7 things.

:: 1 :: I don't own a TV, and haven't for about 6 years now.

:: 2 :: So that means I watch a lot of youtube and netflix movies on the computer, and I listen to a lot of NPR. A lot. And some days I mix up stories and events and it makes for a lot of internet searching to find out if said stories really happened.

:: 3 :: Thank you to everyone who forwarded presale info to me, but I didn't end up buying tickets to the upcoming Decemberists concert. I'm a little upset they're playing such a big venue and that the tickets are so expensive. At their Strathmore show last month we had the best seats ever. But I'd rather watch then standing. Come back to the 930 club again, pretty please?

:: 4 :: I would love to see Neko Case live. That would make me very happy. And Cat Power as well.

:: 5 :: Despite circulating rumors, I'm not a doll person at all, but I have to say that artandghosts' work intrigues me. I want to visit her worlds.

:: 6 :: A few months ago I got myself a teeny tiny blackberry, and yes, I am totally obsessed with it.

::7 :: And finally, I know who's bringing the gocco back, but I'm not telling!


I was tagged by Samantha, Jenn, and Cat Bishop. Since three people tagged me, and three times seven equals anyone on the internets reading this now, consider yourself tagged!

But before you go, check out this how-to-screenprint-your-own-tees and-add-glowing-red-eyes by Make: that featuring Matt Stinchcomb of etsy {and also one of the founding members of the French Kicks}. Awesome.

Makes me wish I had that knowledge when I was little. Fashion plates wih red eyes would have been so hot.

But maybe not so hot on these guys:

well, yes.

Of course I went.


As hard as I tried, there really was no way I could miss it. As much as I convinced myself that I had enough yarn, I still had to go. And I did.

My mom was my accomplice. We got there in the late afternoon and spent the time walking the grounds, visiting all the vendors, and talking to the animals. These guys were seriously cute. I was really tempted to reach in and ruffle the mess of hair on their heads:

This time I mostly shopped for yarn I could use in my artwork, because seriously, there's enough yarn still waiting in my stash. I found some lovely silk, linen, and hemp, and more of my favorite bryspun needles.

And then the next week at Squidfire, my booth was beside Woolarina's. It didn't take much to make me pounce on some hand painted and hand spun wool. I also saw the cutest baby pug ever. All black and more adorable than you can imagine. But no, I didn't come home with him.

And of course I can't end a post of animal pics without including the cats. So here's little Tonka, the cuter one. I'm not sure what she's trying to say with this sleeping pose, but I think she just turned 2.

magnolias.

Back in February I saw the most amazing exhibit of Louis Comfort Tiffany's work. I had no idea how multi-talented he was. I pretty much thought he only made fabulous lampshades. Did you know he was also a painter?

One of the pieces that really struck me was a wall of stained glass magnolias. The petals of the magnolias were made up of opaque glass that was folded against itself and made the flowers look magical.

The next day I drew my impression of those magnolias in my pocket moleskine, and a few weeks later I transformed the drawing into a print, and yes, now it's everywhere.


I find that it's so hard to stop once you've started gocco printing, and pretty much shove anything that doesn't have a tail or heartbeat into the press to see what comes out.

A few years back, Sean bought be a small etching press. That poor little press received so little love and started to rust. One of the things on my big to-do list is to fix it up again and maybe do some monotypes on it. If you don't see me write about it in the next few weeks, please remind me. Thanks. And again, I promise not to shove anything that has a tail through there. That wouldn't be pretty.

I wasn't able to get a pic of the Tiffany Magnolia panels, but I'll leave you with this pic I took a few weeks back in the garden beside the Smithsonian Castle.

5 days to go go.

If you haven't yet been to Artomatic, there are just 5 days left. The show closes on Sunday, go go go!


Knit XXIX. mixed media. 8" x 10"

Knit XXVIII. mixed media. 10" x 8"

Please come by our last open studio party this Saturday, May 19, noon-5pm. I'm working on some new pieces and hope to have them ready by then!

