Finished my Bast-cat goddess painting + new merchandise

So i have finally finished my cat goddess painting that i had dug up from a pile of unfinished paintings a few weeks back. I did alot of revamping on it...and just last night I varnished it and took pictures, so here you go:

(Please click to full view)

Title: Bast, Keeper of the Meadow
14" x 14" Original acrylic painting
by Chelsea Rose

This peice turned into a portrait of sorts of Bast (or Bastet)- the Egyptian warrior cat goddess, goddess of the sun, protector of the land.

...I struggled a lot with this painting in the beginning and i believe thats why it ended up behind my art table, collecting dust for a few months along with other various unfinished projects of mine.

My process in creation of this painting was as follows: I used a small art projector to transfer my original pen and ink illustration of the cat spirit onto a 14" by 14" canvas. I painted the outlines and then began to introduce colors. Part of the difficulty creating this piece was trying to figure out how to most elegantly use all the empty space on the top an the bottom. My first attempts were very unsatisfying and it seemed no matter which way i reworked it, i wasn't happy. here is a picture that has a glimpse of the painting when it was in its yucky faze:

(Please click to Full View)

can you spot it? its to the right of the easel. As you can see the top and the bottom are completely different then what they are now. It was at this stage that i gave up.
I find that sometimes, if i put something away for long enough by the time i come back to it i will have a fresh point of view/different perspective allowing for newideas/problem solving. So when i pulled it back out 6 months later i ended up completely whiting out the top and the bottom and reworked them from scratch. Almost instantly all the blocked creative energy began to flow and it only took me a few weeks to get the entire painting finished.

....I am now ready for my next painting. Unfortunately i am completely out of blank canvas and too strapped for cash to be able to run over to the art store and buy some. So i am thinking about re purposing some of my old canvas paintings from school. I will just sand them down a bit, reapply gesso and add a nice layer of neutral gray and they should be ready to paint anew. It might be hard to let go of some of these old paintings.... but I am trying to be thrifty, as much as i possibly can.

In the meantime, i have plenty of new merchandise to list in our online shop.

(please click to full view)
I found these frames the other day and realized they would work well with a few of my illustration prints. Now that i have taken product pictures, i just need to get off my lazy fanny and load them up in our online shop. Till then, feel free to email me in order to reserve: chelsea@lucidopticlab.com

Tomorrow I am expecting to receive my snazaroo face paint that i ordered from ArtSupplyWarehouse.com. I am trying new things to see if perhaps they could spice up my art booth/bring more of an audience when i do the various art fairs in town. I have always loved body and face painting....so it would be very awesome if i had a positive response doing it/ could make some extra dollars. This may end up being yet another creative freelance job prospect. So once i receive the paint i will be experimenting like crazy and taking lots of pictures...so stay tuned!

Much love!
-Chelsea Rose
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Alberta Art Hop, Weekend highlights and news!

This past weekend was full of surprises and opportunity. I am feeling quite contented now, sitting in the office sipping on some chai, dreamily staring out the window and reminiscing.
This weekend Danny and I shared a booth with our friend Shauna, creator of Mama's Herbal soaps( www.MamasHerbalSoaps.com/ )and had a blast.

We were at the art hop on Alberta st in Portland Oregon from 7am-7pm soaking up sun rays and watching the fair unfold before us. since i knew we would be there all day i set up my easel so that i might get some more work done on the cat spirit painting i just started working on again.

People seemed to respond well, excited to see some live painting. It kept me busy during the lulls of the day and allowed me to gain progress on the painting.
....i cant wait for the next one coming up May 28th. Danny and I as well as Mama's Herbal Soaps will have a booth set up on Alberta st and 20th. don’t miss us! Plus, i may be trying something new: Face and Body painting!:

