Roxanne Crouse's Blog

Updates on what I've been up to Lately

It's been a while, I know, I'm terrible at keeping up with this blog and the website , too. I plan to make a lot of changes as I'm changing focus. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to organize and present the new direction of Dark whimsical art.

Some of the changes are done. I've added links to artists I love to help spread their dark whimsical beauty around. I hope you'll go through the links and check them out. If you think your work would fit in, contact me and send me a link. I always love looking at art. Just make sure it fits in. For example, sports art would not fit in here at all.

 

I'm moving into print on demand. I think it will be a great way to sell my art. I know a lot of artists think it's a bad idea, but I don't agree with that. Why wouldn't you use every avenue you have to make a living as an artist. Putting limits seems like a bad choice to me.

 

Right now my work is available at:

 

Redbubble

Zazzle

Society 6

Fine Art America

Click on My Merch  up above for links to these portfolios.

 

I've made two sales on Redbubble so far, and one on Fine Art America. I also have my adult coloring book, Dark Whimsical Art Coloring Book on Amazon which has made four sales the last time I checked. I also have two short stories on Amazon that I haven't been doing much with. I need to change that. I think I'm trying to do too much, but I have to try.

 

I started a Youtube channel where I plan to record how I hopefully move up the print on demand sales ladder, or how I fail. We shall see. Here is one of the videos. 

 

 

I also did vlogaween because I love Halloween and thought it would be a great way to kick start off the new channel. Hopefully you'll visit and check it out if you love Halloween, too.

 

I've Decided to Try My Hand at POD Print On Demand

And I plan to take you on the journey with me. I'm going to make Youtube videos about what I am doing and my progress. I already have four accounts open and a few items for sale on them. A sample is below. I haven't made any sales yet, but when I do I will post it here. I'm currently on Redbubble, Zazzle, Fine Art America, and Society6. So far I like Redbubble the best because it is the easiest to use and post multiple items fast. But we'll see as time goes by.

My Adult Coloring Book is Finally Finished and Available on Amazon

It took forever, but I finally finished the coloring book I started work on back in 2016.

Like most artists, the desire to work on art hits you strong then one day something tires you out and  you just stop. Starting again may take a while, sometimes years. I work full-time at a job I hate so that tends to drain all my energy as well. But here is the link on Amazon so please check it out. 

 

Dark Whimsical Art Adult Coloring Book: Art and Creativity for the Strange and Unusual 

by Roxanne Crouse 

Link: http://a.co/fo0eswT

If you would like to see some of the inside pages, here is a link to a post I did earlier with a few of the pages that are inside the book

http://darkwhimsicalart.com/blog/2016/5/im-just-going-to-write-and-think-of-a-title-later-amwriting-darkart-adultcoloringbook

I have a spiral bound version available on lulu.com. For some reason Amazon doesn't allow the spiral bound books.

Dark Whimsical Art Adult Coloring Book: Spiral Bound

By Roxanne Crouse

Paperback, 82 Pages 

 

Preview

Price: $16.99

Prints in 3-5 business days

Escape your normal world and enter the strange and unusual world of Roxanne Crouse. From lost teddy bears to mischievous cats, you'll have hours of coloring fun as you explore each page. Hone your coloring skills and relive your child as this coloring book provides hours of relaxation and stimulates your imagination.

If you decide to get a copy please leave a review and I'd love to see any pages you color!!!

April Free Photo Downloads: Smoke against black background To Use In Your Art Projects

Hello my dark kitties. I've got some free stuff for you!

Yes! I've got three smoke images against a black background completely free for artists to use in their art.

The Dropbox links below will lead you to the full size download. I don't know how  long they will be available. It will depend on how long it takes to fill my Dropbox free space. You can use them  in commercial work and no credit needed. I do love to see how the images are being used so please send me links or comment with a link to your work. If it is an awesome piece I'll share it on my social media. I hope the images work out for your art!

Use in: Art work, on your website or blog, on a book cover, as a background for something

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z17teu5tevj1mqg/smoke2.jpg?dl=0

Smoke 2

smoke3smoke against black

Smoke 3

smoke4smoke against black

Smoke 4

I hope these images work out for you! And I really really do want to see what you create so please share!

My First Youtube video to pass 500 views!

