Old made new

                 

This is an old image that I revisited and played around with the other day.

New illustration

Sometimes I find myself quite puzzling. 

Playing around with this image today.

I am Bloom WOW Love Song Rockin pattern

Here is a pattern that I am revisiting and rockin' round with new color

Smarty

It seems I have dummies ( i mean smarties, no one likes to be called dumb) hanging around my studio. These smarties are great helpers in the process to getting a picture book idea out from my glimmering swirling head and into the world where there is a greater possibility that other hands, eyes, and hearts will have the opportunity to enjoy them too. Also, making a smarty is fun. Some magic happens, magic that involves... well I can't reveal it all just yet. But here are some images from a recent smarty. 

These pages ( in no particular order) are from a picture book titled "The Sock Mess Monster". 

If you would like to see the whole Sock Mess Smarty, please email me, and I will slip into some comfy foot wear, hop on my horse and gallop over to the mail box pronto. Enjoy!!!!!!!

sketch, pistachio heads

i found this collage sketch for some pistachio head people, yep their heads are pistachio shells. 

Lilla Rogers class week 5

Thank U(niverse). That's how I feel right now. Nothing happened, I just feel that way. Gratitude is a practice I practice. Sometimes I have to evoke the feeling, steer my heart in that awesome feeling direction, and sometimes, that feeling swings through me as if it came from somewhere so WOW that WOW doesn't even capture it. I love the feeling gratitude creates in my body. That is why I practice it, for the feeling. A little bit like a gratitude feeling junkie, once you  experience a dose of it, you want others to feel it too, you want the world to know this feeling. This golden buddha in the image below was given to me years ago by someone who I barely knew. It sits in my room and every morning I look and for a millisecond or a full second I stand and say in some way with my being, Thank u.

This week the assignment was to be abundant with images inspired from things we collect, love, have.
At first I thought, I don't really collect that much, I live in a small brooklyn apartment with kids, I am always tossing stuff. But then I realized that isn't fully true. I have little collections, gathered here and there, quietly offering their inspiration whenever I need it. 

Collage

sometimes I make things and I just don't no what to do with them. Actually not sometimes but a lot of times. These things hang around my studio or my apartment and I pick them up look at them put them down walk by them and go hmmmm, i like this but what should I do with it. Here is one of those things that has been sitting on my dresser greeting me every morning for a few months.

Lilla Rogers Week 4

by my front door I have a little quote from a tea bag taped with a glitter owl sticker to the wall. It is a constant reminder. "On with the dance. Let joy be unconfined." And in my studio recently I must have read a quote from William Carlos Williams that I scribbled in marker and taped up. It too is a reminder for creative living. "But only the dance is sure. Make it your own. Who can tell what is to come of it?" I often forget, but I also often remember, the Dance knows more then I do. 

I just have to let the dancer know I am here.

The assignment this week was to make a collage, use a quote or words, 

some flower element, and assigned colors, yeah I love my colors. Here are two collages.

Lilla Rogers class Week 3

I am still really enjoying this class. Kind of wished I did it years ago. But I suppose I wasn't open or ready or attracting it to my process then. Every assignment feels like something I want to do. This one was picture books, which I have been pursuing for awhile. After the last assignment, I learned I have the tendency to stray and play too much outside the guidelines. I decided to play within more this time, and really wanted to work with the story. Here is the cover I came up with for the "The Language of the Birds." I realized after I posted it, that I forgot the second THE in the title. Perhaps that was me  subconsciously editing.

Lilla Rogers class week 2

I am sooooo loving this class. This week the assignment was to design plates with a Bromeliad (flower) theme. I drew like crazy the first day. I think in the end I went a little too far off the theme when I found myself drawing tails, animal tails, lion cat animal tails, and lion cat crowns. No- these aren't exactly flowers but drawing the flowers reminded me of the lion cat tails and lion cat crowns so I suppose that is ok. Anyway, I would love to make more of these, possibly a collection of 8 (my favorite number) and see them in stores somewhere glorious.  That would be fun. Really fun. Until then I will make more.
And if u, universe...want to dance, lets see your magic moves!

New Editorial illustration

Berry Good Time

I am taking an online class with the agent Lilla Rogers, and so far it is really fun. 

