Little Roan Rat

Little Roan Rat

It's always interesting to see which of my designs prove popular at various moments throughout the year. I've only been selling through Redbubble since April this year! (Gosh it feels like it's been much longer!) but in that time I've seen some of my designs catch the hearts of some people. 

It has mostly revolved around Mama Bear and Foxy Naps but this little guy has managed to wriggle his way in.

I love my rats, whether it's the pets I've owned or the doodles I create, the little fuzzers will always have a special place in my heart even though I am unfortunately highly allergic now. So when somebody likes any of my rat designs it fills me with a different kind of joy than my other designs.

Lately Little Roan Rat, pictured above or as he was better known as 'Rufus' has become popular and seeing that little sales email saying another one of these guys has been loved and is off to a new home fills me with so much happiness!

What people may not know is that all of my rat designs are based on my own or my partners rats. Between us we've owned a good many who we adored. 

I've spent the last ten years sharing my life with these gorgeous creatures, there were ups and downs and many veterinary lessons but I don't regret a moment.

So I thought I would take the time to feature the little guy who inspired the ratty doodles and the rat featured above. I'd like to introduce Rufus.

Rufus was a rather chubby, extremely lazy, food loving Husky/Roan rat who loved his cuddles with mummy... that would be me. 

He was originally my partners rat and lived with him throughout his baby rathood until my partner had to move to a place that unfortunately didn't allow pets. So Rufus and his brother Ghost came to live with me. Amusingly whilst he lived with my partner he hated me. If I held him he'd desperately scrabble to get away from me and was always desperate to get back to his cage or at least my partner.

So when he suddenly became a big softy and became besotted with me I can honestly say I was shocked... but loved every moment. I'm not going to lie, sure I felt a bit bad at kind of stealing my partners pet but... having rat cuddles made the bad feelings disappear.

He was our special boy who bumbled around his cage, perching and wobbling on precarious platforms, eating his way through any fruit, veg or chocolate he could get his paws on, leaving little puddles and snuggling up on our laps. He was also an impressive boggler...

To anyone who doesn't know rats, Boggling is basically... rats bouncing their eyeballs when they get super happy... It sounds horrible but it's actually quite adorable.

Unfortunately we lost Rufus a couple of weeks ago and it's still fairly painful. People think rats are just a pet in a cage in the room, something that eats, pees and needs cleaning. In reality rats are much more like a cat or dog. They are extremely interactive and love attention and in the case of males they just want cuddles and food.

I still find myself going to where his cage was to get him out for cuddles, I didn't realise just how much I loved that rat and how much of an impact he had on my life. My mental state hasn't adjusted just yet.

But I don't want to be morbid and grim. He was a wonderful rat and brought lots of joy and happiness along with much laughter to most people who met him.

So now when I see people liking the Rufus doodle I smile knowing that even now he's still making people smile.

It's also lovely to see how many rat fans are out there. I can't stress more over what amazing creatures they truly are.

I've also found myself wanting to draw more rat designs and maybe focus on them early next year... alongside every other project I have going on! So maybe the rats will take over in January. There's also a ratty project that's ongoing with my partner that is going to be happening soon! Once I get my head in gear and out of birds!

Gosh it's been a crazy December.

The rambling post

I am in a good mood. I am in a slightly hyper mood. I just had a very unexpected awesome weekend. It has left me giggly and silly.
I like feeling giggly and silly, it gives you a feeling of joy and fun like nothing else.

The addition of my first coffee in three months has helped too... lots of giggles!!

So this post is more words than pictures.
I've been keeping so much stuff quiet lately and finally I feel able to speak as it's rolling on and ready!

I have mentioned taking a big step forward with my work recently with the Etsy store and now I can confidently announce that I will be running a store by the 26th of June!!
Yes. This coming Friday!
Can you guess how excited I am?? Or maybe that's still the happy/coffee buzz...
So I now have a week of final preparations and finally I can go live! This is a huge step and I'm so so excited to be in this position right now. It's been just over a year since I started this big adventure and I'm now hitting one of the biggest goals on the list, or at least the first big goal.

