After about two hours of running around from office to office in downtown Durham and paying some crazy fees I am now the proud owner of a business license. :)

All this really means is that the state of NC recognizes that I can do business under my design firm name, I can legally work out of my home, and I am able to open a bank account under my business name. These are all steps to transform my “freelance adventure” into officially being in business for myself.

I am working on a new website… to be unveiled by the end of the month!

On the inside it says: n: having more creative ability while drinking tea.

This time it’s a latte… at night it’s tea.

Hi there. I’ve made quite a bit of progress on pup’s sweater, but haven’t done much else in terms of painting over the last few weeks. Happily, I’ve had some paying work to keep me busy as well as a lot of Christmas shopping and preparing for our trip up to New York tomorrow. I asked Santa for some new art supplies this Christmas, so I should have some new work soon. :)

I had to tear up what I had completed so far because of a missed stitch and the fact that the stockinette stitch was curling up like mad on the end.

This time I started out with one knit row after the cast on, then followed up with two knit 2 purl 2 rows. Then I started the stockinette stitch (knit 1 row, purl 1 row). The piece is keeping it’s shape better and I have instituted a new policy of using a little yellow card to let me know what row I am on so I don’t repeat on accident.

I will eventually finish this project, honest.

I am really happy with how this portrait turned out, what a cutie!

So, I started a new knitting project, a sweater for pup. It gets pretty cold here over the winter, but my goal is to have it done before we drive up to NY for Christmas. We are flying to Buffalo this weekend, so I plan to get a lot finished on the flight.

The first part is a 14 inch by 16 rectangle, fairly easy. I am doing the entire thing in a stockinette stitch, but I got messed up in one spot, so it will have two patterned stripes down each side. If I can figure out how many total stitches I am going to need, I will try and add a more decorative strip in the very middle.

Ok, where were we?

I added some more detail to his face and some texture to the fur on his body. I also extended his back end a little bit.

I normally don’t like backgrounds in my work, but Lucky is going to look pretty silly curled up on blank space so I’ll need to at least suggest a solid surface beneath him. I decided to go with a mere suggestion of the couch, in order to let the dog be the main focus.

The last step will be to finalize some detail to the ears, fine strokes of fur to the body and face, and add whiskers.

The newest issue of Fido Friendly is on the newsstands and the ad I co-created with Elizabeth is on the back cover!

How exciting!

Here’s what the original ad copy looked like:

We were given less than two days to come up with a campaign and ad design. They are reportedly thrilled with our efforts and we will have more SPCA work coming our way.

This was due partially to being tired from traveling for Thanksgiving and partially because I just didn’t get around to it. Bleh, sorry to my NaBloPoMo readers, I promise something more interesting tomorrow.

I have a few paintings sitting around my small studio that are about 60-75% done. I’d like to complete the Utah landscape and Lucky before I get started on another flower painting. More tomorrow!