Day 2: Portrait warmups

The past few days have been days granted by heaven. The weather perfection, with high blue skies, rolling puffy clouds, a breeze and not too hot nor humid. Shady and I have driven to the lake each evening at Golden Hour (that amazing moment in the summer when the sun touches everything and turns it to gold)...taking my favorite back routes--and soaking in the fields of cut grass and grain, the bundles and bales of gold, the clean cows--clustering under a grove of trees to savor the rich grass. By the time we arrive, we are on the verge of pink time...when the sky is streaked with watercolor pink, red, and orange...as the temperature drops, the sound is gone...and the birds have tucked their beaks into their wings to sleep.

Day two. Don't know if I like this JB (thought I adore him)...more tomorrow as one a day keeps the illustration crazy away.

Beauty Business

My America: American Royalty, Latrice Royale, Q. Cassetti, 2013, Trumansburg, NY

New haircut. Rob found the perfect picture of my soon to be hair --a current picture of David Lynch--with long wavy hair on the top and short on the sides. Mr. Lynch and I have similar hair...and I have a wave too, so Emma was charged with this direction. My hope is that by Christmas, the hair will be 100% there. And, my thinking is that we go for foils to make stripes of white... just to really jazz things up. I cannot be as fabulous and gorgeous as Latrice Royale ( a contestant on "RuPaul's Drag Race" who both Kitty and I admire). We'll see. But this is the latest beauty and fashion update.

I just stopped by Sundrees to see that the rack of my cards are severely diminished...so I need to crank up my printer and get things going to fill those racks. I am so surprised that these cards are selling so well, but it is little business worthy of nurturing. To that, should I be considering going to the stationery show and seeing if there is more to it than this little business I have going here on our beautiful plateau?  Should I just spread my wings locally a bit more to see if there is traction? How would I need to staff to make this happen? Could cards do well on Etsy? Boxed or singletons? More on the retail front: We also worked up some inexpensive little neckaces of teacups and of teapots...and it seems that these are selling as well. I have Kitty's retail intuition to thank! Maybe I can put jump rings on things as I travel out to Utah next week?  I have resin gummy bears that need little hooks and jumprings as well as silver teasets and slices of cake. There may be a bit of traction re: skeletons etc. as the black and orange holiday is on us.

Four months to Christmas. Time to update my mailing list. 

moment, just a moment

​Barn Owl, Q. Cassetti, 2013, Adobe Illustrator, CS5

It has been solid...and I have a minute to say hi. The past few weeks have been solid work with kids packed in (Spring Vacation for each), a funeral with out of towners, food planning and serving and more work. The work has been mammoth with both Rob and me working nights (seriously) and weekends with a window of a morning or an afternoon unprescribed/ unscheduled.​ It was quite a moment that we had to be able to get Rob a haircut last weekend. Monumental...a haircut, right?

It is still grey and rainy. My farmer friends are delighted in the mucky cold. Nothing is too hot, too fast so our lovely cherries and apples are going to have a slow birth this year to promise us buckets, bushels and barrels of fruit.  It was great to pick up our spring greens from Good Life Farm yesterday to watch sweet Melissa doing funny pet trick with her white goosy turkey, strutting about all rigid and shaking, clucking and chortling. This pet turkey is named, Bonecrusher...and to see the Bone being wrestled to the ground by bouncy Melissa was very cute and funny. She held him tight so that our friend Eric could touch Bonecrusher's (from Roald Dahl's BFG)​ wattles.

Rob is home. I have to go. Tomorrow, I will catch up more with you. He is working and so am I...but I will make a little time for us.​

People in the tintype

Lincoln study, Q. Cassetti, 2012, Adobe Illustrator CS5Yesterday was a gorgeous day. Ditto for today. The Farmers’ Market was fabulous with all sorts of great things to buy—with Meg having black cherry tomatoe plants, and all sorts of elegant currant plants from Daring Drake. We had a massage therapist…and two more people wanted to throw in with us to our delight. Food/catering was selling out to my happiness…and hope that we can continue to drive folks to the market to gather, eat and spend their money of produce, wine, cider, plants and goodies. This is our second shot and I feel real energy around what is happening, the help of the board, and the direction we can point this. I got some great shots and will share with you. I love it when people just “give” you the picture…and I was given quite a few last night. We need more…and we will get them. By the end of the season, we will have imagery to really sell the market!

The big RFP is done. Will deliver tomorrow.  Little projects are moving. The images for the StoneCat have been framed (thanks to Nigel). My cabochons are en route. The market is beginning to stand up on its little shaky legs…and we are going week to week to see what and how it evolves. I am getting things fixed, delivered, and ordered. And! My dies came from Accucut…so it means my diecutter should be here soon! Hello! How exciting is that?

Did you ever notice how big Abe Lincoln’s ears are? HUGE. I saw a life mask , and life casting of his hands at the Fenimore in Cooperstown and was dumbstruck at how odd and overlarge they were…but the facial casting did not get to the ears. Now with this study kicking off a series, I am stunned by his ears…and his amazing assymetrical face. Chasing down info on Lincoln has thrown me back on the amazing photography of Matthew Brady. Brady portrays these civil war era people as the living, breathing people that they were…not shining them up, but just as is…and somehow he captures the individuals essence through a sensitive vision. There is so much humanity peeking out of those sepia images that if you were to just change the fashion, they might be the person on the street passing you by on the way to Starbucks.

I also unwittingly surfaced a whole lot of stuff about the hypothesis that Lincoln might have been gay. It started with my poking around Wikipedia…and then it went on. This is all supported, academic studies…and so it changes the discussion around him. Our first gay president? Interesting. This was not the sort of stuff we addressed way back at Ellis School on Presidents Day. Whole new world.

Rob is home from his travels. It is wonderful to have with us. He is reconsidering his travel for this week. We would love to have him around a bit more!

Onward to the day.

Society of Illustrators Los Angeles: Illustration West 50, Accepted!

I was delighted to see that no, I hadn’t missed this one…and that the pieces above and to the right have been accepted into the Society of Illustrators Los Angeles Illustration West 50 Show. The portrait is of Domenic Labino for the Corning Museum of Glass’ Masters of Studio Glass Exhibition for Labino. Top beehive is a personal image. The Wheatman is from my Greenman series. The image to the right is from my Ganga Devi inspired whimsical illustrations (yay!).

I am delighted with this selection as it is a push to keep going. Each of these images talk to a different hand I have been working on, and two of them representative of two of my little imaginary worlds I find myself floating in.

Thank you Society of Illustrators LA and the judges that selected these images. You make today an even sunnier one!