white picket fence

vintage book find: "Wine and Cheese Tasting Party," 1971

I found this book in a place I couldn't quite believe. A mythical place. A double-take place... It was in a "FREE!" pile at a used book store. 

Seriously, this gloriousness was FREE. (Click on the photos to open a larger version, you won't be disappointed.)

I am NUTS for the illustrations in this little book. They're just everything I love about illustrations. . . fun patterns, great color palette, interesting line quality. I keep looking for information on the artist (Russell D. Bushee) but I'm coming up short, save for one obituary and one short biography. 

Look at her outfit! Just so perfect quirky 1970s. Plus there are a few funny 1970s-y sentences in the book. Under the heading "Here are some tasting hints": "Do not smoke while tasting wines." Hahaha.

Whoever priced this thing as Free was clearly mistaken. I looked it up on Amazon and used copies go for upwards of $15! Plus, it's part of the "International Party Series" (of course now I'm obsessed with locating them all), and most of them seem pretty valuable. 

You know that normally I'd cut this thing to bits and use it in my collages, but it's really too nice for that. It's staying in tact. You're welcome. 

 

nighttime drawing

Right now I have a few paper projects in the works, but I can't settle into any of them. A little mini book, a new art journal. I want to work on them but it never feels right. Fits and starts. I'm so itchy though. You know that feeling? All day long I think about drawing or painting or just MAKING SOMETHING. There are so many projects in my head that it hurts. I literally get a pang in my chest when I think about all the things I'm not doing.

Of course, I AM doing things. They're just things like making toast. Disclipining. Sweeping all day long so the dang ants don't overtake our house. (Side note: if there is a single tiny morsel of food on the floor a little ant parade comes marching in to take it away. There are 2 small children and a dog in the house. There is never NOT a morsel of food on the ground. So that's the story of my ant battle of late.)

But the time I do have is the night time. That precious sliver between the children's bedtimes and mine. And it's just a little sliver, since I'm not one of those sleepless warrior moms that can get by on less than 7 hours a night. 

So in the evenings I get into bed and basically lurch at my drawing book. I can't get the pen to the page quick enough. Doodles. Lettering experiments. Rough attempts to actually draw things that look real and not like weird cartoons (this mostly means portraits of Stephen Colbert or random stuff from commercials)

I have to remember not to leave my books out during the day or they get scribbled on. 

And drawings of my new favorite animal: the Musk Ox. Do you know about these things? They're badass. I discovered them while watching Frozen Planet, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Fascinating and beautiful, plus it's given me so many new animals to learn about. And draw!

postcard swap 2012

So. You know I draw all these little weirdos all the time. For the longest time, they just sat in my sketchbook, mostly black and white, and I didn't really think about it. But I love drawing them and I know they're really cute and original. So I'm starting to feel like I need to do something with them. 

After I signed up for Hanna's postcard swap, I realized maybe this would be a good chance to fuss around with my little doodles and see where else I could take them. 

I started the process by marking off 2 4x6 rectangles in my sketchbook and filling them with characters, just in pencil at first. (Usually I draw directly in pen.) After I was happy with the arrangements, I traced everything with pen. I made photocopies of those pages, there's something about the translation of pen to toner that I really like, I feel like it enhances my line quality in an interesting way. Then another photocopy of both pages onto cardstock. And then the coloring began. 

Instead of coloring them all in the same way, I decided to work on some different color studies. I think the ones I like best are the cards where the drawings stay white and the negative space has a color gradient. What do you think? 

I also did a little bit of collaging on some of the cards. Again, just playing. Just seeing how different elements work together. 

Off in the mail they go today! Only a little late. . . .

january pages (part 2)

You guys. Check out that yearbook photo of kids in an art class in 1971. There's not much about it that I don't love. I made this page about how I've been missing school a lot lately. It's been reallly hard for me as a stay at home mom to feel like I never get more than 15 minutes in a row to focus on anything. It just makes me so scattered. What I wouldn't give for an entire afternoon in the library or the studio. 

A page for David. 

