here are the dailies after an exhausting, but very successful weekend at artmarket! turns out my "sassy little love notes" were a lot more popular than i imagined they would be, so that was an pleasant surprise. let's get on with it (so i can get on to bed):

 (sunday, december 4th)

  (monday, december 5th)

  (tuesday, december 6th)

  (wednesday, december 7th)

  (thursday, december 8th)

  (friday, december 9th)

 (saturday, december 10th)

thanks to everyone who came out to see me and my wares at artmarket! though it is tiring, i really like seeing everyone's reactions and responses to my work. if you weren't able to make it, or something sold out before you were able to snatch it up, i am restocking my etsy shop with the artmarket leftovers and some other fun things, so be sure to check it out at the shop link on the top right. have a great week, everybody!

dailies 11/27-12/3 + artmarket 2011!

here are the dailies, on the tail end of a busy, busy weekend! i have been running around getting everything together for artmarket, which starts on wednesday! more on that later, let's get to the dailies:

(sunday, november 27th)

 (monday, november 28th)

(tuesday, november 29th)

 (wednesday, november 30th)

 (thursday, december 1st)

 (friday, december 2nd)

(saturday, december 3rd)

now the really exciting part: a sneak peek at all the goods i've been prepping, printing, trimming, mounting, wrapping, packaging, tagging, and hopefully selling this week at mica's annual artmarket!

in addition to some of my favorite old-school illustrations (both as ready-to-frame prints and mounted on wooden cradles for display on bookshelves, windowsills, or easily hung on a wall), this year i am rolling out two hand-lettered posters featuring the best of the dailies 2011 (in a "you can do it!" theme and an "wow i love you" theme), thank you notes (in full color!), and two sets of love notes: a sweet variety full of adorably hand-lettered affectionate sayings, and a sassy variety full of the same affection, plus expletives.

be sure to stop by the art education table (on the second floor of mica's brown center) wednesday-saturday to see my work. if you stop by thursday evening or saturday, you'll even see me! if you can't make it, but are interested in something you see here, please let me know! have a great week, everybody.

dailies 11/28-12/4+BONUS artmarket preview!

so, when did december happen, exactly? the plus side to winter sneaking up on me is that it is just 2 1/2 short weeks to winter break! yay public school. here are the dailies:

 sunday, november 28th: "feeling ready for the week for the first time."

 monday, november 29th: "tea is making a comeback."

 tuesday, november 30th: "spiraling out of control."

 wednesday, december 1st: "we only clean when we have company."

 thursday, december 2nd: "letting my guard down."

 friday, december 3rd: "perfect sushi with perfect company."

saturday, december 4th: "sprang out of bed and into action."

and! this weekend i have been working at warp speeds to get all my artmarket things organized, packaged, and ready to go! i am almost there, which is good since mica's artmarket starts on wednesday! head up to mica to find a HUGE and amazing selection of art, crafts, jewelry, and more at really reasonable prices. a portion of the proceeds even funds a scholarship for students; it's like the gift that keeps on giving! i'll be selling at the naea/art education table, and if you shop on saturday, i'll likely see you there! here's a sneak preview of my wares:

new this year are notecards in 7 different designs and a selection of 2010 dailies mounted on wooden cradles and ready to go right on the wall, no framing necessary. many of the old standbys are also back, including silkscreens and prints from the "what if...?" series and "the book sleuth."

if you can't make it out to the market, but are interested in some heart-sleeve studio goods for the holidays, don't hesitate to email me! everybody have a great week!

book sleuth mega-post: the rest!

happy new year! to ring in 2010, here are the rest of the book sleuth spreads, for the view from saturday, by e.l. konigsburg, a wrinkle in time by madeline l'engle, and the wednesday wars by gary d. schmidt.

the super-blitz is partially since the suspense has been sneaky-style alleviated-- i recently updated the real heart-sleeve studio with my recent work, book sleuth included. head over there now to see the updates!

in resolution-town, in an effort to keep things organized and catch-up on life (better late than never, right?), i have officially made the switch to both google chrome and mac osx snow leopard and so far, so good! i am also re-starting the dailies in a new form: each day will be based on a song i hear/listen to that day. hooray! even more exciting, these dailies are mixed media and full color. stay tuned to see the dailies burst back onto the scene in 2010! take care, everybody.

it's getting closer!

installation is in just two weeks! here are the postcards for the show, both mine and the group postcard announcement. we did a "dress up like we're in grade school and take a class picture" photoshoot for that one. classy. awesome. you can see a couple of the (silly) frames from the shoot below. because if there's one thing you should know by now, it's that we take ourselves very, very seriously.
the show will be up on friday, october 30th, and the opening is that night. also, this is a grad event, so the catering? twice as delicious and/or fancy. last year? there were cupcakes WAHOO.

in the meantime i need to finish the final touches on my work and put it all together for the show. snoop around the fox building or just ask nicely if you'd like a postcard.

