print & pattern

I'm thrilled to post that I'm featured on Print & Pattern blog today!  It's my first write up as an artist, and it feels so good! 

pretzel journal

This is the journal cover I made for Lilla Rogers Bootcamp class.  It's supposed to be inspired by Edwardian brooches, while I was drawing them all I could think of was soft pretzels.  You can see the Edwardian influence in the spine pattern, although one could argue that's it's really more art nouveau.  It was a fun project and I'd love to have this as blank book. 

grapefruit & mistletoe

I'm on a bit of a grapefruit kick.  Here's a lino cut of grapefruit and mistletoe. 

flowers

I'm still challenging myself to do a weekly flower study, although I almost gave up this week. 

trucks & ducks

I made my weekly bouquet study into wallpaper. Wouldn't this be great in a farmhouse? 

paper plates and napkins

Last week in my illustration class we learned about the paper market.  Our assignment was to collect things from nature and use them to make a line of paper plates and napkins.  I had some trouble with the florals.  I think it's because the shapes are so common it's hard to find fresh ways of doing them. In the end I'm happy with what I came up with, I would buy those plates and napkins.  I plan to continue to challenge myself with the florals, maybe I'll try to do one a week for a while until I feel more comfortable. 

map

I made a map of Amsterdam.  

scrapbooking

We did scrapbooking last week in Make Arts That Sells, the class I'm taking with Lilla Rogers.   Here's my page.  I was thinking these would be address labels and washi tape.  The theme that was assigned to us was vintage clocks and correspondence. 

giddy up

I'm back in class again.  It's time for Make Art That Sells with Lilla Rogers. This week our assignment was "Cowboys".  We were told to start drawing cowboy things on Monday, on Wednesday we got the assignment.  This time it was an illustration that would be used for children's apparel. The assignment was due the following Sunday, this class goes for 5 weeks and it's pretty intense. I love it though and I can't wait to see what I'll be drawing next week!

 

apple pie

The Farmers Almanac says today and tomorrow are the best days for baking. I think I'll make an apple pie today. Gouache, graphite, marker, ink and coffee 30"X22"

café au lait bowls‎

I've got four paintings going on right now, this is exciting because I've decided that it's the space in between the paintings that I dislike. I'm actually very uncomfortable when I don't have a creative project going on. I think I read somewhere that Hemingway would stop writing for the day in the middle of the sentence. This makes a lot of sense to me.

unselfishness

I accidentally purchased the book "The Flowering of American Folk Art" on Amazon. There were no picture of the inside and I thought it was a book of folk flower patterns. It was a happy mistake, I guess I didn't realize just how much I love American folk art. I've been experimenting with my own folk art, and painting with coffee. This one even has a bit of frozen coke in it, since that was what I happened to have handy when I needed a bit more brown I just went with it.

the global talent search

This is my t-shirt design for The Global Talent Search. When I got the assignment to make an animal with character for a children's t-shirt. I knew immediately I'd make something that would be unisex. My son Oslo is 3, and it's really hard to find him cute clothes. My criteria for choosing clothes for him is that they can't be dumbed down, I like a sophisticated color palette for children.One of my favorite children's labels is BoBo Chooses, they do very simple and sophisticated designs for kiddos, so they were definitely my inspiration.  The words are from a song that Oslo sings at preschool, when he first sang it he was singing "Minnesota Portland", but it turned out the words were "Manners Are Important". Please go and vote, there are a lot of good designs to choose from and you can vote for up to five per email address right here.

i made it!

I'm so honored to be included in this group of 50 amazing artists.

sleep soup

I took a nap and you made soup.

2014 global talent search entry

I entered the Lilla Rogers 2014 Global Talent Search. I've been searching for ways to get outside my comfort zone. Competition scares the crap out of me. I'm really proud of myself for doing the work and submitting it, putting your art out into the world takes guts and courage.

green sun tea

It's been green sun tea kinda weather.

I was born in 1975, a time when there were no computers. Last night, I found myself telling my son what it was like to grow up without an iPad, and YouTube. My husband's a computer programmer, needless to say we have a lot of computers in our house. I recently got a new 27" iMac, and here's the first piece I made with it. The tiles are cut paper, the sun tea, and plant are gauche, and all the drawing is pencil. I used photoshop to collage it all together. I love the piece, I think it successfully conveys a feeling of happiness and the technique is a direction I'm excited to go in. The only problem is that it only exists virtually.

I studied art at MCAD in the early 90's when computers where just beginning to be a real tool you needed, but they were still only used by designers. I loved, screen printing, paper making,puppets, books and paintings, all real art that you can hold in your hands. So, I'm reflecting on how I got here. I think real art is important if not somehow slightly superior to digital art, and I think it looks better hanging on the wall. I decided to embark on a real collage series, a collection of originals that can just be hung on the wall without the use of photoshop or illustrator. In fact, I'm redrawing a piece right now and I can't wait to share it here soon.