Keep Your Paint Brushes From Curling at the Tip

Do you ever find that your paint brushes end up forming little hooks at the end? The best way to prevent this is to use sable or kolinsky hair brushes (Here is a handy-dandy guide to different kinds of brush hairs http://www.dickblick.com/info/brushhair/ )

Some people will lick the brushes and press them with their fingers to get the shape back, but that's actually one of the worst things you can do since the acid in saliva can break the glue down in the ferrel and cause bristles to fall out. It also eventually dries out the bristles if you are using natural hair bristles. On top of that there are chemicals in the paint that you really do not want to ingest even in small amounts.

"The Masters" Brush Cleaner and Preserver

With any brush, letting it sit in water for periods of time will eventually ruin them. A good way to keep your brushes in nice shape is to use a brush cleaner. It's not expensive and once you've cleaned your brush you can reshape it into a nice point again.

Le Visit with LeAnimale

Happy Thanksgiving! Well...a slightly-late Happy Thanksgiving. If your holiday was as packed with visiting family and driving as mine was you haven't had time for much else.

At work--my paints and her animals

    This week, before making the drive down to visit my family, I got the chance to visit Laura Johnston of LeAnimale in Raleigh, North Carolina. LeAnimale is a shop filled with wonderful little polymer clay creatures that can both be worn and kept as little totems. We mostly worked together (more work on her part than mine) and  talked shop.   

While there, my little llama totem from LeAnimale got a new bath in varnish. 

Laura makes all of her own canvas gift pouches for her totems and necklaces--a time consuming labor of love which really makes for a nice touch to her packaging, but takes up a fair amount of work space.

Her little line of fox faces all ready to be strung on chains for her signature necklaces looked so sweet I just want a handful of them! 

Laura and I at the end of our visit   (check out my sweet llama necklace). I really need to remember to tip my chin down for pictures, ha! It's one of those things you think of only after seeing a picture of yourself next to someone who is super photogenic like Laura. 

A New Print for my Wall

Woodland Bird Print 

Today, I received the most wonderful gift from a fellow artist on one of my Etsy teams (Artisan's Gallery Team). Louis Van Terheijden of "LouisestArt" produces some truly lovely works and I feel incredibly lucky to be able to hang one of her beautiful prints on my wall!  

I especially love how the "Woodland Birds Print" looks against the brick of our fireplace.

Bird Necklace Wearable Art 'Bird in the Woods' 

You can even wear a part of this wonderful piece as a necklace! 

Find out more about Louise's work on her website and her Etsy shop. 

New Designs: Hand Painted Rings

This week, I've started offering hand painted rings for the first time! I am so excited about these and happy with how sleek they look. Just like the other items I make, these lovely little pieces of art for your fingers are all original painting, not prints. Although they're adjustable, the band appears to be solid and continuous since the break to adjust sizing is behind the painting.   Each ring is silver plated brass, but this is no cheap plating. The pieces are durable and have a good weight to them which I really love.  

"Le Ballon Rouge" inspired by the short film of the same title. 

"Diamond Ring" 

"Piano Keys" 

  I do really love how they wear and I'm excited to make many more! In the next few days, I'll be rolling out a personalized line of them with the constellations of the zodiac on them. The idea was suggested by a fan on my Facebook page and I just loved it too much to pass up! 

Have a design in mind you would love to see as a ring? Suggest it in the comments below and I may very well use it!

A Local Sound

  OK, if you haven't heard of this band, I'm really not surprised. This Raleigh-Durham group who call themselves "Delta Rae" have an incredible sound. Hearing them is like the perfect blend of folk and soul. They actually make think of Fleetwood Mac quite a bit!  

This is the official video for Delta Rae's song "Bottom of the River" which was released on Halloween of this year. It has a great creepy-witch hunt vibe that works really well, I think. I've had this song practically on repeat for the last two weeks. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! 

The Very BEST Surprise Meringue Cookie Recipe

I'm really not much of a cook (in spite of the fact that my last name is "Cook"), but if there is one thing I really LOVE to make, it's meringue cookies. Many people like to call them "Surprise Meringues" since they have sweet little treats on the interior, but I've always known them simply as "meringues," those deliciously sweet little cookies that look like tufts of snow. They are heavenly and perfect for the holidays.

I've had several other versions of these delights, but absolutely none of them could compare to the delicious recipe my family uses.

This is my family's recipe and, in my opinion, the very best surprise meringue recipe out there:

Ingredients:
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/8 tsp salt
2 egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1 cup crushed pecans (I don't generally make them with the pecans added, but my family loves them)

wax paper for cookie sheet

Directions:
Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Mix in sugar, cream of tartar, and salt then beat until stiff peaks form (if you would like flavoring such as peppermint or vanilla this is when you should add it). Fold in chocolate chips and pecans. Drop teaspoon sized blobs onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 300° for 20 minutes. Note: if you are using a gas oven, you may want to reduce this heat to 250-275°.

If you make them totally right, they should look smooth and fluffy like little tufts of snow! 

My Art Suplies

Since people remark so often about how tiny the brushes and pens I use must be, I thought it might be fun to share their real sizes with you. Maybe they aren't as tiny as you thought...or maybe they're tinier! 

