This may get me painting again

I have mentioned from time to time that pure laziness about preparing canvases is the main factor in my not painting more often...and well, I think that's kind of lame...so I have been trying to break that nasty habit and get a brush in my hand. I think though that the painting in this photo may just be the kick in the pants that I have needed...



The colors, the way the painting is used...even the circles...it all makes me want to get a fresh canvas on that monster sized ease taking up precious space in my studio...

Lookie What I Made!

So I was playing around online instead of making jewelry or working last night, and I designed some shoes! I have been told more then once to that it would be cool to incorporate my paintings into jewelry, and I am working on that...but until then you can own my paintings on your shoes!

Pleasure of My Company

I think Keds is trying to catch up on the DIY movement, and although I am a die hard, old school Vans fan...they won't let me put my painting on them...so I may switch over.
Complexities of Intimacy

If you go check them, please give them a nice rating as I'm curious to see what happens if the word spreads...

Back to School Gift Guide of Goodies!

Have you been looking for that perfect gift for your favorite gal to wear when she returns to school? Be it her first day of kindergarten, her last year of high school or her leaving the nest for college, you'll find the perfect bauble to brighten her day and make her special this fall! Go visit the Gift Guide!

On the easel

I have been trying to paint again, for some reason I have not been doing much of it and that is wrong on so many levels. Perhaps I have stopped as they never really leave the studio, or because I was uninspired, or I was stuck on this last one...although I have changed it it for the 4th time now...I am finally happy with the direction I am going with it. I have wanted to combine the tissue paper aspect with oils for awhile now, so I am happy with it on a few levels...



Now I just have to gesso those canvases and then I can proceed from there...

Paintings + Jewelry Continues

OK, so last night I hacked up an oil painting...if this takes off I am going to need to paint more often...I like how the watercolor ones look but the oils will take more abuse...


Would you wear this?

Paintings + Jewelry

For a long time I have been playing around with the idea of combining my paintings with my jewelry designs...its always in the back of my mind somewhere. Recently, my friend Bryan has been urging me to make jewelry that he can wear...guys often ask me, but Bryan is a bit more fashion forward and styley so I have been actually really trying hard to think of something he would wear.

So I was sitting at me jewelry desk making some more I'm A Flirt Earrings and I started to brainstorm. I have been playing around with fabric and ribbons and working them into designs recently and being a long fan of fabric, vinyl and leather snap close cuffs I started thinking that they would work for guys. I was seized by a fit of design urgency, grabbed a painting off the wall, removed it from the stretchers and started cutting...as last summer I started embroidering on my canvases it did not freak me out so much to do this...which I was amazed at.

Anyway...I started at the top, which is pink and added a few snaps and voila!


This particular painting is actually tissue paper, gesso and water color on canvas so they can't get wet, which is kind of bad...but I have my eye on an oil to rip into next...now I just have to make Bryan be my test subject to see how tehy wear and tear...

Any thoughts? I love some feedback...

Man I wish I had a bigger studio!

I have mentioned before that I not only love to paint big, but I bought a small truckload of stretcher bars and canvas in order to do so about 18 months ago...well, what with all the jewelry making going and packages being prepared, I simply am not left with the room to actually paint all of these canvases. *sigh*

Then I was on Decor8 today and saw this from the Australian Vogue Living:


My oh my these are beautiful!

Ok, I don't have enough ceilings to even store canvases this high, which is why I need a big industrial studio space...or a barn..but still...I keep joking that on sunny days I should just haul my easel outside and paint in the driveway...well its starting to sound like a good idea...

New Prints on Manic Trout

Who knows why exactly this took me so long to do, but as of today I have 6 new prints of my oil paintings available onManic Trout, very exciting. All prints are 10" x 8" and archival on matte paper and are $20.


On a separate note...I have created a Manic Trout page on facebook, I also have a personal page there if you are inclined to friend me...but anyway, if you love Manic Trout, then please be my fan on facebook, the more fans you have, the more you can do with the page.

