Paintings

Hi friends! Hope you're doing well during this beautiful season.
I've put some of my paintings on Etsy. You can also purchase prints here.

Daily Illustration Project: Fool Daily

Well, friends, its time I [nervously] let you in on a little secret. 

I've challenged myself with a daily illustration project. I am attempting to draw a quick comic every morning and post it on Fool Daily. My style is still a little shaky and I'm exploring different subject matter and media, but I'm enjoying the technical challenge! 

I'm trying to keep it fairly simple so I don't fizzle out, but that possibility is always looming. I've waited two weeks before sharing, to give myself a chance to build up a habit.

school hours from Hourly Comic Day

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that much of my inspiration comes from Connie Sun's beautiful daily illustrated status messages. I started following her a couple of years ago after reading about her on NPR, and then this interview on The Rumpus. I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was a kid, but it was one of those things that seemed far away and unrealistic (like being a ballerina or zoo keeper), until I started following Connie. Somewhere along the way, I lost interest in being a zoo keeper, but I still love the idea of drawing comics.



So, I'm making a beginning, hoping to see it improve and flourish! I hope you'll check it out!

Atelier

tucked away in the corner of my bedroom last month

I've had various studio arrangements over the years. When I was first married, a large drafting table filled much of the space of our bedroom. After we had kids, I moved my things to the awkward end of our long kitchen. During that time, my studio evolved more and more into a sewing studio, and I collected bins of fabric and notions stacked alongside the map table where I stored my paintings. When I had a big job to do, John and the kids would leave for a weekend at grandma's so I could take over the living room.

There was a brief time, when we moved into the new house, I had an entire room with a door. The closet and shelves and desk were all mine for sewing and painting. [See my pretty portrait in the sidebar?] Oddly it was a year between projects and so I didn't really use it much. And then again things changed, John started working from home, and sometime later we needed another nursery.

So I've been using my table top easel here (bedroom?) and there (kitchen table?) for the last few months.  As the new year begins and I am trying to devote myself to a new project. Oh, I'm so easily distracted. So a new space is in order.

a tidied-up lego-land loft

Our loft has been used for nothing but lego-land for months since we're doing school downstairs. I think lego-land, when kept tidy, might just be an inspiring place to work. My giant crocodile and the girls paintings adorn the space, making it a pretty happy place. So, I've carved out a corner for my old sewing table with the desktop easel nested on top (drawings courtesy of little ones). My own little attic atelier.

a table top easel for a new year and new project

As I'm focusing more on illustration projects and homeschooling, I'm posting more often at Many Mercies than here. You're welcome to join me there, or wait around for me to pop in here. Either way, I'll try to keep you posted when I've got more to share about my latest project.

Happy New Year, friends! May your projects be full of joy and success!

Adventures in Printing

I have prints available of some of my small paintings here or at the link in the sidebar. I've had a crash course this week in scanning artwork, and the geek in me is finding it pretty fun. The print above of St. John Orthodox Church is to scale with the original and shows the rough texture of the canvas and thick paint nicely.

I've included a few oils and watercolors, and a few illustrations as well. Prints can be ordered in several sizes, on greeting cards and a few other products. My Old Testament Timeline is also available here, and I recommend the 17x24" poster.

Back to (Home)School with Animal Bookmark Printable

dolphin bookmark

We're back to school again, and pretty happy about it. Many families have first day of school traditions to help get everyone excited about the new year. I was only sort of prepared, and so ours stretched into first week of school celebrations, which is just fine with me. 

On our first day, we painted self-portraits, and started reading some new books.

Everyone claimed their quiet reading spot. 

I meant to have donuts for breakfast, but didn't get out to the store. So I made toast with butter hearts. I thought they turned out pretty well... but I sort of forgot to mention it to the kids, and I think they ate them without noticing. But hey, the love is there, right?

making toast with love

Later in the week, we got around to grabbing a few new school supplies, and starting the 1st grader on her very own field journal. I'm feeling really good about using spiral notebooks to simply our homeschooling schedule. We'll see if it works for the whole year - but this week, we're all loving it. It helps the kids see how much they have left to do, encourages my new reader to read, and it has a fun schedule built in (when they finish the first two subjects, then they get to have a snack and read on their own).

We have a (mostly) Charlotte Mason style homeschool this year, so there are lots of books. I thought some new bookmarks were in order to get us excited about reading. First we made a few of these easy origami bookmarks. (There are quite a few other origami corner bookmarks with interesting designs. I've pinned several here.)

