Art Shark Designs

The Richmond Print is done!

2009-06-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

I Just thought I'd put up a quick post to show pics of the new Richmond, VA print! It features the Italian Garden in Maymont Park. I went down to Richmond a few weeks ago to take some pics for this project, and didn't really have a clear idea of what I was going to make the print of, until I saw Maymont. It's just so unique and beautiful, and I knew if I lived in Richmond, I'd spend a lot of time there. Plus, I like to make prints of places where people get engaged or married. Maybe that's a bit sappy of me or whatever, but I am a romantic at heart, and I also know that many people buy these prints as wedding gifts. Not to mention that many places where people typically get engaged or married are quite beautiful or iconic to begin with. I know I would like something like this of the place I was married or engaged. Actually, I don't have a print of either of those places, which is kinda weird cause I'm the one who makes them! But I plan to soon. I was going to make a set of places where my husband and I were engaged (masonic temple in old town Alexandria), married (St. Mary's church in old town Alexandria- where Dev's grandparents were married; some of our pictures look very much like theirs which I think is so wonderful), and had our wedding reception (Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, VA- spectacularly beautiful location which we had to camp out overnight outside of to book a year and a half in advance of our wedding! So worth it.) for our 5 year anniversary, but I ran out of time. Oh well, there's always next year!
So, here are the pics of the Richmond Love print:

Here is an image of the first scene in Maymont Park I tried to do- the Japanese garden. I worked really hard on it, and so wanted it to work out, but it just didn't. It's too chaotic, and it doesn't breathe. It's just a little hard to look at I think, and it doesn't lead the eye around to different elements in an organic or dynamic way (if that makes any kind of sense). Plus, I was concerned that many of the details would be lost in the printing process. But I thought I would post it anyway, just to show that sometimes these scenes don't come easily. I know they look like simple designs, but like most things, the simplicity is deceptive. It's a challenge for them to look simple, as evidenced by this failed design.

So, now I'm working on Quebec City and a second NY Love. I'm hoping to get them printed soon. London and Alexandria, VA will hopefully be coming very soon as well!

Oh, wait, I said this was going to be a quick post, didn't I? Haha, oh well.

Gocco Process

2009-05-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

There was a time a few years back that I had no idea what gocco was, and was very curious how the sellers on Etsy I was buying from were making these prints called gocco. So, I thought I'd share a little bit about my printing process. Now, mind you most of the work that goes into my prints happens before this point- research on a place, trying to find the right mix of romance and city views, deciding how to draw different elements (don't even get me started on how many tries that Chicago fountain took to get kinda right), etc. This is the bit that happens once I've totally decided on the image, have printed it out with carbon based ink (I always use a laser printer- I find it to be more reliable than copy machines, but that varies from person to person), and have exposed it onto a screen (I forgot to take pics of that bit- but I'm printing a few more prints next week so perhaps I'll post some from that run).

Also, these pictures are not from my studio where I usually print. These are from my day job office conference room. I print here when the boss is out of town. That way, I can use my time most effectively (since there usually isn't a ton for me to do when he's out of town except answer the phone- and as you can see, there is a phone and message pad right next to the drying rack). Also, something about this room makes my prints turn out better. I don't know what it is- perhaps it's the humidity level that keeps the screen from drying out, or it's more ventilated, I dunno, something. Or, it could be that I don't tend to sing along with my ipod at the top of my lungs here since there are other offices above ours who get kinda stompy when they're annoyed about our noise levels. I suspect when I sing a lot, as I do at my home studio (cause I figure, Dev's been with me 11 years now. He was fully aware of my cruddy singing voice for the 6 years before we were married, so he had plenty of time to run for the hills. Now he's legally obligated to listen to it), it dries the ink on the screen out faster. Or at least that's my working theory. Anyway, here are the photos!

