in the glowing dark blue and green, fireflies are starlings

My "There's Alchemy to Her Evergreens" print is featured in Etsy Finds: Retro Cabin Renovation. I'm psyched, because I love woodsy cabins on the lake, plaid, camp fires, marshmallows, pine trees, night skies, fireflies, and all else that comes with it. Maybe those things bring back happy memories of girl scouts (I also love scout uniforms - patches!).

I was really excited tonight when I discovered this! One of my wonderful students from the summer class I taught emailed me to let me know. The article I'm featured in happens to be in my favorite section of The Storque (Etsy's blog), "Get the Look: Home Decor Edition." I always love looking at the beautiful example homes and apartments, and all the prints and vintage objects that Christine finds to give your home the same feel. 

Though I did "Alchemy" about a year ago, the original is currently for sale in The Foxtrot Code.

Also, Stephanie, the owner of Jack's Jill (the lovely etsy shop where I bought the 1940s dress I wore to my show), told me that the dress came from an estate sale on a big farm in Pennsylvania. It's so neat to know where it came from, and to imagine that it belonged to a farmer's wife or daughter. Stephanie said that the woman who used to wear it probably never would have imagined that one day an artist would be wearing it to her opening, and I love that! I always think about that in regards to my books. Since I underline and write in them, I wonder who will have them in one hundred years and what they'll think of me. Anyway, I always love dreaming up the women who used to wear my vintage dresses, and the things they might have done while wearing them. It's interesting to know a little more about this one.

Happy Monday to you all!

Love, 

me

opening night

Hello, everyone! I hope you're enjoying your weekend.

So the opening was last night, and it was wonderful! I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who came. It means so much! 

Dirty Duality by Scott Murry/Gramps & Scamps by Ellen Crenshaw/The Foxtrot Code by Amanda Atkins

With Maggie and Rachel.

My Dad and I admiring Ellen's work.

My favorite attendee of the show, Althea.

With Ellen and Scott, the best show-mates ever!

Me and Ellen.

With Jackie and Kate.

Some of my pieces!

Shauna, Jackie, and I.

Me and my sister Courtney. :)

one of my three walls!

Afterwards, Jackie, Kate, Shauna, and I went to the South Street Diner, which has become my favorite after-show eating place because we've gone there 3 times now after various shows. :)

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Thank you to everyone who came to show support, buy art, or say hi. I had so much fun, saw so many old and good friends, and met so many nice people (and one beautiful dog named Althea). I want to thank my family for all their support and for always attending my shows. And thanks to Ellen and Scott; it is so much fun to work with you. :)

Now that the opening has happened, I'll start posting the new pieces I painted for the show. The show is up at Space 242 until September 18th (gallery hours 6:30 pm to 8 pm on Fridays or by appointment), and Ellen, Scott, and I are giving an artist talk from 7-8 pm on September 15th. I'd love to see you there!

Now I must finish up pieces for the Teeny Tiny Art Show! I'm also moving this week, but I have a few books I want to write about, pictures from Crane Beach, and other things to share soon. I hope you all have an excellent Sunday!

Love,

Amanda

tomorrow, tomorrow!

The show opening is tomorrow night!!

Friday, August 28th, 6-8 p.m.

The Foxtrot Code: a show of fictional fiction

(with Gramps & Scamps by Ellen Crenshaw and Dirty Duality by Scott Murry)

Space 242

242 East Berkeley Street

Boston, MA 01749

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I hope to see you there! Be sure to RSVP at space242.com!

Here's some press on the event that includes bios on Scott, Ellen, and I. Also, Ellen's work is featured on this week's cover of The Dig, so be sure to pick up a copy!!

Love,

me :)

A tattooed Giveaway

Hello everybody!

So, I have never done a giveaway before, and I decided it's about time. So, I'll be giving away a 8x10" print of my tattooed lady painting (real title: "and with unspoken ease, I was your pet")! To enter, simply comment on this post. If you mention the giveaway on your own blog, your name will be entered twice! Simply let me know you're doing so in your comment. The contest is open to anyone in any country (I'll ship anywhere :). I'll announce the winner on September 1st!

I hope you're all having a wonderful week. I have books (of the sketch and literary variety) to write about in a day or two.

Love,

Amanda

doe: a deer, a female deer.

I love this! Happy Monday. :) love, me

In half a fortnight

The show is one week away!!

(work by Scott Murry, Ellen Crenshaw, and myself)

Also, today my "Be Among the Things You Love" print is featured on We Covet. I feel honored! Have a fantastic weekend, everyone!

pearl collars and paintings

Hello everyone! I hope your week is going well.

I've been painting like crazy...the show is only a week and one night away...I'm very excited! 

Above is a vintage pearl collar I recently ordered from jewelry cache on etsy and received today. I love it! In the 40s and 50s, women used to wear them over their sweaters and cardigans. I think it will also look beautiful with dresses as a necklace. I've wanted one for such a long time, and this one was a very reasonable price of $10. I love the look of white collared shirts peaking out from underneath sweaters, so I really adore the classic collar style covered in vintage faux pearls. I can't wait for sweater weather in the fall so I can put it to proper use on a regular basis. :)

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Spontaneous Movie Review:

A while back, I know I did a post about several of the movies that were coming out which I wanted to see. I have now seen both Julia & Julia and The Time Traveler's Wife. 

