recent (and not-so) Cosmonaut love

I got another Etsy front page spot back in February; thanks, as usual, is owed to the Etsy Front Pagers on Flickr.


More exciting was getting featured in a blog post about plaid items at the The Experts Agree! (And they were nice enough to sent me an Etsy message about it, although my Google Alerts did pick it up as well.) It looks like a really awesome blog; the collections they put together are very well done, and they post on more than just art and craft sellers. They have some great posts on typography and graphic design. They are definitely on my design blog reading list now!

ride it!

Working on my illustration portfolio:

today's project: botanical drawings

These sketches were inspired by some Japanese Ikebana photographs. Quite happy with the understated compositions.
They are most likely not becoming permanent design ideas for Cosmonaut (unless there is outcry to the contrary) not because I don't like them, but because I think this kind of imagery is overdone; I see it on t-shirts and other screenprinted goods all the time.
I personally am more excited about using these kinds of concepts for tattoo designs; I think it is more innovative in terms of layout. I can especially see lots of possibilities for non-black-outline based tattooing that may resemble woodblock prints a la the background branch in the second drawing. (Yes, for those of you not in the know, I seriously would like to learn how to be a tattoo artist.)

little drawings I call widges

Not sure why, it's just the word that popped into my head when I started. They were originally meant for a sprawling project which was a conceptual self-portrait in mix-tape form, including viewer/listener participation through personal emotional cartography. Yes, it's bizarre and complicated, and probably won't ever be completed.
Anyhow, the artwork portion was meant to include at least 25 more of these little archetypes, almost like the characters in a tarot deck. I like them so much that it seemed a shame to keep them hidden on my computer for some unknown future date when I get the project done.

The Carried Pet:

The Executive:


The Tree:


The Mannequin:


The Trophy:

today's project

Knitting blood! With hot pink yarn!


For those out there who would ask why would you knit that, it's for a sculptural installation involving roadkill, feminine archetypes, and emotional disconnection. (I know, I don't get it either. Yet.)

Now that it's made, I'm totally loving how the knit pattern looks unexpectedly like cell structure.