FEATURED: Bella Sara Fan Magazine (France)

I'm so excited to share that my artwork for the new Bella Sara Series, Bella's Ball, was recently featured on the cover of the French Bella Sara Fan Magazine (above). To top it off, they decided to follow-up with an interview article with me in the newest issue (below).

I feel so exotic being in a foreign language magazine! To be honest, I was really impressed with these magazines - when they contacted me I thought the magazine must be a small matte paper/ pamphlet-like thing, but these issues are full-on glossy magazines filled with Bella Sara characters, artwork, fans and various articles! I think I might have loved this kind of thing when I was that age!

The interview was conducted via email and while I don't have the actual translation of the edited down version featured in the magazine, I can share my original answers in full here:

Why and how did you become a visual artist?
When I was a toddler in day care, a teacher came to my parents concerned that I was constantly drawing horses, only horses. My parents were more impressed with the fact that I was drawing recognizeable horses at the age of two. I think having such supportive & encouraging parents has played a major part in my development as an artist. I always loved to draw, in fact I found myself drawing more often than taking notes, in school. That’s a lot of practice! I basically just kept going, until I found some people willing to pay me for it.

Can you tell us a bit about your career?
I sold my first painting when I was 13. It had been an art class project, the object was to illustrate a word acting out it’s definition. I chose the word camping and I painted the letters of the word, sitting around a camp fire on a starry night, in a forest clearing with tents in the background. It was on display at my school and someone that passed by had an immediate emotional connection to it and asked the school if she could buy it. It was a very exciting moment for me, realizing I could earn money doing something I love to do.
I’ve always been attracted to fantasy worlds and fantastical creatures, naturally I thought children’s books where the way to go for me. I started focusing on that direction for my career, but it usually takes time to break into that industry (it involves a lot of hard work, dedication, and more than a little luck), so in the meantime I needed to find a regular job that would help me pay my rent and my college loans! I was lucky to get a staff position after college, designing & illustrating stickers in the scrapbook industry. I got to travel all over the United States for market research, visit manufacturers in Taiwan and China, I even went to big trade shows in places like New York City, Hong Kong, and Paris. It was an amazing job and I learned lot during my seven years with that company.
I left that position two years ago to work as a freelance illustrator and designer. Now there is a lot more variety in my work - and one of my newest clients is Bella Sara! I have to say, the projects I do for them is among the most fun I have - and I already have a pretty fun job. :)

What is your creative process? Do you get specific guidelines before starting a project? How do you proceed?
Bella Sara does send specific guidelines for each character they assign. They always include a few reference images along with a detailed written description to get the artist started, but they are also open to the ideas and suggestions of the artist. Most clients just send a theme or idea and I have to create a visual concept for it. I always like to start out by researching any special attributes, such a a particular horse breed. I use various internet searching techniques to gather information and imagery that inspires me, and that help add on to the ideas I’ve already started to formulate in my head. Once that’s done, I start sketching. These days, I do a lot of different sketches, scan them into my computer, then take the best parts and layer them together digitally. Once I have the sketch just the way I want it, I submit it to my client for review. They either approve it as is, or come back with a few changes for me to make. Sometimes I make the changes and submit it again, sometimes I can make the changes as part of the final color artwork.

What/who inspires you?
Just about everything I see inspires me. I am an admitted design geek - I love Ikea and all things considered “designy”. Books and movies are a huge source of inspiration for me also (for example the Narnia books or anything by Neil Gaiman, or the ending credits artwork from the Lemony Snicket movie). Whenever & wherever I am, I usually have a book, along with a moleskin sketchbook just in case I read something that inspires a visual image in my head that I just have to put on paper. I read and collect picture books as well - I would still love to work on one, they’re simply the best avenue for an artist to really showcase their ideas and artwork. The internet as opened up a lot of options for finding new and interesting things to inspire me. Some specific artists that are constantly inspiring me are Danny Gregory, James Jean, Jennifer Meyer, Kelly Murphy, Mary GrandPre, and my brother, Sean Beavers. There’s really too many to list.

