Etsy in Austin for South by Southwest!

The folks from Etsy headquarters in Brooklyn have arrived here in Austin for the awesome SXSW event they've been planning! It starts tomorrow & continues through Sunday, at Venue 222 on Sixth Street. Two full days of craft demos, music & more! See the full schedule of events on the Etsy in Austin event page.

The EtsyAustin street team has partnered up with Etsy for this event & we'll have a fabulous display of our work ("The Wall of Wow") at the event. I'm on the committee for that & have seen the setup, so I can tell you first-hand that it will indeed wow you! More event info, plus our team members' guide to Austin, on the EtsyAustin blog.

We'll also have a Meet EtsyAustin booth and the coolest photo booth in town. Seriously, you do NOT want to miss getting your picture taken with Babsy the larger-than-life, mustache-sportin', tiny hat-wearin', cat. Saddle up!

I got to meet many of the Etsy folks last night at a meet n' greet they hosted for our team leaders at Polvo's Mexican restaurant. It was super fun to meet them & talk plans for this weekend. It's going to be craftacularly fun - hope you'll come out & see us!

Snuggle Herd Mystery Revealed!

All of you who guessed "elephant ears" were correct, and Meredith, you are the winner! I will contact you later today about your prize, a set of my "Say What?!" coloring cards. I was very amused by all of the creative answers - thanks for playing, everyone!



I've been working on a slight re-design of Elsa the Elephant, so it was sort of a trick question! The ears I'm making now are quilted, so they look a bit different.



The material I'm using for the body is now quilter's cotton instead of upcycled t-shirts. Using cotton allows me to skip a couple of steps & make them more quickly & easily. However, I think I may still keep making the t-shirt ones as a "luxe" type of item because they are sooooo cuddly soft, and I like the re-use aspect. I'm going to be using many vintage & re-purposed fabrics for these new cotton ones, too, to keep them earth-friendly.



I hope to have these new elephants listed in my Etsy shop soon. Also working on a few other super-cute animals... stay tuned!

I Heart Art: Palette Knife Painting

oranges painted by Amanda Wood

This post was inspired by my friend Mandy, a fellow artist. We were both high school art teachers in the same school district just outside of Seattle (she still is). Lucky for me, she was in Austin for a couple of days & I got to hang out with her this morning.

lemons painted by Amanda Wood

We had so much fun! We grabbed some chai & breakfast pastries from Upper Crust, then had a lovely chat at The WonderCraft trailer, which is only 2 doors down. It was so great to show Mandy the creative stuff I've been doing & hear about her latest art inspirations, too!

Both of the fruit paintings above were done by Mandy. She's just recently taken a class in palette knife painting & has fallen in love with the technique. It's a really fun way to create paintings in the impasto style, in which the paint is applied very thickly to create three-dimensional effects.

Back in the days when I used to paint a lot, I enjoyed using thick, goopy paint in my paintings, too. It created this luscious texture that always reminded me of cake frosting. Seeing Mandy's latest paintings & hearing about how much she enjoyed that class got me feeling nostalgic for the paint tubes I rarely squeeze anymore and the easel that is leaning against my work room wall, all sad & neglected. Maybe I'll paint something this afternoon...

Here are some more palette knife paintings I love, found on Etsy (& available for purchase there, at quite reasonable prices). As you can see, the thickness of the paint varies widely from artist to artist...

Faces of the City LXXXII by Aja of Sagittarius Gallery

India by Aida Sabic

Out on Our Own by Donna Walker

Great Vienna XIX by Catalin

Echinacea Meadow by Beata Sasik

The smooshiest, goopiest paintings I could find are by the artist above, Beata Sasik. She really lays it on thick! Crazy, huh? I love it!

What do you think of impasto painting? Do you like the three-dimensional qualities of it, or do you prefer flatter, smoother paintings? Feel free to leave links to your favorite painters in the comments; I'd love to see 'em!