Tonight I used the Shark Steam Cleaner I got for my birthday (ahem, check your calendar for that one) at the art studio and let me tell you, it was gleaming after a steaming. I've been there for almost one year, and I'll level with you that though I have swept, I have NEVER mopped the studio.
So now it's clean, and I sat down to use some watercolors, which are apparently my new thing.
I made this Hairy Maiden for my friends at Dovetail Bakery:
Let's see what they think. Here is a plain version for us:
I'll try to have prints of this soon, in case you'd like a
Ms. Hirsute U.S.A. 1922 of your own.
Here is a close-up of my Crafty Wonderland booth. The doilies were a hot ticket item this year.
This is on the last minute of the last day, after a week of working with wild abandon which culminated in fourteen hours of selling. I am wearing an orthopedic mitt.
And lastly, these two jokers who come to work with me, glad to have a nice clean studio floor upon which to set their dog bed.
THIS was my favorite acquisition from Crafty Wonderland this year. A Party Bird! For only $5!
I recommend you check out this woman's Etsy shop , called Magpie Ethel, and get your own Christmas crafts to cheer up your life year-round.
And thank you to this very lovely lady, The Paper Mama, for posting photos & bits from Crafty Wonderland on her blog. I think she loved the party birds as much as I did.
I made ten pounds of garlic roasted brussel sprouts with "Jeb" yesterday, which was a very athletic activity. A lot of pan carrying, stirring, oven opening and closing, chopping, etc.
In the process, we ate too many brussel sprouts, which I did not know could happen to a person.
Also, do you ever play Pictionary? I LOVE IT. I make up my own words.
Hardest words from holiday Pictionary (meaning ones that we couldn't guess):
Inspiration (try drawing THAT!),
Irritable Bowl Syndrome (drawing included an angry person, & steaming pile of you know what) ,
and
Sesquicentennial (drawing included a sasquatch and a calendar, with lots of arrows).
I would like to nominate Chelsey Johnson for quite possibly the BEST Pictionary achievement, this being getting her team to guess the word(s) "Cultural Appropriation".
She drew a dude with a moustache & a flannel shirt.
Then drew Oregon, with a star on Portland.
This got her team to eventually yell "Hipster!" ,
THEN she drew a Native American headdress on him, and at the last
minute as the clock wound down, someone yelled "CULTURAL APPROPRIATION!!!!!!!!!!" .
It was a magnificent day for Pictionary players everywhere.
I hope you are relaxing this holiday Monday.
What did you eat? Did you get anything good?
Hello!
I can't WAIT for the Xmas season to be over so I can show you what I've been working on. Notably, a pet portrait and a holiday card.
But of course, these items must reach their intended recipients with the element of surprise intact, so until then, I just tell you that I cannot wait.
In other news, I'm working on the cover to my book as soon as the last pet portrait has cleared my desk.
What else- OH! Ooh La la! I believe I am going to TCAF this year!
I will tell you more about this later.
ALSO, I made some postcards. I think they are nice. There is a giant sort of disclaimer I included in the Etsy listing for them, because I find that random online shoppers (not you... ?) are a little less scruffy and/or forgiving than myself, and so I have a constant low-grade anxiety about letting them down.
Is this true? Who knows. But I've had someone fall out of their chair when the (gocco printed) greeting card they purchased from me arrived and was on a thinner stock than they'd expected.
So now, I either never list greeting cards or I do with a giant disclaimer.
If you're ever interested in a greeting card, let me know and we can talk.
But in the meantime, the postcards are nice! They are cute! I'd like them in my stocking if I didn't already have a box of them downstairs.
Here are the images from the postcards.
Here is a hand drawn bday card I included in a package for a customer.
I care! I'm scruffy, but I care.
Here are places you can get your last minute Invincible Summer calendar:
PORTLAND:
Food Fight Vegan Grocery
Land
Alberta Grocery CoOp
Crafty Wonderland Shop
Reading Frenzy
Powells City of Books (in the small press section)
Zim Zim
Hello!