And then I surprised the kids with some animal bookmarks, featuring their favorite animals: Sea Animals (a dolphin, of course, seahorse, and octopus) and Horses (in well named colors). 

octopus bookmark

golden horse bookmark

lavender seahorse bookmark

I couldn't find all the books in all the places to take pictures, but this shows quite a few. Grab the printable bookmarks below. Print on cardstock, and cut along the gray line. Use an x-acto knife for best results on the interior cut outs. Enjoy!

Happy New School Year! 

Yay!

J found a blank book I'd made a few years ago, and was very excited when I told her that it was blank so that she could fill it up with her own story. She worked diligently, narrating her story to me, and then copying the words into the book. I like the surprise ending. 

"Yay, we're going to have a new baby."

"Yay, the baby came out." and "Yay, the new baby is having a birthday."

There are no more words, but the baby continues to grow and have birthdays. 

We must stack tables on top of tables to make the cake high enough for the baby to reach.

Finally, the baby has grown taller than the chimney,
which says puff, puff, puff, and the Mommy stands nearby.

Printable Cards to Color and Share for Thanksgiving, Winter, and other Greetings

I made these printable-coloring Thanksgiving cards a few years ago, and the girls and I just came across them again. Our plans this year are up in the air, and so I thought writing cards to all the family we won't see would be fun (although a challenge for little ones who don't like writing!)

These are an easy, low-ink printable, that fold in half to make cards. While I'm getting organized here's a list of all my printable coloring cards:

Thanksgiving

Animal Greetings

Rare Animal Greetings

Bon Hiver (Good Winter)
Update: Cards have been updated and improved, and can now be found in my shop. 

I think I made the last two, but never shared them, so they are brand new. Check out the new Bon Hiver cards below. 

Art Week! Friday: The Exhibit

FRIDAY MORNING I had originally left open, thinking we might need that time to finish our comic book or other projects. But we didn't have anything unfinished so we decided to do a still life instead. I cut flowers from our butterfly bush and grabbed some apples and we got started!

I didn't do any preparation for this lesson, so I'm sure this could have gone better. But these are some of the points we hit:

• sketch out the main shapes of what you see first, you can add more details when you begin to paint
• each person is looking from a different place, and so we each see slightly different things
• the background color doesn't have to be the same as the wall behind it - choose a color that complements your composition
• apples aren't just red - what other colors do you see in the apples?

The really fun part of this project was that all three of us were looking at the same thing, and painted the same thing, yet each painting turned out very unique. They thought that was pretty cool. In a way we were putting into action the diversity of styles they had been seeing in the art books all week.

They were given free painting time for the rest of the morning and were extra motivated because they knew this was their last chance to make something for the art exhibit.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON I encouraged the girls to pick out their very best paintings for the gallery wall, and then we also had two large "collections" that we hung along the stairs. I wanted them to understand that it was okay that some paintings are better than others - some don't make the cut, but that doesn't mean they aren't valuable. Also, I wanted to talk about how some art work is made together as a group, when an artist explores a certain topic, subject or style. This ended up being way too easy since my four year old had drawn about a hundred variations of houses with a tree and person, and my six year old made her own series of dots (like in the story The Dot).

After they made their selections, I cleaned up our school room and got ready for the art exhibit. They looked forward to the exhibit all week, so I wanted to make it feel extra special and sort of surprise them with it. I always think the best way to make an event feel special is to transform the space. Our school room has lots of clutter (and not many empty walls), so I had to get creative with this. I finally decided to hang a sheet in front of the school shelf and use it as our gallery wall. This gave us a large empty wall space, and also hid the messy school clutter. Combine that with an actually clean room and a table cloth with hor d'oeurves and flowers, and our loft felt like a fancy gallery. I made tickets as an extra little surprise for our grand opening.

still life model to decor

L's work is on the right, and J's on the left

The two collections lined the stairs, leading up to the main exhibit in the loft.
Tickets were collected at the bottom of the stairs. 

I also encouraged the girls to dress up. L and I dressed in all black after an artist cliche she had seen in some books. J did not like that idea at all, so she wore her fluffy pink dress instead.

The main event happened after Daddy was home from work. He was the best audience ever, asking lots of questions, and listening to them tell him about their favorite paintings. L was very eager to talk about her work. She worked diligently all week, and was eager to learn how to do each new task. I was very proud of her, and I think the art exhibit made her feel quite important.