Here's our conference room printing studio, complete with one of my stained glass windows I made in college in the background,and my beloved drying rack.
Here's one of my gocco machines. This one is newer, and I use it for exposing the screens since it seems to work better for that. I also have a PG-10 with a movable platform that I use to print the moleskines on.
Here is the exposed screen that I've inked already. I draw those little guide lines on there for when a design has a few different parts that don't need ink, and I want to be able to have an idea of what part of the screen needs to be reinked when all the ink is mushed together and I can't see what parts are what anymore. If that makes any sense.
Here's the inked screen loaded onto the gocco and ready to print.
Press the top part down onto the paper for a second or two...
...and voila, print! I add the red umbrellas later.
..and then repeat. A lot.

Hope that shed a little light on how I make these prints for those of you that aren't familiar with the gocco process. I'm hoping to have Richmond, springtime NYC, and Quebec ready in the next week or so. Then I'll probably move on to Paris 2, St. Louis, Alexandria VA, Sydney, and London 2!

Also, I bought a sewing machine yesterday that my mom is teaching me to use...so now I can finally actually hem my curtains instead of using tape! Yay!

The new LA print is finally finished!

2009-05-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd post a few pics of the print I just finished, Griffith Observatory in LA!

In researching places to put the couple in LA, I stumbled on pics of Griffith and immediately liked it. It just seems so dreamy and foreign and romantic set way above the city, and I love the architecture style. I also thought I'd give our girl a fun polka dot dress and her heel is popped up ever so slightly upon being kissed, like an old Hollywood movie. I hope you enjoy the print!

Here's the matching moleskine:

Now I'm starting to work on the drawings for a second Paris print, a second NY print, and Quebec!

Wedding-y Stuff

2009-05-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

So, my sister was recently engaged, and my five year wedding anniversary is in a month, so my mind has been on weddings lately. For my own wedding, as you might imagine, it was important that as many things as possible were handmade and meaningful to us. Our cake was made by my husband's cousin's wife (it was beautiful and spectacular and could have fed the guests of 3 weddings), and I handmade every favor, place card, table "number" (each of our tables was named for a place of some significance to us- Ireland was my family's table as we're both very Irish and we went to Ireland for our honeymoon, Alexandria is where we grew up, Masonic Temple is where we got engaged, Mount Vernon is where we had our prom night dinner and our rehearsal dinner, Paris is where we had our first kiss, Charlottesville is where he went to college and Harrisonburg is where I did, etc. Guest's placecards had a sketch of that place, and they had to match the sketch with the picture on the table (both said the name of the place too- we weren't trying to make it too hard!), and of course, our invitations.

Table "numbers" or titles or whatever you call it

Our favors- I didn't make the books of Irish blessings, I just made the book covers. That counts, right?

And here is our fantastic lemon raspberry cake!

I worked forever on these invitations, because I really wanted them to be something special and different. So I though it would be fun to upload some pics of the one I kept. Looking back there are a few things I wish were a bit more polished, but I am proud of them (if I wasn't, Devin, my sisters, my mom and all the other people who helped put them together would be kinda pissed). I designed them around the Irish claddagh ring, which symbolizes love (the heart), friendship (hands holding the heart), and loyalty (crown on the heart). I wanted to update it a little, and spotlight each symbol separately, so I made 3 logos, one for each symbol, which are embossed on the front of the invitation, and the corresponding words are embossed on the second flap of the invite. I then found quotes that had each of the 3 words in them that also dealt with love or marriage in some capacity. I matched the quotes with pictures of us growing up, moving closer together as we got older (metaphorically and on the pages the pictures get closer to the center) and coming together in the last page. The claddagh is usually described as meaning "love, friendship, loyalty" in that order, but for us friendship came first, then loyalty, then love, so that's how I ordered the symbols. Anyway, here are the pics!

awww, isn't 5 year old dev adorable in his little suit? hopefully our future children will be that cute! In my 5 yr old pic, I look like I'm plotting something (and most likely, I was)!