Do you work digitally, or do you still pull out the ol’ paint and brushes?
I actually favor colored pencils. I’m a signature member of the Colored Pencil Society of America (www.CPSA.org). My work has been accepted into their international juried show 4 times, and I’ve had the honor of receiving two awards. It’s a great medium, but it’s a little on the slow side, so I’ve only gotten to do one of my Bella Sara pieces in colored pencil (Harmony, from the Treasures series). The rest have been a combination of traditional graphite drawing and digital coloring. I like to use a lot of textures in my digital paintings as well. More often than not, it’s just a paper texture, so the digital art has a slightly more organic feel. I also love photography, and I never leave my house without a digital camera, so just as often as I stop to take a picture of a beautiful sunset, I’ll stop to take a picture of an interesting marble, granite, or stone surface. (Suffice to say, I’m always carrying around a really big, really full, bag)

New Work: More Sticker Samples

Okay it's been a long, long time… again. I'm really bad with the updates these days. I feel like I've been adding too much to my plate for the last few months on one hand, but feel I always work best when super-busy. That being said, I still have the problem of all-work, no-play and not much I can really share, as so much of my current work is confidential until released.
So, what's new? Well, here are some more stickers I've worked on that were release earlier this year. I always get a kick out of seeing these in production. I do fairly detailed product concept sketches, that are then interpreted in various materials (paper, fabric, epoxy, mylar, you name it). I do a LOT of these and it's usually pretty fun. These two themes are something of a departure for me. I'm really not down with the hunting and fishing - but it's kinda fun to explore themes you're not familiar with.
Sometimes I'm amazed at how closely they follow the sketch - I mean look at the camo pattern on the hat - it's almost an exact translation! Ha!

New Work: Bella Sara, BELLA'S BALL

Bella Sara rescently released their new card series called "Bella's Ball". It's been great working with Bella Sara with Hidden City Games. I worked on three characters (no background art) for this series, the 10th for Bella Sara. Above is Apollo, a previously existing character who has made several appearances in throughout series. I was really nervous about this one, because the original character art was created by my friend and awesome illustrator, Jennifer L. Meyer, had major shoes to fill here. ;) I also got to work on Bryda for a second time, a character I was asked to create for the Treasures series. It was awesome to be given an opportunity to develop a character that I established in a previous series. The last character for this group is Athena, Apollo's counterpart (or vice versa) and also a long established character. Everyone is "done up" and beatified for the extravagant ball. :)

New Work: Environment Miniature

This weekend, I volunteered to demonstrate for Caran d'Arche at a local trade show - Artists' Materials expo. It was a very interesting event, iI wish I could have spent more time learning about various other materials (new & old), there was a lot to see. But I did get a chance to purchase some mew pencils, paper, and various other working surfaces to play with.
I was demonstrating a new line of specially developed lightfast pencils, Luminance 6901. One of the biggest faults of colored pencil as a medium has been it's overall failure to stand up to any kind of UV exposure. Caran d'Arche's new line sets a remarkable standard, holding up to light exposure as well as an oil painting. Great news for those of us that love colored pencil.
I usually don't work with colored pencil brands other than Primsacolor, but it was an absolute joy working with the Caran d'Arche pencils. They may have made a convert out of me - but I'll have to work on a few more pieces before I start investing, with an average cost of $4+ a pencil. For volunteering my time, I was given a 38 pencil Luminance set (other sets come in 16 and 76), which had a "show special" value of $125.
Before and during the event, I worked on the above miniature. I wanted to do something small, and decided to work on an 'environment', or landscape setting - as I generally focus on character work. I'm quite happy with this moody, if slightly erie, woodland setting. I'm happy with the detail as well, for a piece that measures only 2.5" x 3.5".
Below is a picture of some of the other samples and materials that I either purchased or was given in sample form.

New Work: Event Poster

For nine days in October, the New Mexico skies are painted as hundreds of balloons lift off from Albuquerque's Balloon Fiesta Park. The annual Balloon Fiesta, is Albuquerque's biggest public event, by far. It's always an exciting time of year for those of us that live here.