While chatting with Shauna, she mentioned that perhaps i could start doing face and body painting while vending to see if that might help generate so more funds. i have always loved body/face painting and considered it something i might get into some day. Her daughter Maya sweetly volunteered to be my first test subject. we had a lottah fun doing a simple spirally flower garden pattern up her arm. While we were doing that another girl( pictured in this photo) walked into our booth and asked to have her arm painted as well. Then as I was finishing up her arm four other kids lined up in a row for a body painting as well! So i think i may be bringing a stash of face/body paint with me at the next art walk on Alberta street.
All in all, the day had been a bit slow since we were a few blocks away from the epicenter of the fair but we managed some sales. The intense sun had made it a bit exhausting....i managed to get sunburned even while wearing my big fancy hat! Needless to say, by the end of the day i was a complete zombie. I cant even begin to tell you how much a relief it was to get home, take a cold shower and flop down on the couch!
Sunday i woke up with some major body fatigue, but i was able to shrug it off and get a lot of stuff done...including straighting up the house( since every time we do a fair or a show we end up ripping our apartment to pieces), editing/posting photos from the art hop, walked to the library( checked out 2 books: Women Sailors & Sailors Women, an Untold Maritime History by David Cordingly and Wild Child, Girlhoods in the CounterCulture), visited the local thrift shop and found some great summer skirts, did a lil produce shopping and last but not least i managed to FINISH my metaphysical cat painting! Today when i get home from work i will varnish it and take some pictures so stay tuned!
In the meantime, here is a quickie pic of my lil home studio space, showing me working on the cat spirit painting:
Please click the photo to full view this image, as my blog tends to cut off my horizontal photos.
As you can probably make out, my work space tends to get messy fairly quick! I find each week if i dont go through and reorganize it becomes a complete disaster. I am currently mentally preparing myself to go through all my boxes of art supply and do some much needed spring cleaning sometime this week, and then if i have enough stuff i could do a yardsale. If i generate enough, it may help me buy some nice snazaroo face/body paint for the next fair.
Wish me luck!
-Chelsea Rose
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Workin on a Painting, glad its friday!

So, its a bright and beautiful Friday morning! The weekend's weather forecast for Portland Oregon is sun filled with highs of 80+. That will be a nice change but I hope I don't end up roasting in my lil apartment trying to finish this painting I finally resumed work on:


....it had been sitting collecting dust for over 6 months. Over the last two days i have worked a few hours on it, finally breaking the little creative slump i had come to realize i was in. It seemed as of late, once i get home from work im ready to just curl up into a ball and dream. I am rarely awake past 10pm! I think im slowly coming out of hibernation now that the days are longer and warmer. I am certainly catching onto the vibrations of spring and im feeling anxious to create and explore! This painting stems from one of my original pen and ink drawings:

(Prints of this illustration are available for purchase as 5" x 7" high quality digital prints on card, in plastic archival sleeves in my online shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=19753713 )

....So, we shall see if i end up finishing this painting over the weekend. If so, there will be photos posted soon enough.
In the mean time, i have a few super awesome things to look forward to for the month of June: My dear friend Marla will be coming up to visit me near the middle of the month. It will be great to see her...and i am looking forward to checking out a few Oregon sights to be seen with her, such as the amazing Multnomah Falls and some more of the misty coastal forest trails. She is an amazing artists and so i am sure she will enjoy checking out Portland's infamous Saturday market scene as well. Wonder may also be in town, and if this is the case we will all have a pow wow!
Then, on the 18th, danny and i will be seeing Midnite play live at the Crystal ballroom! It will be the second time Danny and I have seen Midnite play. The first instance was at the Raggamuffin concert in 2008 at the Long Beach convention center, but the venue was fairly crappy so i am hoping the sound quality is better at the Crystal ballroom. Its been awhile since Danny and I have splurged on something like this....but we couldn't resist the sweet temptations of Midnite's righteous reggae vibrations so close to home!
....In the meantime Danny and i are restocking our merch for this month's Last Thursday Artwalk on Alberta St. happening May 28th. I have a bunch of new illustrations to be made into prints as well as some new/fresh tie-dye and screen printed shirts to showcase. So, if you are in town please stop on by and say hi...our booth will be planted close to Alberta and 20th st.
Best wishes and much LOVE!
-Chelsea Rose
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What I have been up to as of late....

Hello there loverly folks!
Its been awhile since my last post and so I have lots to share.
I am still in awe over my trip to the WolfCreek Sanctuary. A few hours before we left i made my way down to the creek and found the most magical spot. It was a little ways past the community kitchen and down a few mossy slopes toward a little opening mouth at the side of a clear water creek. It was just bursting with life: the rocks within it covered in moss, wild flowers and ferns, little tadpoles lulling along the algae, a baby otter darted past to hide in bush, the trees curved like halves of hearts along the sides creating a refreshing canopy of shade....ahhh it was so tranquil. So In reflection i drew this illustration last weekend and I called it "the River Spirit."

It felt great to draw her.