There has been so much talk this weekend about social networking sites that its very much on my mind...so while we are at it, I have also been Twittering...which I have always thought sounded kind of naughty, and why I like it even more. Twitter is a site that allows you to post what you are doing at all times, via text or web and then your followers can see what your up too and vice versa.


So far my favorite thing about Twitter is that I follow a few other creative small business owners, and its like getting a glimpse into their lives and work, which I find utterly cool.


The hard part is not spending all of my time socializing and actually getting some work done around here...specifically my newsletter which should have already gone out this morning...meaning if you are not already signed up, then you have a bit of time to do so.


I am rather excited to work on a bunch of one of a kind pieces that I am releasing for spring, I love the idea of ooak, because the whole reason I started making jewelry was so that I could wear pieces that no one else would be...so I will always share that fabulous feeling with you.

The Design Process

Perhaps its that Spring is here, perhaps I just finally have time to get some real work done in over a year, perhaps its been too long since I've painted, perhaps because I've dropped a lot of dead weight in my life recently...who knows the reason, but the other night I couldn't fall asleep because I kept having these crazy painting ideas fly through my head.


I'll share more on this as I think its pretty cool to hear about peoples design processes, so skip ahead if you don't agree. Usually I know when I am about to start really cranking out some work, be it painting or jewelry, its pretty much the same. I start to get really manic and amped up and I crave inspiration, I devour magazines and blog jump like a lunatic. I talk faster then I usually do...and skip around from topic to topic faster then normal too. On the flip side, this alternates with images filling my head of ideas that I have...I even see how to make things...the steps and processes, its like visual problem solving, I almost get trance like and hardly talk at all and look rather preoccupied, because well I am. At this point I usually don't try to force myself to create anything, as I know I will be a whirl wind of production very shortly, I'll play around a bit with stuff, to see if I can actually accomplish something that I have conjured up, but I just dabble. When it hits, I just sit down and make stuff, sometimes for days at a time.


So anyway...I was lying in bed at 5 in the morning (I mentioned this the other day) and one after another the ideas were coming, so I have started to play around with logistics of a painting idea...so far, so good, and I'm thrilled! I am bringing back the tissue paper that I love so well, and am delighted to be playing with it again. I also received a huge shipment of supplies, which helps put those ideas into play. In the midst of all of this I have updated my big inspiration boards with all new images, to help the new ideas flow. Its going to be a very good spring I think.

Random facts about Manic Trout

I was tagged the other day by the fabulous blog Cherry Coloured although I have not finished my post on this, I have however realized how fun random facts are. I have thus decided that I will begin to share random facts with you about Manic Trout, and sometimes about me.

So first off, I thought I would introduce you to some of the fun that I have with the real behind the scenes stuff...naming all of my designs. I once upon a time would just make up a name for each design and then picked a girls name for each color/style randomly...well, I really quickly started to come up with some stupid names, and I exhausted my resources for girls names as well. (some of these early made up names are still existent, I am embarrassed to say...i.e...the very original Bottle Cap Necklace) So I knew I had to look else where...

You must be chomping at the bit in anticipation right now...waiting to find out where I come up with all of these bizarre names! Well all of the designs names are songs, some make obvious sense and some just work in my complicated mind...but they are all song names. The Sweetest Thing Earrings are named for the Lauryn Hill song.

The names of each color/style I get from a web site that has lists and lists of names...so I pick a theme for each piece...the Salt Water Sound Necklaces which are inspired by Japanese fishing balls have Japanese names.


The Sweetest Thing Earrings have Gypsy names...and the meaning of the names usually plays in too...Pesha which is the name of a diminuitive pair of flower earrings, means small...Pattin which is a pair of tiny pink leaf earrings, means leaf. Shimza which are bright orange earrings that look like gummy roses, means joy and happiness and the very pretty Ilona earrings which are shaped like a pink lily means beautiful one.

I also have some silly and fun names...the Button Rings are all named after Super Villianesses! So you can find your inner bad girl and wear her name with pride!



Also fun to note is that the Bling Rings are named named after the women with the largest and best jewelry collections throughout history...Elizabeth Taylor, Jacqueline Onassis, Joan Crawford, Mary Pickford, Ava Gardner and Theda Bara to name a few.

