Whoa... Update?

Sorry I neglect this blog so much! But a lot has happened!

In September I moved to Oakland and am living with one of my best friends in the whole world, we've known each other since 7th grade! I sadly left my Gallery Director position and drove out here with my buddy Leyland and my dog Tripp! So far it's been very exciting!

Currently I am working freelance as well as taking commissioned portraits of pets! You can order one on my Etsy Shop or email me at { moyerillustration@gmail.com }

Aren't they beautiful!!!

Anyway you can always stay up to date with my daily activities here at my blog Sparrow & Urchin. I also posted the pictures from my drive out west to Cali.

I'm also now obsessed with Instagram! My username is sparrow_urchin

Currently I'm in the middle of possibly redesigning my website, making only one blog (Sparrow & Urchin) encompass both art and life, and also starting a custom print, card, invite shop. So lot's in the works right now!!! Oh and I got a tattoo!

Be sure to check back often, and get a pet portrait! They make great gifts!!

Huggles,
Lauren

A Little Help From My Friends

So I may have mentioned I was also in a group art show in town... So here you guys are...

"A Little Help from my Friends"

My Junior year in college ('07) I experimented with painting on linen and incorporating embroidery and multiple layers of canvas... My most successful piece was this one, "Rebbecca Rolfe Learns to Sew"

Anyway with all the turmoil of my life I've decided to got back to that experiment. I have a great fondness for sewing and embroidery and am excited to start this again.

This piece I painted the girl on the main canvas and the hand and birds on a separate canvas, then cut those out and embroidered them onto the main. I made the mistake though of using Cotton Duck Canvas instead of Linen... and may I say that was near impossible... I wasn't able to do all the embroidery that I wanted.

The idea of this piece goes along with what has been happening with me lately. That sometimes you have to start sewing yourself back together, making yourself presentable and feeling good, and while you do that you have to allow your friends to help give you the tools in order to pull yourself together.

Upcoming Show

I'm doing a piece for Kill Taupe's second installment of Meth & Hot Dogs! It will be at the Lift Gallery in Royal Oak on April 30th. Here's the artist line up.

I have an idea of what I want to do but I need to finish the sketches. Also there are a few other things that are going to start too! I'm very excited!

New Etsy Items Preview

So I just updated my prints on Etsy, and let me say they are perfect Holiday gifts :) I'm also going to be posting in the next couple weeks the return of the Owl Stuffed animals.

As well as starting in December I will be starting to take custom orders for Ring Pillows and listing a few I've made. Just in time for wedding planning.

If you have any questions, want to pre-order or order customs, please email me at moyerillustration@gmail.com

Also: Follow my blog with bloglovin

New Prints on Etsy

Hey you guys! I finally have updated that silly thing called Etsy! So go get some art for your walls!


I have framing available for all my 8x10" prints, and for my 12x16" screen print. If interested just email me (lauren@laurenmoyer.com)

Also be on the look out this coming month for new screen prints, and the return of my owl stuffed animals! Don't know what they are? Well you can see one here >> http://laurenmoyer.blogspot.com/2007/07/this-is-prudence.html and here >> http://laurenmoyer.blogspot.com/2007/12/noel-night.html

So be on the lookout!

-Lauren

How to make a tunic

I did a guest post on a friends style blog, Alyson is Neat, and showed how to make a Grecian Tunic. And I did a little illustration with it. I think it's art related enough so I thought I throw it up on this here art blog. Here it is and the final product:



Here are the instructions I wrote:

So here's what you need to create this tunic, it only took a couple hours and can be dressed up and is still comfy enough to sit around the house. For my fabric I used a remnant I had bought from a fabric store, it's a silk crepe so it would be really flowy. I only needed about a yard.


To start I first measured how big I wanted the tunic, I wanted it about to my elbows and at least 27" long (the zippers length), after I cut out two rectangles which with my measurements were 40 inches wide by 30 inches long. I cut one rectangle in half for the back and sewed on the zipper. Then I faced the two rectangles face to face and sewed the top leaving about 12 inches in the middle open for my head (important). Then sewed the sides leaving again about 12 inches open at the top for my arms (that's important too!). After that I turned the shirt right side out and figured out where I wanted my waist and cut slits on the front and back for a belt or sash... And voila! You have a homemade Grecian tunic. I hope my instructions were understandable :D

Some pieces from my Show

These are a couple watercolors I did for the show. I haven't used watercolor since freshman year but it was fun to experiment... I think next I'm going to try out pastels next, I love them freshman year.

Sorry these aren't very good pictures, they aren't scans just quick shots. I'll get better images.

Bluebird

Stork

Yeah so there you go...

Oh and Remember to become a FAN of me on Facebook and follow me on twitter to get updates and all that jazz!

A little from Work

Here's just some cute pictures from my work. This is Sherri and I, she was my awesome intern from State who is majoring in interior design. She helped me re-hang the front room and was so great to have around. I miss her so much.

That was the day she said my legs look antique... hahaha cause they were so white. Oh we had such great times running around the Design Center and trying to sit and try all the chairs. I called it "Goldielocksing"

Hummingbird Thoughts

Here is another new painting that is going to be in my show called "The Preserve" with Anna Cangialosi on Friday at Starkweather Arts Center.