.....also, last week i released an older illustration from 2008:

Im hoping to get off my freakin butt sometime this week and offer these two illustrations of mine as prints for sale....so stay tuned if interested.
And here is an older mixed media art piece of mine that i just finally made a scan of and released:

The base of this mixed media piece is a very old self portrait photograph of mine that i took while still in highschool.
So the picture was printed black and white on some matte photo paper that i then colored using watercolor, pen and ink and even acrylic paint( Lumiere gold acrylic paint).
This piece is up for sale in my etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=24902631 if you dont have an etsy account feel free to email me to reserve the item: chelsea@lucidopticlab.com
On to other news, my wild flowers are really sprouting now...i do hope to see some blossoms soon:

so many of them! also i believe the bulbs have begun too and they are the ones that look like giant blades of grass....i have two pots like this one.
and in this pot( that my mother gave me) i originally planted two types of flower seed( got packets from a nursery but forgot what i planted). It seems that the dominate flower snuffed out the other kind of flower i planted. I fear there isnt enough room for all the sprouts....so i am hoping their growth isnt stunted and that they will still produce some flowers for me. I really wish i had some dirt to play in...a yard would be lovely so that i can experiment with growing things more. im such a newbie with it. Id love to grow some carrots and tomatoes and strawberries and lettuce and whatever else and have some home grown produce for a change. Someday, hopefully i will get the chance because i think its important to at least strive to be a little more self reliant.
...and its time for a Dready Journey update: ( please click to full view!)

so far i have gone through 3 distinct physical dread phases.
1. Day one of my dready journey, a few hours after sectioning my hair off/backcombing and putting on rubber bands.
2. couple weeks after initial backcombing. took all the rubber bands out and used the crocheting method to finish each lock.
3. About three months after the inital crocheting session
the crocheting really advanced my dread's maturity.i think my most favorite locks are the ones with lots of loopies...they are so much fun! i certainly have a halo of frizz...crocheting really helps tame that but i worry about over crocheting and ripping/thinning hair so I try to do it sparingly. My routine has been to wash my hair at the end of each week with residue free shampoo( adding a few drops of tea tree oil for the refreshing fragrance and to fight dryness/dandruff, then air dry( 20 minutes in sunlight after 10 minutes of being pressed in a clean towel). crochet if the washing created too much loose hair. but lately with each wash I can feel them tightening an strengthening! Danny's dreads are doing super as well....hopefully i can get a picture soon to show their progress.

....its strange to realize i have already had my dreads for 4 months now!
As for this past weekend...Danny and I made the most of it...did a lot of relaxing and some exploring: went and checked out Astoria and some more of Cannon beach. On Saturday we randomly decided that we were going to paint all our kitchen Cabinets. The cabinets were looking really bad since they were originally this ugly dirty cream color...but we made it look worse by streaking them with all sorts of tie-dye and cooking stains. So we ended up going to the store and purchasing some "Forest Green" which is a darker/deeper green. Now the kitchen feels a lot more fresh and inviting. I wish we could paint more of our place but since its an apartment i figure its better not to go too crazy because who knows how long we will be living here anyway.
Now its Monday and im sitting at work drinking some chamomile tea, remindimg myself to take deep breaths and stay positive. When i get home i have lots of laundry to do, and i hope to list a bunch of stuff on etsy since our lil shop seems to be in a lull.
Before i leave off on this post i thought i would share a baby picture of mine that i stumbled across over the weekend:

Peace and Love, always!
-Chelsea Rose
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Last Thursday Art Walk on Alberta Street April 30th 2009

Last Thursday Artwalk on Alberta st, April 30th was super fun....it was a wild scene/HUGE turn out. By the time Danny and I got there spaces were all taken along the street and for blocks and blocks people had erected booths/tents/drum circles/ selling art, edibles and all sorts of hand mades, live music, stilz walkers, fire breathers/the works. it was a true festival to be had. We had planned on setting up our canopy like we always do but there just wasn’t enough room. So we snagged some sidewalk and laid out our paintings. On our long table we displayed our screen print shirts and our art print bins.


Surprisingly we did better then we ever have at the last Thursday art walk, even though we had much less out and a much more simple booth without canopy. We had so much fun and met so many people. truly inspiring day. I sold a painting and prints. Danny sold a shirt and a few of his ink cards. It was such lovely day and night.....i cant wait for the next art walk on Alberta!

So for those of you in Oregon or just passin through, come experience Last Thursday Artwalks on Alberta st. We will be there around Alberta st and 20th ( our favorite spot to set up):
The date of the next Last Thursday on Alberta st is May 28th, 2009. Anyone who finds our booth ( Lucid Optic Lab) and mentions my blog gets $5.00 off of their purchase!

Best Wishes!
-Chelsea Rose
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