A lovely surprise!
It’s been a weird few months and I’ve been surrendered to a slump. If it weren’t for knitting, I wouldn’t have made anything for a very long time. I’m working on crawling my way out and received a lovely surprise: one of my illustrations is featured on http://weloveillustrations.com. I’m in some very talented company (Yelena Bryksenkova!!) and couldn’t be more flattered. It’s funny because the piece they chose was a rejected design from a few years ago. I always liked it, and I’m glad to find someone else does too.
AND THE WINNER IS…
Steph Lemmon!
I’ll be in touch to fly your little Nashville Warbler to you. Congratulations!
Here’s Bill to celebrate…
Bill you Murray me?
This is gonna be fun times, folks!
Come to The Fall Tattoo and Gallery on Saturday, Feb. 18th to check out an art show entirely dedicated to Bill Murray. I’ve gotten a peek at some of the other submissions (so awesome!) and I’ll have a couple pieces included as well. Here’s a peek…
Christmas commissions, part deux
A couple good friends commissioned me to paint their nieces for the proud grandparents of the girls. Here’s the finished piece, including Mr. Peepers and Peppers…
Can’t wait to hear what the grandparents thought!
Christmas Commission
A little while ago, a former coworker contacted me with a painting commission. She commissioned a painting for her son when he was born three years ago, and now she’s got a little girl who deserves her own painting! She told me that she wanted something with a butterfly, done in watercolour. I gave a little peek at the finished piece in my last post.
Here’s what I initially brought her:
It wasn’t feeling quite right for her, so we discussed a few changes and this is the final version.
It got me thinking about what often seems like one of the biggest decisions with any artwork: when to stop. I tend to err on the side of less, but this isn’t necessarily the always the right thing for the piece.
Morran the muse
I’ve been following the blog of artist Camilla Engman for years now, and I’ve always loved seeing pictures of her little dog Morran cuddled up at home in Sweden or on holiday in Europe. Turns out Morran is 13 years old and, according to her vet, may only live another half a year or so. So sad.
Camilla has an separate blog for Morran stuff and is currently looking for submissions to make a book of Morran pictures, the proceeds of which will go to some animal charity to be determined. Morran felt like a fun subject to draw, so here’s my submission…
Sketchbook Project complete!
I’ve been on a little iMovie streak, I’m realizing.
Anywho, here’s a little movie slideshow of my completed sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project 2011. It’s mostly acrylic ink (leftover from what the cat knocked over, as you may recall) but I had some fun at the end using pencil crayons. I mentioned artist Lilly Piri a little while ago and really wanted to try her laborious pencil crayon style, but on a less daunting scale.
The music is Max Richter‘s “Arboretum”.
Sketchbook project in progress
I’ve been chipping away at this Moleskine sketchbook for the Art House Co-op’s sketchbook project (see the link on the side of this page?) I wanted to work with acrylic ink, since I love full-bodied acrylic and one of my favourite illustrators (Jillian Tamaki) recommends sketching in ink. I have to send it to Brooklyn by mid-Jan., so I’ll post more pics of some finished pages soon, but here’s a little preview of some in-progress pages…
Looky! I'll be in a library!
Acrylic ink + cat + carpet= temper tantrum
To start the morning, I thought I’d work on my sketchbook. I’ve been enjoying acrylic ink lately, so that was my medium of choice. Acrylic ink is permanent, water-resistant and quick-drying. It’s a gorgeous, sunny morning and a whole family of house finches are fighting over the feeder. I can only enjoy this pleasant view from the table in the living room – the carpeted living room.
Turns out, it was also the perfect morning for being reminded why I chose the little room with both a door and laminate floor as my studio.
Ambrose is a very whiny cat. He whines even more when it’s sunny outside. He whines even more still when Josh is away. And he really likes to sit on whatever you are doing that isn’t taking him outside. I know all this.
So why, you might ask, did I tempt fate by bringing my lovely bottle of dark umber acrylic ink out to the living room table to work on my sketchbook? Because I was still half-asleep? Possibly. Because it was so nice there I didn’t consider the consequences? Yes. Because Ambrose is a maniacal genius who can control my mind and make me do things I wouldn’t normally do? Unfortunately, no. This one’s on me, as much as all my yelling and swearing and stomping was directed at him. Perhaps scrubbing the spilled ink from the table, the carpet, my foot and Ambrose’s paw could be considered therapeutic?
I’m sure I’m not the only one with stories of art-ing and crafting supplies falling into the hands/paws of children/pets. My Mom still tells the story of three-year-old me cutting her in-progress tailored French silk blouse to ribbons with pinking shears! How ’bout you, what kind of stories have you got?
The Sketchbook Project
I came across something called The Sketchbook Project through a blog I follow. It sounded pretty neat: an international call for artists to participate by ordering a sketchbook, filling it with sketches based on one of the suggested themes, then returning it to be part of a touring exhibition and eventually catalogued at the Brooklyn Art Library. So, I ordered my book and I’ve started sketching. My theme is “in flight”. It’s intimidating to look at the wonderful sketchbooks of past years, then look at the blank pages in my book. At least, when I’m feeling cheeky, I’ll be able to say I’ve shown in New York! Hee hee hee…
