with my Art-o-mat machine again...thinking of in-store promotions, etc.  I also want/need to go back into production on some of my Arto-series and I have lots of ideas for new prototypes.  

While Joshua and I were at LIFT there was a young woman customer talking with Ben and she was happy to see Greeny -- she was saying she hadn't seen an Art-o-mat machine in a while (I believe I heard her say she was from San Francisco...or that was the last place she saw a machine) but she knew what Art-o-mat was and she was going to come back in when the machine was fully stocked (I was still filling Greeny at that point and we were moving Buckety) and check it out!  And Ben is interested in making a prototype -- YAY -- we need more Michigan artists in the Artists in Cellophane project!!!

365/2013 - Day 30

100 Tookies are ready to ship!

Wa-hoooooo!  I finished packaging all of the Tookies, wrapped the boxes in "cellophane" (acetate) and they are in the shipping boxes!  Now I just need to write a quick note, tape them up and put a shipping label on them -- ready to ship to Artists in Cellophane tomorrow (unless I get iced into my driveway).

the completed and packaged Tookies waiting for the "cellophane"

all done!

365/2013 - Day 25

lining up art plans for the weekend

Whoa -- I nearly slept through my midnight blogging deadline.  The second dose of Benadryl kicked in and I have been nodding/napping for the last few hours.  Another day of a lot of knee and leg pain (both legs) with the added bonus of sinus headache and allergy symptoms.  I. got. nothing. done.

But -- a two-box shipment arrived from Artists in Cellophane today.  One box is full of new art for both of my Art-o-mat machines.  The other contains the 100 white pre-glued boxes that I needed to complete this batch of Tookies. 

This evening I took the Atomic Fireball Happy Hour guy into the plaster cloth room to work on him.  That didn't happen either -- but now my work is cut out for me for the weekend.  That, plus gesso coating the cat-ish king and working some more on the camel-like guy.

2012/365 - Day 260

another day of shiny distraction...

AND another day of wrapping fifty Art-o-mat art packs in cellophane/acetate.  

BUT, I am actually starting to get a little less enthused about the shiny distracto-game.  I will still play a little tonight to see if I can achieve some things, but then I will be able to start backing off.

In the meantime...here are tonight's fifty art packs:

Bootsy and Twink think they are going to "help" me do this tonight.

I was able to convince them I could handle it on my own.

art pack number 51 of 100

Ta-daaaa -- the last fifty are wrapped!

Now get yourselves into that box, you lot!

Another kind of shiny distraction -- boxes of a new version of one of my Art-o-mat series -- ready to be shipped to Artist in Cellophane tomorrow!

2012/365 - Day 71

a variation on an Art-o-mat series

Today I am working on putting together a prototype for a variation of one of my Art-o-mat
series. Even if it is a series you have been doing for a long time, when you make a major change you need to do a new prototype.

A few years ago I started an Arto-series called "Penciled In". It was a colored pencil drawing on a smaller-sized version of the MDF block, packaged in an Artists in Cellophane box. Back then I did the series myself. I liked the series a lot, but we all know how I feel about coloring things...choosing the dominant color and then selecting the coordinating and contrasting colors while not losing the main object in the picture...I'm just not that good at doing it and I don't understand shading very well.

My artist friend Juana Moore hadn't done an Arto-series yet and we started collaborating on Penciled In. I transferred the drawings, Juana colored them, then I finished them off with painting the sides and making little twisty wire hangers for the backs. It went really well. We did several editions of the series and I added more characters. Juana started adding more of her own touches to the characters and it really made a big difference...they were great!

In between times, Juana did her own series for Art-o-mat called "Queens O' Scream" -- wonderful individually hand drawn portraits on MDF blocks of the horror film actresses she is so fond of. That went really well and she did a second edition.

Then we both started getting busier and Penciled In was set aside for a bit. We had done a LOT of those little guys! I really love collaborations and Juana and I agreed it would be cool for me to ask other artists I know if they'd like to do an edition with me, for a change of pace. Right now artist friend/fellow Arto-artist William Hessian is working on a set of 100 pieces, putting his spin on them. William is an incredibly amazingly talented and busy guy...check out his blog!

In the meantime...in order to keep true to my goal of making plenty of Art-o-mat art this year, I thought I would have a go at making a new kind of collaboration for Penciled In.

I have been feverishly tweaking drawings, working things out on the computer (not one of my strong suits) and putting the prototype together. You would not believe the ridiculous things I need to do in order to make something as simple as a border and print it out in the correct size...LOL. And re-sizing things? HA! I don't do this sort of thing very often, so that kind of compounds the "problem" and add to that the fact that I am in no way interested in taking classes to learn how to do things on the computer. I get by just fine most of the time...I know there are much easier and simpler ways if I would just take the time to settle down and learn how...but honestly, I would most likely forget how to do it the next time I sat down to do it again anyway...I just don't do computery things very often...and have little interest in it.

Wow -- okay, that tirade is over. Whew. Where was I...oh yeah...

