Illustration Friday: Tranquility

My illustration for this week's Illustration Friday. Topic: tranquility. This piece is entitled "Peaceful Crane" and is done in watercolor and mixed media. I love the Daniel Smith watercolors , which I used for this. Like my contribution for last week, it was inspired by Tibetan Buddhist imagery.

Visiting Artist

I'll be the visiting artist at the Blue Hill Farmer's Market this Saturday, July 23, from 9am-11:30 am (on the Blue Hill fairgrounds, Blue Hill, Maine). It's a chance for me to get out and just have fun showing my work in a public setting.

I'm bringing all kinds of fun stuff...from most to least expensive:
Framed Still Lives • Framed Animal Paintings (including the "5 Friends" in the post below) • Handpuppets • Beaded Jewelry • Small Works on Paper • Fingerpuppets • Cards • Felted Ornaments • Felted Carrot Pens • Mini Paintings on a Clothesline

Illustration Friday: Karma

Here's my image for Illustration Friday...theme- Karma:



Perhaps this could use a little explanation? It's my spin on a traditional image from Tibetan Buddhism. "The Four Dharma Friends"(the elephant, monkey, rabbit and bird) symbolize harmony and cooperation. It's said by Lamas that hanging this image in one's home will bring harmony and peace to it. The karmic message: work together, cooperate and all will be harmonious and much good karma will arise for all.

This is my take on The Four Friends, done in my style of drawing animals and using dots and bright colors (the colors as reproduced here not so nice compared to the original). I call it "The Four Dharma Friends...Plus One" because I added an extra bird to round out the composition.

The very first thing I thought of when reading this topic was the wonderful Tibetan Buddhist Dharma teacher, Thrangu Rinpoche, who teaches all us unenlightened regular people at my Dharma Center. Here's a picture of him giving what we affectionately call "the sparkler transmission". So may you have a wonderful karmic connection with this teacher by seeing this photo:

Just Us Owls

As I cruise the internet and see more and more of what independent designers and craftspeople are making, I've found that there are themes that seem to overlap with things I'm doing, and have been doing for years.

It's bit uncanny. Like the Circle thing .

And then, there's...Owls. Come to find out, they are a popular character in lots of people's work.

I've been including owls for in my artwork years. As a matter of fact, my owl designs are inspired by this stuffed owl from England that my mom got before I was even born (in the 60's), and which was one of my first, and always most beloved, toys.



I think you can see the inspiration when you compare it to this owl puppet I just sold out of my studio:



Well there's lots of great owl things being created out there. One of my favorites is this nightlight by Happy Owl Glassworks (I hope to get one of these for my niece soon.)

And Faythe at Flying Fish Design makes the coolest owl messenger bags!

I love this owl notecard set by Boy Girl Party. She's got lots of great owl illustrations & things on her site!


Speaking of owl cards, I've got a new owl card on my site! (it's the image at the top of this post)

It's hard to stop here, because there are so many great owls out there, but, well, Happy owl shopping... And let me know if you've got any owl favorites out there..I'd love to see them!

Hancock • Sullivan • Sorrento Studio & Gallery Tour

My boyfriend, Philip Frey and I are organizing an Open Studio and Gallery Tour of Hancock, Sullivan and Sorrento. It's happening August 7th from 1:00-6:00pm.

Works will be shown by Ragna Bruno-Torkanowsky (in Hancock), Gifford Ewing (in Sorrento), and in Sullivan: Philip Frey, Christina Heiniger (I will have my work at Philip's studio), The Barter Family Gallery (Philip & Matthew Barter), Art & Old Things Gallery, Ann, Paul & Robert Breeden at Spring Woods Gallery, Wildfire Run Quilt Boutique - Peg McAloon & Obadiah Buell at Bourne Design Studio. Each of the artists show in various Maine galleries and are in private collections throughout the U.S.A

Please contact me for a tour map or more info.

Hope you can make it!

The Sampler

I'm sending off my things for the August edition of The Sampler today. In Marie's, the proprietor's words, "The Sampler is a promotional/distribution tool for indie businesses. Each month, indie crafters, shops, zines and record labels who run web-based businesses send samples and promotional materials to a contribution pool. I portion out the goodies, put them in little packages, then send them off to Sampler Subscribers and back to Contributors."