Cottonwood Printing Co. is comfortably situated out by Balloon Fiesta Park and holds a private breakfast one morning during the week, for viewing the Mass Ascension – a launch of all the participating balloons, a major feature of Balloon Fiesta since its earliest days. In honor of this event, each year Cottonwood prints a poster and gives it away to clients and local businesses to promote the event. This year I was given the opportunity to work on this poster. I'm happy to share this new work here now - finally, something I can post in actually time!

As a bonus, it looks like they're going to print the following black & white image as a coloring page give away to children attending the event.

Travel: Japan, pt.3 (blast from the past)

Tokyo: Last Full Day | 2006-05-03
It was bound to happen. In a city full of 1-2" shelf-steps all over the place, it was inevitable that the girl with ridiculously loose ligaments would turn her ankle... and fall... while watching her brand new digital camera soar through the air next to her (in slow motion)... then hit the pavement simultaneously. Why don’t they make hard-plastic iPod-like cases for cameras anyway? I was so angry with myself for not paying enough attention and missing that step - I was too engrossed in a window display and taking pictures. Anyway, both the camera and I survived. I landed on my left hip, so I’m expecting an ugly bruise to show up soon, but other than that and the ankle itself I only had a couple scratches on my left hand. I did it first thing in the morning too, so I couldn’t very well let it ruin my day... which was BEAUTIFUL by the way! Gorgeous bright, sunny; warm-in-the-sun, cool-in-the-shade weather!! Anyway, I hobbled around the area we were checking out, and eventually stopped at a drug store and got a Japanese Ace bandage. I can't believe I came all the way to Japan and bought an Ace bandage (when really, knowing myself,¢ I should have packed one). After I got my ankle all wrapped up, I faired much better and stopped hobbling and got to walking again.


This all happened in the Aoyama area near the Omotesando subway station. Right up the street from one of the coolest buildings I’ve ever seen - Prada. From the outside it looks like a quilted glass building - inside it’s all space age and futuristic. The rest of the shops in that area were cool clothing boutiques. We saw tons of them, and after a while they got a bit boring. But we got to see some amazing, and maybe a little out of the way, parts of Tokyo. Including Harajuku (not out of the the way, actually rather popular) and a completely overcrowded market street. It’s been a holiday all week in Japan - Golden Week (not sure what it means, but it obviously meant a ton of people out shopping). I won’t go into too much detail, but I have tons of pictures of all the shops (and the crowds - or maybe a better description would be SEA of people - everywhere).


After many hours finding and perusing various boutiques (clothes, paper goods, books, toys etc), we decided to try to make it out to the Ghibli Museum (Spirited Away, etc.) It was a bit out of the way, but TOTALLY worth it. Words can’t say how amazing it was, a real treat for an injured and super-tired traveler. The tickets are sold-out something like a year in advance for natives - but they reserve a certain amount for foreign visitors. We were lucky to get in at the very end of the day, we only had about an hour and a half by the time we got there, but it was an amazing experience. So not overdone like Disney, just really beautiful down to the last detail.





Once back in Tokyo, we tried to find a good Sushi Restaurant in Shibuya, but it just was not happening. I was so hungry and I needed to eat so badly - we ended up going to (I’m ashamed to say) T.G.I. Friday’s. Ridiculous, I know - but I got a really good milkshake out of it - and that alone made it worth walking in. After dinner we were beat so we headed back to the hotel. I packed everything up, and am looking forward to a relaxing all-nighter (so I can sleep on the plane on ”our” time). What an awesome trip.

