Little Lina’s Lovelies Home

To continue the collaboration, this month’s theme is Absinthe. A popular alcoholic drink in the late 1900′s with Bohemian types in Paris, Absinthe was referred to in historical literature as “la fée verte”, translation, the Green Fairy.

So I’ve chosen to illustrate La Fée Verte.

Here’s my illustration and color composition. I’ve also chosen to put it on a circular panel of oak.

It’s all prepped here, 3 coats of clear gesso on the wood panel, and the illustration is now penciled. Next I will decide if I will put down the same acrylic matte or not, tough decision!

The last painting is still drying, awaiting it’s coat of Artist’s Retouchable varnish. It came out beautifully though, I’m so thrilled, you can see more of my picts and some picts from my trip to Hotlanta on my flickr page.

Here she is, in all her glory, the painting for April’s…March’s theme, “Window”. This is not 100% finished because I am mounting it to a REAL vintage window. Which is all cleaned and ready, but there are a lot of steps to oil painting and one is to wait for it to dry and varnish it. I will wait till next weekend and apply Artist’s Retouchable Varnish to protect it for the next 6 months. Then I’ll be applying the final varnish. So…I should have the full reveal for you, let’s see…around May 1st, after the Artist’s Retouchable Varnish dries and I’ve had it scanned. Then I will temporarily mount it into it’s display window complete with the cool sign I made for the top, and then you’ll finally see this piece in it’s full glory, trust me, you’ll want to check back!!!

Happy Spring to those of you in my hemisphere hehe. I am just so happy to see buds on my two huge weeping willow trees and some fresh green grass. Bout time, everyone has been so cooped up a fresh dose of spring should do wonders.

Since I can’t bring flowers into my house because my kittens would eat them, I am in the process of making myself a lovely bouquet of flowers, calla lilies (shown above) to be exact. Hmmm maybe I will make a smaller something or other to blend into the bouquet as well. I just thought of that hehe, maybe some cute wildflowers. Anyway, as my imagination runs off that way, let me focus and say again, Happy Spring to you all, I hope it brings you many smiles.

Day’s go by so fast, don’t they? Then once in a while, out of no where, BAM! something bad happens.

This time it was our little love love, she stopped eating, stopped drinking, then slowly stopped cuddling and purring. Then she got grumpy, as all babies do when they don’t feel good. And as all mommies do, I started to get really, really worried.

Took her to the Emergency Vet when she started vomiting blood, a long hour ride full of fret, but yet, love love seemed to be energized by the car ride. By the time we got to the vet she was acting like her usual self. So we brought her home and to the vet the next day, where she again acted normally. The vet took care of her and her little upset tummy with extra gas (this is when I realized she had stopped fartin’ too) and sent her home with us where we got to try to medicate her ourselves. THAT was fun…

Anyway, for all of you who worried for me and for her, here she is, back to her normal cute and cuddly self. I missed the hugs, thank goodness they are back. Thank you for your support!

Hello all, I am sorry for leaving for so long! But I’m back and well, while I brought some amazing tequila back from Mexico for myself, I only have these picts to share with you, hope you like them!

Basically I traveled around the Western Caribbean, while everyone was under some kind of Winter Weather Advisory, I was for the most part, enjoying the heat I have missed so much since leaving South Florida.

First I’d like to introduce you to the best cup of coffee I have ever had in my life. This was the first cup I had on the ship, on the first morning we were at sea, and it was brought to me by someone who got up earlier and made it instead of ME getting up and making it like I have for the last oh, 10 years?
Now if I could only figure out how to get an iv drip of coffee first thing in the morning…

As I slowly defrosted my bones after that amazing cup of coffee, I bravely leaned out over my balcony, after looking for sharks, and took this shot. I am in love with lighting and have a growing fascination with linear visuals as well, so to me this came out really cool. You can kind of get a feel for how a cruise is really just you out on a big ship with nothing but a deep dark ocean.

Hi, Little Lina is doing a cameo on the island from LOST! I found the LOST island! I can save them all!!
jk, this is Labadee, Haiti, miles from Port-au-Prince. It’s what I saw out my window on the second day.

Haiti? I Lovie!
lame…but really, look at that water! Fabulous!! What winter weather advisories?? Muahahahaha!!!

HE puts the lime IN THE COCONUT!!
It was really crazy when I first noticed this guy right behind me with a BIG machete…I sloooooowly realized what he was doing. I think, if you find a fallen coconut in Labadee, Haiti, you bring it to this man and he chops it up for you with a machete and creates some sort of tropical drink – WHEW!

*Skips photo of bikini clad Little Lina trying to get out of a kayak*

Oh hey look over there, it’s a beautiful sunset!