I'm so excited to share my first video to pass 500 views. I hope you enjoy. If you are planning a trip to Japan, you'll probably find the video very useful! If you are not, well you might still find it entertaining as I am very uncomfortable filming myself and it shows.

 

 

Japan Trip: Akihabara Mister Donut, Coffee Coke, and Gachapon

Our first full day in Japan was October 18, 2017 Akihabara. Not much was open yet at 8am in the morning, which was surprising since Tokyo is a larger city than New York. We learned Tokyo is not a 24 hour city. There are places open 24 hours, but most places open at 10am and close by 10pm. Even the trains stop at midnight and don't start up again until 5am.

We went to Mister Donut for breakfast. I wanted the Halloween donuts but they were not out yet and we didn't make it back later during our trip. The donuts were good though. I'd eat them again. The drink I got, on the other hand, was different. It tasted like milk and had chocolate chunks as ice cubes. There wasn't a lot of flavor. It was drinkable but I probably won't order it again. We started walking around Akihabara looking for open places and came across the coffee coke everyone had been posting about. Sadly, we were never able to find that vending machine again and we never found coffee coke anywhere else. So we only got to try it once. It was good. It tasted like coke mostly with a coffee aftertaste. I would drink it again.

We came across KFC, which we never had time to eat at, and a lot of Gachapon machines, which I wish I would have bought more of. I was being conservative with my yen because I didn't know how long 200,000 yen (about $2000) would last over two weeks, but I ended up bringing a lot of yen home with me. Still have it. If I had known I would have bought more and decorated my Christmas tree with them. Next time we go to Japan, I plan to buy a lot more.

If you are planning a trip to Japan bring a lot of cash with you. They are a cash country and your credit cards will be mostly useless there. You can go to 7-11 and use your credit or debit card to get more yen. Seven-11 was the only place we went to that we could use or credit card. Not even Disney Sea would take our credit card.

Writing More: One of My Other New Year's Resolutions

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I haven't worked on my writing projects in a long time. Going back to working outside the home 40 hours a week has sapped me of most of my energy. I wish I could quit my job, but I can't. Bills keep coming, food keeps running out. So that's why I added writing to my list of 2018 resolutions.

 

I have a complete novel written and it is sitting on my hard drive waiting to be edited. I have two short stories waiting to be finished, and a never ending supply of story and novel ideas. I just can't make myself sit in front of the computer and write. 

 

So for 2018 I have committed to writing once a week, not including blog posts, even if it is for only 5 minutes. Something is better than nothing. I'm hoping it will help light my spark, wake up my muse, get me interested again. Not that I'm not interested. I think about writing all the time and come up with new ideas constantly. I just don't want to sit in that computer room for some reason.

 

My guess, it is because I spent 20 years working in there while I was a wedding photographer. I know, an easy solution, move my computer or get a small one I can move around. I've tried that and it sort of worked. My device is too old now. I need to update but I don't have the money for it. My job pays very little. I would say they are ripping me off, which is why getting a new job is number 1 on the resolution list. 

 

I plan to update everyone on my progress here or on Facebook, most likely here. I may post one of the short stories when it is finished. If you have any ideas on staying motivated please post them. Maybe they will help me and other writers. Here are some stories I did finish that you can check out if you are interested.

 

Japan Airlines Flight Economy Class: Boston to Japan and What Happened After We Landed

 

The flight was 14 hours to Japan, nonstop from Boston.  We got two meals and both were good considering it was airplane food. I apologize,  I'm talking really low in the video . Hopefully you can hear me. The plane was mostly Japanese people and they tend to not talk on public transport so I was trying not to be annoying on the flight. There were plenty of movies to watch. I watched Godzilla. I also read a manga, Tokyo Ghoul, which I liked. It was really warm on the plane. I don't know if that is normal, but you may want to dress light. It was very uncomfortable and I couldn't sleep because of how warm it was on the plane. It was around 80 degrees. I loved the windows. You can adjust their tent from normal window to so black you can't see out. This was nice since it was day the entire flight. There is a time lapse of the window changing in the video.

 

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After landing we didn't film or take any pictures. The time was 4pm in Japan when we landed and we had traveled with no sleep for over 30 hours. Our brains were not in a good place. We figured out emigration. There were plenty of signs in English to direct you the right way and the process was pretty easy. After that we were left on our own in the airport.

