stuwaha

So... My last journal entry was from 5.5 years ago. I've done some very occasional lurking here, but I haven't been active at all. 

In the time I have been gone I have given birth to two gorgeous little girls (5 and 1.5 now)  and I've been a full time Mommy without a lot of time for painting or crafting, but I still make time when I can. I've been focused a great deal on my Etsy store (www.etsy.com/uk/shop/StuwahaCr…) and my Blog (www.stuwahacreations.com) ... I also learned how to crochet which has become sort of a new love for me <3 

I feel almost like I should start a new account for all of the projects I have done since I stopped being active here, but I'm just going to lump it all in together instead I think that today will be a long day of uploading which will possibly turn into a long weekend of uploading, so I apologize in advance to all of my followers for clogging up your feeds! 

Since September I have had other things on my mind which inevitably caused all forms of artistic expression to fall away from me very quickly, in a good way though! The big news is that we found out in we are having a baby. So I still have technically been working very hard to put together my greatest creation... except, instead of paintbrushes I'm using internal resources and the only external indication of my work has been best evidenced in the expulsion of copious amounts of vomit.

Now that the sickness is mostly passed and I'm nearing my third trimster I am finally getting back to drawing and painting and it feels fantastic. I don't expect to be able to make a sizeable enough income on my artwork to stop working all together however, it brings in a fairly regular bonus which will be very important going forward.

At the moment I'm mostly working on fine tuning my acrylic skills. I have gotten to the point where I am brave enough to venture past the trading card sized paintings into A4. The fairy and dragon that I submitted last is my first A4 sized 100% acrylic painting. I'm aware that there is still a great deal of fine tuning to be done however I am happy and decided to apply what I've learned to the next painting instead of going back and working it to death.

Though I still love to create art cards, I have disappointingly gone off trading them for the most part. I had a good run of about 30 trades on an art trading siteand I just wasn't getting back what I was giving for approximately 75% of the trades so... it's basically just not worth it to me anymore. My idea of "like for like" and other people's ideas of the same concept seem to differ to an extraordinary degree and at the risk of sounding like a complete and utter snob... I just can't put 3-4 hours of my life into something that I'm not totally happy with the return on anymore... it's not a gift, it's a trade... if I agree to a trade I expect the same effort I see in other work by that artist, not a 5 minute just getting it out of the way sort of job.... I'll still be making them because I enjoy working small however I will be making them primarily to sell from now on.

I say it often but I really do need to put more effort into my Zazzle stores, they have been generating a lot of sales which is inspiration enough however it's really something that I need to be in the right mood for. Digital work is less messy but since I lost all of my backup files on ... well just about everything ... I've been in a bit of a rut with it.