Archive | creating

love it

You probably already saw this over at Poppytalk but I love it so much I’m posting it here.  ‘Aye Jay Morano sent his third grade son Cohen’s water color paintings out into the world to be altered and added to by an impressive collection of street artists, graffiti writers and children’s illustrators.’  The book is available here.  I already got mine.

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art, creating, inspiration

Mr. or Ms. Postmaster

20×200 has the BEST shipping labels.  I love the ‘Mr. or Ms. Postmaster please for the love of art do not bend!’  I need to do something like this, because apparently even though I stamp all my packages with a ‘please do not bend’ every so often,  they do.

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creating, everyday, inspiration

New work

for a show in Australia.  Story of a Secret State is a group art exhibition that seeks to illustrate the horrendous human rights violations taking place in North Korea.  Here are my three contributions.

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art, creating

a fun sketch

Sometimes it’s fun to just have fun.  I did this little sketch yesterday and thought it would make a fun print.  It is called ‘mind your manners.’  (may or may not be related to a recurring theme around here lately)  I have a few more sketches the could make a cute little series of three that will be making there way very soon to my etsy store.

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art, creating

progress

This weekend I was able to make a lot of progress on a series of paintings I’ve been working on and I’m very happy with them!  Here are a few.

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art, creating

testing 1, 2, 3

I have been letting myself play around, experiment and explore.  Here are some outakes of my day.  Maybe they will end up somewhere, maybe not….

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update, a few hours later…

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art, creating, everyday

favorite project of 2009

As I jump into new paintings and projects for the new year, I wanted to share what was probably the one that was the most fun of 2009.  I was contacted to see if I would lend some of my paintings to a movie that was being made here in Portland, and while that alone was exciting, it is a film being directed by Gus Van Sant.  That’s all I needed to know.  In addition to the paintings that were used as set dressing, I was asked to create the main characters sketch book.  The currently untitled film stars Mia Wasikowska (aka Alice in the upcoming Alice in Wonderland) as a dying girl preoccupied with mortality.   The images and quotes deal with death and are influenced by the fact that the characters father had been a naturalist.  Some images were specifically mentioned in the script so that helped as a starting point.  Here are a few pages.  Now I’ll have to wait another year to see if any of it actually makes it into the film!

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art, creating

a sketch a day a color a month

So, I received a couple moleskine sketch books for Christmas (love), that I am hoping to fill with ideas, rough sketches etc.  In addition, I gifted my self with a color a month planners.  One page a day, one book for each month and they all come nicely boxed.  I am not a diary keeper, but I think these will be a fun challenge for myself, to write/sketch/whatever every single day for a year.  When the year is up, it will be a fun time capsule of sorts to look back on, don’t you think?

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As we head into the weekend I thought I’d share some links!

There is no end to amazing blogs out there, here are a few of my new (to me) favorites:

Portland Places

Sunday Suppers

The City Sage

Hashai

Hide and Seek

The Jealous Curator

Lake Jane

You Are My Fave

art, creating, everyday

where art thou inspiration

I’ve been trying to work on some paintings at least a bit each day, all in various states of completion.  I am realizing I usually have been working a good hour or so before I become inspired and ‘ready’ to really go at it.  I’ve never really done a warm up because I only have so many hours to work before the little ones come home, at which point I become very jealous of those who have an entire day to paint.  This is the main reason I put start and keep sketch book on my resolution/goal list.  Maybe if I put more effort into that part of thinking/trying/experimenting stage, I will be more ready when the paint comes out.  Thoughts?  Do you start your day of making with a warm up?

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art, creating, everyday, inspiration

currently

in our humble abode…

apart from shipping out the last of my orders for the holidays (THANK YOU! to all who have ordered, and even bigger thank you to Dooce for including one of my prints in her holiday gift guide.  I mean she was the answer to a jeapordy question, this woman rocks!)

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I’ve been doing a little experimenting with some new ideas, fixing my daughters stuffed animals (shown here with her ‘temporary eye’) and doing some gingerbreading.

art, creating, everyday, press

workspace

This is what mine looks right now.  Messy = productive (that’s what I’m going with anyway).

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art, creating, everyday

gifts for the grandparentage

So if you are a grandparent to our kids-STOP READING NOW!

I am quite proud of myself for actually getting this gift done.  This is the time when I am busy getting portraits completed and off in time for others to give for the holidays, so unless I plan ahead, my own gifts can fall into the ‘thought that counts’ category.   But I did it! I created a blurb book for our parents with pics of the kids from this past year.  When the kids were little, I was pretty good about getting photos to everyone,  sending them off on a pretty regular basis.  I haven’t done that in years (and believe me, I have the guilt to prove it).   Here are a few of my favorite pages

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creating, everyday, stuff to give, stuff to have

smile

We are so doing this Christmas Day!   We will be creating a ‘photo booth’ in the kitchen and I can’t wait to see the results!  We did this years and years ago for my daughter’s third b-day and they are some of my favorite photos of her with all her family.  I got inspired after seeing the smile booth over at Our Labor of Love photographers.

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creating, everyday, inspiration

honeymoon stage

A series of paintings I just started.  I usually go through several love/hate stages with each new piece.  The idea stage, honeymoon stage,  not so much of a honeymoon, maybe it will work out stage, and hopefully the it’s done and I’m completely happy with it stage.

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art, creating, everyday

good mail day

Love good mail days!  Today was this sweetly packaged pile of interesting scraps of paper from lovely design.  True to the name, they are lovely.  Some of these will be for my own personal use, some will be used in a super fun project I’m working on for a certain local film maker.

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creating, everyday