Crows

I'm starting a new print that will be a companion piece for my recent Great Blue Heron print.

I posted this image on Facebook and wrote that each night the Great Blue Heron places the moon in the sky. That sounded a little like a myth and got me thinking about what other animals must be doing to keep the world working smoothly. That's how I had the idea that at night crows carry stars up into the sky.

Usually when I start a new print, I look through lots of images on the internet to get a feeling for the pose, animal, or landscape I want to draw. I don't copy the images, but instead use them as reference for anatomy and inspiration for the mood. Sometimes I print a bunch of images together like I did in the photo above. I really like the way a murder of crows flying out of a tree looks!

Illustration Friday: Glow

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is Glow. When I hear that word, I think of the moon glowing and lighting up the night. So here is an illustration I did with a full moon for Wynken, Blynken, and Nod- a poem by Eugene Field.

I finally updated my Etsy store and this is one of the prints that you can buy over there. Come and visit if you have a chance!

Merry Christmas! May it glow with happiness for all of you!

Animal Healing Center

My vets at The Animal Healing Center are kind, generous, and very smart! I wish everyone I know with pets could live in Steamboat so they could could be taken care of by Dr Andi Kohler, Dr Craig Stanton, and their new vet, Dr Dayna Baillo. 

Here is the Christmas card I made for them this year to show off their lovely new building. And it finally feels like Christmas because we have snow in Steamboat!

Newspaper!

I just wanted to share that our show, MiJiKa made the front page of the local paper, the Steamboat Pilot and Today. Fun!

And this Saturday, Karen is going to be doing an iPhoneography workshop at the gallery. We're going to learn all about cool photography apps for the iPhone and iPad. Maybe I'll share some photos after the class!

Christmas at the Animal Healing Center

This is the third year my wonderful vets at The Animal Healing Center have asked me to make a Christmas card for them. Here's my sketch of their beautiful new building.

And here are the cards I made them the last two years.

Merry Christmas!!

MiJiKa Opening & Artists' Talk

We had so much fun at our art opening last night and during the Artists' Show and Tell today. Here's a short video from the opening taken by my friend Laura Wait.

And here are some photos from the talk today.

Me talking about drawing and transferring an image onto a block.

Michelle showed up how she attaches collage elements to a painting.

And Karen talked about the variety of photo techniques she's used.

The Show is Hung!

Here's Karen Schulman working on her photos.

And Michelle Ideus putting labels on her paintings.

Karen and I are smiling in front of my linocuts.

The MiJíKa show is up at the Depot now through December. Thanks for the help from Joel, Gloria, Dean, and Park. It looks wonderful! The opening is Friday from 5-8. I hope to see lots of Steamboat friends there. We are going to have great food- I volunteered to make brownies. :)

Getting Ready for MiJíKa

I've been doing a lot of picture framing lately getting ready for the show I'm having in December with Michelle Ideus and Karen Schulman. The name of the show is MiJíKa. This is the tricky mat I just cut with 20 openings!

Anyone in Steamboat, I hope you can come! Here's the info-

Clean Studio

We had visitors at my house this weekend, so I had to pull all of my art supplies and equipment out of my "satellite studio" otherwise known as the guest room. In the process my studio got reorganized. It looked so nice and tidy for about a day, that I had to take photos!

In these photos you can see my assistants- Bailey napping in the top photo, and Zoe on the far left of the bottom photo. :)

Postage Stamps

My friends Michelle Ideus, Karen Schulman and I ordered postage stamps from Zazzle for the fun of it. They turned out great! The two on the left are my Colorado images, the cow is Karen's and the apple and horse on the right are Michelle's. We bought them when they were having a sale- keep an eye out for sales because otherwise they are pricy.

Illustration Friday: Tree

Here is the Heron all finished! It was a little challenging for me to make such a dark painting- hopefully it's not too dark. I just love Great Blue Herons. They nest around Steamboat in the spring. I always feel extremely lucky when I see one flying, fishing in the river, or sitting on a nest high up in a cottonwood tree.

This week's Illustration Friday topic is Tree and I had a great time carving this tree! You can see what it looked like on the block in the blog post below.

Carving the Heron

I'm going to be having a show at our local Steamboat Springs Arts Council gallery in December with two friends, Michelle Ideus and Karen Schulman. We are really excited about it! The Heron is the last new piece I'm going to try and finish before hanging the show on December 1st. I still have lots of painting and framing to do in these last few weeks. I wish there was more time!

Lily Lake Painted

Here's Lily Lake all finished. This is one of my favorite views from Rabbit Ears Pass. And my favorite season- summer! 

This is pretty busy linocut. You can really see that in this photo of the block. But since the colors are so simple, hopefully the overall effect isn't too busy.

Lily Lake

I'm working on another image in my Colorado series. This is a loose interpretation of Lily Lake, a beautiful mountain lake on Rabbit Ears Pass near Steamboat. Here's a photo of the lake in the summer- pretty eh?!

Illustration Friday: Sky

In a workshop recently, we were asked to write a poem starting with the words, "I come from..." Most people wrote about their families, but I immediately thought of the plains and big blue sky of Wyoming where I grew up.
I'm trying this out as a blog header without the text. I've been wanting to change the look of my blog for quite a while!

