Five long years

It's hilarious reading my last post... I was upset for waiting 3 years to post and now - 5 have flown by! It's not that I haven't made anything in those five years. But between Facebook and texts to my family, the blog hasn't been on my mind for keeping people updated. But now, I'd like to get back into it. The family blog was always a source of joy (and helped me remember our busy days!) so this is the year to get back to it. And this here creative blog will be fun to populate again too. I'll start with a few "recent" items. Last year in Ben's 1st grade class, I volunteered to help the kids create art to donate to the Sycamore School auction. Each child made a potato print bird and added a leaf to the class tree. Then with the magic of photoshop, we ended up with a cool "flock" for each class. In February, the first graders helped raise over $600 for their school!

Then around March, I decided to try a new method for making growth charts. The former owners of our house left me a whole roll of canvas-style wall paper in the attic. I used gesso and left over wall paint to create the design, and finished the edges with scraps of fabric from my mom. Now my adorable niece has a growth chart that matches her love of dogs with the fabric from her baby quilt.

I like this new growth chart method - it rolls up small for shipping and uses up unwanted supplies. It's not as easy to paint on my desk because of the size, but the floor was comfy enough for a few days of work.

Next time I'll post information about the rain barrel I painted for the Carmel Parks Auction to benefit water conservation signage. Shouldn't be more than 6-7 years before I get to that post, if history continues. ;)

It's been awhile...

2007? Seriously? It's been that long since I posted here? Crazy. Let's see, what's happened since then... Got a new beautiful office downstairs (thanks Jack!), then I got a new beautiful baby boy (thanks Jack!), then everyone grew bigger, faster, smarter, stronger, and much more fun! Life is definitely busy with 3 kids under 4 (only 2 more weeks of being able to say that. Snif Sob Sob!! My babies!) but with all three kids in school 2 days a week, I have a bit more time to breathe than I did the last time I posted on this blog.

For Ben's first birthday (which was almost a year ago - yikes!) I decided to paint him a growth chart. The construction was inspired by the charts I purchased for the girls, and the medium is acrylic paint, which was not always my friend back in art school. Surprisingly, I LOVE painting in acrylic! I decided to use up left over interior house paint for some colors, especially the background and larger elements. It helped me coordinate the chart with Ben's room as well as saving me from mixing paint, which is not my forte. The chart could never be as cute as Ben, but I tried. ;)







After finishing Ben's chart, I made another similar one for Elizabeth, the first grandchild of my upstate NY dairy farming friends (and grandniece of my best friend!). The lettering on the name is more elaborate and I changed up the colors a bit to make it slightly girlier.





Friends with babies are a good excuse to make something! My Godbrother and his wife will now have a way to measure up their beautiful twin boys. My Godmother did the sneaky research work for me while she visited them in NJ so that the colors matched the room perfectly and I could take on one of its themes - sports equipment. Thanks Aunt Janina!





Each chart folds up to an 8 x 10 book-sized package, for easy storage.




Next - Nathaniel and the beanstalk! Nathaniel is climbing while his brother and dog help him ascend higher. (His cat is also on the beanstalk following him).





Here's how each chart gets finished - with Canson paper covering the fabric connections:


We have many twins in our life, and we feel very lucky to have Charlotte and Julia as our friends! They have very specific things and colors that they LOVE, so each girl got their favorites for their walls. Collaborating with friends is my favorite part of creating something. Thanks Leigh!







I have two more paintings in the works. I'll post pictures soon. They are not growth charts but will adorn Teddy and George's playroom walls. I promise it won't be 3 years between posts now. ;)

Farms and Trees and Rivers, Oh My!

So after dusting off some Illustrator rust, I've finally rendered the sketch from my last post. I'm excited about seeing this in print and even more psyched that they've decided to put it on the website as a clickable image map as well. We'll see how this all wraps up. Suggestions/feedback are very very welcome! Especially if you have access to a high school student. I'd love to know if it's going to catch the eye of the target "market".
Happy drawing, everyone. (yes that means YOU. Go out and draw!)

Save our planet - learn about farming!

I've been lucky enough to work with a friend up at Delaware Valley College twice now, and our latest endeavor together has really opened my eyes to the world of agriculture and environmental science. I recently completed the sketch for a poster directed at high schoolers, to help open their eyes too. See if you can learn where you (or your kids) could find a career that will keep our world green! It's funny how life creates it's own themes. Around the time I was sketching this, my brother sent me this great article.) So anyway, I'll post my rendering when it's completed. Let me know if this infographic would catch your eye if it were up on the wall of your chemistry classroom. :)

Butterflies in my stomach... or on my paper

Late last week (luckily before succumbing to stomach flu) I finished the first project to be started and completed after the girls came into our lives! It was a nice feeling and I think it turned out well. While it was a small project for a friend, it was still challenging (especially considering how poorly my last painting turned out!) and very fun. The poem is Laura's, but the butterflies are mine, and now the entire thing is her niece's and will (hopefully) adorn her nursery. :)

Here are the sketches:


And here's the final. It looked especially good framed.

Mom to Mom

Not that it's incredibly exciting, but I just whipped out this little flyer spot for my mothers of multiples club. It was fun to figure out how to use a brush that gave a nicer line quality than just a stroke right "out of the tube".

The Bad Beginning (appologies to Lemony Snicket)

Well, I did get my drawing done way before the deadline, but life has been crazy busy and I'm somewhat ashamed to post the final results, so... I've been dragging my feet on this entry of Wei2Draw. As you can see, the girls' playroom art didn't turn out so great. There was something nice about the sketch when it was small and sketchy, but at 26x30", it's just boring and has an odd high school project feel to it. There are sections that I like - Dani and Alex by themselves, the duck, the elephant... but all together, it's really pretty terrible.

The Final:



In my defense, it really is hard to make art that has to be nice without digital tweaks. There were multiple times I wanted to hit the undo buttom after painting something. EEek! I've become dependant on my computer! It was so bad at one point that I used gouache on top of my water color to paint over a mistake. Gouache is not my forte, to put it mildly. (Deep! I could have used your expertise... oh for the days of having adjoined studios...) So for now, I ordered some animal oriented prints from art.com, simple, digital stuff. They'll suffice until I get some skills back.

There's actually lots of creative stuff going on right now, so I'll try to post some soon. Here's something to whet your appetite: