Cactus and the library

It's 8x10 on canvas, price $35.00.

Available at Melsky Art Store

Now I'm off to the library. One of the things I love about Toronto is it has a great public library system. You can search for books online and order them and they will ship them to the library of your choice.

Raining, complaining

It started out hot today, then clouded over, cooled off and the wind picked up. Lovely coolness! Then the rain started, then the thunder and lightning. Now the storm seems pretty much over and it's starting to get hot and sticky again. So why does my cat have to want to cuddle now? Oliver is acting like it's a cold day or something.

Whenever I pet either one of them they give off a snowstorm of hair despite the fact that I brush them every day. I'm not a big summer or warm weather person.

I updated my Wonder Valley site again - yesterday's update just didn't cut it. I added more photos and changed the background color, and put in some more links. I did some really beautiful paintings when I was in the desert, when I went to add more of them to the site I was surprised how nice they were. I may have them printed up into cards.


I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow at 9:30. Right now it looks like an acrylic dust mop that someone set on fire and quickly put out. Photo not available!

I sold a painting!

I sold a painting in my Etsy store - this one of sunflowers. It is a painting I started in 2004 in Los Angeles. I started painting an abstract background, and then I was going to paint on top of that, sort of the style of painting where I doodle and paint flowers and stuff for an abstract floral. But the colors got all muddy, and I stopped working on the painting for a while. I brought it up here with me and decided to let the blue green background serve as a kind of a frame. So I painted a white rectangle in the center and used that part as my canvas to paint a new painting of sunflowers in a clear glass vase.



I'm so happy to have sold a painting. It's going all the way to England.

In other news, I have updated my Wonder Valley Desert Site. I used to live in a very isolated part of the Mojave Desert before I moved to Toronto. I did the site while I was still living there, and hadn't updated it.

It's hard to imagine living in the desert now. When I lived in the desert it was hard to imagine moving here!

This was the view from my old house:

Rose Mirror

Rose Mirror, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I just put a lot of stuff into my store. I'm trying to put something every day. This is a mirror I painted when I did that art show at the Lula Lounge. I have a lot of stuff to put up. The listing process on Etsy is cumbersome.

It's hard to take photos of mirrors. The unaltered version of this photo has me behind the camera in shown in the mirror, and it's not a flattering photo! So I just cut and pasted a better photo. This is me at the Rhino bar and grill.

Melsky Art Store

Not a lot going on today. My feet are better. My sinus/respiratory infection is a little better. I feel ok in the middle of the day but at night and in the morning I feel horrible.

We need a new phone

The Princess Phone, originally uploaded by Miss Retro Modern.

This is the phone I want but we probably won't be getting it. They don't make them anymore.

My cat has a blog now! Well, that's what he calls his catbox. "Got to go post to my blog" he says, scratch scratch. He's got a great sense of humor.

I've been busy

I'm back on track with creating art and selling it again. I have cleaned up my studio and organized it, and done some cleaning, organizing and purging online as well.


That's some of the new paintings I'm working on.

I've also listed some new stuff in my Etsy store

I fixed the store up better too, I put up a banner, started accepting checks and money orders, got all my shipping policies set up right and added categories (currently paintings, magnets and mirrors.) I've kind of ignored the Etsy store for a while, and they have made some good changes in the way you can set up your store. Much easier.

In case you don't know what Etsy is, it's a site where artists and craftspeople can set up their own stores to sell their products. A lot of artists have migrated there from eBay. It's much less expensive than eBay stores! It doesn't get the same amount of traffic either, but selling on eBay was such a pain with their bad customer service, smarmy attitude and ever-increasing fees that I'm happy to be away from it.

So far I have made two sales through Etsy, one actually on the site, to someone I believe I met through Democratic Underground but who has bought quite a few of my paintings. The other was a painting called Night City Leap where the listing had expired but the husband of someone I knew slightly online contacted me and bought it for her. It's this painting:

Which I miss having in my house! But I'm painting more.

Another project I am working on is the Melsky Art Cafe Press Store. I sold a few things from there recently, to the same guy who bought the mirror off Etsy. I need to get some of my newer designs up there. I also want to order some things from it, maybe some stuff to sell at craft fairs this summer.

There will be craft fairs this summer, too. I am going to be helping to organize two craft fairs in Kensington Market which will take place on June 24 and August 26. Those are both pedestrian Sundays, when they close off the streets of Kensington Market to cars. The fairs are a benefit for Ladyfest Toronto.

Here's another painting I'm working on:


I'm also hoping to get a show in a cafe soon!