Super Knit Girl painted

Here she is painted! And below is the original sketch my friend gave me to explain her idea. Go Super Knit Girl!

Illustration Friday: Water

This is a drawing from my sketchbook that I decided to paint for this week's Illustration Friday prompt, Water. It's an illustration of Nathalia Crane's poem The Janitor's Boy.

I discovered the poem because Natalie Merchant made it into a song that I love! Every time it comes around on my ipod I giggle and dance. The album it's on is called Leave Your Sleep- a very quirky fun set of songs from old poems by or for children. You can hear the song and see footage of the recording session on Natalie Merchant's website.

I ordered Nathalia Crane's book and I tell you what, she was VEEEEEEERY in love with that red-haired boy. There are lots of other poems about him also.

My drawing was also influenced by an illustration of a boater on water by Julie Paschkis. I love the way she incorporated words into the layers of water. 

Julie has a new book out about the poems of Pablo Neruda illustrated in this wordy style. I can't wait to see it! You can find out more about it on her group blog Books Around the Table.

Printing on a Rainy Day

Today I got to print the blocks from my last two posts. The printing itself went really well and it reminded me that the added humidity of a rainy day has always seemed to keep the ink nice for longer. I'm happy with the way the Wyoming poem turned out. I think it will look even better with paint.

It was much easier for me to print the four blocks on individual pieces of paper although they would have looked nice printed together on the same piece. Now I will cut a mat with four windows or maybe I'll trim the paper closer to the image and float the artwork on top of a mat. Not sure yet!

And here's Super Knit Girl ready to save the world through knitting!

Super Knit Girl

My friend Barb is a knitter and needed some artwork for an Etsy shop, Ravelry site, and some tags to attach to knitted products. Guess what her avatar name is....? Super Knit Girl of course!

She special requested the clogs and knitted cape. :) I think this will be fun and I'm looking forward to seeing it printed and painted!

Wyoming and.... Monsters!

This is a poem I wrote about being a child in Wyoming. I'm really into making clouds lately- even though linocut black lines defining white puffy clouds isn't really an ideal way to do something so delicate!
I'd already gotten these 4 small square blocks ready for something else that I decided not to do. So I'm going to try this image broken into 4 separate prints. We'll see how it turns out.

And on a very fun note- my friend Tina Kugler is posting a new monster drawing on her blog every day this month- and she has quite an imagination!

The Bike Ride

I got my piece done for the Bust of Steamboat auction, it's called The Bike Ride.

This is the first time I've used gouache for a whole painting. I'm still getting used to the differences between it and watercolor. It turned out really bright! Now I need to frame it. If you are in Steamboat next Friday, please stop by Library Hall from 5-8 for the preview of all of the pieces up for auction!

Illustration Friday: Crooked

I haven't posted anything for Illustration Friday in ages! But this week's topic is Crooked which made me think of the crooked buildings I created last year. I really had fun with them. I need to rework this dummy so I have reason to keep drawing them! Here are two versions I painted. The gray one is kind of what it looks like outside my house today.

Printing The Bike Ride

I'm finally printing again! Here are some pictures of the piece I'm making for the Bust of Steamboat auction. If you are in town, there will be a preview and reception at Library Hall on Friday, Oct 5th during First Friday Artwalk from 5-8.

In a few days I'll paint the print. I'm going to try using gouache for the first time ever. My friend Laura Wait gave me a whole set when I was at Penland. We'll see how it goes!

Three Great Events

I'm back in business with a new computer! It's a refurbished 27 inch iMac that's significantly bigger than our TV. I feel like a rock star!

About a week ago, our local library, arts council, and bookstore Off the Beaten Path put on a children's Book Feast here in Steamboat. It was really fun and well-attended, so maybe it will become a regular thing.

Friday night there were several events, but I was only able to go to Jarrett Krosoczka's talk via Skype. He answered (about a million) questions from the kids in attendance and then drew us this cool picture on his iPad of the Lunch Lady and her sidekick, Betty. 

I bought this neat book of Jarrett's character sketches. 

Saturday was a full day of kid's book authors and illustrators doing different presentations. One of the things I enjoyed checking on throughout the afternoon was a mural painting done by Craig Brown and a gang of rotating children. 

Here is Craig laying out the basic drawing.

And here is the painting madness.

Then last weekend I went to a Norman Rockwell exhibit in the nearby town of Craig at the Museum of Northwest Colorado. They had 323 of his Saturday Evening Post covers framed on the wall! Wow, what a talent. These covers were created over a 50 year period starting in 1916 when Rockwell was 22 years old. There was only one of his original paintings in the show, but also some neat photos of him working.

There were very serious "no photography" signs everywhere, so here's a photo I borrowed by Bridget Manly from the Steamboat Today newspaper. 

This is a chunky little book I bought with all of his magazine covers. I just wish the pictures were bigger.

And the third event hasn't happened yet, but this upcoming weekend is the Denver SCBWI Conference. I'm not feeling ready for it yet, but it will be here very soon, so I'd better get myself in gear! I get to go with two friends this year, Brooke Boynton Hughes and Barbara Gueldner. I'll let you know more about the conference soon!