where in the world is paper tiger?

Hello, friends. It's been a little quiet in this space as of late, I know! It's high time I provided an explanation.

Arts and crafts are a huge part of what I do, but I am an academic as well. Earlier this year, sometime in the spring, I was getting ready to finish up my master's degree in TESOL (that's Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), and feeling restless, I decided to apply for English teaching jobs abroad. Well, I was offered a few, and so I have relocated to Debrecen, Hungary for the 2011-2012 academic year to teach at the university. My new job takes up quite a bit of my time and energy, leaving less time for the various art projects I usually have going on.

But never fear! That does not mean that I'm not working on any projects. I still have some design things on the horizon, and I'll be doing quite a bit of knitting and crafting over the course of the year. I'm hoping to finally work on a few of the knitting patterns I've been meaning to write for months (or years). I will continue to post about arts and crafts and music happenings. And next summer, when the year is over, I'll be headed back home to Seattle.

If you have any interest in my Hungarian adventure, you can read about it and see lots (and lots) of photos right here:
greathungarianplain.wordpress.com

And in the meantime, here are a few recent happenings:


I performed at Doe Bay Fest on Orcas Island in Washington with my old friend John Vanderslice, and it was an immensely good time. I might have something to share with you in the next few weeks. Until then, this is a photo of me and John by the supremely talented Lori Paulson, taken at the festival.


On a trip down to San Francisco this summer, I made sure to swing by Vanderslice's studio Tiny Telephone to see the new B Room, Minitel. Having shot the A Room last summer, I had to shoot the B Room too! You can see all my Minitel photos here.


My first knitting project in Hungary: this is Knitted Bliss's Stockholm Scarf


I had some WA Home shirts printed for my art show in June, and there are still a few available through Luckyhorse Industries.

Check for more here soon. Promise!

new vinyl pieces

Remember those maps I mentioned a few weeks ago? They're finally available! Take a peek below and go HERE for more info or to purchase them.

upcoming: illustrating saint bartlett

I am midway through a painting project that I have been working on in conjunction with the release of Damien Jurado's Saint Bartlett - illustrations based on the song lyrics, one piece per song. I'm still working away, but I thought I'd share a peek at the paintings I've done so far.

damien jurado / saint bartlett

Damien Jurado's new album, Saint Bartlett, came out May 25th, and on May 29th he played an album release show here in Seattle at the Triple Door. I made this poster for it. The whole thing, from start to finish, was a made-by-hand process. I am going to attempt to document that process here, for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing - if you're not, you can just check out the images.

I have always made a great deal of my artwork on the computer, and this poster (along with one I made last fall as well as a large-scale painting project) is part of an attempt to unplug and get back to a more tangible process of making things. And it was a process!

This poster began as an idea: embroidery by hand only, with no aid from computers or machines in any way (with the sole exception of scanning the actual piece of fabric to reproduce it). I haven't done any embroidery since I was in elementary school, probably, so it required some preparation and planning. I skipped over to Stitches to purchase fabric, embroidery thread, and the incredibly crucial heat-transfer pencil (this was necessary for making a pattern). I sketched the whole thing up in regular pencil, first. Everything was drawn by hand, including the lettering. Then I flipped over my sketch and traced the lettering on the back of the paper with the heat transfer pencil. This gave me a heat-transferable sketch of the poster - backwards - enabling me to iron it directly onto the fabric so I knew where to place my stitches.

Labor-intensive as that sounds, the next step was definitely the longest part. Embroidering the band names was a long process, aided by the fact that the band names were none too short. I embroidered at home, at the Jurados', in the passenger seat of friends' cars, and on the way down to Portland for a shoot with Kyle Johnson (that post will come at a later date). I took to carrying my embroidery hoop around in my purse for whenever I had a free moment. To give you a point of reference, just one letter of Damien's name would take me anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour to complete, depending on the size and complexity. Luckily, I am incredibly satisfied by this kind of time-consuming handicraft; there's something about the near-tedium that I can really get into.

Once I finished the lettering, the trees were smooth sailing to the finish. We scanned it once, but I am a perfectionist and was not satisfied with the quality, so I ironed it out and re-scanned it. The original sits now atop my dresser, but prints are also available for $5 via Luckyhorse Industries, here. There will definitely be more unplugged tangible artwork in the near future...

(Last two photos by the incredibly talented Sarah Jurado)

preorder saint bartlett

I have a few upcoming art projects related to the release of Damien Jurado's new album, Saint Bartlett, so I am thrilled to pass on the news that it is now available for pre-order via the Secretly Canadian website.

All pre-orders will receive an instant mp3 download of the whole record, which is pretty rad. As for those art projects, there will be more news soon...

saintbartlett.com
secretlycanadian.com

projects

Lately...



Left: Hexacomb by Katie Himmelberg
Right: Waffle Stitch Fingerless Gloves by Jill Toporkiewicz


and upcoming...



I cannot seem to keep my hands off my knitting needles lately, so I am knitting knitting knitting and will hopefully have some more things to share & sell in the coming weeks. Luckily, I have generous friends who know yarn makes a great Christmas gift so I have plenty of yarn waiting to turn into finished objects. I am getting back into pattern-writing and I have lots of ideas bouncing around in my head...

new knitting pattern

Paper Tiger is branching out - into the world of knitting patterns! My new pattern for a cute cowl with cables and eyelets is now available. It's free!

Download the PDF - Cables & Eyelets Cowl

photo update

I've uploaded new photos to four of the galleries: travel, music, people, and products.


      

new illo, photos revamped

Hello! Two orders of business today:

1: The photo section of this site was in dire need of updates, and I have just finished a complete and total overhaul. If you click on that little link to the left that says "photo" you will find quite a few new photos and a new category system for easy browsing. Some of the categories are a little large (*cough travel cough*) but I tried to streamline as much as possible to avoid unnecessary viewer bombardment by photos.

2: I've uploaded a new illustration, as well, now viewable in the illo gallery.

new composite

I added a new piece to the composite gallery, called "Holdtölte".