Oh, and I couldn't resist adding this in- this is a pic of my engagement "treasure hunt" clues. Every year, Devin's mom makes him a treasure hunt for his Christmas presents (or she did when he was younger and all- she doesn't anymore since he got married and also because when he was 18, they adopted his 3 sisters from Kazakhstan so they've had less time on their hands since going from one child to 4!). Anyway, I was there for quite a few of these treasure hunts, and just loved them. So when he was coming up with a way to propose, he remembered how much I love the hunt or any kind of thing I can "win", so he set it up as a treasure hunt. His best man drove me around in a giant SUV trying to find the clues, and each clue location was someplace of significance to us, and there I'd find one of my friends waiting there for me with a gift from Dev and a rose and the next clue, and we'd pile more and more people into the SUV as the day went on. Each clue was in the form of a poem, and there were I think 13 total. It was a seriously awesome day, I don't know how he coordinated all of it but he somehow got a bunch of my friends/family to all different spots all over DC and northern VA until I got to him at the Masonic Temple where the rest of my family and his family was waiting with cameras and champagne. He was waiting with a ring he'd had custom made for me from a pic I found of a diamond and sapphire art deco 1920's ring a few years before. It was a good day! So I still have all the poem clues, and I've been meaning to frame them all, but here's a pic of some of them.

And here's a pic of the proposal- look, umbrellas! OK, you can all throw things at me now, I'm a lucky girl :)

Hi Daily Candy people!

2009-04-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

So it has come to my attention that Daily Candy DC has featured my art today, which is pretty awesome as I am an avid DC reader myself (thanks Erin!). Anyway, curious where to buy my stuff? Le Village Marche in Shirlington Village is the only one who currently carries my City Love notecards (I don't sell them on my website right now), and they also have the DC Love and Paris journals. It is also a really great shop, full of all sorts of beautiful gifts and goodies, and definitely worth a trip to- everytime I go in I find something new that I need! A Show of Hands in the Del Ray section of Alexandria also has a few things, mostly my Rory the Corgi line of notecards and a few city prints (although I would call them if you're looking for one in particular as they don't have many). Also, my Etsy site, which you can get to by clicking on the My Etsy Shop link just to the right of this post. So, welcome, and thanks!

Cherry Blossoms & Spring Flowers

2009-04-15T06:43:00.001-07:00

So I bought a Kodak Dualux a little while back for 99 cents on Ebay, and I've been having some fun with it. So, I thought I'd post some of the pics I took with it these past few weeks of the pretty flowers in my yard (helpfully planted by the former owners, who, according to the German across the cul de sac when she's trying to make me feel guilty about not caring enough about plants, were part of her now-defunct neighborhood gardening club. I just don't think that a person such as myself who kills flowers practically by looking at them would be very helpful in a gardening club. Instead, I am a secret member of the weeds club).

This one is obviously not taken with the dualux, but it's of the cherry blossom tree in my front yard, one of the biggest reasons why I really wanted this house in particular. It's a wonderful tree, with an umbrella shape that makes it look like a giant bonsai tree. And, for about one week per year, all we can see through the living room picture window is pale pink blossoms. It looks like a painting.

Also a few pics are of the cherry blossoms in DC, which I love to look at but the weather hasn't been so great during the cherry blossom festival time so I only ended up getting a few pics on a very gray day. I think the ones of the magnolia trees came out better.

