hearts and needles

Dream time

Been working on so much these days and wanting to share in this space. Now that i have an iPhone, all this will be way easier. For now, a peek at a small painting.

dubious day

this girl looks a little dubious, right?  who can blame her.

it's a strange day, weather-wise: pouring rain, thunder, super dark. loving it.  except that i think it makes my sinuses hurt.

i recently realized that i haven't shown some cool projects i got to work on last year.  that's up next.  for now, i'm going to have some soup.

 

sketchbook wednesday

I'm always drawing and thinking in my sketchbook.  Mainly just pencil doodles that capture the spirit of ideas that I return to for collages or painting.  I'm working on a lot of stuff right now - a personal project, preliminary prep for my show at Quirk in June, stuff for my website - which is still in the works due to my foot dragging on gathering materials(sorry phil!).

Indulging in my love of the Fleet Foxes, and drawing a little picture of the main dude.  Small crush going on there.

Sketching ideas for an illustrated booklet of cold remedies.  Really loving working on this one.

What are you working on?

Valentimes

Happy day after Valentine's day.  Mine was pretty low key - well, they all are.  I can't remember any crazy-times Valentine's day.  One of my favs was in college: none of my friends had a boyfriend so we all made cards for each other, and made them be from boys that we liked/thought were cute.  that was pretty fun.

Thank goodness I married someone who makes cards. Store bought is fine, but I prefer homemade.  The picture above is the kickin' valentine phil made for me.  it's a tiny diorama of fred astaire and ginger rogers dancing and singing "isn't it a lovely day."  how awesome is that?  the people are less than an inch tall!  i'm pretty lucky.

I made phil a valentine, too.  here's a little movie of it:

 

it says: i love you so much, you make me flip my wig!

 

yeah! go, love!

meditation mobiles

I wanted to share a project i recently finished. One of my closest friend's sister(who I know, too) was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) in December. It's a really scary & aggressive cancer, and require some pretty aggressive chemo, etc..  I talk with my friend a lot, but she lives about 8 hours away, and I've been wanting to send something to her and her sister to let them know I'm always thinking about them.

 I made these paper mobile things(i'm thinking of them as meditation mobiles) - hand painted paper, folded and strung to hang somewhere to know that I'm putting out my positive healing prayers and thoughts.  I've sent one to my friend, one to her sister, and one to a mutual friend of ours who lives in Portland.  

It's hard to live away from people you care about when they are in need of support. Just being able to take them a meal or hang with my friend and see a movie to alleviate some stress would be awesome.  But, you do what you can.  

And I do believe in the power of positive, connecting, healing thoughts.

Yes, I do.

What things have you done to help faraway friends in need?  I'd love some more ideas.

illustration friday: stripes!

 

 

The theme for Illustration Friday this week is "stripes".  I did a quick painted paper collage. i didn't plan it out or draw anything - just free cutting.  very fun! I love that Illustration Friday gives me a little goal every week - no pressure, just a tiny motivational kick.

I worked on a pretty neat project in September and October and will be able to share the finished product soon - can't wait to talk about it here.

I've got lots to share here, but since I haven't posted in so long, I'll keep it short today.  Coming up, though: projects, holiday inspiration, art-o-mat, and my new website. And probably lots more, but I won't push it.

 

I'm feeling totally inspired by mary ann moss. I love her writing, her art, and her perspective. And I'm completely envious of her travels!  And I love how often she updates her blog - I need that sort of inspiration!

 

light on the glue, heavy on the professionalism

 

By a pretty sweet stroke of luck, i got a very cool illustration job this spring.  I’d been wanting to start doing illustration work with my cut paper collage style, so this was a perfect opportunity.  And a big job - i did 13 illustrations and several painted papers for backgrounds.  I am so grateful for having this opportunity  and I thought I’d share the work process here - it was fun and not as intimidating as i thought it’d be.

It started with some email communication with the art director of a marketing firm.  They were making an annual report/storybook thing for a non-profit client of theirs.  He told me what the job was, approximately how many illustrations, and a general timeline.  After they had the info firmed up on their end, i went to the office for a meeting/brainstorm session with the art director.  He gave me lots more info about the job. My role was to illustrate the story book, which is the story of a woman who bettered her and her daughter’s life with the help of the non-profit family organization.  We went through each page of the story and the art director told me his illustration ideas and specific stuff he wanted to see in the illustrations.  He also asked for input and kept a lot of stuff open to my interpretation.  After we had a good idea of each illustration, I went home and sketched out rough drawings of each page.  The sketches were to show the configuration and general feeling of the future collages. At this point in the process, I felt a little weird because the collages and the sketches have such a different feeling.  My sketches seemed blah, but they really were just rough ideas.  I scanned all the sketches and sent them to the art director.  He looked at them and gave me feedback.  In general, he was really pleased.  There were a few tweaks and issues here and there.  It made me understand the importance of doing the sketches - so much easier to change course/add or subtract when the pictures are in this stage.  

