Pikaland Interview!

I've followed the fabulous Pikaland art and illustration blog for some time. I always find something or someone that's inspiring, visually fresh, thought-provoking, or just plain smile-inducing. And while I don't promise to be any of those things, I was honored to have a little chat with the amazing Proprietress of Pikaland, Amy Ng. (See where leaving a comment on a blog can lead?) You can read it here, and if you're new to her site, stroll around and explore it a bit; there's so much to see and do there!

If you're visiting me for the first time from Pikaland, welcome! Feel free to click on one of my gallery page links over on the right, under the "ART" blocks.  Make yourself at home—browse around, leave a comment, and check out some very talented people on my blog list. Thanks for stopping by!

Eye Candy

The Sausalito Art Festival is not your run-of-the-mill street fair.  For starters, there's an admission fee—but it's worth every cent.  You stroll around on grass (not asphalt!) and sip champagne while enjoying the sea breeze and the view of the marina. Oh, and that musician in the background that sounds like a lot like Kenny Loggins? It is Kenny Loggins.  But most importantly, the caliber of the artists is exceptional.  I can visit blogs and websites all day long, but there's nothing like meeting the artists and seeing the work in person, is there?  Here are a few that impressed me with their talent, their humor, or their sheer uniqueness:

Marina Teraud - Etchings. I especially love the nature series and this one in her "ex Libris" bookplate art. Favorite piece: hard to choose, but "Nature Book" is gorgeous.

Cali Hobgood - Hand-colored black-and-white photographs. They're lovely, simple and quiet. (The gallery on her website has no thumbnails, but it's a joy to click through her beautiful work.) Favorite piece (you know me): "Booklist"

Chris Roberts-Antieau - Her website is just as whimsical as her amazing "fabric paintings".

Leif Holland and Brian McGuffey - Two Seattle artists that share a studio, but their art is completely different. Holland does these amazing botanical arrangements in deep shadow boxes (they're gorgeous in person), and McGuffey creates large paintings that combine humans and animals and evoke a sort of childhood nostalgia.

Alberto Toscano -  The sheer ingenuity of these pieces is remarkable. He uses polymer clay to somehow achieve these watercolor-like backgrounds with these tiny, detailed figures on them. The images on his blog don't do his work justice. Somebody needs to design this man a fabulous website!

Diane Komater - Wire sculptures and portraits. Amazingly beautiful seen in person.

Liz Collins - She uses maps and sheet music in her assemblages...take a closer look...

Ron Anderson - I love the paintings of his that incorporate articles of clothing.

Oh, I could go on and on: the food paintings by Cara Brown,  gorgeous pastel pieces that looks like oil paintings by Jody DePew McLeane, the visual humor of Richard Hall's photo-realistic still life paintings.

Check out the artists' websites and their calendars - maybe they'll be exhibiting at an art fair near you! 

Carnival Squash, Three Ways

Prismacolor colored pencils on Strathmore Bristol Vellum

This week's topic on Illustration Friday is "Disguise", which brought to mind this drawing of a Carnival squash that I did last fall.  While I was drawing the colorful, mottled skin, I kept thinking that it looked like a camouflage pattern. I'm sure that Mother Nature had some purpose in mind when creating this botanical disguise.

This was the first of what was going to be a series: 3 views (top, side, bottom) of the same fruit or vegetable.  As I've mentioned before, I'm fascinated by the patterns and shapes found in nature. Maybe it's my background in drawing architectural plans and views, but I enjoy comparing the "plan view", and the "side elevation", etc.  I love that the cross-section of the stem of this squash (like many fruits and vegetables) is a 5-pointed star shape, and the number of sections in pumpkins or squash is almost always a multiple of five. 

Now that I've revisited this piece, I'm all jazzed to get going on the series again.  And even more so since fall is almost here: pumpkins, gourds and winter squashes—with their rich colors and their lumpy, bumpy shapes—are some of my favorite things to draw!

Note to Blogger users: Are you having issues with your blog not updating on your followers' blogrolls?  This has happened before, and then it randomly starts working again later. Is this happening to any of you? Do you know of a fix?

Ten Minutes of Imperfection

My kids are right: I talk too much...even in a sketchbook. For more about my embarking on The Sketchbook Project, click here.

Illustration Friday: Obsession

Prismacolor pencils on Strathmore Bristol Vellum

My obsession? That's easy: books. I love books and everything connected with them: book blogs, bookstores, used book sales, libraries...especially libraries. Aren't they still the best deal going?  When I was growing up, my mom didn't drive, but we lived a few blocks from the Emerson Branch of the Indianapolis Public Library, my favorite place in the world. The librarians had these mesmerizing pencils that had a little rubber date stamp attached to the tip so that they could initial and date the checkout card with one efficient stroke; I thought they had the best job on earth. 

I loved the quiet, the card catalogs, and that intoxicating smell...sort of musty, but sort of magical. And apparently, the addiction is genetic: When my daughter was small, as I was tucking her in one night, she opened her book and cooed, "I  love how books smell." Call me a sentimental fool, but it was one of my favorite parenting moments of all time.

As a kid, on a summer day, I'd take my library books home to the coolness of our screened-in porch where I would begin a little ritual that I still perform: I'd read the first paragraph of each book I'd checked out and one with the best paragraph would be the one I'd read first. To this day, if I pick up a book that doesn't have a great first paragraph, I rarely read any further.

The books I've drawn are my copies of favorites from that era of the visits to the Emerson library. Top to bottom:

The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
A classic, of course: the size, the story, and those illustrations. Loved 'em then, love 'em now.

Charlotte's Web by E. B. White, illustrations by Garth Williams
Easily my favorite book of all time, and some of my favorite illustrations as well. I'm thrilled that kids still read it in school; it has stood the test of time unbelievably well. I received this copy for Christmas when I was nine. I also got a little tape recorder, and I would sit and read Charlotte's Web into it and play it back to myself...such a book geek. Audio books, circa 1966.

Magic to Burn by Jean Fritz 
I loved this book and read it over and over after doing a book report on it in fourth grade. American kids find an elf while on vacation in England, and bring him home with them. Sadly, it's out of print now, but I found this copy on eBay several years ago.

On Cherry Street - the reader we used in first grade. We didn't have Dick, Jane and Spot, we had Tom, Betty and Flip. Another eBay purchase.

Sugarplum by Johanna Johnston
One of the books that we owned, and we must have read it a million times. This was our copy; I found an identical one online for my sisters birthday a few ago.

What were the books that were most important to you as a child?

NOTE: If  you're a book lover, I urge you to get your hands on a copy of Anna Quindlen's indescribably wonderful little book, How Reading Changed My Life...it will change yours.