Studio Tour: Bookshelves part 2

Tuesday, March 25th, 2014

Bookcase 1 of 6*, top half

I decided not to keep you in suspense too long, so here’s the top half of the bookcase we started exploring last week. You can see off to the left there where I have a custom-made dry erase marker cup from my friend Z. It looks like a castle from the front! I’m meant to draw in some brickwork on it myself, but I never get around to it (much like the ear plugs I still owe him, d’oh!).

Most of the stuff on these shelves are easier to see behind to the books, so there’s only one that got a double photo, but to make it up to you I also photographed the stuff on top.

This is the fifth shelf, counting from the bottom up. It’s got blank books, inspirational toys, glass bunnies from Brazil, and more books! The box of three blank books bound in raw silk is just begging to be some fascinating little project someday, and the other little blank journals and notebooks are just too nifty to write in. The golden Snitch is a plushie, and that red-patterned box contains another sort of collectible of mine — more boxes! In this case it’s full of hexagonal nesting origami boxes from Japan.

The books are a mix of grammar, writing, design, and tea books, but I believe the whole shelf is nonfiction. This means I’ve read very few of them, because I get really easily bored reading nonfiction. So bored.

This shelf is teeny tiny! It’s just the right height for the stuff inside, which includes what’s left of my Pez dispenser collection, and some really awesome wee Nightmare Before Christmas statuettes. They are very cool, and also incredibly delicate, which is why they live in their packages right now, though I have in the past displayed them properly. There’s also Pooh and Piglet, acquired at Disneyland years ago if I recall correctly, and an electric candle.

And here we have the one and only place I arrange books by color, my collection of “Pooh’s Little Book” books, all silly little mini-books with quotes and art from the classic Pooh books. There’s even a copy of Eeyore’s Gloomy Little Instruction Book on the end there.

And here we have shelf seven, containing all of my Dresden Files hardcovers, a random fancy copy of Stardust, and chibi Pez. Also, Pooh and Piglet looking adorably scared, some random stationery, and a zombie fish.

On the topmost shelf, we have the British editions of Harry Potter 1-7, along with some other related things and a random copy of one of those Scary Stories books I read as a kid. I always loved the illustrations, so when I found this anthology on a Halloween sale table for cheap, I snagged it. In front are these absolutely delightful Harry Potter decorative boxes. Decorative boxes are seriously a weakness of mine, you guys. They have a little charm inside each one, so Hedwig’s is a cage and the Snitch has a broom and Harry on his broom has a Snitch. So awesome.

And finally, at the very top, we have plushies! There’s the zombie kitty that I lobotomized to see how his purrer worked, a ferret given to me with his nametag on, Paddington Bear  complete with marmalde under his hat, and Sirius Blackie in his Prisoner of Love uniform. And a random purple rose, because why not?

I hope you’re enjoying this little tour of my studio, life, and brain! Next stop will be the paperbacks, which are 2 deep on the shelf and have their own bizarre assortment of collectibles and oddities.

Categories: Words Words Words
Tags: about, studio tour

Studio Tour: Bookshelves part 1

Thursday, March 20th, 2014

Bookcase 1 of 6*, bottom half

So, I have a lot of bookshelves, with a lot of stuff in them. For instance, in the living room (where I do most of my art) there’s a big wall of 6 bookcases, plus another half-height one full of games, plus another one on a different wall. And then there’s 3 in the bedroom. So we’re starting small! The leftmost bookcase in the big Billy set (yes, we love Ikea) on the living room wall is half-width, and has 8 shelves.

Let’s start at the bottom, which only has one photo because the stuff in front isn’t totally blocking the stuff behind it, for once.

The back row is a set of antique childrens’ books from my dad’s brother (and later my dad, I’ve been assured), which I loved as a kid and asked to take with me when I moved. It’s The Book House series, 6 pairs of books with increasingly complicated stories in them, including a lot of old fairy tales. Next to them is a battered old pair of Black Beauty and My Friend Flicka that I read as a kid and haven’t gotten rid of yet because reasons. In front there’s some relics of my years as a pyromaniac, when I used to burn colored candles into elaborate drips down over my candle holders like a strange sort of sculpture. Also the first of many tarot decks, and a Slinky.