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I loved Julie & Julia so much. I highly recommend it. It was just one of those movies that give me a warm feeling, and there were lots of neat clothes when it focused on Julia's life in Paris in the 50s (her life in general was really interesting to learn about, and I found out that when she and her husband moved to Cambridge they lived on my favorite street, Irving St., where e. e. cummings lived!!). 

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The Time Traveler's Wife, however, was kind of disappointing. I mean, I'm sure that my expectations were too high because the movie is based on one of my favorite books ever, but I just felt like the movie did the book absolutely no justice. The movie was cheesy, the acting was kind of stage-y and fake, and you get none of the back-story of the characters (which, in the book, there is a great deal of). I still cried at the end, and I did feel it got better as it went along, but it was nothing like the book, and I hope that anyone who sees the movie and didn't read the book understands that the book is gorgeous and incredible and the movie was no reflection of that.

So that is all for now. I'm off to go paint again! I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday!

Love, 

Amanda

Dr. Sketchy's

Here are a few of the drawings I did at Dr. Sketchy's back in June:

For those of you who don't know, Dr. Sketchy's happens at various Boston bars throughout the month. They bring in different types of models (usually burlesque) for artist drawing sessions. It was really fun and our model was great! They do little contests throughout the session, and ours was to make a propaganda poster from a 10 or 15 minute sketch while the model was wearing an old army uniform. I went with Kate and Shauna, and a lot of other old friends from AIB met us there. I hope to go more in the fall.

I hope you all had a nice weekend and are having a nice start to your week!

Oh, p.s. - I took this video of the baby skunks last night - they were pressed together with their tails in each others faces while they were eating peanuts, and just kept moving around like that, getting annoyed with each other for being so close but never moving!

bluejay reminders

(a picture of a bluejay on our deck)

This afternoon when I was feeding the bluejays some peanuts, I realized how much I'm going to miss them when I move. This is the first year we've really openly fed bluejays, and they come sit on the deck and stare in the window until we bring out some peanuts, and the babies make little screeching noises until their moms feed them. They're so sweet.

It's so interesting - when a good number of a certain type of bird or animal start to come around every day, you realize their personalities are as individually unique as those of dogs and cats.

So I decided that in my room in the city I want a reminder of the bluejays. I went on etsy and searched the vintage categories for "bluejay", and found lots of neat things. The neatest, however, was this old painting:

It's from the Divine Debris Vintage shop (all photos belong to this seller), and the seller got this painting at an estate sale in Nova Scotia. It looks like whoever the artist was never finished painting the bottom bluejay.

I love the giant birch tree they're sitting in and the grey sky.

Whoever painted this loved bluejays as much as I do, and I'm excited to hang it in my new room. The walls of my room are light grey, and from what pictures and things I've gathered up for the room it seems I'm going to be surrounded by light blues and birch bark. So I'm happy. :)

I hope you're all having a lovely weekend! I have to go paint, paint, paint. My show is so soon! I hope you'll RSVP if you haven't already. Just follow the link!

Love,

me

Random acts of kindness.

Hello, everybody!

So Jerry Fish, the awesome man whose albums my artwork has been appearing on, is doing something very nice: Starting tomorrow, August 14, you can go to his site and get his band's single "'Dig' a Dog & Bone Story" for free! In return, he'd like you to perform a random act of kindness, something nice that perhaps you wouldn't normally do on a regular day.

I hope that you'll all go download Jerry's song (for free!) and do something nice for the world. :)

Love,

me

oceanside town

Every summer, we go to Rockport, MA for a day trip. It's a beautiful town that sits next to the sea and it's home to a lot of artists.

cupcake apron!

I love this store - it's all products from Norway! When I was 6, I declared Norway my favorite country after visiting it at Epcott in Disney. Since then, I've added a few other countries to the list, but I still hope to visit Norway someday.

There are some scary fake heads peering out of that top window.

I used to want to move to Rockport. My mom always talks about how neat it would be to live on the top floor of a house and make the bottom floor a shop to sell your art. I think this house is my favorite on the Bearskin Neck stretch. I still think it would be amazing to live there! Maybe someday.

We ate lunch on the roof of a restaurant.

Me, mom, and Courtney.

I have wanted to kayak here for years! I vow that this fall I will take the train to Rockport (you can take the commuter rail from Boston!) and kayak. (Now that I'm moving to Boston, I'm trying to make a list of things I really want to do that I never did when I was there for school.)

Courtney's fancy burger.

My grilled cheese. :)

So many colorful kayaks. It's only $35 to rent one for the day!

I wish I could go!

It's hard to see, but there are lots of little brown birds lining this shed!

So beautiful.

I love the bright blue trim!

This dog belonged to the shop owner. He was asleep under a shelf with his tongue hanging out!

So that was our day today! The weather was oddly perfect. It's been really hot here lately, but today the sky was grey and the air was really cool, and yet it never rained. 

I think tomorrow I'll finally post some of the drawings I did at Dr. Sketchy's back in June! I hope you're all having a great middle of the week!!

love,

me