Thanks to everyone who came out to Baltimore on Saturday. It was a lot of fun getting to meet so many people. Afterwards, Sean and I went out with a bunch of awesome etsy people for pizza and beer. We'll be back in Baltimore again on the 23th of June for Pile of Craft. Hope to see you all again!

hello baltimore.

I'll be setting up my little shop at the Squidfire Spring Art Mart today! Mount Vernon Square Park, from 11-7pm. If you're in Baltimore {or nearby} please stop by and say hi!

And tomorrow, Sean and I will be setting up at the Marketplace at Artomatic on the 8th Floor, from 3-8pm. Artomatic is in Crystal City, and the whole big show will be up for only 8 more days!

buttons!

The first week I had these I kept them all to myself, with a few extras in my pocket to give away to friends.



Last Friday Sean and I set up a little table in our room at artomatic where we sold some of our small works. That's where my buttons made their official debut. My first customers were about 4 and 5 years old and tried to convince their parents to buy them one of each.

Soon I'll be heading over to the Rock'n'Roll Hotel on H Street to participate in the Big Art Show, and tomorrow I'll be set up at the Marketplace at Artomatic. The Marketplace will be located at the Emerald Cafe on the 8th Floor and feature 30 local vendors.

Artomatic runs through May 20th, come to the Marketplace tomorrow and check it out!

PS :: Apologies to any unanswered e.mails and comments, I'll be in touch with you this week!
PPS :: The buttons have been added to my shop!

artomatic.

Artomatic opened last Friday with 400 artists, and a possible rumor that there might be famous artists works mixed into the equation. Hmm. Anyways, the show runs through May 20th.

Sean Hennessey, Kirk Waldroff and I are sharing room 'Blue 6A57' in the former U.S. Patent Office Building in Crystal City, VA. We decided to turn it into a group show, so rather that use the typical assigned wall space, our work is blended together.

Sean did an awesome job faux finishing a column in the room. I wish I could forever keep this painting hung on a surface that looks as pretty. Check out his faux portfolio on his website or flickr. He's also taken a bazillion artomatic images and for his Top Ten list, look here!



Thanks Tim Tate for including us in your 'Artomatic Top Ten' list! I'm very sorry about your sculpture mystery. Uh oh indeed.

All of my current knit paintings are on display, and in my spare time I'm busily working on some new works in the series.

In crafty news, my upcoming events list has been updated on the left! I hope to see you there! Also, this past week I was the City Paper's craftiest bastard of the week. Yay!

Thank you whipup for including a link to my felted furniture, and greenzebra for writing about my paintings, and Cheeky Beaks, thanks again for and posting my work on your blog!

Oh, and I just found an awesome quote about my paintings here: "If these girls could talk while they knit, they'd be on a Harry Potter wall."

Thank you!

still here.

Knit XXIV. mixed media. 6" x 8"


Knit XXII. [SOLD] and Knit XXIII. [SOLD] mixed media. 5" x 7"


Knit XXI. [SOLD] and Knit XX. mixed media. 8" x 10"

magic.

The treasury I assembled last night
suddenly appeared on the Etsy front page!

Here is what it looked like:

I had just enough time to get a screenshot...

...and then seconds later, the item on the top left sold.

I loved that poster:

Designed by Francesca Montanari [ratmusque on etsy]

Lesson learned.

You win some, you lose some,
The front page is powerful,
...and next time I like something that much, it's mine.

a travelling journal.

Last week I was the lucky first person to break in Book 3 of Etsyjournal:





Please remember, dear friends, swallowing pits is very bad for you, and will result in strange things growing out of your body. Consider yourself warned!

Four handmade books are travelling from one Etsian to another, and after each artist is done, the spreads are being posted to the Etsyjournal blog. The gorgeous book was handmade by Lauren [stellaloella on etsy]. It took me a few days to get started, I was totally blown away by how perfect it was.

I haven't spent much time in the studio at all this year, have mostly been working on prints from the house. Here is a photo of what I've been missing:


I hope to get back there soon.

MoMA.

If I lived in the MoMA, this would be my living room.
And yes, I would invite you all to tea parties.

Then we'd take trips across the street to visit
this awesome exhibit:

And then we'd go to etsylabs and play around
in their awesome space...


