Humblearts Journal

Art Pendants

Check out what my Mom is making!  She has been wanting to use my artwork in her jewelry designs for some time now.  At first she had thought about beading one of my designs, but then she learned how to make these super pendants using microscope slides and copper.  They will have beads dangling and other embellishments.  I just couldn't wait to show them.  She's going to make one for me, I love the mermaid one.  Won't that be adorable to wear on the cruise? In the meantime, I'm designing a new logo for her.  I'll post it tomorrow.  Happy Creating!

More than I expected

I just thought I'd do a quick update about my show this weekend.  First I have to say that the San Antonio Fiber Artists Fashion Show was so well put together, fun and inspiring.  They had an after the show sale.  The room was filled with all the designs from the show as well as other items, such as surface embellished scarves, hand-knitted and hand-woven items.  Made we want to get out my knitting needles!  Around the room were various artists, jewelers, purse designers, doll makers and other interesting clothing items for sale. 

The sale was busy and it was all the right kind of women: interested in fashion and art and have money to spend!  Besides selling a lot work, I had 1 designer who owns a shop ask me to bring in some work this week. (I've wanted to take my work into her shop for 2 years, but was too chicken!) I was invited to participate at a jewelry show at a gallery this summer and another shop asked if I'd consider putting my work on consignment at their store.  (They are a co-op store of artists & designers.) 

I'm very pleased with the results, it was an all around success.  Of course, I was  telling my Mom on Friday that I didn't want to make jewelry any more.  Maybe it will be easier to work with just a few stores, instead of individual customers. Somedays, I don't like juggling everything and I would like to just work on artwork and have the beads as a hobby.  But right now, I have student loans to pay and the jewelry is a steady income.  I'm just going to enjoy my success and not think about things too much today!

Finished!!!

My momma always said, "Life is like a box of beads, you never know how many pearls your gonna get."

Okay, I'm done, I'm ready for my show tomorrow.  It's a sale after the Fiber Artists' Fashion Show.  I have quite a few new pieces with my spring colors.  And this is my big piece for this week.  It's all sorts of little beads sewn together.  I am really into asymmetrical designs.  This necklace has two art beads that I made out of polymer clay, 2 leaves that I crafted out of precious metal clay and then a whole bunch of pearls and seed beads.  My scanner isn't picking up the colors very well.  It's pinks, dark berries, greys, greens and chocolates.  I love it!  Below is a detail. 

Now I'm going out to dinner with my husband.  And then home to price and pack up all my little bits.  That will take just an hour or so.  I'll let you know how the show goes. 

And I need to thank my mom for all those wonderful pearls, she's quite the fairy bead mother!

Happy Easter!

One new Easter tradition that we have is cascarones!  Now before we moved to San Antonio I thought my husband was crazy when he told me on Easter they would mash confetti eggs on each others heads.  But now it's the highlight of our Easter dinner.  The children especially love cracking the eggs on their grandfather's head.  He, of course, hams it up to their delight!  My sister-in-law is the cascarone queen, whenever she uses an egg she blows out the yolk and saves the shell.  She does this the entire year!  Then in the Spring, they start dyeing batches of eggs.  She has 18 dozens cascarones made this year.  The children can hardly wait.  Of course, not all of them go for Easter.  San Antonio has a huge celebration in April called Fiesta and we save some for those festivities as well.

Want to make your own cascarones, here is an egreeting card with the instructions.

My personal favorite Easter memory would have to be the Easter Egg hunt at my grandmother's house.  Oh that every kid could have a grandmother that worked at the LifeSaver Candy Factory.  Yours didn't, too bad, mine did!  Instead of hunting for Easter eggs we hunted for LifeSavers and BubbleYum Gum.  We would also get a huge chocolate Easter bunny.  I'd keep mine in the freezer and still be nibbling on it around the 4th of July.

Our Easter weekend plans include an egg hunt, dyeing hard boiled eggs, Church on Sunday morning, the rest of the day at my in-laws house for dinner and those cascarones!  My favorite church, The Vineyard.  It's laid back, you never feel like an outsider, they always have coffee, and the music is awesome.  The people are down to earth and it's no big deal to find the pastor on Sunday morning dressed in a Hawaiian shirt!

bloom

Here is my entry for Illustration Friday.  Posted on Monday no less!  I'll be lost in a world of beads while I finish up some new work for the Fiber Artist's Fashion Show this weekend. 

This illustration is for a short story that I illustratrated last year.  I like the image, I think because it reminds me of my dad.  Not that it looks anything like him.  Well, maybe the mustache when he was younger.  My dad looks more like one of the Beatles in their later years, very late 70's!  Every summer at my dad's there was sure to be a garden.  I loved picking the green beans and eating them in the yard.  I also loved that my dad would get out his guitar at night and make up funny songs about my cousins and me.  Later, in my high school years, I would go to visit and in the spring he would have a little collection of seedlings growing in little containers around the house.  Some of the seeds had been saved from the best of last year's harvest,  waiting for the last frost of spring to pass.  Whenever I see a Farmer's Almanac, I think of him.  My parents divorced when I was a baby, but my dad had this amazing ability to make sure I had a magical childhood.  I find myself wanting to give that same magic to my children.  Childhood is precious and fleeting thing.  It would be nice if children could get to bloom at their own pace and enjoy their beginning years rooted in innocence and wonder.  If you have any little ones in your life, do something fun and old fashioned with them this week.  Decorate Easter eggs, make some bunnies, plant some seeds, and don't forget to read to them!  One obscure favorite from my childhood, How Fletcher Was Hatched, by Wendi Devlin. 