After all the roughs were completely approved, I began making the collages.  I stayed very close to the approved sketches as far as the configuration of everything.  But I got to make all the choices about color and paper texture, which was super fun. 
I have a large selection of patterned papers and hand painted papers on hand.  I had to paint a few pieces of paper for the skin tone of the characters.  They are mostly African-American and I didn’t have the right color of brown.  Everything I had did not actually look like it could be a natural color of skin.  So that’s about all I had to paint in prep for making the collages.  I painted two pieces of 12”x12” scrapbook paper, and that was more than enough.  After that paper was dry, I was ready to go!  I worked from the beginning of the book to the end.  I skipped around just a bit when I wasn’t feeling it on a certain illustration.  I went through a bunch of exacto blades and glue sticks and made a nice dent in my paper stash.  As I completed illustrations, I scanned and sent them instead of saving them all up until the end.  I think it helps the person you are working for to know where you are in the process and frees up communication.
I had a week (5 days) to complete all of the collages (13), so it was pretty crazy.  Even though my style is simple, it isn’t a speedy process.  I worked really hard, but in general just tried to work during business hours.  I was thinking about it all the time, though.....
After the collages were complete, there were a few more corrections/tweaks.   Corrections had the potential to be troublesome, because I work in collage and I don’t manipulate it digitally.  I made sure that used a light touch with my glue, and anything that I had to remove or replace was easy to do.  Glad I did that or I’d have had big problems.
 
(art director wanted the building this simple, not like the above rough which shows them with a bit of dimension)

I learned a lot doing this job.  Art-wise, I did so much work that I had a chance to develop an effective work method.  When I do personal work, the timeline just isn’t there, so it’s invaluable to get a chance to learn how long something *really* takes, and be able to figure out if you’re going to get it all done.  My actual collage technique got more efficient.  The collages I did were very straightforward and normal.  I like to work a little weirder at times, but the job didn’t call for that.  

This was also a great learning experience in dealing with the professional/communication side of things.  Communication is key, I think.  I didn’t want the art director to worry about the work just because he hadn’t heard from me, so I keep up with scanning/sending and emailing during the course of the project.  I also kept my ego out of any discussion of corrections.  When I started the job, I made a conscious decision not to let my feelings get hurt if there were any discussions/corrections/issues with my work.  I figured they hired me because they liked my style, so anything else was simply business.  And you know what? Making that decision was the best thing I did.  It made me way more professional, inside and out.  It was like any work - do a great job, accept constructive criticism, move on.  

The job is just about wrapped up.  I had a last minute correction on one page, an additional small illustration, and 3 painted backgrounds.  

That’s it for now.  I hope you found this informative if you were wondering how the whole illustration thing works.  I know that the concept of illustration is less intimidating to me now.  It’s never as hard as you think, you know? But sometimes you just have to have the experience to realize it.

Up next: billing!  Since I’m doing this as a freelance person, all on my own, invoicing is a big learning curve for me.  I’ll write about that for my next installment!

In the works...

(judgy)

 

Saturday, oh Saturday! Hurray! It was a busy week. Teaching my first art camp of the season is a huge adjustment, but it was fun and everyone in my class made crazy stuff. Life sized paper mache - wow.

 

I'm teaching a skirt making class this coming week - should be crazy, too!  But, I'll be updating here, too.  I have lots of posts that I'm excited about in advance (still unwritten). I'll be talking about the illustration job I just finished - the process we went through to get from ideas to finished art, I've got a new lady from my 100 or So Ladies sketchbook, and a couple other things....

 

Im feeling productive, people. And loquacious, so watch out!

chicken fight

  

what a lovely monday morning - cloudy and drizzly and perfect.  we don't get a lot of these days in virginia in the summer, so i'm loving it.  also, i can't believe it has been so long since i updated here. no clue why not, as i've had the time. huh.  well, here i am now.

 

i thought i'd post a scan from one of my sketchbooks.  i just finished this spread, and it cracks me up!  the odd lady face is quoting me, and so i think of this a journal entry of sorts.  i love the idea of visual journals, but i haven't ever found my groove with them.  i'm starting to wonder if i have been putting some pressure on myself.  not pressure to *keep* a visual journal, but pressure for it to look a certain way, you know?  well, this is the way my sketchbook/journals look, and i might be a whacko, but there you are!

 

so, one time i was telling phil(husband) about how horrible it was to walk through campus when i was working at a local university.  i was gettin' all worked up about how the freshmen, especially, liked to walk 7 abreast on their way to class, the cafeteria, etc.. and take up the whole dang sidewalk and *not move over* when someone was coming the opposite way, even though it was clear there was nowhere else for someone (me) to walk.  i'd have to stop and let them densely bump around the sidewalk and pass by.  i started getting angry about it. but you know what they say - don't get mad, get even. actually, that might now apply here.  but i did take action.  i thought: i'm obviously older, i'm not afraid of the teens, and they need to learn.  so, i started playing Chicken.  i simply would not stop walking when a large group of students approached. (let me clarify: these were not tours, they were just gaggles of students who had to go everywhere in groups) so.....when you play chicken, you have to be prepared to get into a collision.  but do you ever think i did? that's right: never.  invariably, the youngsters would panic and move.  i believe i increased sidewalk awareness by employing this technique. but it still makes me mad and i don't even work there anymore.

 

anyhow, i was telling phil about it and getting all crazy and yelled out "I WILL get in in a chicken fight!" and it cracked us up hard.  so that's my journal entry.  like i said: whacko.

illustration friday - asleep

a very quick illustration for illustration friday.

i wanted to spend longer on it, but i was hiking and having lunch at the blue mountain brewery with my husband in celebration of our 4th anniversary.  whooo!

 

have a wonderful weekend!