Okay, I've officially purchased my tickets and will be traveling to Chicago for the Chicago Zine Fest this March!
In other news, Wishbone is looking for a job. Here's the cover letter for her resume:
Just kidding. She can't work. She's not old enough.
BUT , this is the laminated page that came with her when I got her from a rescue 3 years ago. It was like a little advertisement for her in their binder full of wayward dogs.
And lastly, here are two new doilies. Giraffes for you.
I'll be at Crafty Wonderland all day tomorrow (Dec. 10 {also Dec 11}) .
It is free & at the Convention Center, Portlanders.
It is also my BIRTHDAY.
If you come to my table at Crafty Wonderland tomorrow and say
"Happy Birthday, Please Give Me A free Postcard",
I will give you a free postcard.
(This is not the postcard)
Here are a couple of other deals that will be happening tomorrow:
-3 calendars for $30
-Free set of postcards with any purchase of $10 or more
- Advice for $2
- NEW Hand Drawn One-Of-A-Kind Doilies for $20 (or $25, I'm not sure) ,
and new GIANT (12 inches around) hand drawn doilies for $40
Soooo......
See you at Crafty Wonderland!
My booth is #105, f.y.i.
Help us! I don't know how, but I think that watching it is a good first step.
2. Here is a photo from Lukas in Hamberg, Germany, who got a tattoo of the cone-collared cat from the 2012 Invincible Summer Calendar. Thanks for the photo, Lukas!
He & I agree that getting tattoos on her inner arm feels both disgusting and painful (disgusting being my word, as it kind of rattles your veins and yours truly has one big ole vein-phobia over here).
3. Next on the agenda, here is something that may or may not have happened to me today, in which someone revealed they'd been farting on me while I sat behind them.
I drew this comic in only five short minutes, but I just had to tell you about it.
Click to make larger.
I think that is all.
oh....
4. Cue the horns, mice:
I TURNED IN MY BOOK! (Again).
Again!
But for real this time! Like for real for real.
Woo Hoo!
Okay that's it for real.
Have a nice weekend.
n.g.
P.s. My birthday is coming up. Here are some ideas for what to get me. It's a real shot in the dark/weird thing to steer strangers towards gifts, but YOU NEVER KNOW. Stranger things have happened.
If you are not a billionaire and live in Portland, come to my booth at CRAFTY WONDERLAND on December 10th and say hello! I'll be working there all day on my 31st birthday.
P.p.s. Thanks to the Mouse Band for providing the sound track to my book being finished.
xoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxox
Check out my minorest of minor roles (and summertime Tootie haircut) in some YACHT-y youtube videos here.
Around the 4:00 & 4:40 marks
If life was narrated by Tyra, she would say
"In this never before seen footage, Nicole shows her stuff in a two minute long YACHT highlights video. A first in the History of Top Model."
My stuff meaning sitting in the background on a bed and chanting highlights of a tour through Italy, and later being in a music video for approximately 2-3 seconds.
I linked to this in my European continent blog post, but here it tiz, embedded for your leisure.
I've recently received a nomination for "Tiniest Fan", and her name is Ellie.
Ellie's Mom wrote and said:
"Ellie wants to touch these giraffes every time she passes them in the hallway."
Look at that small hand!
Thank you, Ellie & Moms. I am honored.
Also, I have my first hat-pasted-onto-owl submission from Sylvie in Portland (who is small, but I'm not sure how small, so until I have this confirmed, I'm going to guess {from photos and clairvoyance} she is about four years old). :
My friends were so torn when I asked whether or not the calendar owl should be wearing a mouse hat (like really, really surprisingly strong opinions on both sides) that I ended up putting a special "cut & Paste" mouse hat in the back of the calendar, so that everyone can make their own decision on the matter.
You can see the cut & paste area here, at the bottom of the calendar in this picture I snatched from Buy Olympia.
Okay. I think that's it.
Off to draw a dog as the Virgin of Guadalupe and a cat sitting "Like People".
What a life, over here.
Take care,
n.g.
p.s.
I once again horrified a room of teenagers today by revealing (both verbally and by example) that acne continues well into your thirties.
