Golden Moth Giveaway + Shop Sale Through December 14th!

Finally, finally... After much poking and prodding of digital files and discussions with my printer, James River Press, the second printing of The Golden Moth Illumination Deck has arrived! This time, I had the cards printed digitally on a smooth cardstock and they were corner-rounded by the printer (taking the strain off my shoulders!) For those of you who haven't been following its progress, The Golden Moth Illumination Deck is a set of symbolic cards that I self-published in 2012 with the help of lovely people who backed my Kickstarter campaign. You can read about the whole sage here. They are oracle cards (kind of like tarot cards), meant to be used for divination or any creative purpose you can think of! Take a look:

I just finished listing them in my Etsy shop, Sprout Head, and this time around there are a few different purchasing options. You can now buy the deck separately from the handbook. If you buy just the deck, it comes with a brief fold-out information guide to get you started on using the cards. This guide gives advice on how to give a reading and interpret the cards and shows you one spread layout. It does not include individual symbol interpretations.

If you want that, you'll have to purchase the handbook. It contains all the information from the first handbook that I published, but it is updated with individual card interpretations. It comes as a hard copy and a PDF version. If you purchase the hard copy of the handbook alone or with the deck, you will also receive the PDF version as a FREE bonus! But note that this offer cannot be used retroactively if you purchase the PDF version first and the hard copy later. Sorry, no refunds.

You can see the listings for all the different Golden Moth products here. I hope you are as excited about it as I am. In celebration, I'm offering two cool things: a giveaway and a shop sale! Read on:

GOLDEN MOTH GIVEAWAY

I'm giving away Golden Moth Illumination Decks + Handbooks to TWO lucky winners! Giveaway ends on the evening (Eastern Standard Time) of Sunday, December 14th.

How to enter:
1. Leave a comment on the blog about why this deck should be yours (or gifted to a friend, if you so desire).
2. Check this blog on the evening (EST) of Monday, December 15th to find out if you've won. If you aren't subscribed to my blog or might forget to check back, please leave your e-mail address in your comment, but put some spaces between the words so the spam-bots don't steal it. I need a way to reach you if you win - VERY IMPORTANT!
3. If you know of someone who would be interested in this giveaway, please SHARE! I will be sharing this giveaway on my Golden Moth Blog, Sprout Head Facebook Page, Golden Moth Facebook Page, and Instagram. Pick your favorite social media link!

SPROUT HEAD SHOP SALE

If you don't want to take your chances with the giveaway, how about taking 15% off your total purchase in my online shop, Sprout Head? Through Sunday, December 14th, use coupon code HOLIDAY2014  HAPPY2014 upon checkout to receive your discount. (The HOLIDAY code had a minimum order requirement, the HAPPY one does not!) You must enter the coupon upon checkout or you won't get your discount - it does not happen automatically.

Enjoy!

Past Illustration Highlights and Newly-Released Prints

If I don't blog about something right away, sometimes I forget to share it. So, I'd like to peel back history and show you a selection of illustration commissions I worked on since last summer. 

One of the illustrations from a wedding invite I illustrated for my friend last year. She was born in the year of the Dog, and he in the year of the Horse :)

Another commission from a friend - a watercolor picture for his son who was born in the year of the Snake.

CD art I created in pen and ink for Caitlin Currie's "All A Dream" EP. It's a really cute album featuring Currie's melodic folk-pop vocals and guitar and ukele playing. Check her out at "Fallen Love Records," a label "dedicated to friendship and pop songs" based in Ontario, Canada. I just visited the site and her EP is temporarily sold out, but maybe they'd print more if you ask nicely.

A linocut cover and disc art for the band "Hallelujah Hill Quartet," a gospel group from West Virginia. This was commissioned by a couple whose grandparents, led by Ella Hanshaw, had formed the musical group in earlier years. Ella loaned them her old tapes, which they digitized and inventoried, going through hundreds of hours of listening. The result is this special album, showcasing the band's heartfelt spirituals and performances in churches all across West Virginia's hollers. At the moment, it has only been circulating among friends and family, in the hopes that one day it will be picked up and distributed by a record label.

In April I created this map using watercolor and pen and ink for The Visual Arts Center of Richmond. They used it for their spring Open House celebration to highlight the day's events and activities. If you notice, there is a cow flying near a white tower. This is in reference to the building's historical use as a dairy.

A poster I created for a craft show coming up this weekend in Richmond, VA. I used digital coloring for the first time, which was fun.