Lovely things on my wall

2009-04-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post about this for awhile, but time flies when you've got a long to-do list. I'll go ahead and blame it on the stomach flu/food poisoning thing I had yesterday, which had me nearly convinced I would not live to see today. But here I am. I even got up to swim this morning, much to Devin's chagrin since he'd decided I'd still be sick today and therefore he'd be able to sleep in. Oh, was he ever wrong. Instead, I got up to take my thyroid meds and accidentally spilled the entire cup of water I was holding on the bed. So there was no sleeping in to be had. Anyway, Yo-ii is one of my favorite artists on Etsy. A little while ago, I bought 3 of her prints from her Night Tales series. We got Night Tale 2: Orchid Yard, Night Tale 4: Woods and Night Tale 1: Moon and Rabbit, partially because both woods and moon and rabbit featured little rabbits, which remind me of my dearly departed Shark and Puppy rabbits. I finally conned Devin into using his engineering and applied electrophysics degree (yeah, I'm pretty sure hanging 3 frames each with 2 hangers that are not level in a straight line requires applied electrophysics, whatever the crap that is) to hang them in the maddening but pretty frames we bought at Michaels, and voila, here they are. I think they look fantastic. Keep an eye on her shop, she always has interesting stuff, and it goes fast! Oh, and the book you may or may not be able to see on my table thing (really just storage for devin's DVD obsession. Thankfully lately he's been a bit more judicious about what he buys, but for awhile it seemed like he'd buy almost any DVD on sale. And then he wanted to display the DVDs in the room. Um...no. That did not happen, thanks to Ikea having the perfect dresser that we repainted and fits all the dvds inside in an orderly fashion.)..oh yes, the book. It's The Mincing Mockingbird's book of his bird paintings with funny titles. I absolutely adore the titles. Really, you should go read some of them in his shop. Never fails to make me laugh. I think my favorites are: He Thinks My Sudden And Terrifying Mood Swings Are Kinda Cute, You Will Give Me Your Rumpus Room to Use As A Lair, and You May Think You Can Play Games With My Heart, But I Will Own You At Scrabble. Which is so true, cause I definitely will. Don't get me wrong, I really like the paintings too, as to me birds are much more beautiful in theory rather than having one tweeting and crapping in my house, so I have a lot of bird art. Also because Devin is absolutely terrified of birds. And in doing this post, I've just noticed he's added more prints since I got the book. He is obviously a lot more efficient than I. I promise I will get something new into the shop very soon. Probably LA, since I've promised a few people I'd finish that soon. Problem is, I haven't been in LA in like 10 years, and I can't think of a good place to put the couple. Any ideas, anyone familiar with LA? My idea right now is Griffith Observatory, but I'm just not sure. Suggestions are welcome! That is all.

In honor of the first day of spring...

2009-03-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

Here's the new DC print, DC Love III! I'm doing 2 versions of this, because I thought it would be fun to make some of the prints with pink blossoms, but pink kinda clashes with red, so half will have pink blossoms and half will have the red umbrellas. I really like how they came out, and I've already done a custom save the date based on the design, but with a different couple and no umbrellas. There's also a matching moleskine for this design!

Soon, I will probably be offering custom services on my etsy shop. Here's the image for the custom save the date I just finished today (I took out the type though)!

I'm thinking of adding an option to customize an existing design, and another option for a completely custom print. Custom prints will be giclee, not gocco or screen printed since there is a finite supply of gocco materials to be had at this point, and because I really don't have the screen printing thing down just yet. I thought I would by now, but I'm really not used to having to screen print in a home environment which is where my studio is now, and I don't feel comfortable selling screenprints until I can effectively complete the project! I'm really only used to printing with equipment like a vacuum exposure table and a powerwashing booth, and neither of those things really fit into the bedroom I've been allocated as my studio space, at least until we have more than 2 kids and then I'll have to move into the room behind the garage. At least at this point that scenario includes about 2 more kids than we currently have (which is none), so I'm not too concerned. Honestly, Devin was such a sweet, calm and well mannered kid (from what his family has told me), I'm not sure he would want more than one kid if that one kid turns out like me as a child (my mother says this to sum me up as a child: "people thought you were darling until you opened your mouth"); I'm not sure he could handle it.

Anyway, I bought a new pigment printer today, and I'm very excited about it! It's an HP Photosmart Pro B8850. It has a sister printer, if you will, but it was a bit more money for some features I don't really need. I did almost buy it because it takes thicker sheets of art paper, but what really sold me on the 8850 was that it has a sleep mode which helps keep the printerheads from drying up between uses for people who won't be using it very frequently. And since each print is pretty costly to make, I probably won't be using it terribly often. I was looking at an Epson for a while, but kept hearing they have a lot of issues with ink cartridges not reading correctly, and one guy who said he didnt figure out that his printer was defective in reading the new cartridges until past the 30 day money back time, so all epson would do was send him a used refurbished model which he had to pay for shipping on. No thank you to that customer service. I already have a million headaches with customer service between my crap verizon fios and my adt security system (the cats keep setting off the "pet proof" settings. now there's a way to getting acquainted to a new neighborhood: be the people standing in their pjs in front of the house with the cops on a saturday morning. I don't think we'll ever live that one down, honestly. But the neighbors now at least seem to think we're interesting, and I always say, better to be crazy than boring- which is probably mildly ironic, given this long winded blog entry).