Travel: Japan, pt.2 (blast from the past)

Tokyo: First Full Day | 2006-05-02
OMG I am so tired! And my legs and feet HATE me. It is EXHAUSTING getting around in Tokyo! Especially in the pouring rain. :( It was still amazing though. We had a nice breakfast in the hotel, changed some money and headed off for the biggest Muji store in Tokyo (or the rest of the world, for that matter). However, it took a while for us to get there... the train system in Tokyo is fabulous, but NOT so simple. There are tons of stations and transfer options, but there are several different companies that run the trains, so there’s not always an easy WAY to transfer (you have to buy a ticket for each line... for instance, we were on 5 trains today, that required three different tickets). We had an address for Muji, but considering that most streets in Tokyo don’t have names, we knew it would be difficult - we just didn’t know how difficult! Getting to the right area was easy, two trains, two different lines, not a problem. Once we left the station though, it got interesting - or painful... depending on how you look at it. We went into a building close by and asked a friendly looking woman where Muji was and showed her our address for it - she gave us a local map (in japanese) and said it was about 5 blocks away. As we were walking done the street - it began to rain... my co-worker happened to have an umbrella - okay. But then it began to pour. Sheesh!! Eventually, we got to where we thought we needed to be (partially drenched), but no Muji! We ducked into a building and asked for more directions - and where sent back in the direction from which we’d just come! It was still pretty early though, and this building had an underground mall, so we went down to look around and pick up another umbrella. Back on the street, we went to the building right next to the original one we’d gone into, but still no Muji (believe me, it made sense when we were doing it). Luckily, my co-worker asked a young ‘hip’ looking woman (as he put it) that happened to speak english - and she directed us right to Muji (on the other side of the train tracks from where we were looking). So, it only took an hour and a half to get to our first destination of the day (in total).


The name Muji stands for ‘No Brand’. But for not having a brand, it has established a very distinct look. The store itself reminded me very much of a Japanese version of Ikea. Every thing is very clean, simple and basic. Great design, neutral colors. More clothing than furniture. It even had ‘Muji Meal’ - a restaurant inside the store (we ate lunch there - I had a salad that came with soy sauce on it - weird, but good!). The store is three floors, so we spent a fair amount of time there - it really was very impressive - totally worth the trouble getting there.


Next we headed out to Tokyo Hands (the creative life store - or some tag line to that effect) in Shibuya (retail center of Tokyo). They might as well call it the ‘Everything Under the Sun Store’, because it is 7 floors of literally everything under the sun! No kidding - gardening tools, plants, beakers and test tubes, compasses, bikes, toys, cosmetics, furniture, storage, stationery, art supplies, bags, every single tool I’ve ever heard of and more, lighting, ball bearings, fake nipples, warning signs... I couldn’t even process it all. We were there for at least 3 hours. Of course, it also took us a while to find that as well, but we did it faster this time, and after that I’d gotten the hang of it and we found just about every other place on our list. We spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening going in and out of various shops. We saw some amazing things! And I kept buying these socks with toes on them (like gloves for the feet), and I don’t even know if I LIKE them, but I can’t help it because they’re so WEIRD!


And every Japanese woman I see is a work of art - they all have amazing fashion sense and dress so creatively.


For dinner we had - get this - Tex Mex! HA! We saw it and we had to go - it was too funny. It was called Zest and it was actually pretty good. I’ve found I like to order things that we have pretty regularly in the states and see how it’s different here. I ordered cheese fries and it was an experience. They coated the fries in powdered cheese! I felt a bit like I was eating fry shaped, less crunchy cheese doodles. But it wasn’t horrible! I ordered a veggie fajita thing, but had to send it back because they put mushrooms in it (I’m allergic) even thought they said they wouldn’t - so I ended up going with a Mexican Burger (cheese burger with a bit of chili) and it was pretty good! We collected our thoughts a bit, then headed back to the hotel in the middle of nowheresville (literally an hour from anywhere we need to be on the trip).


And you know what - it’s COLD here! I checked the internet this morning and it said it would get up to 71 - it was no where NEAR 71 all day! The rain let up and was on and off all day. Coming home tonight was almost torture because I wasn’t dressed for the cold! Watch, I’ll dress all warm tomorrow and it’ll actually be hot and sunny out! At least I hope!


I feel like I’m not taking enough pictures! I only took 171 today (really not that much when you consider that 2/3 of them are work related).