Don't get me wrong, I'm also terrified and there are a lot of possible negative thoughts involved here but who needs those rain clouds when there are so many rainbows?
One thing I have learnt over the past year is to not think and to just do. The more you think the more negatives you'll find, trust me this works in all areas of life. If we dig deep enough we can find darkness which has a tendency to hide the light. Human brains are funny little things.

So, lots and lots of preparations and organisation will be happening over the next five days and I couldn't be happier!
When you put this much work and effort in to something and rush learn important things it's so nice to actually get somewhere. There have been moments in the past six months where I have been desperate to give up because it can be so life draining and depressing at times but thankfully I have some supportive people in my life who give me a good poke before I can go hide. I could not be more grateful for all the help and support I get from them.

Aside from the whole starting an online shop I also have a lot more projects on the go! This is going to be a busy time and I'm just hoping I can balance everything out. It's a plus and downside to being self employed, you get to choose your hours but those hours can also be insane!

I'm continuing the prehistoric/dino project I have going, this is a personal project for now as I currently have no idea where it's heading.

I'm also hoping to attend some art markets in the future to sell work...
This involves me making a lot more work... everything does so I'm hoping I can balance the making and business sides out better, at the moment they see-saw all over the place!

Even this week with everything else going on I have a few designs to get done that are currently floating ideas in my mind. It's so good to finally get my muse back after those dodgy months!

Basically everything is coming together in a nice tidy cluster of colour and will hopefully continue like this for a short while at least!
And I'm finally balancing out my work life with my non work life :P Even reading again, something I lost time and motivation for down to there being too much going on, it also helps when your other half is a writer and book fiend. We're a creative pair ;)

So here's to a productive week and a big firework explosion for the end of the month!

New Designs, too many ideas and a mega art block. Again.

So this week I've created two new designs! They are also both now up on my redbubble shop!

I had so much fun with these guys as they're both completely different even though they are done using similar techniques. Ziggy the lemur was sketched and inked traditionally before being scanned in to the computer and coloured. He was so much fun to do and I couldn't help but smile at his smug, cool dude face. He's available to buy here.

Papa bear is a second part to Mama bear (obviously) and is based on a black bear. He was sketched out traditionally before being scanned in and added to a blue background. I'm not sure whether I prefer the more traditional style or the 50/50.
Papa bear is now available here

I'm going to admit after completing these designs yesterday I'm left feeling a little overwhelmed. My mind is racing with what I'm guessing to be too many ideas that I can't keep up with.

I keep thinking about the business sides to things, finances, marketing, research, the list is a long one. 

I keep thinking about promotional things and how I'd love to be involved in an exhibition someday, group or solo. 

I keep thinking about selling prints of my work, looking at how to go about it.

You may notice in those ramblings that I'm missing something quite big out... Creating more artwork.

I'm suddenly realising that I need to build on that. I need to create as much as I possibly can. I need to focus myself on a subject or something similar.

There are so many things I need to do.

These things I need to do aren't horrible though, unlike many people I enjoy most parts of this job. I love the numbers and charts and records as much as the creating,

Just sometimes I get so buried in the business side that I forget I'm also meant to be creating!

And the worst thing right now... I have so much racing through my mind that when I sit down to create something I either sketch something my 15 year old self could manage or I find myself growling at a blank page unable to get what I want out.

Enter my fourth art block of the year! Hoo-ray. I am so pleased.

It's starting to get frustrating when I start getting creative and once I've gotten a few ideas out I run out of ability. The motivation is there, gosh is it there, like a roaring fire inside of me wanting to spend hours with ink and charcoal, making fun colourful sketches of animals and anything else.

I just can't get it out and it's frustrating me along with all of the ideas I have.

Art blocks suck. End of.

So now I'm left sitting here and wondering what I'm going to do. Of course there are a few things that take priority but those are mostly finance related. When it comes to art... I'm lost.

