Ragon

Sunday Thoughts (Ep. 26)

Added 2018-10-01 19:24:02 +0000 UTC

EDIT: A day late on this, I‘m sorry my dears!! Happy October!

Hello hello and Happy Sunday, happy last day of September! Happy day! It’s been a wonderful week here at Ragonia Art, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it!

First and possibly most exciting, I designed and ordered my first batch of enamel pins this week! After waffling back and forth over what to make as my first pin, a lot of sketching and doodling and thinking, I found inspiration during my weekly walk to the Cafe, in the form of: A Crow! I really love crows, an animal that is all over the world, but seem particularly common in the PNW. I was surprised and happy when I first moved here to see these charismatic, intelligent, funny creature all over the city, like it belonged to them.

And the Final pin design that I sent in to my new manufacturer, The Sunday Co.:

The material is soft enamel in a gold metal. I learned so much about designing and ordering enamel pins, about the different lingo and techniques. Let me know if you’d like my to make a longer post about what I learned about enamel pins, I’d be happy to!

So I placed my order for 100 of these pins for a total of ~$260. My first truly large purchase as a business. I thought I’d be freaked out from spending that much money but when it came to pay the invoice it didn’t feel bad haha. I lumped in this big order with a few other orders I’d been intending to place: a set of 75 postcards of a few of my designs (from moo.com), and an order of 200 business cards (from vistaprint.com!) I’be been easing myself in to this business by making by hand these things in smaller batches, printing and hand cutting my business cards by hand at Fed Ex, printing and cutting my postcards at home. It feels like a step up to outsource a little of this business work. I’ll share pictures when all of this arrives!

I also spent this week getting ready ahead of time for Inktober 2018! What is Inktober? From the website of the creator, Jake Parker:

Every October, artists all over the world take on the Inktober drawing challenge by doing one ink drawing a day the entire month.

INKTOBER RULES:

1) Make a drawing in ink (you can do a pencil under-drawing if you want).

2) Post it online

3) Hashtag it with #inktober and #inktober2018

4) Repeat

This is a huge event for many artists around the world, and was one of the inspirations for my reentry in to art last year! In 2016, when we first moved to Seattle, I did a few days of the challenge, but didn’t get very far.

In 2017 I tried again, and this time succeeded in making 31 ink drawings every day, and sharing on my new art Instagram! It was a huge confidence and skill booster, connected me with other artists, and gave me a few works of art that I still sell to this day!

So here we come 2018! I’ve decided to work almost entirely with POSCA markers, a very thick opaque paint marker brand from Japan.

My goals for Inktober are :

1. Get back in the practice of making art regularly (every day.)

2. Experiment more with a stylized, flat design language. I don’t know how to say this but I kind of want my art to look like a 6 year old made it, but in a good way.

3. Make a lot of Halloween art that I can use for future projects!

4. Make at least one process video of a traditional piece using the phone holder I bought a few months ago!

So I’m doing all Halloween themed artworks, once a day, using POSCA paint markers for the whole month.

I’m following he above prompt list by artist Natalie Very B. instead of the official prompt list. I wanted somthing more specifically Halloween themed!

I did about four days of work ahead of time this week, to give myself some practice and a bit of wiggle room with the daily drawing thing. I remember falling behind a day or two here of there last year and am trying to anticipate that now. Check out what I made:

1: Demon

2: Apparition

3: Insomnia

4: (my favorite so far) Ghoul

So I am both nervous and excited about continuing Inktober. Making these new works after so long rehashing old ones feels incredibly refreshing and inspiring.

Are you participating in inktober?? Let me know, we can talk Process!

Non-Art Life:

Tuesday is Zach’s 25th birthday! A whole quarter century of life! I plan on making him vegan cheesesteaks and spiced muffins, and this Friday we are going to meet up with friends to drink beer and play board games.

We’ve spent a lot of free time this week looking up and loving (and fearing) vintage Halloween costumes.