You'll find me in the tiny house...

I've been working lately on some more acrylic paintings.  I did a couple of them as Christmas gifts for family.  The photos above are pieces I painted last winter, and I enjoyed adding them to our home.

My art studio space is out in the tiny house on our property.  The previous landowner used it as a hunting cabin before our main house was built.  When we moved here, I claimed it as my art space and when we have a full house of visitors, it doubles as extra guest quarters.  We hope to upgrade it in the future for our guests, but it works great for me to get away and focus on a painting project.  I don't worry about leaving my art supplies strewn about when I'm in the middle of something ... works better than the kitchen counter in that regard!

The barn quilt was my 3rd, and my largest piece so far.  It looks awesome hanging above our fireplace and I am quite pleased with it.

The windmill, was a first attempt at painting a landscape in acrylic.  It turned out pretty well I think for a first try.  

I have a couple of other projects in mind for this year, will have to see what I actually have time to get done!

~ Connie

My Books!!

 

    

                                                            A page from "Hello, Ruby!"

One of the things I've been wanting to do in my retirement is write kid's books.  For my first book I had an idea to make a counting book for toddlers and I wanted to feature the antics of my two real life "dorky" cats!  Emmett and Ruby are brother and sister and we rescued them about 10 years ago.  The pandemic winter provided me with the time to really work on my illustrations and the spring was a time to search for a way to self publish my board book.  (Not an easy task!)  It is way more costly to print a small order of books than I expected, but sooo exciting to see my creations published!

I presented that first board book "Hello, Ruby!" to my oldest granddaughter on her birthday in 2020!  

My second book idea came from watching Emmett and his adventures around the farm.  He is such a goofball!  This second book featured a lot of family members too, so hopefully the granddaughters will enjoy seeing their aunts, uncle and grandparents drawn out as book illustrations too.  I then gifted "Shoo, shoo Emmett!" to the little Shaver girls for Christmas 2022.  The photo above is from "Hello, Ruby!"  and I will share a photo from "Shoo, shoo Emmett!" below. 

 

                                                       A page from "Shoo, shoo Emmett!"

This past Fall I finished "Ruby's Pumpkin Surprise!"    These little books have brought me so much joy and I hope they will be family keepsakes for years to come.

My brain is already spinning up new adventures for the crazy cat duo, so there may be more books in the future. 😀

If you'd like to order any copies ... check out my Etsy shop at this link PrairieChickStudio

(and please note the price you see is the printing cost per book, I am not marking them up for profit)

~ Connie