Feature Kick-off

Welcome everyone just joining us at KatGirl Studio’s blog. I hope you’ll all come back in the weeks to come to see if you or your friends snag a daily spot in the blog feature. Due to the overwhelming response I have enough people picked out to last months but fear not I will continue to look through the post for new people (I saved the link) to mix up the list a bit.

Normally at the top of each post will be a blurb about what’s going on here in KatGirl Studio but seeing as I’m still waiting for supplies to make my surprise new items and don’t want to talk about my crummy day yesterday lets kick the feature show into gear.

Today’s Feature Artisan
Lmdalton
In need of a little friend to keep you company on those daily travels or weekend adventures? Why not adopt your own Traveling Kitty.

Lisa M. Dalton is the creator of the Traveling Kitty Project, an interactive art project inviting buyer participation. Similar to those commercial made Webkinz young girls are always toting about but oh so much more cool because TK’s are handcrafted and one of a kind. Adopters of TK’s are asked to take their kitties along with them on their daily adventures and document them for sharing with the rest of the group. A fantastic idea, and a fantastic gift to brighten up anyone’s day. Check out the Traveling Kitty Project or claim your own Traveling Kitty today.

Snow Leopards, Wedding Art & Experiments

Snow Leopards
Finished another Snow Leopard piece yesterday, surprisingly many people are amazed at how I produce them. To me it’s simple really I first “sketch out the basic outline and marking placement of the animal. Then I add the base shading over the whole piece. Lastly the most time consuming step I start at one end and work up the details with a mech pencil, kneaded eraser and an eye shadow wand. I cover the parts I’ve already worked on with a piece of tracing paper so I don’t rub off my work with my hand. I guess how you produce art is just one of those things you have to discover for yourself through trial and error.

Wedding Art
My friend Sally asked if she could use one of my pieces of art for her wedding invites (of course I said yes). I’m going to be taking care of all the production & design and trips to the printers which got me thinking maybe I should think about offering this service to others. I’ve been trained as an Illustrator to do such production and have been told my graphic design skills are up to par so maybe I’ll add that service to my list.

Experiments
I experimented with shrink dinks yesterday the first few came out alittle wonky but the last one came out ok but looks awful when I try to photograph it. I’m not sure the it produced reliable enough results to use as a business material so I’m back to waiting for my supplies to arrive. They sure are taking their sweet time or maybe it just seems that way because I really want to try them out now.


Some links to cool things I found yesterday:
Quit Your Day Job
The Black Apple

Party at Illusive

On Saturday I biked with my family to the Santa Clara Art and Wine to check out display ideas and run into people I’ve known my whole life. The festival is different from others because it takes place in the city and not a down town (because we don’t have one). As well all the food booths benefit different charities and groups along with most of the drinks. While sitting in the grass eating lunch we ran into my friend Jet who mentioned it was my friend Tim’s B-day party at Illusive later that day. Illusive is my friend Anna’s comic book store also in Santa Clara, she’s awesome and throws cool holiday parties full of geekiness. People show up, catch up with each other’s lives, munch on food and rock out to the music being piped out of Rock band. We laugh, show each other cool things we found on the web and generally just hang out in a safe geek-friendly environment. Illusive’s not your typical comic store and offer’s a nice mix of comic’s for both children and adults, art book, manga, funny shirt’s, geeky buttons, games and more.

If you’re new to the area or just in need of a good comic shop (this one’s owned by a girl) check out Illusive Comics on El Camino in Santa Clara.