i haven't abandoned you, internet!

hi, friends. i swear i haven't disappeared from the blogosphere, but some of my efforts have been redirected toward my other companion blog, "heart-sleeve teaching." i'm exploring the implications of visual/material/media/pop culture on art-making and education at large. so. if you miss me, i'm over there. so are some other cool things! so if you like pop culture, go take a look.

but! i'll be back here soon. i'm just getting things together and orderly for proper sharing. i ordered my postcards, and my thesis (round two!) show goes up in just a couple weeks! here is an actual illustration thing to leave you with, so that i'm not a total tease and/or jerkface:

tiny painting made as a part of a new fun thing called the nomadic playlist, a traveling sketchbook and flash drive where each track is illustrated in the book and added to the flash. first up: the coral's dreaming of you. fun, right? i'll keep you posted as it develops.

new studio, new technique.

my new studio is set up and delightful and in my house, wow! hopefully there will be photos to comw, but in the meantime, this is the first thing to come out of it. here we have a tiny experiment where ink drawing meets digital collage, lovingly referred to in my head as "giant-girl naps in the clouds." all the textures were prepped by hand with real paint on real paper, and then scanned beneath an ink drawing that has been digitally colored. thoughts? i'm trying to work out a way to attack my summer thesis (since i'm obsessed with school, slash, am heading into a grad program in the fall), and this is showing some potential, i think.

in other news, i was profiled over at matthew's puzzle, a blog that promotes autism awareness. maryann, the editor, liked the way my what-if series concretely represented whimsical, imaginary situations that autistic children can have difficulty generating in their own minds. please consider visiting and seeing the lovely work she's doing over there, and enter to win a digital print of my "what if... you could fly?" illustration! i'm also doing a sale for matthew's puzzle visitors to my etsy shop for the rest of june, so if you're interested in picking up something adorable from my shop on the cheap, snoop around her site to get the coupon code, and shop to your heart's content!

it just takes practice.

i have totally been doing more things than it seems like i have been doing, they just aren't nearly pretty or exhilarating enough to warrant blogging about them. nothing says "WOW AMAZING" quite like html house-cleaning and digital image-tidying... so i apologize for the posts being few and far between, there are all sorts of tiny tasks required so that i can properly commence in like, less than a month. i have managed to stay on track-ish (for now) with my what-ifs, so here is "what if... you could fly?" a classic, i suppose, but a very seriously entertained childhood goal:

did anyone else run down hills constantly, convinced that leaping at just the right time would render you airborne? no? just me? well, all right.

in other news, i finally stocked my etsy shop with a few things. not many to start, but modest collection of silkscreens and digital prints. take a look at it if you please. it's nice, and matches every other tiny web presence i hold. it's also perma-linked to the left now, so you can come and go as you please. i'll be slowly building up a larger variety of items, so stop back frequently!

pretty please?

i am planning to print my postcards for commencement slash, real life in the immediate future.
i am definitely decided on the "what if... flowers bloomed with your every step?" image for the front, but i have been waffling on the color scheme for the back for infinity hours. i would love you to help me decide, and/or decide for me, which one i should go with. here are the whittled options (from many, many permutations of unreasonably similar alternatives):


please please comment and let me know which one you like better (and p.s., don't forget how washed out blogger makes things!). my brain is so overstuffed, i can't choose all alone. incentive! do so and i will make sure you get one. don't you want to help me not go crazy?

too busy to come up with a reasonable title.

it's been far too long, i'm so very sorry. here is my latest illustration, "what if... we could live in the clouds?" thoughts?

phew, it's been a busy busy time as of late. i thought my thesis professor whitney sherman was joking and/or crazy when she told us we would accomplish next to no work on our thesis following spring break. turns out? way correct. i have two sketches that are supposed to be in the pipeline that are in fact just chilling out in my brain. sort of. i'm doing my best to stay current over here on the blog, so thanks for being patient.

in other news, i was told that my "what if... flowers bloomed with your every step?" will be the cover of the juxtapositions publication for mica's exhibitions in may-july, aka, the commencement catalog. that is neat.

heart-sleeve studio version 2.0.

happy almost-spring to everyone! apparently, it's actually tomorrow, but whatever, that's not going to stop me from announcing that i have mega-updated my website wow! you may or may not have noticed the slight color-shift around these bloggy parts, and that was to color-coordinate (because i am a giant nerd) with my shiny new site. my twitter matches-ish too. what can i say, other than "i'm sorry?"

anyway, you loyal readers won't find much new work that you haven't seen here, but i have included the first few "what if?" illustrations on the new site. the big updates are purely aesthetic: a slightly changed palette and big-time layout & design things. swing on by heart-sleeve studio and have a look-see (special tiny preview coming up right now!):


lastly, i finally made the leap into a seller's account with etsy, which, if you aren't already familiar, is kind of like an ebay for handmade things. now, my declarative is a bit misleading because while i do now have a shop (at heartsleevestudio.etsy.com), there is presently nothing in it. baby steps. i do have a few things just dying to be taken home, like these delightful postcards of inanimate objects saying nice things, but i'm still getting my bearings in the etsy world, so bear with me. in the meantime, feel free to contact me directly at alissandra@heart-sleevestudio.com if you're interested in things of mine becoming yours. hooray! i hope you like the new site, and please let me know if you run into any bugs, since me and web-design have a cursory relationship at best.

