Illustration Friday: Stretch

Illustration Friday: WHISKERS

WHISKERS SUPPORT GROUP (WSG)

I look at my cat, who seems to have whiskers EVERYWHERE: nose, ear, eye; so many fine little whiskers, it's very funny to focus on them. So many animals use them to feel their way through the underbrush, underwater, under the sofa. Maybe they meet every month or so for a Whiskers Support Group, to discuss the ins and outs of whiskers: getting them caught in things, losing them, narrowly escaping danger because of them....

Illustration Friday: Zoom

Kind of rushed this one to have it ready this week, but had fun doing it! The moment was inspired by a time a few years ago at a birthday party when my brother was blowing up balloons, letting them go and watching them fly all over the dining room. It was astonishingly hysterically funny!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

First holiday cookies of the season

This small 5x5 painting was inspired by a painting I saw at an art opening on Saturday, and by holiday cookies I bought for Thanksgiving. I used gouache, which I haven't used since art school, and found it to be a lot more fun that it had seemed back then!

Illustration Friday - TREE

This week's topic, TREE, made me think of the moment before you let go when you are climbing back down a tree -- you're looking down, your brain is calculating the amount of pain it might be to jump from this far -- and you're stretching as long as you can to shorten the distance. Is it worth it?

Illustration Friday -- SHY

This week's Illustration Friday was a challenge! My interpretation of shy is the feeling of joy at the election's outcome while also feeling a sort of shyness about expressing my political views. I'm not sure if it works, but I am so glad to have completed three IF's in a row! Thanks to IF friends and Joe for their encouragement :)

Illustration Friday: Haunt!

Two in a row for Illustration Friday entries! This week's, Haunt, brought many ideas, and the one I liked the best was this image of being haunted by worries at night. While working on it, I heard a piece of the beautiful Men at Work song, Overkill: "Ghosts appear and fade away." It fit perfectly.

Raccoons!

Here are some sketches from a new story idea about....raccoons!

Sky -- Illustration Friday

I am excited to be back doing Illustration Friday challenges after a little while away! This week's challenge is "Sky," a great topic, full of possibilities! Some weeks I struggle and struggle to come up with an idea, this week's came pretty quickly: a girl leaning her ladder on the clouds and discovering the strange water-like quality of the sky. I'm not crazy about the execution -- sketchy and quickly colored in Photoshop -- but I am so happy to have an entry. Thanks to Creations by Mit for her encouragement!

The Tarot Card Collective

Here is my mostly completed painting for a group show with the Tarot Card Collective, a group of 22 artists in the Lowell area. We each picked a card from a deck of the Major Arcana cards to interpret in our own style and medium. I picked card number 2, The High Priestess.

My painting will be in a one-night group show in Lowell on Halloween.

Painting this piece was a great process to go through; I got a lot of helpful feedback that helped me add and develop details that really made the image more interesting to look at. I will remember and use the advice going forward! 

A little about The High Priestess: she represents looking within to find answers when struggling with a decision. She sits, representing stability, and is between a black and white column, which represent good and evil, opposing forces at work. She holds scrolls which contain all the knowledge you will need, and holds the crescent moon, a symbol of night and intuition. The curtain with pomegranates behind her blocks a view of the sea, hinting at the vastness of knowledge beyond this present decision. She wears the crown of Isis, also a waxing, full and waning moon, symbolic of night and intuition. I think she is a good card to get, a positive and guiding force, one that asks us to slow down and listen intently to ourselves for answers we are seeking.

My intent in the painting was to make an approachable Priestess, instead of a dark or haunting one. Someone who is a little uncertain herself, but still playing the role she has been asked to play.

August in art: tarot cards, island life, naked people

A little tardy, perhaps, but here is my short list of ART in August! My 2 focuses (foci?) were the Tarot Card Project painting I am working on and vacation plein air painting in Monhegan, Maine. In between were some sketches and watercolors I didn't yet post, most notably a quick sketch of my niece Sage from a summer day by a lake in NH, and a life drawing session I went to in Lowell.

Sketch of Sage I scanned and colored in Photoshop

Tarot Card Collective

The Tarot Card Project is a group of 22 artists in Lowell, collected together by fantastic local artist Denise Warren. Each of us picked a tarot card from the deck of Major Arcana cards (I think this is like the royalty cards in a regular deck of cards) and are reinterpreting it in our own style and medium. On Halloween, the paintings will all be in a one-night show  at Brian's Ivy Hall in Lowell.

I picked the High Priestess card and spent the first 2 weeks in August finishing the sketch and transferring it to an 18"x24" canvas. Then, daunted by the size and amount of work left to do, I went on a week vacation to Maine.