What I plan on doing is making transfers on the blocks (as usual) but the collaborator will be the person who purchases the "kit" from an Art-o-mat machine. I will paint the edges of the blocks, include three teensy colored pencils, three blank coloring cards (on card stock) of characters from the series, and an information sheet on how the new owner can get their colored in block listed at the Penciled In blog.





This would be the placard for the series for the machines.


















This is what the box would look like.













And this would be what you'd get inside the box (except I haven't done the info insert or end label for the boxes yet).

I have chosen ten of my favorite Penciled In "The Youngsters" characters, young versions of: monster, dog, cat, robot, giraffe, panda, rabbit, bear, yeti, and Wolfy, Jr. (who can also be colored in as a fox).



I will finish all of this up tonight and mail it out tomorrow. I am really liking this prototype -- I sure hope it gets approved!

2012/365 - Day 21

ready to pack up for shipping

Today I finished off the backs of the Animal People collages for Art-o-mat and added my contact info label and then wrapped them in the acetate/"cellophane". They are ready to pack up in the box and ship to Artists in Cellophane on Monday!







I like these colorful edges -- no extra label this time.








The back of the block...a portion of a page from a book published in 1922...that book was in the bookshelves at my house when I was growing up.

It probably came from an estate sale in the '60's.

365 Day 211

almost ready to ship

I got farther than I expected to today in the process of preparing the Penciled In blocks and boxes for shipping to Artists in Cellophane, aka Art-o-mat HQ. I actually only need to put on the cellophane/acetate and put them in a shipping box...and take the boxes to the post office.



close up on the labels

















Last night I ran the pages that I printed the label images on through the Xyron machine to be made into stickers. Last night I also trimmed them and put half of them onto boxes.

This morning I put the other fifty on the boxes and bundled them all up.








There are 20 characters with 5 coloring variations of each. Because I already scanned them for the Penciled In blog and also posted the photos as entries with numbers on that blog I decided to do one more labeling step. It was a little tedious but in the long run it will make things easier for Carol when she pulls my artpacks for orders. She will be able to tell what is in the box and that will make it easier for her to give a host an assortment rather than possibly ending up with say 4 out of 5 of the cats with crowns in one order.


So I made a label that says in general what is in the box (young rabbit in this case). I also wanted to make it easier for new owners to identify their characters on the blog...so I made a label for that as well, leaving a blank spot for me to fill in as I packed the boxes.









ooh...pretty colors of tissue paper and cool mini moo cards









A Penciled In artpack labeled and ready to be stuffed with the block, info insert and mini moo card...all wrapped in tissue.










the five "big dog" art packs stuffed, and numbered/labeled











the box is starting to fill up...












THAT'S what I like to see -- 100 artpacks ready for acetate. I think I will probably do that tomorrow.

365 Day 177

done painting this batch!

Whew! I am done with the painting part for this batch of Penciled In for Art-o-mat...the collaborative series that I make with Juana Moore.


100 blocks with painted edges













two of those Neopaque Yellow edged blocks that needed to be repainted with Lumiere Bright Gold -- they look much better














a shot of the blocks












another view










Now, while they are getting thoroughly dry, I will work on other projects. Then I will come back to these and attach the twisty wire hangers on the backs. The labels need to be printed, we need to sign the backs, put the labels on the boxes, wrap up the blocks with tissue, insert the mini moo card with the info about our websites, put the cellophane/acetate around the boxes, pack them up and ship them off to Artists in Cellophane for distribution to around 90 Art-o-mat machines across the country...plus one in Australia, one in Canada and one in Austria. Click HERE to find a machine near you!



if you like our work, request it for your local machine

365 Day 69

on their way!

Today I finished wrapping the Tookies boxes in acetate/cellophane and then packed them into the box and shipped 100 of them off to Art-o-mat HQ in Winston-Salem, NC.

80 finger puppets will make their way across the country to various Art-o-mat machines and 20 will come back to me to go into my two Detroit-area machines.

















Tonight I am turning my attention to sketching a face for one of my pieces for Kill Taupe/Jason Driscoll's Meth & Hot Dogs 2 show at LIFT in Royal Oak. I am very excited to be able to participate in this waaaaay cool show! I know what my main character will be, I just need to get his face right -- then I can get to the plaster cloth.
click the poster to see the artists line up!

365 Day 68

process

Finishing up the Tookies finger puppets for Art-o-mat today.

First, they all got a "hair cut". I trimmed the flat ribbony yarn -- the clippings/leftovers are so colorful and soft it seems like a waste to toss them out. I am going to hang on to them for a few days -- maybe they can be the stuffing for something.











These are the 20 that I will order for the two Detroit area Art-o-mat machines that I host.














These are the 80 that will be distributed through Artists in Cellophane to Art-o-mat machines across the country. Doesn't that make YOU want to do a series for Art-o-mat, too?!?












Setting up for the wrapping up the puppets and stuffing the boxes steps.















Wrapping the finger puppet.















Adding my information insert.




























The Tooky inside the box. The pennies add weight to the boxes for vending.














All 100 boxes full of finger puppets. I got 50 wrapped in cellophane before my hand and wrist gave out. I will do the other 50 in the morning and pack up the boxes for shipping late tomorrow afternoon.














I'm taking the rest of the night off!