PFATT Marketplace Update, Oct. 10

BOTH SOLD- Thank you!
Wow, are you sick of me yet?  Seems like I've been putting my work out there for sale more this past week than any other time this year.  Just two more pieces and I promise I'm done for awhile!

PFATT Marketplace will have two works available.  One is a very special orb.  This is only the 6th orb I have created since I began Monkey-Cats Studio.  They are very time consuming and average somewhere between 60 and 65 hours just to paint the figures on the piece.  There are 4 figures that form the major decoration of the orb with a Ms. Moon forming the night sky above them and the bust of a skelly figure completing the bottom of the piece.  The orb is paper mache painted in acrylic paints and sealed in a matte polymer varnish.

This is Winnie Wicked, with her little kitten, Midnight;

Voltaire Vampire with his companion, Ding-Bat;

 Maximilian Moon and Moon-beam;

 and Punkin' head Petey on his way to the Ghoulie Gras.

Ms. Moon forms the sky above the figures

and Slim Pickens skelly oversees the nether regions of the orb.

I'm very happy with this orb and hope you agree!

The second piece being offered is a skelly candy cup complete with candy corn and pumpkins.

PFATT Marketplace opens at 10 a.m. Pacific time (which is 11-Mountain time, noon-Central and 1 p.m. Eastern)  Here is a link to get you directly to my page.

http://www.pfattmarketplace.com/monkeycats.html

I would also like to share with you that I have a 6-page article in PRIMS magazine currently on the newsstands.  I'm thrilled to be included in the pages of this magazine and hope that you get a chance to see the article.  It includes Halloween works...of course!

Thank you to all of you that have supported me through this wonderful Halloween season through your kind words and purchases.  It always helps to have support to keep those creative juices flowing and I hope to bring you new and more creative works in the seasons ahead!

Laurie

Enjoying the Fall Weather

The past few days have ushered in cooler temperatures to the Plains, and it has me anxious to do some fall decorating.  Hubby grew pumpkins this year, including some "blue" pumpkins so I'm hoping to have a few of those to place on the porch with the big orange varieties.  I'm trying not to get ahead of myself too much since it is only mid-September, but with night temperatures to be in the 30s tonight, it's hard not to think autumn is here.  Perhaps I need to calm down a bit and just have a cup of hot chocolate!    

The weather has also inspired me to finish up the pieces for Ghoultide Gathering.  Yesterday I finished the last time consuming piece for the show so I thought I would share a few photographs. 

There are four figures that surround the piece and this is one of them, a little witch figure, Willendorf Wicked.  Willy, as her family calls her, is still a child at heart and continues to carry her pumpkin doll.  She is a kindhearted witch, but a word of warning, don't let her her sweet face fool you, she is a prankster.

To Willy's side is Spidey Pumpkin.  He loves those eight-legged arachnids and plays yo-yo and web games with them daily.  His room would scare most mothers, but Spidey wouldn't have it any other way. 

The last photograph is the bottom of the orb.  I painted a little lumina pumpkin character placed against a night sky to finish the piece.  I love pumpkins so it just seemed to be the right thing to complete the work.

There is a night sky and two other characters not shown in this post...I want to have a few surprises for the collectors at Ghoultide to look forward to.

Hope your weather is feeling more like fall too!

Laurie

New Work on EHAG Emporium

This figure measures 14.5” x 6” x 6.5”
The head is made of paper mache and sits on top of a wooden base decorated with a hand-painted torso of the little figure hugging his beloved Pumpkin doll and treat bucket. The head is independent from the base allowing
for it to be tipped and positioned as the mood suits you.


This is not the first piece I have created using a wood base as a painting surface on which to paint the torso, but it is one of the more unusual pieces in the Monkey-Cats’ 2010 collection.

Also unique to this piece is the button shaped nose of the pumpkin head.

This piece will come fully signed, numbered and dated.
“I Love My Pumpkin Doll” will be available to the first customer to email me at: monkeycatsstudio@charter.net.

SOLD...thank you!!!

As always, thank you for your consideration!

Laurie

PFATT December Giveaway!!

Come join in the fun at the the PFATT blog for some wonderful December giveaway items....yes, giveaway items, and I have made a little something to make the holiday season just a little more cheerful!


As you know if you follow my blog, I believe that elves are born from ornaments. Below is little "Onslow" bursting from his ornament from both the top and the bottom with a small Christmas tree and Christmas gift present in the foreground. This is a 7" x 8.75" hand-painted original on 140 lb. weight watercolor paper, signed by me and created just for the PFATT December giveaway. How do you win this you ask? Click on the link above and go to the PFATT blog to register!!