 

The first thing we did, of course, was buy something strange from a vending machine. I don't remember what we bought. My husband picked it and I don't think I liked it. We then had to figure out what terminal we were in, I believe it was 2, where I think all international flights land. We bought tickets for the Limousine Bus which cost $32 each and dropped us off just outside Tokyo station. This is when sleep deprivation caused me to loose my mind.

 

It was around 5pm, the time you want to avoid the train stations because it is Tokyo rush hour. Salary men and women filled the station as we entered the main section. I looked around at the madness and realized I had no idea how to figure out where and what train to ride to get to Akihabara where our hotel was located. We learned from YouTube videos that the best thing to do is use google maps because the giant train maps on the wall are really hard to understand, even in English. I pop into Google maps and put in Tokyo station to Akihabara station. What came up didn't make since. I would later learn it was giving me 3 different choices and I needed to click further to get the information I needed to find our train. The lack of sleep was making my brain not work. So we ended up giving up on the train idea and went back outside where I had noticed a lot of taxis.

 

The taxi area was very organized, not like New York where you have to flag them down. There was an area where taxis came in and dropped people off and another area where you wait in line for the next taxi to drive up. We weren't sure if the taxi driver would speak English and my Japanese was very beginner so I started digging in the bags looking for the address to the hotel I had printed out in Japanese. Someone yelled, "Nani ga something something Something," An annoyed looking, very short salary woman stood behind us. We were blocking the way to the taxi line. We said," sumimasen," a few times and moved out of her way. People always talk about how polite people are in Japan so she was a bit shocking to us, but her behavior was understandable. She just wanted to get home and we were blocking the way. She was the only person in all of Tokyo that was even a little rude. Which makes me glad. You can't be nice all of the time. You'll go mad.

 

Our taxi driver was very nice. The doors on the taxi didn't open and close automatically, so I guess that isn't all Taxis in Tokyo. We were warned not to try and open the door because it would open and close on its own. The ride from Tokyo station to our hotel in Akihabara took a little more than five minutes and cost about $16. At this point I became a bit worried. What if we couldn't figure out the trains and had to take a taxi everywhere. It would get pretty expensive to take taxis everywhere.

 

We checked in our hotel and had no problems checking in. The staff spoke English. We made our reservation through Expedia because I couldn't read their direct website, too much kanji. I'll do a separate blog about the hotel and the room. We have a lot of footage of both.

 

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We unloaded all our stuff and decided to check out the 7-11 that was close to the hotel. I didn't get anything because I was too tired to deal with the language barrier at that time. My extreme sleepiness was making me feel abnormally intimidated by everything. I was really, really out of it. My husband bought stuff. I think I have a picture of what he bought.

 

We then went to Coco Curry which was a place I had been looking forward to, but again so tired. The menu wasn't in English which normally would be fine. Why would it be in English, we are in Japan! But my brain was shutting down and I started to feel panicked like, "What were we thinking coming to a foreign country?" type thoughts. I managed to order level 5 curry which was much hotter than I thought it would be. We had heard that it was hard to find really spicy foods in Japan. They were wrong. I couldn't eat it all even though it was really good. I wish we had time to go again, during a time my mind was fully functional.
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After eating we returned to the hotel room, watched a little Japanese TV, and then at about 7pm we crashed and slept for about 10 hours. Thank goodness I woke up feeling much clearer and ready to take on Akihabara. Traveling half way around the world is a bitch but 100% worth it.

 

None of this got documented which makes me sad.

Losing Weight: One of My Twelve 2018 New Year's Resolutions Detailed Out For Me and You

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As an artist, I believe it is important to be happy in your surroundings and happy with yourself or you won't feel like producing art.

 

So one of my goals, New Year's resolutions, for 2018 is to get my weight back to 120lb so my clothes will fit again. There is nothing I hate more than spending money on clothes. I'd rather be spending that money on trips to Japan or Australia, things that inspire my art. In my early 30s I gained weight. I weighed about 140lb. I used the plan below to get my weight back to 115lb by loosing about two pounds a week, which is a safe amount to loose.  Now I'm 43 and my weight is back up again so it is time to get back on Roxanne's weight lose plan. So here's the plan. If you are trying to loose weight too maybe it will work for you too.

 

1. Limit calories to 1500 calories per day

 

I can eat anything I want, the calorie count just can't go over 1500. You have to be really strict about measuring everything including condiments that your adding like ketchup. So it is work, but it does get easier as you start to memorize amounts after a while.  