On the left are my four favorite sizes of brush to use. 00, 10/0 script, 10/0 liner, 1. Although there are much smaller brushes available (yep, I own them too), they aren't as easy to manage as longer hairs. The longer the hairs, the easier it is to draw them to a fine point and that's exactly what I often need. On the right is a standard size pencil and number 5 paint brush, a more typical size. 

The pens I use are really where the "tininess" is at. These two pens are sizes 003 and 005. The ultra fine point Sharpie pen next to them would be about a size 05 or 1mm wide. They are very tiny and easily mashed if you're not careful with them.

Pens and brushes together! They might be small, but they help me create all of my pieces. 

The Art Book

Looking to build a little muscle and see some famous artwork? Have I got the book for you...

Yesterday, a friend on mine posted on her facebook wall about a new book coming out called Art Museum. This enormous tome is a collection of important works from all around the globe. Instead, however, of arranging them like an art history book (and providing lots of, well, history), the book is organized in "galleries" complete with a "Plan Your Visit" table of contents. 

"Plan Your Vist" weighing in at 18lbs and $200

This is no light read either to flip through or on your wallet. Weighing in at 18lbs, the book costs $200 making is possibly the most expensive book on your coffee table.

What market are they aiming for here, exactly? I doubt it will be picked up by art history buffs. It really isn't any more practical than the much lighter The Art Book, a compact illustrated compendium of the 500 greatest artists and sculptors of all time. It's more image than information and with Google's Art Project providing a free database of collections from some of the greatest art museums in the world, who's really going to want this book?

Marilyn Stokstad's most recent edition of her heavy Art History texts

Fortunately, since it's not a textbook, my favorite ridiculously-heavy and most-expensive-textbook-I-ever-had ($190) by Marilyn Stokstad  will still probably rank as the world's most heaviest textbook at a little over 10lbs (so called by the New York Times). 

Before you poo-poo the price of art texts, remember that all of the paintings in the books belong to various museums, galleries, and private collectors which makes licensing the images for use drive the cost up. What I can't see is who will pay $200 for a less informative book like this? As interesting as the idea of laying out an art book in "galleries" instead of by period is, how practical is that in a book? Will you be rushing out for your copy?

Can My Brand Compete With Etsy's?

I've been thinking recently about my brand and how well it really stands up to Etsy's. Right now, I mostly sell on the handmade marketplace Etsy. While I love the site and its many features, I wonder if a business can really ever grow to even half of its potential while staying solely under that banner.

A few weeks back, I had a package go missing. When the customer wanted to alert me about it, they looked for ways to alert Etsy about it. When we talked later, it was very clear to me that this person thought the best route wasn't to get in touch directly with me, the seller (and shipper), but rather the venue I sell with. To me, this seemed like seeking help from the Mall staff regarding where to find coats in JCPenney's, but to the customer, this was merely recognizing the superior brand.

"Tuckoo and Moo Cow"

When my family and friends mention my business, they often leave off the name "TuckooandMooCow" in favor of the more familiar name "Etsy." While this technically correct, I do run my business on Etsy, I am not "Etsy." Who I am is TuckooandMooCow, but how can my brand hope to compete in the shadow of the giant that is Etsy?

The answer is simple: it can't. This is why a bad experience with a seller I've never even heard of can put someone on their guard when purchasing with me. Many shoppers, rather than seeing the experience they had as with the specific seller, see the experience as one they had with "Etsy." No matter how well I build my brand, so long as I am building it only within this one marketplace, I am a subheading of that marketplace (Etsy-->shops-->TuckooandMooCow). This isn't just true of Etsy--it's true of any marketplace one sells in.

So how can I make my brand stand apart? That answer is simple as well: by actually standing apart. By having my own website, blog, facebook I am standing separate of the marketplace. This means that in order to realize my business's full potential I'll have to branch away from the marketplace and launch out on my own. While this might be daunting, it is vital to the establishment of a solid brand. My goal is to be reaching towards this independence more and more in the upcoming months and looking to have my own website by the beginning of February 2012.

Does this mean I dislike Etsy or plan to leave it? Absolutely not! What it means is that I don't feel my business has reached it's full potential yet and that if I want to ever reach that potential I need to strike out on my own. I firmly plan to continue to sell on Etsy, I just hope to be able to soon offer more to my customers (and also for myself) by becoming a fully independent seller and not one who is subject on the brand of the marketplace I sell on.

New Earring Styles

For the longest time, I've only had two different styles of earrings available: round dangles or round posts (brass or silver). Recently, I was thinking of some designs I would love to do that just wouldn't fit in the small circles, so it was time to add some new, slightly larger shapes. 

Hand Painted Earrings "Tiffany Lamps" 

 The small rectangles I've added are so sweet! I am so happy with them and excited to add some asymmetrical designs like I love to do. These "Tiffany Lamps" are my first rectangle designs. The teeny details in the stained glass were pretty fun (and a bit tedious) to do.

Hand Painted Earrings "Velveteen Rabbit"

The larger size is an oval setting. I think this is my favorite! They are nice and light while still being large enough to fit more detailed images on. I'm pretty thrilled with the prospect of them.