Sorry, students, but someone needed to tell the truth on the matter!
p.p.s. Did you know I am on twitter? Follow me: @nicolejgeorges .
If you have received an order this week with a piece of paper with a half baked drawing of a cat on it, you may be the recipient of a failed attempt at Smiley Muffin, the cat of Julie Klausner, whose rendition was a much more exciting use of my time than working on actual work this week.
Rosalie Lightning, the daughter of artists Tom Hart and Leela Corman, passed away in her sleep last night. Here is a link to a page where Lauren Weinstein has started a Rosalie Lightning fund to help support the parents through this time.
It is an unfathomable loss.
Images shown are from the book Three Shadows by Cyril Pedrosa.
Hello! It is a swingin' Friday night here at not-a-little House, and I write you from a cup of coffee and some leftover curry at what has become the calendar shipping station, i.e. My Dining Room Table.
I had hoped to be watching Kitchen Nightmares at this point in the evening, but realized I already knew everything that would happen on the show (A restaurant is troubled, Gordon Ramsey tastes the food and says "disgusting" {possibly finds rodents, rotten meat or infestation of another kind}, Gordon Ramsay goes toe-to-toe with a man who is in charge of restaurant, both men bark, Gordon's changes almost don't happen, somebody walks out but is then talked into coming back, troubled restaurant man backs down, accepts changes, customers say "This Is Very Good!", restaurant is momentarily saved, everyone thanks Gordon, troubled restaurant owner swallows his pride and shaked Gordon's hand with his head down in an act of gratitude and submission, Gordon barks hopefully into the camera, show is over) so I decided to sit here and write a blog post instead.
Side Note: Have you seen the Febreze commercial in which people are blind folded, forced to smell rotten pork chops that have been sprayed with Febreze, then guess aloud that what they're smelling is a latte or "fresh wood"?
The big finish (which I'll spoil here) is when they take off their blindfolds and step back in disbelief that they are in a moldy kitchen and not a Latte Land*.
*KC ref.
News:
1. Look at this dog.
2. I found out this dog existed while looking at the Facebook page of Wendi Mclendon-Covey, who has a photo war going on with her sister Shelley Mclendon, where they each post what they deem as horrifying photos, then tag each other in them.
Shelley was tagged in this photo.
Who is Wendi Mcclendon Covey? She was in Bridesmaids! She was on Reno 911! She and her sister told a story last night at Backfence about Shelley having a tail. It was a true story.
Here is a fan photo we took with Wendi, in which we all pretend to be old friends, all laughing at a great joke.
ANYWAY
Here is an interview I did for the IPRC blog, with accomplished writer and current Certificate Program student Amy Souza,
in which I reveal that I work all the time.
Here is a drawing of some early 70s Italian Food I did:
Here is a dog at an Occupy Wall Street protest who looks A LOT like Wishbone.
And here is another Muttley Crue comic from Good Dog Magazine, featuring Wishbone, Beija, and Jeb all in the same place.
In real life this scene is accompanied by whining and tap dancing and happens every day of the week, not just on Saturdays.
Sadly, Good Dog by Nomad Editions is being put to sleep.
Along with it, my bi-weekly Muttley Crue comic.
I will post some of the previous Muttley Crue comics here,
and perhaps work on finishing
some of the weirder ones that weren't fit for print.
(Nap on a dog bed, anyone? Anyone?)
Do take a look at Good Dog while you can. It's a nice dog magazine for your tablet or mobile device.
You can get a free copy on their site. The one that is currently available for free includes an article about freeze drying your deceased pet.
There are articles about grieving your lost dogs, and also a gallery of olde tyme dog photos.
Good bye, Good Dog. It was so nice working with you.
Nicole J. Georges is an illustrator , zinester, and pet portrait artist located in a neighborhood of geriatrics in Portland, Oregon.
She is currently the fellow at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT.
She is accompanied through life by a Chihuahua/Shiba-inu named Ponyo Georges.
.Nicole's debut graphic novel Calling Dr. Laura is out NOW with Mariner Books.
