IllustrationFriday: Hoard

An older personal Christmas card illustration

IllustrationFriday: Forgotten

In the beginning of a book I'm currently illustrating for Elisabeth Hurley (not the actress:)), the mother doesn't have time for her daughter at the moment.

IllustrationFriday: Baby

Here's an older, quick personal drawing. I honestly do remember when my little brother was born when I was almost exactly 3 years old. I know the memory is not just from photos because I remember it from my perspective. I was very happy to have him and I still am. (by the way I am no longer blonde.)

Puzzles from drawings

I know I'm posting more crafts with TheSquirrel than my illustrations. For me, no news on here is good news! I'm not doing IllustrationFridays as much because my time is spent working on a real illustration job! yay! It's a children's book a friend is self-publishing. This was a quick project TheSquirrel (age4) and I did: I asked her what should we draw and she quickly shouted "a great blue heron!" because we saw them canoing and they're always flying over our house. I was very impressed by her drawing, as she looked at a photo of a great blue heron. They have kinda wiggly long necks--hence the strange shape. Then I helped her notice each other feature. I flipped it over to the other side and drew some lines for her to cut it up. (good cutting practice) And we have a puzzle out of her drawing! Here is mine.

Jellyfish with TheSquirrel

We borrowed a library book involving shapes that become sea creatures in a cut-paper style...

and since today we integrated the letter D to our learning, we looked at the "semicircle" page...

and made our own jellyfish out of cut paper. This is TheSquirrel's, which was great for scissor practice. (The jellyfish I mean; I had to cut the fish for her)

And here is mine:

also check this out at BigAndLittleArt

Rain Painting with TheSquirrel

I was actually excited that it rained today. That's because we could try this project: Then I used the textures it created to do these doodles with our daughter. (see them all here)

School Visit

I'm very excited to be going tomorrow to a local elementary school as a visiting Illustrator. I'll be presenting to and drawing with the Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades. The frog above, and these three other illustrations are some simple things I came up with, to do with the children.

March Lion&Lamb

IllustrationFriday: Leap

Here are two different digital styles I've been developing. Above is the flat textural look, and below is the look of watercolor.

Let me know what you think! I began with the drawing below, for our daughter's 4th birthday invites. I put the frog into two different settings to play with, for IllustrationFriday. Seemed like the natural pond setting makes more sense with the traditional look, and the sidewalk setting lends itself to the more modern and fun look that uses odd patterns.

Pockets Craft

From the library we borrowed a picture book titled "The Pocket Book," in which the character has ten pockets sewn on the front of her dress. I decided to do a dress-shaped project with TheSquirrel, (gluing on) ten pockets of different textures (scraps of fabrics or materials). Then we wrote the descriptions of them, kinda like in the book. We wrote: "A scaly one, a roughy one, a dotty one, a plaidy one, a spotty one, a stripy one, a furry one, a purpley one, a silky one, and one to match my big blue eyes!" What child doesn't like putting things into pockets? And, Hooray for glue guns!

IllustrationFriday: Theory

IllustrationFriday: Blanket

Our first daughter's name begins with "E." Her nickname is "the Squirrel." Her special blanket is yellow with snaps she can fasten around her neck like a cape. "Duck" was one of her first and favorite words. She has always loved books and she loves to color with crayons. She owns a pair of snazzy red Mary Janes, and she is growing up like the pretty pink flowers in our garden. Her clothes I chose to hang on the line are some of my favorites that she has grown out of. 2005

Fingerprinting Pictures

The Squirrel (age3) and I discovered we can make little things with our fingerprints. So cute! Got it all from a book by Ed Emberley (view here).

IF: Stitch, in color

(click to view larger) With my mom owning a quilting business, we know a few elderly ladies who really stitch up a storm. This one, we'll call her Millie or Tillie, quilts so fast that it goes straight from the bolts of fabric to the sewing machine to the bed.

Fishing Craft

The Squirrel (age3) and I made some fish we can "catch" with a magnet. View more pics from this craft here.

IllustrationFriday: Stitch -line

(update: I finished adding color to this, click here) (click to view larger)

New kid's room

Our almost-4- yearold daughter's room has been turned into a "Farm Room!" It features a tree with apples to actually pick, fluffy sheep to actually pet, cloth clouds, a barn for a closet, and flowers we crafted together.

Here's what we did: Below is "before" (baby nursery decor we put up when I was pregnant for her...this was a little sad to take down)... I had given her choices like Under the Sea, Jungle, Farm etc, and I was pleased she picked Farm because of my great idea to make her closet doors the "barn." Anyway, here's the story: I started with penciling on sheep next to her bed: When we began with the blue sky together ("stay above the horizon line"), she eventually started to paint a person next to the sheep and cleverly told me it was the shepherd: I thought it was very special so I never painted over it; here remains the shepherd as I added darker green around each sheep and the horizon: and then painted in a brighter, cheerier green: The clouds are a sheer fabric that matches the valance:My favorite part: I glued on (stretchedout) cotton balls to the sheep to make them fluffy: (here's the shepherd up close):In the tree trunk I drew a squirrel because that's our daughter's nickname:I made the barn by painting red around the closet doors and using white tape for the lines (so we don't paint the wood):As an excellent cute touch, we added these flowers we made (great craft out of empty paper towel or toilet paper rolls from Big and Little Art this summer!):

...more flowers above her toy bins: ...& more flowers below the window:

And you can see there we added fake apples that attach to the tree with Velcro-- she can "pick" them from her tree and stick them back on! We found bouquets of 7 small apples at A.C.Moore (craft store)

And to top it all off, if you can see them below, I wrote subtle words all around the top of the wall: it's Psalm 23, usually known as the Shepherd's Psalm:

Back when I had drawn the sheep in pencil, our daughter drew a sheep the way I drew them so we made a frame to put her sheep drawing up in her farm room:

[this craft can be viewed by clicking here]