A Day at the Eric Carle Museum

Today we experienced magical moments. We got to meet Kelly Light and hear story time with David Hyde Costello at the Eric Carle Museum. Together they were encouraging “YOU Can Help” after linking up on Ripple.

After watching Ripple grow from just Kelly to hundreds of artists it was truly special to get to meet Kelly in person. We had a great time chatting and making Thank You’s for the Oil Spill volunteers. Then she shared with me a first trip to dinner at the infamous(Matt has been telling me about this place since I moved to MA in 2006) Bueno Y Sano in Amherst.

David read for story hour and introduced us to his Giraffe puppet which, blinks, walks, and is taller than David. Also this Giraffe is “just” the prototype. Great work David, love it. He then spent the rest of the afternoon signing books and making little originals for people that stopped by. For us, David contributed to Husband’s Choice by drawing Matt’s request of Octopus in Boots:

Matt has special appreciation that David only drew two boots. Thank You David!

We had a great day out, thank you both for making it so special!

On exhibit at the Eric Carle is Lisbeth Zwerger and Leo Lionni, what gorgeous work.

The Specimens

Maybe it is because I grew up going to my Mom’s lab a lot or many I just love biology, but when the opportunity came for me to pick up these little vials I jumped, because I knew just what was going in them.

and here is a close up for the first collected creature:

These are some new sculpture creatures I will have on sale tomorrow at the craft fair in Union Square, Somerville from 3-7pm. I also hope to finish setting my etsy shop up one day and having them and more available there too. If you want to have one of these little guys for your home shoot me an email.

And we’re back

Making magnets has me loving playing with clay again. Also, given that I over used my arms trimming our hedges my weakened muscles are killing the sensitivity in my drawing hand. It has been a totally unexpected outcome of yard work. Although, lesson learned, time to work out more and keep my strength up.

Back to the clay, every year I make ornaments out of clay and I find a lot of pleasure in it. I have considered a few times whether or not I want to use it in my illustration. This is me exploring again.

Watch out old man in a hat!

Back from Kentucky

Hello readers! I am back from a week in Kentucky. I had planned to sketch everything around me. However, after my comedy of errors traveling experience Thursday and finding no cell or internet reception, I woke up Friday sketched this

and made a decision. I am going to take a week off from the internet and drawing. Many friends on twitter had described this as refreshing and they were right. Although, I am finding I have forgotten how to be online. I’m sure in just a few more days. . .

Since my sketching for the week ends here so does this post. But if you want to know more about my family you can check out my personal blog here.

Next week be ready for new Husband’s Choice and Animal Wednesday!

Tough Drawing Week

Readers, I have been at the desk drawing since last Wednesday, but I have hit a wall. There are a couple of pieces that I am working on which, I can not master and they are clogging up all of my creativity.

One of these is fan art for Rampant by Diana Peterfreund, a story about man-eating unicorns. This book is great so far, strong female characters and non-normal monsters. The images described are vivid and I find myself wanting to draw numerous scenes from the book. However, I must first conquer drawing the Karkadann, the largest and most dangerous unicorn. This is the best sketch I have gotten thus far and I still have a ways to go.

I am also trying to sketch out a t-shirt for Halloween, but after deciding the theme should be a ragging mob, my tires started spinning.

These are the two projects that are holding me up right now. Those and packing for our trip down to Kentucky tomorrow. Lucien and I will be away for a week! No posts will go up next Tuesday or Wednesday, but a full recount of any sketches will go up on Thursday. Hopefully the southern air and delicious food will rattle me loose. Enjoy your Labor Day weekends!

Atmosphere

One thing I think is ultimately important in an illustration is the lighting. It creates your atmosphere, feeling, sense of space for the piece. It is currently something I am focusing on. Especially pushing colors to not be exactly what is seen.

Here is a color comp of a piece I am making for a friend. I enjoy this as it, I love loose painting. I still need to learn how to let paint free. This is a step for me, it is the first illustration I have done where I used just one color for a background of creatures.