 

2. Exercise a minimum of 3 times a week for 30 minutes

 

I put on Denise Austin videos from YouTube. They are free and I can do it at home. I start at 3 days a week and increase to every day as my body gets stronger.

 

3. No eating 21/2 hours before bedtime

 

Yes, at first you might feel like you want to eat before you go to bed, but soon, in about a week, your body will be trained to burn the stored calories while you sleep. You'll need to establish a bedtime and be strict about it.

 

4. Drink lots of water

 

You can drink water any time you want and as much as you want. If you get hungry during that 21/2 hours before bedtime, drink some water. 

 

5. Only check the scale once a week

 

Your weight will go up and down and you don't need to see that every day. At most, only check once a week. If you can check less, great! You only need to see the big changes or you will get discouraged. 

 

 

I'll blog more and make videos of my progress. I need to take a before shot and post it. I'll do that when I'm not sick any more. 

I Don't Normally Do New Year's Resolutions

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Like the title says, I don't like making resolutions, but this year I'm making an exception.

I feel like the last two years I haven't accomplished anything. That time period just happens to coincide with me changing back to working full time outside of the home again. Yes, my full time job sucks the life out of me and it needs to go.

I'm making several goals for myself and each one I conquer, my audience is going to benefit. I haven't worked out what the prizes will be yet. I'm working everything out as I write the posts. I do know that if you want to receive any of the prizes, you'll need to comment on my blog posts and YouTube posts. The more you post the higher your chance of winning. I may use rafflecopter. I liked that program when I was reviewing books more. I hope they are still around. If you have any ideas for prizes write them in the comments. Realistic ones please! I'm not taking any requests for a million dollars.

So here are my goals for 2018...

1. Get a new job

2. Get 100 Subscibers on YouTube

3. Get 10,000 views on YouTube

3. Put out at least two new videos a month

4. Lose 15 pounds to get back to 120LB

5. Create one new piece of art a month

6. Create one jewelry piece a month

7. Finish two short stories I started

8. Finish editing my novel

9. Finish creating my coloring book 

10. Start reviewing books again

11. Finish book 2 of Japanese From Zero

12. Make a video all in Japanese

13. Write a blog post all in Japanese

One goal I recently accomplished!

One of my YouTube videos made it to 100 views! That may not seem like much but it is a start. My videos are not that great. I'm terrible in front of the camera, but I am determined to conquer my awkward mess of a self and turn myself into something that might actually entertain a small niche market. If you love Halloween like I do you might like my first 100 views video at Busch Gardens.

 

I'll have more posts coming up detailing out each of my resolutions and how I plan to accomplish them.

Jetblue Flight to Boston on Our Way to Japan: or what I've been up to lately

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Wow. I've done a terrible job of keeping up with this blog. I'm going to try harder though. I do have a good excuse. I've been working full time and going to college full time. Then I went to Japan for two weeks. And that's what this post is about, Japan, and many more posts to come. I enjoyed all the wonderful YouTuber videos about Japan and am so thankful to them. They gave my husband and I the courage to go to a foreign country he and I have wanted to go to for years; like 20 years, maybe more. I don't know if we would have ever gone if it weren't for the wonderful information people living in Japan were kind enough to share for free with the whole world. Now I want to do the same. My videos probably won't be has well put together but at least I'm willing to put myself out there and try. I hope someone finds the information useful and I hope I inspire someone to follow their dream and go to Japan. Here are a lot of the YouTubers I'd like to thank. 

Sharmander    Mimei Land   Only in Japan   Rachel and Jun

Taylor   Tokyo Lens   Abroad in Japan   Texan in Tokyo

There are so many more and I'll add them to other posts and videos as I go along.

 

Here is my first Japan video. Please don't make fun of it too much. I know it's not professional, but hopefully I'll get better over time because we do plan to visit Japan again. Something went wrong with the audio. I hope I can get it fixed. I hope you enjoy!

 

We had a piggy back flight. We flew Jetblue to Boston to catch our Japan Air flight. The only bad thing about that was we could not pick our seats on Jetblue without calling them or check in online. We had to check in at the airport. At least the airport, BWI, wasn't that busy. We were able to each take two suitcases a carry on and a personal item on both flights. Too bad I over packed. I would have liked to have bought more stuff.