Contests, hound dogs, and the end of the winter of my discontent

When I was a kid, we lived near ski areas, ice skating rinks and open fields where we'd cross country ski on weekend afternoons. I was never too keen on winter in general, but having things to do helped.

Now I have small children and a dog, I have to drive and walk in the nasty slushy ickiness, and I have to say, winter has really lost its luster. I also now live in a fairly flat and suburban area (meaning, no skiing, no long solo walks in the woods, no ice skating on the frozen creek across from the school), and we've been cooped up in this house for what seems like ten years, bickering and screaming and throwing plastic bricks at one another. I am SO ready for you, warm temperatures that bring peace and quiet to the inside of homes across the land.

To make myself feel better, I've been doing some personal work lately. Fun things like drawing beagles and splooshy watercolor amoebas as I sit in the TV room waiting for my son's preschool class to end. The beagles ended up in this week's Spoonflower contest and the watercolors ended up as a semifinalist in the Pattern Observer/P&B Textiles contest.

I have a bunch of other stuff in the works... tons of Surtex prep (my work will be there with my fabulous agent, Painted Planet), a giant (and secret until July) mega-project that is done and currently in production, a logo design, new Silhouette diecut designs and the usual sketchbook and collage nonsense.

Tonight they say we're going to get about two inches of snow. I think I am slowly losing my mind. Maybe I should send the kids upstairs to look for my lost marbles? (That actually kept them busy for about 20 minutes once!!!)

MATS at Surtex

Surtex, the big licensing show in NYC, is coming up this weekend, and some of my MATS mates and other artists I know have been knocking themselves out preparing for it. I've put together a list of their fabulous promo cards and look books. Take a peek at some really amazing work!

This week our 5 year old is graduating from preschool, which happens to be at the same time as Surtex, and of course I don't want to miss her ceremony, so Surtex is out this year. One of these years I'll make it to NYC walk the show. It's been almost a quarter century since I've been to that part of the world… dang, I'm old!

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Victoria Johnson

• Look Book
• Website

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Alex Columbo / Studio Alex

• Look Book
• Website

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Sarah Ehlinger / Very Sarie

• Look Book
• Website

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Bari J.

• Look Book
• Website

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Kathy Weller

Artwork ©Kathy Weller

• Website
• Blog

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Feng Liang

Website

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Aileen Tu (exhibiting with Cultivate Art Collective)

• Website

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Gina Linn Designs

• Website

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Stacy Peterson

• Website

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Nina Edwards / Metropolitan Miss

• Website

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Lauren Minco

• Website

2014, the Year of Good Stuff

I've always wondered about the philosophy of "everything happens for a reason." If I look back at situations that got me to where I am today, personally and professionally, I can definitely connect the dots. Everything influenced what came after it.

So, A (no money for college) led to B (a "cheap" state school fully funded by student loans) led to C (my freshman roommate who moved to Chicago) led to D (me moving to Chicago) led to E (meeting my husband and having three awfully boisterous but wonderful little ones), led to F (a Christmas present led to my art licensing career), and here I am.

But, does everything REALLY happen for a reason, or do we figure out a reason for everything that happened, after the fact? Do we have any control over it?

The point of all this is, I think sometimes it's good to be proactive to make sure that they're GOOD things happening. (Though I do believe that something good can be found in just about everything. Case in point, the cat "accidents" (ugh) over the past week resulted in a sparkly clean laundry room.) With that in mind, here are the good things I'm planning for 2014:

• Paint (take Flora Bowley's Bloom True e-course)
• Develop a truly awesome portfolio (MATS Part B & Bootcamp should help)
• Get a couple new licensing partners in the Home, Gift and Wall Art categories
• Figure out the details for an art/craft book I want to write
• Update my website, including only the stuff I really love to do (and deleting the stuff I don't)
• Be more calm more often
• Draw every day

Stretching...

As I wrote in my last post, I decided kind of at the last minute to sign up for Make Art That Sells, Part A. It's now one week into the class and I've finished our first assignment, creating bolt fabric with a vintage Pyrex-style casserole and berry theme.

