Doing the Senior Thing

I am down to my last semester at University, and even though school has only been in session a few weeks, I have been running like crazy!

The prospect of graduating from college and joining the work force is rather terrifying, especially since I am not entirely sure what I am going to do with myself XDDD

But the biggest thing I have on my plate right now is my senior exhibition. It’s scary because my exhibition is what all of my schooling has been leading up to, but I feel like I am already cramped for time. Hopefully I can keep it together until the opening day!!

On another note, I was able to take another life drawing class this semester, and I have really been enjoying it!

Here is some of the work I’ve done so far 🙂

Karen Katz’s Beautiful Baby Books

Back in the day, I used to chill with babies a lot. I worked as a daycare teacher for five years, it was a both traumatizing and gratifying experience XD

One of the things I hated about the daycare was all of the stupid, pointless, plot-less  ugly, cardboard backed, dollar bin books I had to read to my class. Granted there are a ton of beautiful, intricate children’s books out there, that can entertain, not only children but the adults reading them, as well (like Jan Brett or Jon J Muth)….unfortunately most of them are not terror-toddler-army proof and are eaten or ripped to pieces in a matter of minutes.

But I did love one series in particular, Karen Katz’s books like these:

 

The stories are sweet and simple. The text is short enough to keep the attention span of a toddler and the poor teacher who is reading it for the fifty-thousandth time. But it’s the art I love. Karen’s love of fabrics, folk art and Matisse come together as a winning combination in her beautiful illustrations. Her work is full of vibrant colors and patterns, and Katz’s way of depicting the figures is charming, inviting and drop dead adorable.

 

So, if you have young children…or just happen to be browsing the kid’s section at Barnes & Noble, you should take a look at these adorable little books!

Christmas Cards~

I absolutely love getting mail, greeting cards, letters, postcards..especially packages!

I also love writing letters and making cards, unfortunately I am horrible at getting it sent out. Right now I am actually staring at a sealed, addressed letter to my friend who is on exchange in Romania right now. I wrote the letter weeks ago, I am so bad!

I did get a chance to make and send out a few Christmas cards this year!

I really like to make my own cards when, at all, possible. These are a lot simpler than the ones I usually make, but they get the job done :3 (the oddball one with the cat and airplane is for my uncle, who is a orange cat loving pilot!)

Usually my cards look more like this: 

They are a lot of fun to make, I try to craft the card into the likeness of the person it is for and I use any paper I can find! Kids construction paper, shiny candy wrappers, magazines, origami paper even bits of my homework >_> ~ (I do sell them and take commissions here, if you are interested! :D)

Do any of you make your own greeting cards? What sort of materials do you use? Is anyone else as bad at mailing them as I am? haha!

Workspace

I believe that one’s environment plays a huge role in productivity and imagination, as well as over all mood (which is why I am always urging home and business owners to PAINT YOUR WALLS. Come on people, white walls in a day care are just depressing.). I try to keep my workspace interesting and inspiring, with lots of colors and things I like, for example floor space with lots of soft rugs and pillows (I have this weird habit of wanting to do everything while sitting/laying on my floor XD) but for some reason my studio always ends up looking like this:

…and then I have to play hopscotch to get out of the room. (This is a glimpse as to why my childhood nickname was Chaos Child.)

What I really want my studio to look like is this:

(I know you want to know more about this glorious place, visit the owner’s blog, go here)

I actually realized that this dream studio was not so far away as I might think, my family owns forty or so acres up in Conifer, Co and we already have one cute yellow farm house (as well as several half falling down log cabins)…so adding a tiny white one might not be too much of a stretch!

I could put it here:

Although, even if I did build my dream studio it would most likely still be a mess…and I would probably still have to play hopscotch to get to the door.

Spooky Fairy Tales, Anyone? Also, Cats Cats Caaats

Hi Ya’ll! I thought I would take a moment to share my most recent, finished piece of work with everyone!

This piece is watercolor and ink on cold press paper and is based off of one of my favorite Japanese fairy tales, The Boy Who Drew Cats.

For those of you who have never heard of this fairy tale, you can read a pretty good translation here, if you can’t guess…it is a story about a boy who only ever draws cats. Cats. Cats. Cats.

I also like Wikipedia’s synopsis, and the addition of all the cats having bloody mouths, creeeeppy.

Anyways, I really wanted to bring out some of the spookier elements of the story (I’ve always felt that the Japanese have a wonderful grasp on horror). This was an assignment for school and I was limited to black, white and grey, which lent itself fairly well to this scene of the story, where our cat loving little protagonist has fallen asleep in the temple after drawing,……catscatscats. I have also been working hard to create a sense of space in my paintings (usually they are terribly flat). I think I was successful in here!

I really would like to paint some more creepy fairy tale scenes! Do you have any suggestions? What do you think of The Boy Who Drew Cats and my adaptation of it?