And one for Norah too. This gardening manual from the 50s is full of the BEST photos. 

There are a couple pages from this set that have hidden journaling in little pockets or envelopes. I'll confess, I used to think "hidden journaling" was kind of a cop-out, like, why would you make an art journal page and not just let it out for the world to see? And I still feel that way, kind of, but you know what? Envelopes are fun. It's a different user experience to interact with the pages instead of just looking at them. Plus I don't have to worry about my handwriting being sloppy either. Double win. 

Also, check out that SWEET vintage scallop trim. I'd never seen anything like it and found it in a big bag full of ricrac and bias tape at goodwill. Total score. 

I'm already missing this series of pages. I think I had more fun working on it than anything in recent memory. I'm kind of art project-less right now, or rather. . . I have about ten things I want to do but can't focus on any of them. But isn't that always the state of affairs with me?

walls notebook: patterns and text

I'm so glad to have my Walls notebook. It's a really nice distraction from other projects or a fun break when I just want to doodle a little. 

In all my graphic design studio classes in college, our professors would assign us unreal amounts of prep work. Like 30, 50, 100 sketches or thumbnails at the beginning of every project. Back then I resented it, and in my work life it never really applied, but I've always seen the value in it. When you force yourself to just keep generating ideas, really fun things can happen. So, that's a really long-winded way of saying: look at all these patterns! I want to draw about ten more pages like this. It was really fun. 

I was inspired by a post about Creative Experiments on the blog Daisy Yellow. Tammy recommended drawing the same word in at least 25 different kinds of lettering. So I took it kind of literally and wrote "over and over and over." ;)

And this. These words are from a Taize hymn (this part is based on Psalm 139) that I love and that we sing pretty often in church. I find myself writing out scripture passages or parts of hymns sometimes; working on hand-drawn typography feels like my own form of meditation. Just writing the words and filling them in and letting them sink into the open spaces in my head. 

What are your favorite things to doodle?

january pages (part 1)

Some of these have a story I need to share, and some stand on their own. The stories will come later. For now, everything else:

It really is too bad that you can't see these in person, feel the weight of the paper, see the textures. The paper in this vintage yearbook is just SO lovely and tactile. Of course, I realize this is because back in the olden days they actually chopped down trees to make paper instead of just endlessly recycling other paper. So hey! Making art from old things is not only aesthetically pleasing, it's also environmentally friendly! Score one for me and my weird art-making techniques. 

open for business

My shop is now open for business! Hoooo-ray. 

All available here. There are only a few items in the shop now. Since every pack is one of a kind, the process of putting them together and photographing them is a bit time-intense; I'm taking things slow and seeing what the response is before I add much more. I'm still playing around with styling too. (funny how my least favorite part of being a graphic designer--art directing--is following me into my non-working life, too.)

ANYway, a little backstory. Around Christmastime, my friend Kaitlyn and I were talking about meeting up. She mentioned wanting to take a look through my art supplies, but since we didn't meet at my house, I brought the art supplies to her. It was SO MUCH fun for me to put together a little package of special things for journaling and art-making. I enjoyed the process, and also realized: I am never going to use all this stuff up in my lifetime. 

For so long I have been hoarding art materials. I always feel like, "oh no! if I use it it's gone forever!" But hello! Every time I go to the thrift store I find a treasure. Which means, there's a lot more of this stuff out in the world, I might as well enjoy what I have. And since I can't possibly enjoy it all myself. . . I'm sharing it with you. 

Which brings me to. . . A GIVEAWAY. Boo-yah! Leave a comment and I'll pick a winner and send you a giant fun pack of paper-y awesomeness. Anyone welcome. Go for it!

Update: the giveaway is now closed. Thanks to all who entered!

new projects: little peeks

Just today I finished photographing a GIANT stack of art and projects I've been stockpiling for a while: an old minibook from last fall, my latest art journal project on yearbook paper, and a few little things for my etsy shop.

There's lots more to show, I just need to wade through the hundreds of pictures I've taken and I'll share later this week. 