It is inspiring my work in new directions. This image is from the first assignment to design a bolt fabric with a kitchen vintage feel. I still want to tweak things but for now this is what I created.

As I was playing around, I couldn't resist adding a little story element.

Can you see a story here? 

LOVE IT!!!!!

Just saw this video of true imagination having it's delight. If you haven't already seen this boy and his cardboard arcade check it out now! It will brighten your day and make you want to play.

www.cainesarcade.com

http://www.cardboardchallenge.com

I also love his list for anyone in the creative business. 

Right now I am gravitating to number 4.  

5 Lessons (on a Barf Bag) for Entrepreneurs: 

1. Be nice to customers.
2. Do a business that is fun.
3. Do not give up. (Caine circled and underlined this one three times)
4. Start with what you have.
5. Use recycled stuff.

Beyond Imagination

When I go to sit and create something without an idea for what I want to create but instead with a feeling, I am always joyously surprised with what arrives. I love these moments. I could have never imagined this drawing before I sat down to draw in my sketchbook. The drawing made it, not me or my imagining what to draw. When I get stuck creatively I think of these glorious moments and invite them to shower my life, flow through my hands, appear like an easy river dance. Yep, yep, yep, Did I mention I  love these moments. They are my reminders, my guidelines, my thank you very much universe, I will accept that gift you just gave to me because it is awesomely beyond anything I could have ever imagined on my own.

eye dance

i found this scan of a drawing i did in my sketchbook.

have been playing with it a bit this afternoon adding color.

the colors remind me of the last weeks i've spent at the beach, sand, sun, sky, oh and a few ocean splashes too. 

silkscreen gone wild

                                            I just couldn't stop printing with different silkscreens,
                                     some stamps, some paint, and marker and collage thrown in.
                                                       This is my version to some summer fun.

pattern time

     I am playing around with this pattern.

word collage play

5 minute collage

                                           
                                          I have been playing with making 5 minute collages.
                                          This is one of them. It is also one of those yoga poses
                                          where I resist getting into but once I rise up,
                                          I am feeling happy I did!

Can the little drop do it?

                        

                       Found this idea in an old dummy and decided to redo it. This is what I have so far.

There's a new Dummy in town (and it's pretty darn smart)

at least it thinks so.
Working on a new dummy, for a picture book  idea I've had for a zillion years. Maybe not a zillion but a few. Hopefully it will be dummy done before the next zillion.
My studio's been too hot this week, so here is an aerial view of kitchen table getting some good use.

Change

Sometimes you just don't want to hear what you have to change. Haven't I done enough I think? Actually my brain is screaming, haven't I done enough.!!!!! And the answer is Yes and well NO!
Not if you want the image to speak clearer.

This weekend I went to an illustrator workshop with SCBWI and received some specific comments.
I am taking what I heard and believe to be true as well and making some changes. I think the hardest part is getting from hearing what needs to be done to sitting down and making that happen. It's the resistance in between. But then once I get going, I see there are other changes that would help the image come to life and be stronger as well.

So today I am working on really refining one image, making the changes so I don't have to explain, so it can speak for itself. wooooooo! yes, this is hard stuff, but then again it's fun too.

                                                       

Want to make red thread bigger and as recommended a shadow

want to make the monster appear he is smooshing down the roofs...

playing with colors 

    

getting closer....

changes are happening, because I am making them-

one little red thread at a time.

Play happened today!

Rain Rain Rain

It's been raining a lot and I really don't mind.

Sometimes drizzle drops makes me happy. 

Water is definitely on my mind, playing around with these diver drawing photographs

Brilliant!

ok, I love, love, love this idea. It's soooo brilliant and beyond, that I am not even having a
 (wish I thought of that moment).
Check it out: http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=2584#more-2584

new illustration

                                                 collage then photoshop -whale boy

new illustration

working on this collage, drawn from a children's book story idea, still playing with color.

The background was made from photographing tinfoil with holes poked into it ( see below)

old sketch book

      I took an old sketch book and made these tiny ones that I colored and photographed (here)
      Now all my old sketch books better hide unless they too want to snip, shrink, snizzle

playing off a sketch

                      
                                                  images from sketchbook
                                                  that I have played some more
                                                
                                                  my new friend is the paint bucket pattern tool in photoshop,
                                                  only took me a few years to discover that one

Sketch Book pages