Lastly of my favorite photos are these two. In Mexico, I was in bed next to the window, shades closed, sun peeking through. Closed my eyes for a bit, sun went away so I opened the shades again to see how big the clouds were and, BAM, There Were People Looking Back At ME!!! /shut blinds in a frenzy

Apparently another ship had docked right next to us, lovely hehe. Least there were no clouds yet. So while I got off the ship to track down some nice Tequila and a Corona with lime I kept snapping shots of the amazing ships together and the lighting, ah the gorgeous glowie lighting.

That was the last port, it was a great vacation, thank you Royal Caribbean for knowing how to take such good care of all of us.

Packing up my bags for a little vacation time, I’ll be away until Feb. 18th-ish. So I’m closing up this boutique for the time being, then I will be back refreshed, with tons of picts to share as well! Thanks for stopping by and check back in with me after the 18th!

Warmest wishes

Little Lina

Little present to you, this video is “Winter Song” by Ingird Michaelson
and Sarah Bareilles!

Happy New Year!!
♥ Little Lina

This year Little Lina’s Lovelies and Raven Girl’s Nest packed up their bags and traveled to ICE, the Indie Craft Experience, in Atlanta. It was held by Ambient + Photo Studio in their loft like studio space.

They were even cool enough to offer free portraits in their natural light alcove. I’m so jealous they have a natural light alcove, brilliant!

I spent so much time shopping that I really didn’t photograph products as much as I would have liked. This not so well thought out shot still came out with cool colors. If you made these birds, let me know!

Random shot of vendors and shoppers, this one caught Christy Wooke, the illustrator in her booth. I think I will see her again, her site says her next stop is The Big Crafty in Asheville, NC on Dec. 6th.

After the show, and after many mouthfuls of sushi, we went to The Alcove, a contemporary arts gallery in Atlanta. I have wanted to visit this place since I think I saw them selling Audrey Kawasaki prints a year ago. Could be wrong, I have a bad memory.

Anyway, this place was full of eye candy, amazing artwork that is super fun to look at, interact with and just all around enjoy. The gallery owner, H.C. WARNER, is a very cool guy, laid back and easy to talk to, even for someone as shy as myself. He makes you feel very welcome into his space and he’s very passionate about his work.

So all in all, ICE 2009 was awesome, you should definitely go to see the fine quality work/artists there. I definitely hope to be a part of it next year.

I’m so sorry for my almost month long hiatus my friends! I was caught up in the rush of preparations for my best friend’s wedding, which is now a lovely memory.

Before the couple arrived, pre-wedding, I started renovating my kitchen. These things always take longer than expected, don’t they? I’d love to say it all got done before they came into town, but alas, I’d be lying to you, and I don’t want to do that! So in the middle of visiting, cleaning, gathering last minute items, and working I let my little blog slide, I am sorry.

A few days before the actual wedding we headed over to Maggie Valley where the bride and groom had rented an unbelievable cabin at the top of a mountain where incoming family would stay. There we had people coming and going and gazing in awe at the amazing view.

You know you are high up when you’re at eye level with other mountaintops! And just look at the fall colors, truly beautiful.

The rest of my pictures here are from the reception. I was maid of honor, so I couldn’t take photos nor did I have time to chase down my love to get him my camera to take pictures. He was incredible, helping everyone get seated when they had to be, getting the leaf-blower guy to actually stop blowing leaves, and getting everyone packed into vehicles to head up the mountain from the gazebo to the cabin for the candle ceremony and reception.

So here are some of my favorite pictures I did manage to snap. Enjoy!

The Bride and her mom, so cute!!!

The Groom about to chow down on some delicious bbq and amazing hush puppies from Butts on the Creek.

Amazing cupcake toppers, hand painted by yours truly. And the amazing cupcakes by Natalie from Annie’s in Sylva. I swear as you can see this girl rocked the cupcakes, you could just tell she enjoyed making them by how lovely they turned out.

I’ll be posting actual wedding picts very soon, so check back!!!

This sketch reference is from deviant-caroline

Amongst logo’s, illustrations, house-sitting, rummaging, eating and sleeping I managed another sketch, I think this one came out great.

Comment time!
This was a strange one, the first quick outline of this was horrid, the second not much better. “What is going on?” I thought to myself. I took many deeper looks at this portrait and how her features lined up just trying to understand where I was going wrong. On all faces, the corner of the mouth lines up with the iris, and the edge of the nose lines up with the interior corner of the eye. For some reason I could not line up her features. Everything was off. Sounds kind of frustrating huh? It was. I did the only thing I could do, I pushed through and kept trying, and I’m honestly so happy with the result. I would paint this but I don’t think I could because it’s her stock and she probably wouldn’t appreciate me making money off of her photo. O well, life goes on. The only other thing I may not have done was to shade in that crease on her chin, it visually disturbs me because it meets with her shoulder. But here it is, take a look at it if you like. I absolutely love the eyes in this one, they came out looking like there are true reflections if you look deeply enough.