On the bright side the OH is feeding my fox obsession... Maybe I should work on foxes...

Fingers crossed I can start the creative buzz up once more!!

Also! Thank you to everyone who liked/shared my work for the wraptious competition. I didn't make it to the shortlist but some awesome artists did!! Go check them out!

Have a great week!!

Working late!

I'm finishing up my last commissions and getting everything packed and ready to go to its new homes which is actually more fun than it sounds. I'm one of those people who loves to make post enjoyable!

I finished up my last commission for a while today and it's left me with a strange feeling. I'll miss commissions but I really need to focus more on other stuff for a while. Yes I am giving it the title of, stuff.

So here's a peek at part of my evenings work!

It's always fun to pack things up! :)

I love receiving fun, colourful things in the post, they always beat those drab bills or adverts or anything else that's dull so when I send work out I love to make it fun to open. Because everyone needs a sparkle of happy ;)

I also got my business cards through today!! (great timing for once!) and even though they're ridiculously simple they make me happy. Well they do feature my very own choccie boy :P Riley has given them the nuzzle of approval... repeatedly!

So tomorrow is postage day and then I have the rest of the week coming up with lots and lots of designs and maybe having some fun experiments along the way! This is including plastic and metal. That is all I'm giving away ;)

I love how I'm saying the rest of the week like it's only Monday! Wow, it's Thursday tomorrow! So I only have one and a half days to get these designs made up.

Well, that should be fun!

Busy busy bee!

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Just a quick post!

The "Sunnies" designs are now complete and ready to buy if you're interested!

Just go

HERE!

I will also be offering A5 and A4 prints of these guys during May with a few limited edition prints being made that may or may not include sparkles... ;)

Stay cool and have a smashing weekend!

I'm going to go and spend it doing no work at all! :P

Smile!

The sun is shining, the birds are singing!

And we went to the woods. It's a very rare occasion when I get to take my big flump of a pup to the woods which is awful given how much he loves it. No matter how bad you feel, seeing your dog light up with pure joy is one of the best feelings! 

So we took to the road and found his favorite woods and had a good long walk surrounded by nature and laughs. Trust me, when you spend time with my dog you realise that life is for laughing at!

So after the most refreshing walk and flumps splash around in a pond it was time for home and work!

Well, at least work for me... the flump got to be lazy and sunbathe for the rest of the day when he wasn't clambering on to my lap for hugs and kisses. I love it when he comes to distract me :P Who could resist the huge teddy bear! 

Anyway! 

I had the idea for a sunny summer idea for a set of three designs. I had the first idea of a bear as I seem to be having a bit of a bear moment lately and then added a wolf to the mix... the OH then convinced me that a mountain lion would be an amusing addition to the mix!

So of course, I wanted to draw these guys wearing sun glasses... cos who wouldn't want a grinning wolf in sunnies?

The original plan was to have the three linearts completed by Friday... what happened was I sat down at my desk for a good few productive hours and now as the picture below explains have all three linearts completed!

This is obviously a huge bonus to me and means that I can have them digitised and coloured by the end of the week instead which then in turn lightens my mega work load!

Seriously the to-do list is constantly growing and never shrinking (I secretly love this)

I'm also very glad that I was convinced to do the mountain lion, she may be my favorite of the bunch... although the grinning wolf is close...

I just had to do something cheerful and bright, the constellation series is of course colourful but lacks the brightness I'm after so this is an extra addition.

Once these are scanned and coloured they will have a whole new life and I can't wait, it's taking all of my will power not to pull an all nighter to do it! 

Just have to remember, sleep is good... Family will also kill me if I burn out :P

The sunnies designs will be available through my redbubble shop by the end of the week and during May something big will be happening.

I'm going to be expanding and if all goes to plan will be offering signed prints of my work so if you're interested keep an eye out!

I am also considering some limited addition prints with something extra... all shall be revealed soon!

So if you want to get your paws on my designs keep a look out in May when shiny sparkly things will be happening!

Have a beautiful week and make your own happy! :)