Here are pieces from my art show "Return" which I exhibited last year at Studio Two Three. You can view all the pieces and their accompanying poems here. Archival reproduction prints of the art are now available through BuyOlympia and I've just listed them in my Etsy shop, Sprout Head. 

BuyOlympia is an online and retail shop/gallery originally based in Olympia, Washington, but relocated to Portland, Oregon. They started out to help sell the creations of their artist friends online, and have expanded to include artists around the world. BuyOlympia has always been super-supportive and helpful to me ever since I met Pat, one of the owners, when I lived in Portland in 2008/09. I encourage you to check them out and find other cool goodies from their roster of artists. I try to keep my shop stocked with all 20 reproductions of my art that BuyOlympia prints for me, but my inventory may fluctuate. So if you can't find the print you want, please order it from BuyOlympia.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing these past projects! Most of what I've created after June of last year has been commissions for other people, so it's a nice change to be making new art for myself these days.

Re-Released Books - "Genius (Love)" and "non sense"

I was inspired by a couple of readers who responded to my "Bloom" giveaway post (and speaking of which, I'll announce the winners in my next blog post). They mentioned how much they liked my zines. Encouraged by this and as part of my ongoing effort to simplify my life, I've re-released new versions of a zine and a chapbook that were out of circulation for a long time. 

The zine "Genius (Love)" has been out of circulation for 4 years because I never found the time to screenprint the covers! I decided to re-do the cover so I can just photocopy it instead. 

While it's not quite as fancy as before, it's better to have a zine in the world than not at all, in my opinion. 

I also re-did the cover and hand-binding for my poetry chapbook "non sense." The original version took an incredibly long time to make each one, and after awhile I just never felt like doing it. So I linocut-printed the cover instead of making an individual cyanotype for each one, and I simplified the binding. 

The binding is a modified version of the "Two-Sewn-As-One" binding that I found in "Creating Handmade Books" by Alisa Golden, a book that I highly recommend to beginners looking to get into bookmaking.

Both books are available for purchase in my Etsy shop: www.sprouthead.etsy.com

Golden Moth 2nd Anniversary...and a Special Discount!

In early February of 2012, I launched my Kickstarter campaign to produce The Golden Moth Illumination Deck in a limited run of 300 decks. In mid-June of that year (2 months later than I had planned) I sent off the first decks to generous Kickstarter backers who supported me. It has now been over two years since it all began. Little did I know that the Golden Moth would sweep me up a whirlwind of fluttery wings and deposit me back on earth as a changed, and hopefully wiser, person.

I mailed deck #254 out of 300 last week, which means I only have around 40 or so decks left for purchase from the original edition and I'm keeping a few for myself. Last week I went through all of the remaining cards and finished sorting out the printing variations/errors so that the remaining cards would be ready for corner-rounding. 

Here are the last remaining cards on my shelf:

Some of you might remember when they took up a kitchen counter and two tables:

Back in 2012 I had arranged for my printers, Parcell Press, to print and trim the cards for me but I had decided to sort, collate, and corner-round the cards and assemble the boxes by hand in order to cut down on my costs. My boyfriend, parents, and a handful of friends helped me out as well. Before I received the cards, I had envisioned assembling all 300 of the decks within a relatively short span of time, maybe a couple months. After a couple of months of almost losing my mind from the pressure of delivering 127 Kickstarter rewards, I decided from then on the decks would be assembled in periodic small batches. I would spend literally hundreds of hours doing the aforementioned tasks for the next two years.

What led me to this situation was severely underestimating the time it would take me to do these tasks by hand. Why, oh why, did I not time myself in making a prototype from start to finish? Take corner-rounding. Each card has 4 corners to corner-round. Each deck consists of 75 cards. That's 300 corners per deck. That's 90,000 corners for 300 decks. Let me repeat that: NINETY-THOUSAND. Hmm, when you break it down like that, that's a lot of corners and a lot of potential shoulder pain.

Here are some other fun Golden Moth statistics: 

* For my Kickstarter campaign, I was backed by 127 people. Most were from the US, and 31 of those people lived in my current hometown of Richmond, VA. I also had 10 international backers from Canada, Australia, England, Singapore, Italy, New Zealand, and Norway.

* I raised $4,800, $800 more than my funding goal!

* 102 decks were purchased through the campaign.

* For the other Kickstarter rewards, I sent out 194 postcards, 67 notecards, 39 bookplates, 26 screenprints, 111 pieces of small original art, and gave 7 Intuitive Card Readings (like tarot readings but using the Golden Moth cards).