I'm also going to some shops this weekend in the hopes of one or 2 of them carrying my prints and notecards. I hope they like me! And, I reprinted San Francisco Love in grey, and I think they came out really well! They remind me of what it might look like if there was morning fog over the bridge.

Let's try this blogging thing again...

2009-03-06T08:23:00.000-08:00

So, I have obviously been remiss in updating this blog. And, as any of my college suitemates, my sisters or my husband will tell you, I usually have a lot to say. But never fear, just because I haven't been updating here doesn't mean I've been doing nothing! Since my last post, I finished the Boston and DC Love II prints which I'm really happy with. I also reprinted Paris Love in blue and a special small edition of gold, and NY Love in gray. I'll probably do another print of NYC later in the spring; I'm thinking somewhere in Central Park. I have to go up for my sister's graduation from NYU in May anyway, so it might be a good time to scout out a good scene! This weekend I'll also be reprinting San Francisco Love in gray, as long as I can get my custom order screen printed first.

Here's the first draft of my current custom job, an 8x10 screen print as a wedding gift for a couple who are getting married in a few weeks at Dromoland Castle in Ireland. I'll probably also put in a couple with umbrellas in normal clothes and make a small print of it for the shop as well. While looking for pictures of the castle, I was wondering why Devin and I had not seen Dromoland ourselves since we flew into and out of Shannon airport on our 2 week honeymoon in Ireland and Dromoland is so close. I kept finding pictures of Bush speaking at the castle in 2004, the year we were married, and then I remembered: Bush flew into Shannon the day we were leaving and I suppose he went straight to Dromoland. So I'm thinking perhaps that's why, because the highway towards Shannon was filled with those scary sniper dudes with big guns, and they probably weren't letting the general public into Dromoland during his visit. Not to mention, being a DC area native, I'm quite used to motorcades and presidential security, and wanted nothing to do with it on my vacation! I just thought it was a funny coincidence. Anyway, I like how this is coming out, so I may decide to start offering this option for a larger custom screenprint in my Etsy shop! I know I would have liked such a thing for my wedding, although since I'm the one making it, perhaps Devin will get something like this for our upcoming 5 year wedding anniversary! We've been together a total of 11 years now, which seems strange considering I'm only 28, but life sure does go by fast.

I also just finished a design based on my DC Love II print for a very sweet girl's save the date cards. I think those save the dates will come out wonderfully, and it was a really good idea on her part! I changed the colors to match their wedding colors, and added yellow tulips along the edge to get more yellow accents into the drawing. It really hadn't crossed my mind to do something like that before, so I really enjoyed working on it!

Anyway, I'm also working on wedding invitations for a friend of mine, and my sister is getting married next year so I'll have a LOT going on with that! I tend to get lots of crazy ideas and overextend myself trying to do all of them, but I feel confident we'll come up with a few cool things for her wedding. And, I'm trying to get some of my prints in some local shops, so hopefully very soon you'll be able to get some of my prints and perhaps some city love notecards and moleskins in the DC/Alexandria/Arlington area very soon!

2008-12-03T14:12:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone got to see the moon, Venus and Jupiter on Monday night. Very cool. I couldn't resist stopping on my drive home to snap this picture of the 3 planets over the Potomac. I absolutely love my drive to my day job since we moved (from Fredericksburg, VA to Alexandria , VA) about 8 months ago. I used to commute by train a total of 3 hours a day, now it's a quick 10 minute trip down the GW Parkway past Mount Vernon and along the river to work. A few weeks ago, I saw 2 bald eagles wrangling over a fish in the morning fog. It was pretty amazing, and the sunsets are always spectacular. As you can see, this one was a brilliant orange line under the deep blue clouds. Anyway, I'm off to fulfill one of my husband's Christmas presents, seeing the Dan Band at the 9:30 Club. It should be a good time, we're meeting a few of his friends there and I'm sure will be shouting the words to cheesy girl power ballads sprinkled with obscenities along with the rest of the crowd after a beer or two!