Monhegan Island, Maine 

For the past 3 years, Joe and I have gone to Monhegan Island in the late summer with the goals of painting outside and relaxing. This year was the best in terms of both, and we painted and sketched every day on the island, stopping to take in art and nature, sunsets and siestas. Here are my two favorite images from our trip. It took a few days to build up the painting/seeing outside muscle again, the first few images I did were really practice pieces. One of the best things about painting outside is the chance to be outside and focused on something, while also watching everything that goes on. (On Monhegan, that means watching butterflies come and go, a mid-size rodent creep through the garden, and the tide come in or go out).

The week in Maine made me really appreciate what an artist residency could be like; the time away from distractions and  outside made things very clear and simple.

Life Drawing

Before leaving for Maine, I finally went to a Life Drawing session in Lowell run by another fantastic local artist Michael Vieria. It felt good to draw from the figure again and meet other local artists. I have to bust through some current mental obstructions and get myself to go again!

Sketching in Court

The last week in August was my last time having to go to grand jury dury in Boston, which I have been doing since October of last year. One thing that was good about it, besides it being generally interesting and eye-opening, was the chance to do sketching from life in the courtroom and in the train station. I am experimenting with coffee shops near work to find a new place to do more of this! (Barnes and Noble and Starbucks near work have been good starts!)

Next Month

My goals for September are to get ready for Open Studios, finish the Tarot Card painting, and get to another one or 2 life drawing sessions. Also, the illustration critique group will meet again, and I want to get back to completing Illustration Friday challenges!

Paintings from Monhegan, 2012

Summer on the porch

 

For this watercolor, I didn't have to set anything up or go anywhere; this small scene on Joe's porch in Salisbury was very beach-y and relaxing.

Illustration Friday, "Refresh"

Illustration Friday -- 'Secret'

Here is my submission for Illustration Friday topic, "Secret." It was challenging coming up with an image that felt genuine (which I think is one of my goals in doing these) but some of the thoughts I had while working on this were about having and honing your own secret way to access a "magical" or meditative place: for your art, for growth, for peace of mind.

Painted elephants

Here is the painted version of the Illustration Friday sketch "Hitched" from a month ago. Fun sketch to do, fun painting to do, too!

Illustration Friday: HURRY!

This is a quick sketch so I could submit to this week's Illustration Friday category, "HURRY!" I feel this way at times -- like I am almost too late and the door is closing and stuff is flying everywhere!

Justine Siegal, Baseball for All

Here is a sketch for a book idea about Justine Siegal, the first woman to pitch batting practice in the Major Leagues. She pitched to the Cleveland Indians, among others, in 2011, and coaches the minor league's Brockton Rox. She has a great and inspiring story, and has created a hugely successful non-profit, Baseball for All, to help others be able to play, in her words, "the greatest game on earth."

The Taz: Highlights from Children's Book conference (NESCBWI)

I recently attended the New England Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators conference in Springfield, MA. It was my first time going to the conference, and it was a genuinely great and enriching experience. I went for one of the days and took 3 workshops by accomplished illustrators and writers: Character Design with Kelly Light, Writing for Illustrators with Mary Brigid Barrett, and Essentials of a Picture Book Dummy with Dan Yaccarino.

Each of the talks had a rich amount of experience and enthusiasm behind them, and I soaked up not only the speakers' tips and ideas, but also being in the presence of many other interested, motivated artists.

Highlights from each talk: Kelly Light doing her Tasmanian Devil impression while encouraging us all to physically do and feel all the things we want to draw our character doing. Also, "Draw the idea, not the pose; draw the action, not the anatomy." She also recommended 2 books: Drawn to Life, the Walt Stanchfield lectures, Volumes 1 and 2; 20 years of talks given to Disney animators.

Mary Brigid Barrett's class on writing for illustrators was very visual, engaging, and included this interesting tip about writing: "Don't use adverbs or adjectives, make your verbs VERY specific. Your character shouldn't walk slowly, she should PLOD."

Dan Yaccarino's talk was supposed to be about laying out a picture book dummy, but it was more a look at his work and an analysis of picture book structure. "Keep it simple: the protagonist trying to get what they want, with obstacles along the way, is the story." He gave a list of classics to read including:

Curious George
Harry the Dirty Dog
Amelia Bedelia
Blueberries for Sal
Cat in the Hat
Petunia
Madeline
Ferdinand
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Swimmy
anything by William Steig

Hitched

I'm so glad I got an entry together for this week's Illustration Friday theme!
I've been seeing lots of spring babies around (mostly ducks and goslings)
so I was inspired. :)