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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Bbelief

I wanted to share a project I have been working on for a while.

A while back I finished the album cover design ( for The B-Flat Project's new album, Bbelief, which now is available for sale on iTunes. I am not much of a music critic, but when I design for albums, I listen to the songs over and over as I am designing, and I have to say, I really enjoyed having Bbelief on repeat!

I did the design, but I did not do the actual illustration. That Brian and I found on a great site of scanned, public domain images from old books. Thanks, Liam!

This is the second album cover I have done with Brian of The B-Flat Project, and working with him is always wonderful. He pushes my ideas, challenges my creativity, and even has me indulging in philosophical studies. How does one illustrate "belief"? As one might imagine, we went back and forth with a lot of ideas for this album before settling on the cover we chose. You can read more about this experience on Brian's blog.

I have known Brian for 23 years of my 29 year life, and its been such a wonderful journey going from academic competitors trying to out do each other in our third grade bookworms (If I read 50 books one semester, Brian read 53...he was always a little bit ahead!) to friends that challenge each other's creativity.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Cabin iPhone Pictures

A while back I promised to post the iPhone pictures I took at the cabin. There was something uniquely beautiful about them to me. Nothing special, but I liked them...

A Drawing A Day, 7.30.08

This is a little different from what I usually do for a drawing a day -- it's much looser.

The thing about pen is that it can be so scary because you can't erase, but at the same time, it's much freer, too, if you allow yourself to embrace the mistakes. This one was so much fun. I set my timer for 30 minutes, turned on the John Lennon tribute album Instant Karma, took out my 9 x 12 sketch pad, found some objects around (and ate some of them too -- the basil and the blueberries) and just drew. It was so liberating.

I then came upstairs and colored it loosely in Photoshop, just to see how it would react as a screen print. I am not sure how I feel about it in color. I don't think I like it with color.

What I love best? the dead Black-eyed Susans.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

A Drawing A Day, 7.29.08

Not sure why I fall in and out of this drawing a day habit, because the truth is, I like how it makes me feel like I did something each day -- whether or not it is good...

This one took 25 minutes. It is 6x6 inches.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Working on a baby print

Here is part of the image of the baby print I am working on. I don't have too much to say about it. I am not sure where I am going with it, or even at this point consciously why I am working on it, but I guess that is half the fun.

The image is a found image from an old book.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

New Onesie Designs!

I have designed a couple of new onesies. I am not sure which of the two I am going to continue, so I am having a contest to get feedback! Please visit Scoopalicious for more information and to enter. Contest ends Sunday, July 27th.

Happy National Ice Cream Month!

Monday, July 14, 2008

Bethany Font!

Font Garden now sells my handwriting as a font! Fun! I had the wonderful Ellinor of Font Garden make my handwriting into a font and she also decided to sell it in her shop! Now you too, can own Bethany. Later in the summer there will also be an alternate version, but if you buy Bethany now, you can get the update for free.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

A Drawing A Day, 7.9.08

Part of me thinks these are overworked, part of me likes them.

Watercolor, about 7 1/4 inches square, 31 minutes.

Have to use these peaches today as I dropped two of them as I was heading outside. Super.

Good to get away from my computer, the technical stuff of my website is killing me.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

A Drawing A Day, 7.4.08 and 7.7.08

So, I wasn't as perfect as I planned in keeping this Drawing a Day up, but it was a holiday and a weekend. I have a feeling that weekends are going to be especially difficult this summer as we have a ton of weddings and other events...

I am so not thrilled with this watercolor, but again, I did it. These day lillies (?) were at our cabin in Vermont. Kevin and I went to up to Shadow Lake to spend some time with Uncle Charlie, Fred, and some of our friends up on the lake.

This image is about 7x7 inches, done in watercolor and I spent 30 minutes on it. This was about all I could spend before I ripped the page right out of my watercolor block.

I wasn't really feeling this image, but I did have a great time with Kevin's iPhone camera. As soon as I get them from him, I will post the collection of self portraits and sky I was taking.

I realized that one of my most unproductive art making problems is when I have somewhere to be and I can't spend the time I want to invest at the moment on a project. This is really frustrating.

I had to get home last night to get ready to go to my first meditation class at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center. That ended up being great, but in the meantime, I felt rushed on this image. I thought I would have more time to do this drawing, but by the time I finished pulling the bottom two colors of the print I am working on, time was running 0ut quickly.

Anyway, about this drawing that I do not love either...Drawn on July 7, 2008. 6x6", graphite on paper, 31 minutes.

In other news, I made great headway on my website today, so I am excited to be moving on that. It is pretty tedious and has been hanging over my head so I cannot WAIT to get that done. I am hoping to get the main site up by July 31, but I am not sure that will happen. We'll see. Hopefully putting that date out in the public will motivate me to get moving.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

A Drawing A Day, 7.3.08

It is absolutely beautiful out so I decided to it out by our wildflowers and try to draw them. The mood was perfect. The temperature is perfect -- it is one of those not too hot, not too cold days, and you are aware of the weather only because it seems to blend in perfectly with your own body temperature.

I was sitting in the shade facing all these beautiful specimens of plants which are finally beginning to show their colors. Bob Martin was on my iPod singing about Lowell and the Kerouacs and all this was reminding me of how happy I am to be living in New England with the seasons and the history.

It's a bit windy out so I had to take a couple of drawing pauses while I waited for things to get still. Finally, I decided to stop the drawing when the breeze blew the plant leaf I was drawing so much that it got stuck under another leaf and it changed my whole image.

This one, again 6x6 inches, took about 38 minutes to draw.

Going back outside to inspire some screen prints.

Just a little note, I am going to be away for the next couple of days but I really will try to keep up with the Drawing a Day. It feels so important to me right now.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

A Drawing A Day, 7.2.08

A little shout out to Dr. Liam and Dr. R!

Not thrilled with this drawing. In fact, got pretty frustrated. "Gave up" after 22 minutes. But again, I did it. Yay!

The drawing is 6x6 inches and done in pencil.

On another note, went to the ICA today. Great Anish Kapoor exhibit. Hm. I didn't know Kapoor did the famous Chicago Bean.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

A Drawing A Day, 7.1.08

I drew something from our farm share today: a strawberry. It measures 6x6 inches. I don't love it. Particularly, I think the "line drawing" is too cartoony, and the others were just frustrating. But what matters is I did it, I spent 30 minutes drawing today.

I am really trying to do this daily -- yeah, I know, I skipped four days, but I was away, and being away doesn't allow for such regularity in drawing...but now that I am back in Waltham, I didn't skip a day! Hey, once every five days is much better than once every three months!