Yay, the Christmas card is done!

2008-12-02T13:18:00.000-08:00

One less thing is off my plate for the holidays! Maybe now I can get to some shopping. I've been picking up small things here and there, mostly from Etsy. I got my husband a few prints from John Golden's shop- the "Belongs to You" and "Beats for You". We have a brown bedroom (from the previous owners, Dev likes it so I agreed to keep it brown for awhile but really I am just dying to paint it blue like nearly every other wall in my house), so I thought the red hearts would pop nicely. I also got my sister a bracelet (and myself a turquoise bead necklace which I LOVE) from dorelabear. I know Dev got me a bunch of stuff from Etsy as well, but I don't know what yet (despite my best efforts). I do love these squirrel vases from Pretty Random Objects, which I think are very fitting for a DC girl such as myself, since we have so many squirrels here!

I'm also working on my next few prints: Baltimore, Boston, and another DC. I'm still in the sketching phase of all 3, which I use to help me decide what view I want to use, perspective, etc. They're not much to look at right now, but I thought I'd upload them to show a bit of my process, since I do spend a lot of time coming up with the final designs. It doesn't always come as easy as I'd like to get a view that people (both tourists and locals of a particular city) will recognize and enjoy, to get a feel for the city as best I can, and to get a view tall and thin enough to accomodate the size constraints of gocco that will also make the people in the view a relatively similar size in all of the prints. And to make it pretty and all. So, here are my (very preliminary) sketches for B-more, Boston and DC:

So, I'm pretty excited to make the more detailed drawings and get them in the shop soon (I hope). Also, here are some gift tags I made today to go with my gift wrap, inspired by, of course, Rory.
Now it's time to go home and set up my new drying rack and drafting table!

2008-11-25T10:40:00.000-08:00

So, it feels really great to get Chicago Love and Philly Love finished. Chicago gave me some issues, mostly because fountains are kinda hard to draw in the strictly black and white format that gocco demands (I know, I can use shading, etc. to achieve grays, but I haven't done that in any of the other prints, and I want them to have a visual continuity), but I think they came out well. Right now I'm kinda frantically trying to get my parents' office holiday card finished (I always wait until the last minute) as well as Baltimore Love done this week. Baltimore is foiling me a bit because I like doing vertical prints, and the inner harbor really lends itself to a horizontal rendering. So, I'm still thinking it over.

Here are the cards I've done for the office in the past (the old town Alexandria ones) and my own from last year, which I did in burgundy gocco ink.

The one I did for us was when our rabbit, Puppy, was alive and before we got Rory. Puppy (and Shark, our other rabbit who passed a few years back) will definitely be missed this Christmas. Especially by the cats, who in holidays past got chased around by a 6 lb. mini lop rabbit, and now are chased around by a 32 lb corgi. Poor Wahoo will never have peace, as I am sure we will end up with more pets (soon, if have anything to do with it)!

Hello!

2008-11-25T10:12:00.001-08:00

Hello, I'm Megan, and this is my new blog! It'll mostly be about what sort of shenanigans I'm up to in my art studio and Etsy shop, but I'll also be highlighting my favorite finds from other Etsy (and I'm sure plenty of non-Etsy) artists and other sorts of random things. I have a passion for printmaking and illustration, in particular fashion and childrens' book illustration, so there will be plenty of that as well. And I'm sure you lucky people (if anyone ever reads this aside from my mother) will get to hear all about my 3 fur-kids, Wahoo, Killian and Rory. Which, come to think of it, may make my mother stop reading because she hears enough about what sort of nonsense those 3 get into on a daily basis (I am still trying to scrub out all of the black india ink that Rory LOVES to eat from my white couch- she chewed through a bottle of it that was in a box on the dining room table (quite a feat, considering she's a Corgi), dumped it on the hardwood floor, rolled in it, and then rolled all over the couch, on 2 different occasions).