Above you can see the front row of stuff on shelf #2, speaking of tarot decks. I used to have twice as many as I do now, but I’ve reduced a lot of my collections to just the favorites in the past few years. Yes, that’s right, I have less stuff now than I used to. Don’t let it hurt your brain too much.

Below, there’s the books hiding behind the tarot decks.

Ah, there they are. Mostly this shelf has tiny little short books, though I see that one got put on its side so it would fit with its brethren. I believe there’s a bunch of Edward Gorey reprints to the far left, and some classics in nice editions on the far right, with comic-related books, postcard books, and other mini coffee table books. The sideways one is The Zen of Zombie. Relatedly, my To Be Read pile is taller than I am, and some of these books are on it.

And on to the third shelf! This one also got two photos, even though you can kinda sorta see the books in back. There’s a nifty little cat box and a related mini book, and a bunch of cards, including a Manara tarot deck and some fancy short-run playing cards. And, of course, Harry Potter LEGOs. The old-school kind with yellow minifigs.

More books were hiding behind the cards! My collection of Madeleine L’Engle, a lovely boxed Spiderwick Chronicles, a completely random Japanese postcard book, and some other books I loved as a kid, plus a Tim Burton book, and one about Mirrormask. I think the postcard book was too tall for the second shelf, so it got special dispensation.

And lastly, we have the fourth shelf (of 8), full of some random stuff that just kinda ended up here. A friend made the adorable pincushion in which my squid pin sits, another one gave me the purple dragon statue, another one gave me the Art on the Gogh mini watercolor set, yet another one gave me the creepy wooden hands, and I bought the Harry Potter Snape’s potions lab playset my very own self at a convention. I have no explanation for the box of bank pins, though.

So, that’s it! Stuff an artist keeps in her bookcases, part 1 of a bajillion. Got questions? Want to talk about stuff? Drop me an email!

Categories: Words Words Words
Tags: about, studio tour

Studio Tour: Writing Desk

Thursday, February 20th, 2014

The sunlit view from my bedroom doorway,
with my writing desk closed against feline intrusion.

I’ve been meaning to give you guys a little tour of my “studio” (aka apartment) for a while, and I decided today was the day to start. As you can see, I have a lot of shelves and paintings and plushies and action figures and oddities to show off.

Today’s bit of show-and-tell is an item you’ve seen a ton of if you follow my blog or my Etsy shop, the antique writing desk I use as the backdrop for all my photos. It’s quite compact and I’ve had it for 20 years now, through a number of moves, and now it’s finally found a bright spot between the window and the lamp, where it can get nice photos. To the right you can see my big plush dog, Neville, who is incredibly cuddly but I kept kicking out of bed (literally) and so got banished to guard some of my finished artwork.

Below, there’s a nice big close-up of the desk with the top down, which will be even more familiar.

the inside of my writing desk, including a lot of adorable photography props

You can see the green leather blotter that’s attached to the wood and makes such a great backdrop for white cards and various artworks.  There’s a pair of holes that were drilled in the top at one time, I think perhaps for different suspension hardware, which I always take out with Photoshop because I find them kind of distracting. Secret flaws, hah.

I’ve got my fancy quill pen in its blue glass holder along with the photogenic bottle of blank ink, with some random papers behind it including all the Playbills for everything I’ve seen on Broadway (which isn’t many). There’s mostly random papers hiding in the desk like blank envelopes and a few extra cards, and you can see my hand-crocheted squid & octopus next to my pink plush squid from Japan. There’s even a little “present” made of a Moo card box with a bow on it that I use for photographing gift tags.

On top of the desk there’s a Halloween card a friend sent me ages ago, the pink kitty “stapler” from Japan (they like pink there idk), a Harry Potter cup of pens, a brass statue of Ganesha, my Winnie the Pooh nightlight, an orange Ikea pentapus, a mini-book on The Art of Love Letters, and a plush of May dressed as a Totoro, because cute.

Is there anything you see that I haven’t identified and you’re curious about? What do you have in your desk?

Greedy for more? You can join my list and get previews of upcoming paintings, comics, and cards.

Categories: Words Words Words
Tags: about, studio tour