* I've given at least 30 Intuitive Card Readings to people using my pre-Golden Moth deck prototype, which was much smaller with loosely-drawn black-and-white images. I've given an estimated 50 or more readings to people in-person and online using the published Golden Moth deck.

The other day when I went through my Kickstarter campaign report to tally up these numbers, I read through the list of backers again. I re-experienced the amazed, encouraging feeling of having friends, relatives, and strangers donate money because they believed in me and my project. At one point during the midst of Golden Moth assembling madness, I told the people closest to me that if I knew it would be this hard, I might never have done the project at all. I don't handle stress well to begin with, but producing The Golden Moth Illumination Deck has been, to date, the biggest and most overwhelming project of my life. Now I look back and affirm that the statement was true, that I probably wouldn't have done it if I'd known.

And so I'm really glad I didn't know, because the deck has also been one of the most far-reaching and positive projects of my life. I made some new friends and became closer with friends I already had through the project. I've had many people tell me how much they've enjoyed and appreciated the deck, and how it has brought some clarity to their lives. I am very thankful for that. This has also been the most "collaborative" project I've ever done. The cards take on different meanings with each new owner, and their use and purpose goes beyond just me. I love that about the deck.

So I'm forging ahead with the next step. I would like The Golden Moth Illumination Deck to reach an even greater audience. I plan to make a larger commercial run of decks so that I can lower the per-unit cost of producing the decks and get more decks into stores and other venues. I don't want to do any more handwork on the decks in order to free up my time for promotion and creative energy (as opposed to corner-rounding). I also plan to revise and expand the handbook.

To celebrate the 2nd Anniversary of the Golden Moth and to pave the way for this new expansion, I'm now offering the limited edition deck in my shop, Sprout Head, for a $5 discount - from $50 to $45. Added to this, I'm offering a super-special (and super-short) sale in my shop that ends on Wednesday, June 15th. Use the coupon code FLYAWAY upon checkout and receive an ADDITIONAL 10% off your entire shop purchase! If you apply this to the deck, it will cost only $40.50 - that's $9.50 off the original price! Remember, you must apply the coupon code upon checkout or you won't get the additional discount. If you've been waiting to get your hands on this limited edition handmade version of the deck, don't delay or else they'll soon be gone!

I'm also offering a sweeter discount for those of you who already own a deck. If you complete this short survey, you are eligible to receive a coupon code for 20% off your entire store purchase. This coupon will expire on August 31st. To take the survey, click here. Please respond by the end of June if you want your feedback to be incorporated into the creation of the new deck and handbook. If you do not want to take the survey but would still like to provide feedback, feel free to post comments on this blog or leave a comment/message on my Golden Moth Facebook page: www.facebook.com/goldenmothdeck

Happy 2nd Birthday, Golden Moth!

Introducing Mr. "Bloom"... and a Giveaway!

My latest linocut is of a slightly apprehensive broccoli guy encountering a bee. It comes in two different color schemes. I call the print "Bloom." Personally I think of him as "Mr. Bloom," But I don't want to be too gender-specific with a plant in case some people perceive him as a "she" or an "it." Maybe I'm overthinking it.

Anyway, back in 2012 after I successfully launched my Kickstarter campaign to produce The Golden Moth Illumination Deck, I had promised to create 96 small original artworks for backers who chose it in their reward levels. Here are some examples of artwork I created. You can see another vegetable-ish creature in the bottom right corner that looks like an asparagus!

I kept the paintings simple. Most started out with me just putting blobs of watercolor onto several papers at once, and then I decided what each blob should become. I kept some of my favorites, including this broccoli guy. Recently I decided to make him into a linocut, because I hadn't done any personal printmaking work in awhile.

He looked silly to me because he was so serious-looking. I added the bee to give him more of a relationship with the outside world.

For this print, I created a stencil for the green/pink portion of the print and rolled the ink with a brayer directly onto the paper. I made the stencil by taking a piece of computer paper and varnishing it on both sides so it was waterproof and I could re-use it. I chose computer paper because I thought that if I rolled the brayer of ink over something thicker like cardstock, the ink might not lay down close enough inside the edges of the stencil. 

I took this picture after I had already cleaned the stencil, so you can't see the mess of ink on the stencil itself. Also, the border part was printing weird, so I just blocked it out with tape and didn't use it at all. I cut out little right-angle triangles on the corners of the stencil so I could see through to my printing paper underneath and it would line up correctly.

