The prettiest dead hydrangeas on the block

My household was doing some yardwork yesterday and instead of cutting off our dead hydrangeas, Bill had a truly brilliant idea.

Inkless gouache and a new favorite quote

I've been trying to make my pieces a little more delicate, and yesterday I tried reigning myself in by forbidding myself the use of ink. This one is just pencil and gouache. Opinions? I know that some of my friends actually read this because you've talked to me about various pieces on here, so do lend your opinion. Should I embrace this new pencil-only technique?



Also, I've been reading a really lovely little book entitled "Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children about Their Art." Maurice Sendak is one of the contributing illustrators, and something he said really resonated with me:

"If I have an unusual gift, it's not that I draw particularly better than other people-- I've never fooled myself about that. Rather it's that I Remember things other people don't recall: the sounds and feelings and images-- the emotional quality-- of particular moments in childhood. Happily an essential part of myself-- my dreaming life-- still lives in the light of childhood."

Couldn't agree more.

new show

I have a new show going up in about three weeks, more details to come later, but for now here's the flier:

relearning acrylics

So I've been painting things on wood lately, which means I am having to re-teach myself how to use acrylics. All these months of gouache gouache gouache have kinda made me forget, which is a little silly because I used to only paint with acrylics. Anyways, here are some things I'm working on.

My very nice boyfriend got me a scroll saw for my birthday a few months ago, so I'm working on cutting lots of intricate things out of wood and am imagining making almost diorama-like things with them. Here's a leaping wolf-city:

Favorite new artist!

I just discovered the work of Lindsey Carr (AKA Little Robot) and it totally blew my mind. Amaazzziinnngggg! I'm in awe of her technical prowess, and I love the sense of quiet wonder that her paintings evoke. Her work makes you feel like a small child who has wandered into the woods and been willingly kidnaped by the world you always hoped existed somewhere.

Another work in progress

I've started scanning things when I'm not quite done so that I can toy around with various colors on the computer before having to commit to paint. Figured so long as I had it scanned, I'd share the work in progress.

Alright, so clearly I'm not very good at posting regularly...

...but it was the holidays and then a brand new year and so on and so forth. Contrary to what one might think based on my total lack of blog posts, I've been a busy bee in my studio and have a lot of new things I'm working on. Most of them aren't finished enough to post, but here are some of the more finished pieces:

I need to come up with better titles for my paintings, I end up usually just naming things based on content, but I'm running out of permutations of "tree boat tail city head."

I also just made a masthead from my friend's really nifty project (which you should contribute to!)
I also just submitted a piece for ANOTHER really nifty project. The piece had to incorporate the text "It is a pleasure to meet you," and it had to be done in black and turquoise. I have to say, I ended up liking turquoise a lot more than I thought I would. I went through a pretty intense teal period of my life somewhere around fifth grade, and I hadn't really revisited that particular uncertain place between green and blue since. Perhaps it merits a second chance?


On a more somber note, I did something really, really stupid a few days ago: I somehow managed to wander off halfway through the process of washing my brushes and ended up leaving my two favorite paintbrushes submerged in a jar of water for two days. They're totally ruined. Sigh. I had thought I was finally at a point in my life where I could maybe trust myself with nice brushes, but I guess I've still got a ways to go on that one. RIP long handled red paintbrush and tiny little maroon paintbrush. I'll miss you!