...and then take the train to visit the Brooklyn museum
and stare at this exhibit [made of spools of thread!]

Sean and I spent a lot of time going from museum to museum, gallery to gallery and walked pretty much everywhere. The Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting was by far the most interesting and inspiring thing I saw there. The galleries just made me question how big peoples houses must be for there to be so many gigantic works of art.

We hope to get up there again soon. If you're in the area, please check out the Radical Lace exhibit, it rocked!

Now that I'm back in DC, I get to play curator
on etsy with my very first treasury:

If you click here, you can see the actual full page.
But quick, it turns to dust in 16 hours!

do you like lunch?

I love lunch. In honor of lunch, here are some lunchy things I've made recently. First of all, some gocco printed brown bags:



And if you're totally serious about lunch, and want to keep it cold, or hot longer, you might like Roxy's Tattoo bag better. She will remind you not to write all over your arms.


Of course you're going to need a matching coin purse for your milk money. Astrid the Love Cat and Molly the Pirate will help you become fiscally responsible:



All of the above are available in my shop, and the Roxy lunch bag also comes in sand or grey:


Sorry if some of you got bumped off of your feed to my blog, the new blogger must be wonky. Here is a quick link to subscribe to my blog feed:

Francis' Buzz

Meet Francis. Every day, Franics' mom made him wear the argyle vests she handknit for him. They were made with much love, but he was too young to understand. Francis got made fun of. A lot.

The part of the day he liked least was his walk home from school. Yet he never walked, he ran. Dippity stick in his mouth till his tongue bled, he had no fear. The sugar buzz gave him super running powers, and he made it home before the bullies ever caught up.

This is how the illustration looked about halfway through:


...and the final piece:


Here is how it looked at the art display on Saturday night at the SCBWI conference, and on the right is a photo from NYC which features a famous little runner, Eloise!:

thanks!

Thank you design*sponge for posting my silver leaves moleskine and a link to my etsy store, and thanks to everyone who came by and shopped!

Wow, it seems like just yesterday that I goccoed my first moleskine.

Here are some cards I made recently, in different sizes and colors. Most of the materials came from paper source, but the illustrations and words are all mine:




Thank you to everyone who has visited my blog while I have been away making stuff. Happy Valentine's Day. Love, Rania.

5 things.

Oh my goodness, I've been 'tagged'! Kristen tagged me to do '5 things'.
The rules are as follows:
1. someone tags you,
2. you post five things about yourself that you haven’t already mentioned on your blog,
3. you tag people you’d like to know more about.


little me

Alrighty, here I go...
1. When I was in high school I wrote an agony aunt column for a local magazine and got paid really well for it. I answered fan mail, wrote about makeup, eyebrows, hair, legwarmers, mini skirts and skin. My mom saved every issue and its always a laugh to read them.

2. Growing up I was fascinated with people who could draw and would spend my lunch hours watching them, but as hard as I tried everything I drew or painted looked like poop. Then over summer break when I was 16 my family and I were stranded at an airport in Houston waiting and waiting for our flight to Venezuela. Of course I had a sketchbook on me, so I pulled it out and started to draw from photos in a newspaper and for the first time ever, it came out exactly as I saw it. Magic! I went on to get an A the following year in GCSE art, and two years later another A in A-level art.

3. Its always hard for me to answer the "where are you from?" question because: I was born in NYC, went to preschool in London, elementary school in Houston, high school in Dubai and college in Beirut. I moved to DC in 2000 and love this city, and don't have plans to move anytime soon. Also, my accent has changed every time.

4. I love having short hair. For some reason I forget this and remember as soon as my hair nears my shoulders. I cut my hair last week and am already itching for it to be shorter.

5. I can't have enough Thai food. My favorite dish is Penang Tofu. I love indian too, Palak Paneer, yummmm. I could seriously eat it every day.

I tag Roz Foster, I Like Seamonsters, Green Bean Baby, Bookish Lady, and flossy-p!

{please note...tonight I was *forced* to change my blogger account, so feeds might be disrupted. so sorry.}