another year & a half!

Ok, this is getting ridiculous. I have to post more often. So much has happened for me in this last year creatively & otherwise. 


To start, I'm no longer working with 3-year-olds. I quit my old job, started in a new school teaching infants, & haven't looked back. I absolutely adore my job. I am a primary caregiver to 3 super cute, happy, & fun babies. 


When I left the old school, I gave all of the parents of children I used to teach flyers for an art class I was putting together. I have had a few pupils since, but not as many as I would like. I may start advertising at the library & possibly at my new school soon. I have really enjoyed putting together projects for each class. It really helps when parents are as enthusiastic about the child's work as I am.


Also, I have been gradually working on a collection of fabrics & posting them for sale on Spoonflower as I purchase the swatches. I received a rather large order of swatches today & just listed them for sale. I'm now up to 61 designs! It's one of my hobbies that isn't quite paying for itself yet, but might really take off with the right marketing. I'm wanting to sew & put together a swatch book to shop around to various interior designers & re-upholsterers around D.C. & possibly NYC if I can get my act together. 


Well, I guess that enough for now. I hope to be back to write more soon, but knowing me, it may be another long absence. 


thanks for tuning in! much love,
jkj

Nearly 2 Years Have Passed

since my last entry! ABSOLUTELY Pathetic. I was starting to assemble a new blog for my teaching stuff, when I noticed this one has been greatly neglected. So much is happened in the past year that I can only touch briefly on each huge milestone
the rest of 2009 was pretty good, but nothing huge to mention.
June 2010, moved in with my bf <3
July 2010, got an assistant teaching gig at a preschool
December 2010, got promoted to lead teacher
& since then I've basically been up to my elbows in work. I've tried fitting in as much art as I possibly can. I've been part of one art show & two craft fairs (one successful, & the other a dud) & trying to involve myself in more, but the local art scene is less than appealing.

I got a message on my Spoonflower account last week(?) asking me to post more recent stuff on my blog. What blog? Oh, this poor thing which has so few posts & so far between. Sorry fan. Speaking of SpoonFlower, let me take this time to tell you about one of the ways I've been pimping my wares, http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/junej SO GOOD! I love it. Not only have I been pretty successful at selling things on there, but have also become increasing successful at buying fabric with my own designs on them. It's so fun. It's like magic. I was commissioned to design a fabric for this woman who makes baby blankets. I also sold a design to someone on there that I had done in nearly no time at all for some money & gave them pretty much exclusive rights. That made my mom really sad. She's always been really supportive & wants to make sure I don't sell myself short.

My portfolio is totally being neglected as well. I used to be so good about documenting my art the moment it was finished, but now...not so much. In fact, I sold a couple of things at the last craft fair (Saturday) which I didn't even have any pictures of. Lame. I had to get rid of my other site due to some messed up bunk that my host was putting me through. Basically, they deleted all my files & reformatted their website. Yuck. It was an awful mess I guess I'm happy to be rid of.

I will go ahead & post at least one piece before I head off to bed (it's passed my bedtime). This is a painting I did for my grandparents for Christmas this year. It is 16x20 & done with acrylic paint. Since moving here in 2008, I've been working with bigger canvases. Before I never did anything beyond 8x10.


I hope to start making more & posting more. We'll see.
jj.

Embroidery

I haven't been posting much, but I'm going to try to post about different projects I work on. I have so many ideas & so little time these days. Anyway, I don't have a post about embroidery yet. I taught myself to embroider about a year or so ago. I had a bunch of threads from my friendship bracelet days & just one day started embroidering. My mom later gave me a book & a little help, but not much.
i did a lot of floral arrangements first.

I think I did blue bell bird last Oct.:

Finished purple roadrunner in Dec.

My most recent piece, fiddler crab

It takes a long while to do a little piece, but I sometimes have spare time at work to work on them, which is nice.

Stamptacular!

Since I've moved here, I've been really interested in trying new art mediums. I've been hoping to get into some kind of printing, so I got a linoleum carving kit a couple weeks back. I bought another piece of linoleum and broke into it tonight. I spent the past couple weeks avoiding it. Hoping to come up with some genius idea for it, but gave that all up & decided just to go with the standard floral arrangement.

I like how it turned out and did a couple small ones from the scraps of this one. I'll do more soon.

I also would like to get into ceramics. I'm thinking about taking a class. The only problem with that is having access to a kiln. Hmm.

t.t.f.n.
jj.

i'm a pyro....grapher.

my mom got me a woodburning kit for christmas. i had asked for it & she came through. it came with some pathetic stencils that i wanted nothing to do with & i got into doing my own drawings really quickly. now, totally loving it. i think i got the shading down more than when i first started. i still only have the one tip it came with. maybe i'll get a fine tip soon. anyway, i'm getting over being sick...i've been sick since dec. 26th, so i'm going to go back to mindless surfing.

june in december.

CAUTION: the entry you are about you view is both vain & awesome.
ok, so i have this little ongoing collection of portraits of me done by amazing artists. & not just any portraits, awesome portraits.


June Jewell by ~perfectnoseclub on deviantART


Squating in shorts ? by ~giantflyingTURD on deviantART
This is just one of many of the portraits my good friend Timmy has done of me.


I Can't Explain by ~johnclark80 on deviantART

This one was done by Alberto Ruiz.

I know I have some more somewhere. These are just the drawings/paintings. I am delighted to say that I have worked with a number of terrific photographers as well, but those are slightly more private.

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