It's entitled "Hummingbird Thoughts"






12x16"
Oil on Canvas

Screen Print Glimpse

Here's a sneak peek of my screen print that will be available this Friday at Starkweather Arts for my show The Preserve: The Work of Anna Cangialosi and Lauren Moyer

It's a 4 color print that is 12x16 on 250 gsm archival paper. You can buy it unframed or order a framed version. Will post the framed version soon, it's pretty sweet.

Colors are Blue, Yellow, Pink and Purpley grey. I wish the yellow was a little more transparent but for my first time doing this at home, I'm pretty happy with the results, they came out great!

Lookie there!

Well here's the best picture of the Caterpillar Dreams painting. I still want to add a little more linework to it but it's done for now. I've been lately overworking too many of my paintings. I need to get a better picture of it for the internet, I really hate how the colors get online, how do some artists always make their art look good on their blogs.

Art? Do we have art?

Well this weekend was quite productive. As you can see I've gotten rid of my wordpress blog and went back to the good ole' blogger. And it's incorporated into my website yay! Well here's some stuff I did this weekend.

I went to eat Crepes and Kevin and I were entertained by cute sea creatures. 

I like my narwhal with his bowtie :)

And I have a painting... Here's a sneak peek from my iPhone. It'll be photographed tomorrow!

I also have some screen prints getting ready. Yay! I will have new stuff for my show in September!

Camping this Weekend

Packing for a weekend with my favorite illustrators!!



I'm so excited!!

Boredom

I was going through my pictures and chose a best of photobooth... time frame about 1.5 years... My hair has changed, and the moral of the story is I need to keep my hair my natural blond and long.... damn it!




And update your blogrolls to http://www.laurenmoyer.com/blog/

Yo

So soon this blog will be re-directed to the blog on me website, http://www.laurenmoyer.com/blog/ So updates ye blogrolls!

So I pretty much finished my webby site, and of course something happened with the layout of my blog... of course, I'll probably fix that around this weekend, and hopefully get my sketchbook page up too.

So tells me what you think!

Website

I absolutely despise my flash website, and am currently building a awesome new one. But until it's up and ready I just used a program to quickly put up a temporary website that's all nice and clean.

So go have at it!

http://www.laurenmoyer.com/

2010

Well onward to a new year.

2009 could be a forgotten year, Yes, I did spend a wonderful summer with my cousin in Alaska and I am so grateful but I feel I have fallen off the artist bench and I need to pick myself up again. The year ended for me with a terrible job rejection but I look on to the new century and hope that positive thoughts will prevail.

I began 2010 in Washington DC with one of my oldest friends, Kate Leboeuf and my ever wonderful boyfriend Kevin. And jobwise I'm off to a great start I now am working as the Gallery Manager of TRA Art located in the Michigan Design Center, I'm hoping being surrounded by huge paintings of beautiful landscapes and people can fill me with daily inspiration.

I have sketches to be made into paintings and screenprints... redesigning of my blog and website ahead of me. Let's do this.

So onward into 2010, may it be the change that everyone needs, and only change for the better.

Till next time.

Solo Show 2009

I'm terrible at blogging. Hopefully 2010 will change that. I need to get all the rest of my images together from my solo show... months ago. Been kinda a vagabond as of the past few months and I don't have a permanent residence, so as you can imagine it's hard trying to get things together.

Crazy 4 Cult 2009

Months old as well. Don't have a scan of it, just this photo.

An Interesting Thing Happened to me Today

So I was at work today at the Native Hospital selling fruit, typical day, frustration, bees and sticky fingers. When the maintenance man came up to buy some fruit and veggies. He was a round gray haired fellow with a nice smile and attitude. A typical grandfather figure. His name was Ron Robbins (not sure on the spelling of the las name). When he bent down to put his spackle knife and tools of that sort down I noticed his red jacket with his name embroidered in it had a big Ohio State emblem on the back. I responded to the sight "Do you like Ohio State?" and was answered with a happy "Well of course, I'm an alum" Excited knowing the Pat is a big fan and my ohio pride "Oh well I'm from Ohio... Dayton to be exact" "Oh yeah I was born in Springfield, only 27 (don't remember exactly) miles from there." "Oh yeah I know Springfield" conversation continues on about Ohio a bit and then "I played for Ohio State and got onto a rookie league in '56, way before you were born. (I now forget the minor league team somewhere in Ohio) and then I was drafted to the Detroit Tigers along with Buck Rodgers..." I'm amazed at this point and tell him "I've been living in Detroit!" "Well I played in Briggs Stadium which was renamed Tigers Stadium, but now that's gone it's now Comerica Park, and then I played for the Reds I played in Crosley Field and then they built Riverfront but now that's gone too. But I was making more money in construction then in baseball, so I got my priorities straight and quit. I guess I was born too early, baseball players then didn't make any money compared to today, and now they are all on steroids."He shook his head with that. "It was fun."

He bought some great food and gave me an amazing story, it brightened my day so much. I came home and of course the first thing I did was look him up. I'm not sure on the dates he gave me, he said something about 1956 but I wasn't sure if he was a rookie at Ohio State or Minor League. But sadly I can't find anything on him, maybe it was just a big fish. I don't think it was or care if it was, I got to meet someone with extraordinary life story and a had a great conversation. It gives me hope in knowing that I'll have interesting stories when I am his age buying fruit at a street side stand. And hopefully I can make someone's day like he made mine.

And with that I thought it best to share my days story. It made me grin for the rest of the day.