In case you were wondering...the paintings have name themes too...they are named and I am sure influenced in both tiny and huge ways by the titles of books I am reading when I paint them...I will admit that I have bought and read books because I thought the titles were so good to work with.

I hope you enjoyed these random facts about Manic Trout!

Does it count if I didn't finish?

Well I somehow managed to stretch 3 canvases on Saturday, go me!...well they are not primed so I cannot actually paint on them yet, but its still something, right?

I have been trying since then to get some of my new jewelry line worked on, although most of it is still a jumbled puzzle in my head, I have been walking around in a trance as the new ideas are consuming me and I keep feeding them with images both print and otherwise...

Which brings me to the exciting news that I finally saw Juno last night! What a fantastic movie, run out and see it right now! Oh and ps...boys like it too.

Progress through baby steps

I have been a very bad painter recently. I mainly blame it on the fact that I hate stretching canvases. I spent 4 years making sure a local "week end artist" had his massive studio ready to go and filled with stacks of every possible size of stretched canvases and walls of paint...it made me hate to wash brushes too. So anyway...a year ago I bought a large amount of nice big stretcher bars...roughly 100, ranging in size from 14" to 42"....and a couple rolls of canvas and a few gallons of gesso. This was not cheap. I have stretched 0 of the potential 25 canvases possible to make from this pile of unpacked wasted material. I have moved the boxes of stretchers around my studio roughly 10 times. I have not painted in a month because I am out of prepped canvases. This is starting to be sad.

So I unpacked the boxes, and I feel a little bit better...but now I have to stretch and prime a few of them. I also wanted to paint big again, so the stretchers are mostly 36"+...but in reality I have no room to paint large, so I am unsure of what to do about that...I think I may have to order a bunch of 20 some odd inch bars...see how this happens...

The inspiration has been a flowin'!

I have been collecting from all over the place...from these great cones I collected from what I think is a tulip tree in my yard...


to the antique stores on the North Fork of Long Island where I scoured for awesome buttons and shells I collected with Tyler on the beach...


to the sea stones I collected while prancing barefoot in the sand, a la " Something's Gotta Give” I too was attracted to the white ones, and Tyler kept bringing me touches of color...


With all this inspiration going on, I came home and finished the painting I had begun...I think I'm letting it reside on my easel for a few days to see how I like it.


Last but not least...I tested out the first of my "Couture" line while I was away and I was very pleased...so here is a peek at what I will be working on this month...


A beautiful bounty of Czech Glass, Vintage Brass and Blackstone...

New Paintings on Manic Trout!

I updated Manic Trout today, as its Manic Monday...which means basically that I have so much too do for those days that I'm all spastic! So I have updated some little things...like the press page for July.

I am excited that there is a new section for the painting style I have begun to explore, oil paintings which are embellished with embroidery. I am rather keen on this method and am having a wonderful time!

I have also added 6 new paintings to the oils page, most of which you have seen here on the blog.

Summer rolls on by

I have realized recently that I still think of summer in terms of break from school, meaning that then I think of summer form the end of May untill the end of Aug. Well, with that way of thinking, summer is already half over! I have not even been on a beach yet, I have not seen an ocean...where has it gone? So I then decided it was time to think of summer in calendar terms, as in the end of June to the end of Sept. Well, ok then, summer just began. Well then I thought, if I think in terms of design, then fall is already in full swing...and then I decided to stop thinking about how to define summer and try to enjoy some it.

I have been trying to at least go outside and wander around with my dog during daylight recently, and to catch up with friends when there feels like the days will deliciously last forever...which really only happens for me twice a week, because the other five days I have to go to work in the late afternoon, so I always feel like I have no time during the day. One of the main reasons for my being such a night owl is that I have hours stretched out ahead of me to work uninterrupted at night, and I love that feeling. OK I have 15 minutes before I leave for the restaurant, I'm going to take Faye out and see if we can catch a glimpse the parade that's about to pass by my house...I'm serious, its the firemans parade today...