National Gingerbread Competition

I love living in Asheville and will be so sad to leave this wonderful town when my husband begins his career in the Air Force (starting in spring). This was my first and only Christmas here, so I tried to soak up as much or the holiday locally as possible amid working. During one of my breaks, a friend took me to the Grove Park Inn, a large historic resort happily situated in the north part of town with incredible mountain vista views, to see the National Gingerbread House Competition entries and winners. It was so cool that I had to go back again with Jordan ad my camera.  

Some general entry adult houses

The competition had multiple categories: children, young adult, teen, and adult. There were far too many houses/ gingerbread sculptures to show you all of them, and the rooms with the young adult, teen and children entries were all much too dark and crowded to get good pictures. However, you'd never know the young adult and teen winners didn't bake professionally. Their prize winners were all leaps and bounds better than most of the general entry adult ones.

Adult Prize winner. The box looked like real wood!

I feel like only the sleigh in this adult winner was actually gingerbread, but the horse was just so incredible.

The grand prize was touring the country, so it wasn't there on either of my visits, but this award winner is probably my favorite anyway. The deer are so beautiful and the little gazebo just so detailed, I wouldn't want to snap a piece off of this edible sculpture to eat.

 The gingerbread houses will be on display from Nov. 16, 2011 - Jan. 1, 2012, so if you're in the area looking for something free and festive to do with the kids, head over!

Behind the Scenes During the Christmas Rush

Whew! What a month! I love Christmas time and everything that goes along with it. In my own home, my husband and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary on the 19th, I turned 24 on the 24th, and we had a lovely time at my parent's house for Christmas Day. For TuckooandMooCow...the past few weeks have been stuffed with creating for you all!

 I love the holiday shopping season: chatting with customers, sending out pieces I know will be gifts, all of it!  To give you a glimpse behind the scenes, I wanted to share with you some pictures from December when I started the work-around-the-clock schedule.

This is me working late into the night during the second week finishing a bunch of Christmas orders.

 My husband was awesome enough to stay up late and snap some pictures of me working. Pardon the messy desk--I don't clean up much once I'm in the creative "zone."

Hand Painted Necklace, Custom Pet Portrait Jewelry

This was one of my favorite custom pieces from this holiday season in progress. I just love how sweet this cat and dog are together!

Finally, Christmas Eve (and my 24th birthday) rolled around. My cairn terrier, George, and I didn't make it much past lunch before we fell asleep.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I have so much to share about 2012 that I'm about to burst, but more on that later.

Work in Progress: Pet Portrait Cuff Links

Whew! Christmas is just around the corner, and I am definitely feeling the press of the busiest time of year for a seller. I've had more custom orders in the last month than ever before, so I wanted to share with you an image of the painting process of one of the custom pet portrait cuff link pairs. Each painting is only 16mm wide (roughly a touch smaller than what you're seeing) and done entirely in watercolor with some ink lining at the very end.

The reason it takes me several days to complete custom pieces is that it is hard for me to say, "Done!" with a project. Stepping away for a little while periodically and coming back to make touches is vital to the process. A piece looks different after a certain amount of time, so it's important to make certain that it will always look "right" whenever it's looked at again.

Although it's too late to get your own before Christmas, I'm always taking orders for the future: Hand Painted Pet Portrait Cuff Links. 

As Seen in 'Modern Dog'

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook (or see me bopping around regularly in person) you may already be aware that my Hand Painted Pet Portrait Cuff Links were featured in the winter issue of "Modern Dog" magazine. This has been such a treat and I am so excited to finally be able to share pictures of this neat-o feature with you! 

You can see my hand painted cuff links in the upper right corner of this "Gift Guide" page. I'm pretty thrilled about this. "Modern Dog" is the first time any of my work has been featured in an actual printed publication before! You can even find my cuff links featured on their website, ModernDogMagazine.com.

So if you are that dapper gentleman, or know someone who is, who would like to "wear [his] heart on [his] sleeve" then just pop over HERE and let's get started working on those! 

Ceci est une pipe

 "The Son of Man" (1964) 

 When I was 15, my dad introduced me to Paul Simon's "Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War" and I was in love. It's still one of my favorite songs--doesn't matter the mood, I'm always into it. Besides simply being a fantastic song, I've always enjoyed it partially because of a fascination with the surrealist Rene Magritte's work.  You probably recognize his most famous piece "The Son of Man."  

Magritte inspired TuckooandMooCow pieces

My love for the Belgian surrealist has inspired several pieces of my own from cuff links, to earrings, to a necklace, and even a bookmark.

One of my favorite pieces by Magritte is a quirky piece titled "The Treachery of Images" (La trahison des images) which is a picture of a pipe with words below it saying, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe," or "This is not a pipe."

This IS a Pipe - Framed Magritte Inspired Mixed Media Artwork (Made to Order)- Ceci est une Pipe

Through an Etsy team I belong to and captain (Aspiring Artisans Guild), I've had the great opportunity to meet fellow Magritte lover, Michelle Tavaras of Calamaristudio. Wonderfully enough, she's combined two of my favorite things into an awesome piece I now own: puns and Magritte. Her wonderful work actually is a pipe! It's now one of my favorite piece in my home and an instant conversation starter when people see it.

Michelle has now made several of these pieces and you can buy one in her Etsy Shop. The fantastic thing is that each frame is a bit different and the pipes aren't the same, so not only are you getting an original piece of art, but it is a completely unique one!

Painting a "Collection of Books" Necklace

Personalized Book Collection a Hand Painted Necklace 

The collection of books necklaces are some of my favorite personalized pieces that I offer for a variety of reasons. For one thing, how fun is it to have a tiny necklace that's a collection of your favorites? They're also like a time capsule. What you like to read now might not be your favorites at all in 10-20 years, but it's fun to have a nostalgic way to look back and remember. Finally, they don't take nearly the amount of attention to detail. Now, that's not to say that they aren't detailed! Writing titles legibly that small is no picnic and making sure everything will fit perfectly can even take a few tries. Still, painting book spines isn't quite like trying to capture personality and expression in a pet or child's face.

Recently, I've had the great pleasure of doing several custom book pieces, so I thought it might be fun to walk you through my process with one of the first ordered for the holiday season.

First, I make a sketch. This often becomes several sketches since I have to make certain each title will fit and still be legible. Generally, I sketch in light blue colored pencil. Graphite is very visible beneath watercolor and can even smear, but the light blue isn't visible to you, so I did this one in graphite in order to be easier to see. 

Often, when I have to send a customer a picture of a sketch I end up doing 2, one in graphite so that they can really see it and another in light blue colored pencil.

This is the piece all painted and inked! You can see how incredibly vivid the colors are before the setting and sealing process. They are still very vivid in the final piece, but perhaps not quite as deep. That's ok. I know they're going to be like this, so I plan ahead and make them as vivid and vibrant as I do in the painting so that they'll look perfect once under resin. 

This is the finished piece! Lots of titles in this one, so it's a really good example of just how much text can actually be fit in. I just LOVE doing these! It's so fun to see a person's taste in literature. It really says a lot about someone which is really cool.