Oh yeah, before I go, I wanted to thank everyone for their sweet comments on last week's illustration.  I love reading them and it's so nice to see others cheering me on!  Thanks a bunch. 

Fragile

 

We are fragile.

We are shelter in a storm.

We are a light in the darkest of nights.

The rains do end.  The sun returns.

Hope is a new day.

Illustration Friday: Fragile 

Okay, that's was embarrassing! I put my image up backwards.   Silly me.  So it's the right way now.  Also, I couldn't leave well enough alone and did another version.  It's the not so stormy night.  I usually make 2 or 3 prints at a time and play around with the color.  Here is the second one.

Reading

I think anyone who writes or illustrates for children knows it's so much more than cute stories about bunnies.  There are emotions and needs and collective experiences that great picture books explore.  Children need to conquer fears, overcome obstacles, find out how to be graceful with their siblings, know that they are loved unconditionally, and find out that they are not alone in these journeys.  In an age where the attentions and time of children are overloaded with the commercial, we need to create books that don't yell over the sounds of day, but offer an oasis, a place to explore and examine who they are in the midst of the roar of life. 

I've been reading a great book called Ways of Telling, Conversations on the Art of the Picture Book, by Leonard S. Marcus.  It features interviews with author/illustrators such as Maurice Sendak, Rosemary Wells, Helen Oxenbury, Robert McCloskey and many more.

Another book by Leonard Marcus is A Caldecott Celebration.  I love seeing the sketches and dummies from these 6 award winning illustrators.

More good reading: Picture Writing by Anastasia Suen.

And then a little treasure trove of articles can be found on author/illustrator Anna Grossnickle Hines' website, look under articles.  I especially enjoyed her article, The Voice of the Picture Book.  Sorry, I can't do a direct link to the article.

Read to children, it's the best gift you can give.  Send books to the little ones in your family.  Donate books to women's and homeless shelters.  Volunteer to read at libraries.  See if you local school offers a reading mentor program.  Do whatever you can to spread the joy of reading. 

Progress

I wrote a book and whipped together a dummy for my trip to New York last spring.    Now the words, I labored over them, had them critiqued extensively, I love the story.  But I rushed to finish the sketches and I hated it.  In fact I hated the dummy so much, I put it away until this month.  It's been almost a year.  So I dusted it off, made some notes on what was working and what wasn't.  Did some new little chicken-scratch thumbnails to flesh out some more dynamic compositions.  I've learned so much in a year, it's funny to see common mistakes, that I just didn't realize were in my images. 

The trip to New York, included a critique at an SCBWI conference.  Some of the tips the agent gave me:

• Be mindful of character interaction.  Make sure my characters were touching, talking and looking at each other, not just occupying the same space. 
• The compositions were pretty much the same for each page, how I could I not see that!  At first I thought the book was badly paced, with the beginning dragging, but what was happening in the beginning, each page was too similar, my illustrations were dragging.  So I've had to work on my visual storytelling skills. 
• My mouths were horrible, everyone looked like they were wearing black lipstick, again, I should have seen it. 
• And lastly and the one I hold most dear, vary the line quality.  Oh hello, first year drawing class, but I hadn't translated that simple principle into my printmaking.  The critique was constructive and helped me see my work with fresh eyes.

I wanted to have the dummy ready to submit to the SCBWI's Don Freeman grant, but I've decided not to rush it.  I want it to be a really great book, and it still needs more time.  I need time to live with it and look at and make sure it's my best work before I send it out again.  I have 1/2 of the sketches finished, I'm hanging them on my wall as I go, to see the book laid out completely.  I don't want just a dummy for my portfolio, I want a book that is going to be published.  But I don't need to wait another year to finish this.  I'm going on an SCBWI cruise and will have it done for that event.  So my critique group will probably be sick of me by April and glad that I'll be gone for week!!!  Just forewarning you guys.

Wondering what in the world a dummy is:  Dummies for Smarties

Ancient

The Ancient of Days

I need to believe in things bigger than me.

In a Hand, in a Love that holds us all.

I need to know that when the world makes no sense, there is, and has always been, a plan.

Illustration Friday topic for this week: ancient.

Hand-colored linoleum block print.

They like me, they really like me...

Okay, an email like this makes my day:

Hi Heather!

Ages ago we had been in touch about a project for our ____________(national bead magazine that will rename nameless for now) ... we'd still love to include a project of yours if you're willing :) I've attached a copy of our guidelines for your review! I look forward to hearing from you.

Okay, my procrastination has reached an all time low, I need to get this out the door before the end of the week!!!

I have written articles for BeadStyle Magazine. The above mentioned magazine is a different one though.  BeadStyle is a great  magazine. The submission process was so simple, I  just emailed scans of my design and they said to send in the written article, the finished piece and a kit for them to use for the instructions. 

The first article appeared in July 2004 and the second, pictured here, was in the September issue.  I sold kits for both designs and the cuff bead kept me busy filling orders for months.  I still offer the beads on my site.

I have many more article ideas, I just need to write them down and get them out.  Oh why do I need to sleep?  hmm, could I get away with an hour or two less a few nights a week.  I used to work from 10-2am when my girls were toddlers.  And then get up 5 hours later to start the day again.  I don't know how I did it!  or I could stay off the computer more...gasp!