I sent her some mini paintings, and also some cards. One of the mini paintings:


They are neat because each is unique.

Crafty Stuff

Have you seen these cool hairties by momo of Candlelight fame ? They're at her Etsy Shop She has such a nice way of photographing her things, too. (if I had long hair, I'd jump at one of these --only $8.00)

There's so much cool crafty stuff out there on the web! One of my favorite sites is I'm Smitten. I love her quirky cards-- the seal one is shown here. She used to make these cool handfelted bags. I actually was lucky to get the last one she made. She had a rush over Christmas time and had to make so many bags she never wanted to see one again. I know how she feels, occupatioal hazard of the crafter!

Win a Painting

There's still an chance to win one of my paintings at MainelyKids.com magazine:
Sign up here. It's my "Three Friends" painting, all framed and everything (a $125 value). MainelyKids.com is a sweet online magazine for families that love, live in and visit Maine.

I love it when people say nice things to me

I just go this sweet email from Jackie, the winner of June's monthly card drawing-- It made my day:

Hi Christina -

I just wanted to let you know that I received the cards today and they are beautiful. Thank you, also, for including the extra "goodies." I've visited some of the sights and enjoyed browsing.

Thanks again for choosing me as your June winner. I'll be sure to recommend your site to friends.

Have a great weekend!

Jackie

You know, it's small kindnesses like this that make living in our unpredictable and sometimes scary world not only bearable, but happy. Think about it.

New small works on paper

I Hope you all had a happy and safe 4th of July. Welcome back!

• I'm pleased to announce there's a new "small works on paper" section at my website. See it on the art page of my site and scroll down the page to the bottom*.

These are small very affordable ($40 and less) gems of little paintings that give a glimpse into the creative process.

Every time I update this section (about every 2 weeks), I'll add one "steal"--a specially priced one... so there's one there now at only $15.00. First person to get it in their cart and checked out gets it. ***SORRY THIS PIECE HAS BEEN SOLD--CHECK BACK IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS FOR THE NEXT ONE*** It's kind of a shell game--you have to look around the small works section to find the steal. People reading this post get first dibs. I wanted to offer this as opportunity to own a "Christina Heiniger Original" at an affordable price because I don't yet offer less expensive prints.

Here's an example of one of the acrylic and oil pastel ones:


(* If you've been to my site before & don't see the updates when you go there, just "refresh" your browser or "reload the page" -- 2 terms for the same thing, which is getting your browser to reload the current page instead of using the cached version from the last time you visited.*)

• Have you seen the new section at Craftster.org where you can post ads for your site? It's a fun place to browse if you're in the market for some neat handmade stuff. Also an excellent place to post an ad (for free) if you have a website of art, craft or other handmade things.

Card Winner! & Puppet Stuff, too

Happy 4th of July holiday to everyone...I hope it's fun and safe for all.

• Congratulations to Jackie of New Jersey for winning our monthly card drawing for a free pack of Fern House Studio cards. Yay Jackie! Sign up for our card drawing here and you might be our next winner.

Just a couple of links you might find fun:

• My boyfriend Phil sent me this link to Store Wars , a very funny streaming movie that's a parody of Star Wars to promote organic foods. It's a riot and has a good message, too. Features some way cool veggie & food puppets like "Cuke Skywalker" "Darth 'Tater" and "Obi Wan Canoli". (You'll never look at a canoli the same way again!)

• I've got an owl puppet up at Luminant Studio's Creature Exchange . It's neat...check it out... a place to barter for handmade creatures.

• Speaking of puppets, my finger puppets are selling like crazy. The peacock and the squirrel are sold out and and will be marked so this week on my site. If you want a fingerpuppet, I suggest ordering soon, because I won't get to making more until mid-August or so (at best!).

Commissions

Despite the fact that I can barely spell the word, sometimes I do take commissions. Here's two that I just finished. The woman who ordered these had an acorn squash that I painted, and wanted a red onion and a tomato to go with it. Viola!