hey! look! for real!

the opening for the mini-mini exhibition i am in was a week-ish ago at the push gallery in phoenix! since i couldn't be there myself, it's nice to have verification that my work was in fact in the show, looking precious. thanks, internet. see more photos of the opening over at spraygraphic's mini-mini art show profile.

the end! more things soon, but i don't want to spoil the surprise. let's just say it starts with a 'w' and ends with a 'hatifyouwerefriendswiththemonstersunderyourbed?' stay tuned.

oh hi, spring break, nice to see you.

my dailies exhibition is officially down! phew. thanks to everyone who came to the opening, signed the guestbook, and/or flagged me down on the street with kind words about the work. for those of you who couldn't make it to the show, below are samples of how the illustrations were laid out for installation for the months of january through may. in the case of the real show, the text was hand-written beneath each image, but scanning/piecing these poster-sized prints was so not an option (both because they're giant and i'm lazy):
uploading these samples serves a two-fold purpose: to show everyone ever my sneaky calendar-style layout (of which i am very proud), but also to satisfy my completist tendencies and have the entire year available on the interwebs! now the images that were created pre-weekly blog updates can be seen and enjoyed by all.

i am also selling limited edition prints of the dailies. if you'd like to take home a tiny piece of the project, let me know. they are 3-inch squares with a 1-inch border, editioned in series of 25, signed, and include their respective line of handwritten text. AND THEY ARE ONLY $12. with maybe a tiny bit of shipping if you're not close enough for personal delivery. would this be an appropriate time for a pokemon catchphrase? maybe. anyway, there that is. enjoy!

lastly, this post officially marks the end of midterms and start of spring break! i have plenty to do throughout the week, but i am relishing the free time i will have to go to the book thing (baltimore's non-profit free bookstore), the evergreen (my local coffee shop of choice: comfy couches, free wi-fi, and epic lattes) and just have the opportunity to do things at my own pace. mmmm.

THIS IS WHAT COMMENCING LOOKS LIKE.

for all the cool slash terrified seniors, commencement exhibition proposals were due this week. this basically means you have to show your department slash exhibitions how you wish to represent yourself and mica career as you graduate and are thrust into the real world FOREVER.

my proposal circles around two things: i don't like to frame my work, and i like things. i feel like the second you throw my illustrations in a frame they're far away, even if you are smushing your face against thee glass. so i elected to paint "frames" on the wall (meaning just silhouette-y frame shapes) and float my what if? illustrations on top of them, glass-free, in a sort of salon-style grouping. additionally, my fall thesis book a mixtape story will be on a shelf (silhouetted with paint to look like a quirky table) with the accompanying mix for listening. also, tiny vase of flowers because i am just that kind of girl. lastly, my hug-a-city friend will be returning as the host of this tiny sitting room display, hugging a for-real 3D chair. the photos of her in action will be displayed amongst the what ifs, like family photos.
cute? me? hope so.

mini-mini.

i am trying, as i may have mentioned, a full digital finish for my next "what if" piece, which will officially be "what if... you were friends with the monsters under your bed?" that's to come, but for now, some experimentation with fully digitally colored things:

these are two of my dailies from last year, perhaps you remember them, from december, "...and now for something completely different!" and from august, "oh, no." i colored these for spraygraphic's upcoming mini-mini exhibition, which arguably, psychically entered my brain and developed this show specifically for me to submit to. it's uncanny that their show is for 4" square art that will be showing in three arizona galleries (push gallery in phoenix, cartel coffee lab in tempe, and conspire gallery in phoenix) that triangulate my permanent address. if you happen to live near my address (but not me), check out the mini-mini show tomorrow night at push, or later in the month at the other two locations.

anyway, so tiny alissandra digitally colored illustrations. i'm still on the fence about the whole digital thing, both the way it feels to work that way, and the lack of finished art object to show from making it. i like the tactile: books, dolls, and things that also happen to be art, and digital is zero-percent any of those. but my flat aesthetic suits a digital approach, so here we are. testing the waters. thoughts on the whole "oh my god no paint" situation?

READY SET BUY THINGS.

sweet jesus art market is finally here. this is the pile of (completely adorable and not at all terrible) crap that i drew, silkscreened, printed, copied, bound, stamped, sleeved, sealed, labeled, tagged, and trimmed. please take a look if you're in the area, 10am-6pm today through saturday. there's a lot of swell-looking work there, so go see! and then spend money. on things that i made, if you want. everything is nice and shiny! the end.