It took me a couple proofing sessions to figure out the greenish-blue I wanted for the linocut. Then I took it to the etching press and printed the linocut on top of the stencilled part.

Ta-da! I also added the yellow to the bee with colored pencil.

If you like Mr. (or Ms.) Bloom and want him/her to be part of your world, please enter my giveaway!

"BLOOM" GIVEAWAY RULES:

I'm giving away one version of this print (either pink or green, winner decides) to one randomly-selected person who enters the giveaway. You must do the following THREE things to enter the giveaway:

1. Please visit my online shop, Sprout Head, and leave a comment on this post telling me both what your favorite item/s are in the shop and why, AND what you'd like to see more of (either something similar to what you see already or an entirely new product that you want me to make).

IMPORTANT: You must either adjust your settings to receive e-mails about replies to your comments, or send me your e-mail address - or else I can't contact you if you win! You may e-mail me at: good_old_fashioned_smell ( at ) hotmail (dot) com. You may also private message me on my Sprout Head Facebook page. In fact, head on over there anyway because you also need to do the following:

2. "Like" my Facebook page! If you want to be the first to get notifications on the Sprout Head page, also make sure that after you "like" my page, click on "liked" and scroll the drop-down menu to click on "Get notifications." Otherwise, you may not always see updates from my page on your news feed.

3. Share this giveaway with other people on Facebook by posting it on your page and/or sharing it on your friends' timelines. Here's the link: http://aijungkim.blogspot.com/2014/05/introducing-mr-bloom-and-giveaway.html

OPTIONAL: Your name gets thrown in the hat for each additional OPTIONAL thing that you do. Make sure to let me know in your comment if you do the following things:

- Follow my blog - you can find options to do so on the right-hand side of the blog - Subscribe to my E-Newsletter here (I only send out updates 1-2 times a month)
- Follow me on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway
- Blog about the giveaway on your blog.
- Pin an image of "Bloom" on an appropriate board on your Pinterest page. You may pin from this blog post, or from the Etsy listings here: pink and green versions.

REMEMBER, you must do only the FIRST THREE of these things to have your name entered once into the giveaway!

GIVEAWAY CLOSES ON MONDAY, MAY 26th AT MIDNIGHT EST.

* P.S. Don't forget to contact me with your e-mail address or I cannot contact you if you win! *

Good luck!

I've Gone All Social

So I'm a bit of a luddite at times. I love being able to use the internet and my computer, but I get scared of becoming too attached and distracted by technology. However, after some thought I came to the conclusion that in order to grow my art businesses, I need to embrace the current trends. I'm on my way to getting a smartphone (hopefully in the next few months) so I can join Instagram and easily take/upload photos for this blog and other social media. I think it's going to make my life easier in many ways, but I will try hard to exist in the here and now, and not stay glued to my phone!

Without further ado, here are my new Sprout Head Art social media links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SproutHeadArt
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SproutHeadArt

And I've already been a member of Pinterest for some time: http://www.pinterest.com/sprouthead/

Hope you'll join me on the web!

Ecdysis III in the shop!

Early this year, I sold out of both Ecdysis I and II prints which had pinkish color schemes. I just made a new edition, but this time with a green and blue color scheme. It's in the shop now, hope you like it!

The Notecards are Here! And there's a Holiday Sale - 15% OFF!

The last couple months have been a whirlwind, and I totally neglected to post pictures of the brand new notecards I had printed last month! Thanks to some of you kind readers who voted, I gathered the images with the most votes and had them offset-printed by the very amazing James River Press, in Richmond, VA. Brooke was my contact for this project, and she was wonderful to work with! I also want to give a shout-out to my aunt who helped me a LOT through the process of deciding to print my notecards. She has always wanted me to create notecards of my artwork because it's an affordable way for people to own my art, as well as a great way for me to sustain a living income while having time to create more artwork (let's hope she's right about that!) She gave me so much encouragement and practical advice for embarking on this notecards business. Thank you!

Here's the enormous offset lithography press:

And my cards all packed up in cardboard boxes - 20,000 cards total! That's the largest quantity of my artwork ready to be put out into the world!

Here are the cards displayed at my first craft show of the season, Handmade Market in Raleigh, NC:

I'm very happy with them...

I have a SALE going on in my shop through Sunday, December 15th, so you can get some cards for yourself with a 15% DISCOUNT! Please use coupon code YAY2013 upon checkout in my shop Sprout Head. You must use the coupon code, otherwise you won't receive the discount! I'm selling the cards individually, as well as in discounted packs. 