I'm not sure this cured our homeschool burn out, and we're way behind in history and math now. But we had the best week ever. We had a crazy week of stress-free messy learning, and I think my 6 year old found that even hard work can be fun. I think this is maybe the best of what school can be: exploring what our children are really drawn to, and teaching them to love learning. Hopefully, we can bring more of this kind of learning into each week!

Keep up with the rest of Art Week here:

Get Ready
Monday: Experimenting with Materials and Textures
Tuesday: Landscapes and Space
Wednesday: People and Portraits
Thursday: Storytelling and Comic Books
Friday: The Exhibit

Art Week! Thursday: Storytelling and Comic Books

THURSDAY MORNING was hard work, but was maybe my favorite part of Art Week (wait, have I said that every day?).  To participate in this activity you'll need to buy How to Make a Comic Book from Art Projects for Kids. This little guide could easily be used by older kids, and maybe is more directed for kids in the 8-12 age range. But my 6 year old did just fine with lots of guidance. She had to work really hard on this, and I was really proud of her efforts. She can give up on complicated projects easily, and so I was glad to see her learning that everything, including art, is better with hard work. My four year old had been begging to play with play doh, so she spent the day nearby working with play-doh while big sister and I made a comic.

We spent the morning planning out our story, dividing it into 8 panels and then drawing the panels. We did the lettering as we went along. This is the story L devised:

1. L tells mommy, "I want to be an artist!"
2. So Mommy and L and J paint and paint.
3. L thinks, "Whew! It's hard work to paint."
4. They painted and painted, and didn't give up until...
5. the painting was finished and it was beautiful.
6. When L was 17 years old, she went to art school
7. where she learned about painting.
8. And when she was all grown up, she was an artist.

We wanted to tell the story with mostly pictures, so with each frame we asked, "how can we show what's happening in this sentence?" We would discuss different options, and then draw. I corrected several drawing mistakes as well, explaining proportion and angles for the tables.

We also used the facial expression guide included in How to Make a Comic Book, which was really helpful and fun. We would discuss the feeling in each picture, and then look at the examples and decide which type of eyes and mouth and eyebrows would best illustrate that feeling.

It took us about two hours to complete our 8 panels - like I said, it was hard work for a 6 year old. I have some nice black ink pens, and so I inked the drawings for her while she took a break. Older kids could definitely do this themselves (and L could have as well), but we had already worked so long, I wanted to give her a break.

Another thing I did, after inking the drawing, was scan it into my computer. I know sometimes when the kids color things, the original drawing gets a bit lost. I was so proud of her work, I wanted to be able to save the original. I'm really glad I did. I also scaled the drawings down to fit the 8 panels onto one page (they were originally on 2 pages). The tiny-ness of the new drawing made them feel more like a comic, and we both got a kick out of that.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON we returned to color the comic. I gave L total freedom with this, although How to Make a Comic gives more guidance with color that would have been helpful. L colored one of the copies I made instead of her original with oil pastels which made nice bright colors.

I also spent a bit of time coloring her drawing digitally with Adobe Illustrator. I had lots of fun with this, although L thought that I didn't use enough colors. :)

We finished up the day by looking once again through our art books for famous paintings that had elements of storytelling. We noticed facial expressions, or details that were included to help suggest the story.

And then I selected some of my favorite children's books with great illustrations to talk about how stories are illustrated, and to notice the different styles of painting. We're big fans of Mo Willems (especially the way he uses the visual presentation of the text) and Patricia Polacco. Jan Brett also uses her illustrations to give extra details that aren't included in the text of the story. After selecting some great books, L enjoyed reading these again, this time paying more attention to how the text and the pictures go together and how some parts of the story are told through the pictures and not the text. 

Again, a very structured and detailed project was really satisfying and lots of fun. This was also a sneaky way to get her to do some writing without so much complaint. I think bookmaking may be a great way to encourage her to practice her writing in the future - so I see many more comic books in our future! And reading with comics seems to be a next step as well, so I'm on the hunt for good graphic novels/comic books for younger girls. This list looks really good, but I'll also take recommendations!

Keep up with the rest of Art Week here:

Get Ready
Monday: Experimenting with Materials and Textures
Tuesday: Landscapes and Space
Wednesday: People and Portraits
Thursday: Storytelling and Comic Books
Friday: The Exhibit