I'm really proud of a lot of this. After working on my strange little books/collages/art journal pages/whatever they are over the past 8-10 years, I feel myself steadily improving, steadily getting closer to my ideal vision for my work. It's like I'm chasing after this magical feeling of my artwork really striking a clear bell in my heart.

And I know, uh, yeah, that sounds so fruity and flaky. But it's true. I feel really happy about where I am.

Until I start working on the next thing and find the goal further off again. But that's the fun of it, isn't it? Doing the work, day after day, year after year. 

a peek at my journaling process

I wanted to document a little of my journaling/art-making process. This is something I've never done before, and I'm excited to share! 

I've been working on this little series of pages for a few weeks now. On this particular project, it's been important for me to make sure all the pages look like a collection, like they "go together." Because of this process, no single page is ever finished until the whole set is finished. I go back and rework things that don't look right to me, or add and subtract elements as needed. 

As I was looking at the pages together, the middle one in the photo above stood out to me. I wasn't happy with the hand cut lettering and the pink color didn't feel right with the rest of the color palette I've been using. 

This is the official "before." This series of pages was inspired quite a bit by an old 1971 yearbook I found at the thrift store. The paper is SO wonderful and a great size and weight for journaling on. The page is kind of about the difficulties of discipline and parenting that I've been dealing with lately with David. I chose this feature photo of a girl working on a typewriter because it looked like she was concentrating and hard at work. 

I started by cutting off the pink paper that formed a partial border. Next, I cut some different papers to play around with covering the pink text. 

Hm, not quite right. 

Better! You can see that I left the tiniest bit of the old pink lettering visible underneath the scalloped paper. Sometimes I like to see a hint of the elements I've worked over. It's an easy way of adding a little more interest and dimension to the piece. I used to feel like my work looked too flat or spare, and I think these little hints of mistake add a lot of life to my work. (Which is kind of an interesting philosophical idea, huh?)

Then I drew this little frame and hated it. 

So it was covered up. The paper is part of a the back cover of a piece of sheet music. There's some small text on it, but I placed it with the text upside down, so it creates more of a texture than being something readable that detracts from my words. 

I also wanted to add a new border on the side of the page. I chose this brown gingham fabric, which added a nice bit of pattern and interest but is neutral and not too distracting. This is a good place to note that I never measure anything and don't care at all about anything being perfect or the same size. The fabric background is wonky but I love that look. Perfection is boring. 

Sewing on the gingham. At this point, it would have been better to have some orange or yellow thread to continue the color palette, but I dislike buying supplies just for one purpose, so white works for now. 

I won't call this a complete "after" photo but this is where I stopped for the day. I think I'll add some more text and maybe a little doodling, but at this point my work session was done for the morning, because. . . . 

Someone woke up from her morning nap! And David's episode of Sesame Street was about to end. 

And this is what my workspace looks like after 30 mintues of work. Now you know why I don't make art nearly as much as I should. . . even though I love it, I have to immediately clean everything up since that's the dining table where we eat all our meals, too. 

So that's how I work. I hope you've enjoyed seeing a little bit of my workflow. And what about you? Do you follow any similar processes in your artwork? It's always fascinating to me how everyone creates things in a personal way.

projects & parenting

A few little peeks into the projects taking up my time this week. 

I wonder why it is that I can go weeks and months without delving into any creative projects, and then all the sudden: a deluge.  At night I have dreams about old houses full of vintage collections, and working on massive sculptures and art installations (one particularly exciting dream had me carving a beluga whale out of a giant piece of fruit.) I spend my days waiting for the in-between moments where I can rush off to work on a file, or cut & glue some paper, or clean out a cabinet.

Plus I'm sure David is loving it, since frankly, he's watched more videos this week than he did all last month combined. I don't really mind though. In my new life as a non-office working mom, I've been noticing the patterns of our days, and it seems like our routines change often but gradually. We may have a lot of "screen time" one week, but it might be followed by a week of playdates, classes, and errands. I think it keeps us all balanced, too. I love routine but anything too strict is stifling. These days of productivity for me and downtime for the kids feels right, for right now.