Lots of wonderful things being given away this month by PFATT members (getting in the Christmas spirit) so don't miss the chance to put your name and email address into the giveaway for a chance to win some really lovely pieces!!!!

Good luck!
Laurie

Halloween and Vine and Ghoultide Gathering

First I want to report that Halloween and Vine is one of the most exciting and dynamic Halloween shows I have ever attended, but then again those of you that have attended before or know the work of the artists participating in the show already knew that!! The show gave me the opportunity to actually see the work of Scott Smith, Johanna Parker, Lori Ann Corelis, Nicol Sayre, William Bezek, Christy Silacci, Kerry Howard-Schmidt, Vergie Lightfoot, Ginny Betourne, Jorge de Rojas, Katherine Webber, Susie Scott and the list goes on and on...all a visual feast for the eyes and senses!! I don't know how to explain to you how much more impressive the work is to actually see it in person, hold and turn in your hand to see all of the detail and nuances of the surface, and to see it's actual size...especially when the artists' work already looks great in a photograph. The other thing is that every artists I met was just the nicest person...really, really friendly and encouraging and it just made for such a great experience. Equally wonderful were the collectors that came to the show and were so generous with their comments and purchases. Everyone was smiling in the building and that makes for such a great atmosphere that you are just happy to be exposed to such positive energy from people that share a love for Halloween just like you do! (Plus I got to meet Dani, Leah and Melissa!!)

If you ever get the chance to go to Petaluma, I highly recommend the event and the wine...oops, did I say wine?!! We stayed within walking distance of the old downtown and the restaurants and shops were wonderful and the citizen's really love their community, and like to share that with you. It made for that "icing on the cake" you always hope to experience when you are traveling. Of course, good food and drink tend to be a priority for some of us and after seeing myself in the photographs this year I really need to do a little less of the food!! Yikes!

I've included some shots of my table from last Saturday before the show opened.


Poor Scott, I was like a groupie you always hear about meeting someone they admire for the first time!! He was a trooper and posed for a photograph with me. His work is inspiring and if you can attend Ghoultide Gathering this Saturday, October 3, in Mill Race Village, Northville, MI, Scott will be there along with another great group of Halloween artists I so admire! Fellow EHAG artists Carolee Clark, Kristen Beason, Pam Gracia and Lori Brechlin will also be there. It would be so worth the trip, trust me!

There will be other artists posting about both events in the coming days so keep an eye out for some great displays!!

Have a great day!
Laurie

Weather and the Punkin Ball Paintings

Got up this morning and it is raining so I won't be taking photographs for the business today. Which reminds me, I have noticed many bloggers showing beautiful photographs of their gardens and lawns. Our community had three tornadoes come out of the thunderstorm, shown below, the end of last month and I don't have a single hosta or lilypad that doesn't have holes in it from hail or is just pretty flat to the ground so no pretty garden photos from me. We were very lucky, only lost 3 sides of our privacy fence (that landed on the hosta beds and killed a grapevine) and the shingles off of the west side of the roof. We have tornado watches and warnings so often I'm afraid we get a bit cavalier and when the outdoor warning sirens go off we tend to go outside and look to see why. I'm not saying that is a smart idea, I'm just telling you that is what we do. I knew when I saw the clouds rotate back west when they had previously been all moving north that the cats, my husband and I were all headed for the basement; by the way, I viewed a much more up-close and personal view of this storm from our living room window, I was not outside being a "Looky Lou". When we lost power and heard the banging we both kind of looked at each other (we had flashlights) and we just hoped for the best that we still had a roof, house and that family, friends and neighbors were safe.

Okay, enough about that. I wanted to post a few more items so I will change my thought process. Below is another painting, "Jack, Jake and the Jester." It is an 8" x 10" image, (12" x 14" framed) acrylic on canvas board and is part of the Punkin Ball series I started this spring.

Of course the Jake in this painting is one of the two "monkey cats" we have, and like a typical cat would not look at me when I would ask him to so I could use his face as a reference. They know, don't they!!

Below is "Vincent DaPunkin with Yo-Mo the Spider", who is a cousin (I think) to Sir Hallow of Eve (shown on the right hand side of the blog). I need to verify that with a friend that is writing a story to go with the paintings because I wouldn't want to mess up the family lineage!

Vincent is also 8" x 10" and framed measures 12.5" x 14.5"(I like this new frame on these images)...acrylic on canvas board.

That's it for today...oh, except I need to thank everyone for the encouragement, support and assistance in putting all of this together, especially my husband who is a saint to let me do this in the first place.

Happy creating!

Laurie