Going into the class, I didn't expect week one to be particularly earth-shattering for me. I've been designing fabric for a couple years, took two fantastic classes with Michelle Fifis (Sellable Sketch and The Ultimate Guide to Repeats) and have my work licensed (although the majority of it is in the scrapbooking market, and just one print is licensed in the fabric market...), so I thought I had my style and method figured out, although maybe it just needing some fine tuning.

As it turns out, I was totally wrong. I realized I'm bored, bored, bored with my work and need to do something new. It was kind of tough going this week!

I started out the week sketching in my usual style (realistic) and with my usual mediums (Pigma Micron pens, watercolor, colored pencil). Then I drew directly into Illustrator the way I usually do, stylizing the forms so they weren't too stodgy (because in my mind, realistic = stodgy and stylized = retro cool.)

I put together a retro style print as I usually do, and hated it. It was fine, but I had no motivation. Part of the point of this class is to grow, which means trying something new and taking chances.

So I scanned in a bunch of my sketches, tweaked them a little, traced and colorized them in Illustrator. The final print was more exciting than my usual stylized vector stuff, but not quite there yet. It wasn't really vintage kitchen; it was more sketchbooky floral. It wasn't Pyrex/casserole dish enough; I enjoyed drawing berries and leaves so much more than dishes, so it had mostly botanical motifs.

It was hugely frustrating and I felt like I put in hours and hours and got absolutely nowhere -- pages and pages of sketches and no fabulous, professional print collection to show for it.

But the final print was more "me", a little quirky, and had much more of the hand of the artist in it, which I love seeing in others' work. It's a stepping stone in the direction I've wanted to go for a long time, but never knew how to get there or even begin. So I call it a success. Kind of.

Next I think I'll try sketching larger, with less attention to the details, and with a different tool (watercolor paper / brushes) and see where that leads. I'm excited to get started!

Maybe taking myself seriously, for once...

I'm an artist and a mom. I've wanted to be both things as long as I can remember.

I know the mom part of what I'm doing on a daily basis is really important -- raising my children to be good humans, to care about others, be kind to animals and the Earth, to learn and read and grow. But oh boy, they are draining!

I never feel rested, no matter how much sleep I get. I haven't finished a magazine in one sitting since before my six year old was born. It's rare I have a chance to write an entire blog post or email (my husband is entertaining the kids in the other room as I write this.)

My children make me feel old. In good/bad news, I never get carded any more when buying beer, but I finally look my age.

On the art side of things, in recent years I've discovered the world of art licensing and have been lucky to be able to earn a real living from it. I feel amazingly lucky every time I sit down to draw something, knowing that someone will want to buy it.

I'm always thinking, what can I do to do more art? How can I make my work better? How can I better balance the mom/artist thing?

One problem is the ever-present mommy guilt. That nagging voice that tells me anything I do for me, alone, is taking time away from my children and is selfish. I should spend every moment with them, spending time with them, being present for them.

Then I found a babysitter (yay!), and suddenly have six hours a week completely kid-free. It's October... Part A of Make Art That Sells is also held in October...

Hmm, mommy guilt versus the chance to figure out how to make my good art really great, maybe even figure out how to combine drawing and watercolor with digital, and rectify it with my retro-mod vector Illustrator style... What to do??

It was a big decision. It's a time commitment; how big, I didn't know. I do have the babysitter, but will I need/want more time? I do tend to be a nit-picky perfectionist. Can I afford it financially? Will I have enough motivation? Can the kids survive for five weeks eating cereal for dinner, watching TV 24/7, and driving themselves to school? (kidding!)

I've tried lots of stuff over the years, and nothing got me as kid-on-a-Christmas-morning excited quite like art licensing (fabric design, pattern making in general & illustrating digital dies, in my case). I know I never want to go back to the world of corporate design (that is, a "real" job), if I can help it.

I decided, the heck with the pro/con list making, what better time than the present? Jump in, see what happens, what's the worst case scenario? I create some new work that I otherwise wouldn't? I try some new mediums or some old, forgotten ones? The timing is just right, the kids will be fine, it'll all work out in the end. So if not now, then when???


Like having a baby, there's never a perfect time. Just jump in and take it one step at a time! So here we gooooo....!