Illustration Friday "Steam"

Illustration Friday "Stripes"

Illustration Friday: Wheel

So what do you think of my goofy little sketch for this week's Illustration Friday:Wheel?

This one was done on my iPad very quickly. This time I was able to use a stylus that I had gotten instead of my finger which was much more comfortable. I got the cheapest stylus out there so the nib is too thick for my liking but it will have to do for now.

Run, Hamy, run! 

Illustration Friday: Kernel

Here's my submission for today's Illustration Friday: Kernel

"Charlie realized that he might have put too many corn kernels in his cheeks and thought they might burst from his mouth."

The goal for this digital painting was to see how fast I could do it. I'm still practicing with Photoshop and I'm trying my hardest to find a way to use the program so it works for me. I did this little guy in an hour. I think I'm getting better, slowly but surely.

Any thoughts?

Just pluggin' away

We're into March now and I feel myself getting discouraged again. Everyday I work on my Etsy shop and continue with my projects. I keep telling myself that creating is my job and learning new ways to create is important. On the days that Money demands attention (it was just rent day) I feel that I should be spending all my time finding ways to bring in more money. Then I feel guilty for wanting to create all the time. I have wished many times to be able to shut my brain off to for 40 hours a week and just do a job that pays the bills. To want nothing more. I haven't figured out how yet and I find myself going loopy after 15 hours a week. Yup, I haven't had a full time paying job for well over ten years. Ask me how many hours I could spend in the studio a day. I could easily do 10-12 hours a day, no problem. There I get to use my brain. Too bad it doesn't bring in an income. Yet.

Below are some things I have been working on with my tablet, Photoshop and Corel paint.   There's still quite a learning curve I'm trying to overcome with Photoshop but it's been good for creating studies for finished pieces. The skeleton pieces are studies for linocuts, the cat is just me trying out some fur brushes I downloaded and I'm using the mermaid sketch to learn layers.

How about you? Do you find yourself in conflict with creating and money?

How the show went

As we are now fully into the craft show season, I thought I'd tell you about my first craft show experience in more than twelve years. Last Saturday, Nov. 27, I participated in the Steveston Christmas Craft Show.  This juried show is a popular event in the community and I would attend whenever I could. This year I thought I'd try and make my art presence a little more known locally and snag a table. I'm an avid reader of the Etsy Storque, Handmadeology, and HandmadeSpark articles and I've gleaned a lot of tips from them about doing craft shows. I REALLY wanted this show to go well and I prepared for it as much as I could. I looked at other peoples set-ups like on Flickr's ShowMe Your Booth, I watched videos like this one by Linty Fresh, and I tried to mentally prepare myself for any slumps in the sale day. My attitude during the show was my biggest concern because I knew that the more upbeat I was the more sales I would attract. Because the work I do is important to me and is an expression of who I am, I tend to get upset when my work is passed over. I realize that everyone has their own taste but when someone says they don't really like my art it's like they're saying they don't like ME. Silly, I know, and something I'm getting better at dealing with, but it's still true.

So my tactic for staying positive was to bring a funny book and my sketchbook. My husband had bought me "Sh*t my Dad says" and I have to say that it made me laugh out loud so many times that I was looking a little crazy. Put a smile on my face though. For the other times I took a pencil to paper and did some drawing. I'm currently working on some rabbit images and I felt like I created a couple that I can work with. There's nothing better than creating to make me feel good.

All in all, this show was a fantastic learning experience for me and because it was such a success to me, I'm thinking about how else I can branch out locally. Have you got any tips about shows? Would love to hear them.

1000,000 Giraffes

I have a fun post for you today. I wanted to show you my submission for the 1000,000 Giraffe.com site. The goal of the site is to collect one million images of originally created giraffes before 2011. The only stipulation for submitting to this site is that your Giraffe be an original drawing,painting or sculpture created without the aid of a computer. Let's get back to the basics!

The site has some fun features like stat listings, searches, blog and "guess the artist's age" game which is my favorite. It was very easy to upload an image and were notified very quickly that our pieces were accepted in the collection. So for some simple creative fun, draw yourself a little giraffe and submit it to the cause.

Below are the watercolor painting my daughter submitted and the drypoint with watercolor that I submitted. What do you think?

Claire Age: 5

Drypoint on plastic w/watercolor

Illustrators of Inspiration

For me, I imagine my that my dream job would be to illustrate a children's picture book. How great would it be to draw fairy tales, children and animals all day long? It's from the first picture books of my childhood that spurred my desire to be an artist. I would spend hours copying pictures from my favorite books. Still in love with the genre, I collect children's picture books just for the illustrators.

I wanted to share with you some of my favorite illustrators, starting from the first books of inspiration of my youth to some of the books I currently pour over.

This vintage Peter Pan is one of the first books to fascinate me. I remember copying this cover quite a few times. I was fortunate enough to find a copy of this book through Malfie on Artfire and was thrilled to find her located in the same city as me. In less than two days Malfie had supplied me with a small but significant piece of my childhood. Thanks . Now if she can only scout out a Wayne Anderson book for me. I would provide an image but most are protected from copying. Looking at his work, I can see that he has had a significant and early impression on my own work.

As for current illustrators...the list is so huge. Here's a very small portion of them. See if you can find a theme or look that has attracted me to them.

Lane Smith

Wayne Anderson

Mark Ryden

Ryan Heshka

Johnson and Fancher

Vlasta Van Kempen