The image on each card is printed on a matte recycled paper which gives the artwork a beautiful, soft finish. The back of the card lists the title and medium of the original artwork. These cards are suitable to write your own greetings inside to give away, or you can choose to frame them as prints. The 5 x 7" card is a standard size for a ready-made frame.

You can currently find my cards in these stores:

Lemon Tree in Portland, OR

Harmony Society in Carlisle, PA (actually, I'll be shipping the order tomorrow but they'll get there soon)

Archimage in Rochester, NY (this also just *happens* to be the amazing shop my parents, aunt, and uncle opened up 30 years ago)

I also have prints and/or zines available at the following shops:

Pinky's Boutique in Janesville, WI

BuyOlympia in Portland, OR

Little Paper Planes in San Francisco, CA

If any of you dear readers know of a shop where my cards might make a good fit, please leave a comment with the shop name and their website if they have one. I'd like to get my cards into many shops around the country.

And I promised a giveaway of 12 notecards to one randomly-selected person who left a comment and their e-mail address in the Notecard Vote from last post. The lucky winner is:

 Joy Chu!

Yay! I swear I didn't peek when I picked the slip of paper with her name on it, but I felt very pleased to have picked my teacher from the online Children's Book Illustration class at UCSD Extension I took earlier this year. You can also read her blog Got Story Countdown, a great blog with advice for illustrators. Joy, I'll be e-mailing you very soon to ask for your notecard selections!

***

One Last Note:

I'm not sure if I'll have time to write another blog post before the end of this year, so if I don't I'd like to wish everyone Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year! 

Personally, this year has been challenging for me in both positive and negative ways. I've done a lot of evaluating of how I have been living/working/art-ing and how I would like things to grow or change. I realized that it's too difficult for me to keep up with all the different kinds of things I'm doing and I need to focus better and cut back on some activities while making more time to rest and rejuvenate. It's important for artists (and everyone) to have periods where not much happens, so they can be open to ideas and have the energy to embark on new projects. 

Some of the changes I want to see happen won't go into effect until several months into the new year because I've already made prior commitments. And some things are hard for me to change because I have trouble saying no to requests people ask of me, or putting on hiatus activities I'm already involved in. I'm trying to be more conscious of these tendencies and learn ways to be kind to myself so I can sustain the artistic life I want, while also being able to support myself materially. It's a difficult balance and a continual process. Maybe some of you are also going through a similar struggle. I wish everyone a bit more *peace* in their hearts so you can truly shine as the person you are.

LOVE,

aijung

Vote on Notecard Images - Get a Shop Discount & Enter into the Giveaway!

Hi Everyone!

I am in the process of launching my next business venture: the creation of greeting cards using my artwork. I've compiled a bunch of possibilities, but I need your help in deciding which make the cut. Here are 48 images to choose from. I know that's a lot to look at, but I wanted to include a diverse array of images. I will ultimately choose from 20 - 30 designs. Please let me know which images YOU would choose if you were picking out a notecard. Keep in mind who you might be shopping for and for what occasion. Some occasions might be very specific, such as holiday cards or for graduation, birthday, etc. Some might just be to say hello to a friend, or maybe you would buy the card for yourself just because you like it! Please write your choices in the comments section, 10 - 30 images would be helpful. You may write just the number of the image and/or the title I've given each image.

As a Thank-You, for anyone who leaves a comment I'm offering 15% off your total purchase in my Etsy shop, Sprout Head. Please leave your e-mail address if you're interested, or you can e-mail me directly with your e-mail address: good_old_fashioned_smell@hotmail.com so that I can send you the 15% Coupon Code. If you don't leave your e-mail, I'll assume you're just being helpful and don't want to take advantage of this offer. Also, everyone who leaves their e-mail address will automatically be entered into a Giveaway for a set of 12 of their favorite notecards. This won't happen until I get the notecards printed, which hopefully will be by the end of October. I'll probably make my decisions on notecard designs once I get at least 20 comments.

Thanks so much for your input!

New Prints & Sprout Head Sale - Hurrah for 2012

To help kick off the holiday season and my new linocut prints, I am starting early with a SALE in my online shop, Sprout Head! Use Coupon Code HURRAH2012 upon checkout to receive 10% off your entire order! Sale runs from Friday, November 16 - Monday, November 26. The first 10 orders over $10 (not including shipping) that use coupon code will receive the zine "We Carry Each Other" for free with your purchase! IMPORTANT: You MUST use the coupon code or else you will not receive the discount or bonus zine.