New Work: Masterworks Miniatures 2013

Once again, a new batch of miniatures are complete and submitted! Keeping my fingers crossed they are all accepted into the MasterWorks show.

After taking a year off to participate in the show as a miniatues juror last yea, I can only hope I do as well as I have in past years (2009, 2010, 2011). While I’m still inspired by my travels throughout the state of New Mexico, this year I’m focusing on it’s beautiful skies and sunsets. Like a couple years ago, I raided my own photo archives for inspiration on these pieces, but I started planning these piece for last year’s show… but I never was able to work on the finals. As usual, I left most of the work to the last minute—all pieces were completed last week, and submitted on Saturday.

Driveby Sunset

4.85" x 3" On Arches, 140lb. Hotpress

(6.75" x 5" framed)

This piece is based on yet another snapshot I took while driving home from Santa Fe one evening. I just loved the light of the sunset, outside the frame of the image and unseen directly, but reflecting it’s warmth into the image—while the blues and purples of twilight hide in the shadows of the clouds. It was a surreal moment I was lucky to catch.

Ember Sky

4.75" x 4" On Arches, 140lb. Hotpress

(5.5" x 5" framed)

Once again, I was inspired my the many layers and colors of the sky for this piece… the small yet intense colors of the sunset, so focused in one spot, while the sky above is still hanging onto late afternoon and dancing with frolicking wisps of clouds.

Sunset Aflame

3.65" x 2.65" On Arches, 140lb. Hotpress

(4.75" x 3.75" framed)

This one is a bit more traditional, a real flaming sunset—although maybe a bit more wildly colorful than reality. More desert silhouettes play beneath what looks like a writhing storm of fire, but I was there and I know just how peaceful it was.

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PROJECT NOTES: This year it was a little harder for me to get back into the minis. Maybe taking last year off to be a juror wasn’t such a good idea. I’m hoping I can find a new spark of inspiration to really get my head back in it next year.

Audiobooks/stories listened to while working on these pieces:

Neverware, by Neil Gaiman (BBC theatrical radio production)

The Map of the Sky, by Felix J Palma

My Book is for SALE: The Zoo's Annual Piggyback Race

The book is here, at last!

Hello, hello! It's been a pretty busy year so far, and now I get to announce that my first illustrated children's picture book is out and available to purchase, directly from me! I've been toiling away with website technicalities for weeks now, and I discovered… there's a reason I don't do web design/programing. I couldn't make it work, so I turned back to my old friend Etsy. I've added the book as my one and only listing for the time being, there are several copies available, so when the initial quantity for this listing runs out, I will re-list it ASAP. I plan to add prints from the book in the next few weeks as well — keep an eye out!

**Please note, shipping time is slow for the time being while initial orders are placed, but will speed in the next few weeks… please bare with me!

BUY THE BOOK

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In the meantime, here are some pictures from the Barnes &Noble Story Time I did this past Wednesday, March 13th.

Story Time in the fabulous Kids' section at
Barnes & Noble, Coronado Mall — ABQ, NM

There was singing, reading, and crafting galore!

On the shelf, right next to Chu's Day…
it pays to have bookseller friends!

BUY THE BOOK

My AWESOME support team,
the ABQ Tangerine Cafe Design Group
Daniel Hulsbos, Me, Lynn Platow, and Brittany Archuleta

*Extra special thanks to Lynn Platow for taking these fabulous candid photos!

Happy Blog-New-Year (#Twoodle)

four+carrot
(edited pencil sketch + digital color & texture)

I know, I know… it's the end of February. I'm just gonna say it, it's been s struggle so far this year. I'm trying to hang-in though, and here's my first post of the year, a #twoodle (learn more about twoodle here, thanks to the lovely and talented @aliciapatron).

I sent two words out into the twitterverse during the week, four and logging. It seems many twoodlers were also inspired by @johnlechner's word, carrot.

original sketch from sketch-a-day book

So, I'm going to try and sketch more and post more and just get back to being present here… and in life. Wish me luck!

PiBoIdMo 2012 - Winner!

I do solemnly swear that I have faithfully executed 
the

PiBoIdMo 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge,


and will, to the best of my ability, 
parlay my ideas

into picture book manuscripts.

My third year of participating in Picture Book Idea Month (#PiBoIdMo) was another success. And, once again, I find myself thinking… this is really something I should do more regularly – keep a PB idea list going all year long. I still haven't found a way to make it a regular practice, but I think it'll definitely be on my 2013 Resolutions to find a way to make this happen!

And of course, I'm interested in the follow-through of the these ideas. Even if they're only dummies, turning these ideas into completed books is the next big challenge!

I can't believe it's been a whole year since the last PiBoIdMo, and here we are at the end of another one. I've done a lot in the past year, including completing my first finished picture book (as illustrator only), signing on with an illustration agency, visiting the SCBWI-LA Conference for the first time (and as an SCBWI Volunteer), and reading over 200 picture books (as a self-study project to just read more PBs regularly - I posted about it here and here). I did start writing a few of my own picture books, but haven't gotten very far with them yet. I keep stopping myself. It's the one step I haven't figured out how to approach, but I  continue to try and in the meantime – I'm keeping the new ideas rolling in and ready for me when I do figure out the right process for myself, to write AND illustrate my own stories.

New Work & Show Opening Tonight!

Hello!… 3.75"x3.75" - a brand new mixed media experiment.

It's time for our local New Mexico CPSA District Chapter Annual Show again, generously hosted by the Old School House Gallery! I submitted three pieces this year, including my Sleep Bears piece and these two new pieces. I hope to see a great crowd there tonight!

Snow Buddies… 5"x7" - some of you may recognize this as the
original drawing used for my Christmas card last year.

Pencil Nubbins: What to do?

I'm giving the advice/tutorial blog post a try – let me know if you like it!

nubbins, nubbins, everywhere

Being a colored pencil artist, I've developed quite a collection of pencil nubbins - you know, the stubs left over when you just can't sharpen them anymore? For most colored pencil brands, this generally isn't too much of an issue, they're pretty cheap and easy to replace. But there's still a lot of waste involved, not only in the nubbin ends, but tip breakage and leads that creak inside the barrel. It's frustrating!

In the last few years though, I've upgraded my pencil stock to Caran d'Arch's Luminance 6901 pencils. These are the créme de la créme of colored pencils (IMHO). There are all kinds of technical and longevity benefits to using these pencils, besides the brilliant smooth color and ease of use in burnishing and blending. They have the best light-fast ratings on the market (probably the #1 reason color pencil is looked down upon as an artistic medium) and there's a lot less breakage inside the pencil. Unfortunately, these advantages show through in the price, about $4 per pencil. It usually adds up to a  a small fortune for me when I'm restocking. So I want to save & use every little bit I can.

There are lots of pencil extension tools on the market, but most of these products can be made from household items and scraps if you have the drive, know-how, and time to experiment and find what works for you.

some current consumer products to aid in pencil extension

the tools i use

I've always made my own pencil extenders from used-up ball point pen tubes. Just remove the pen tip & ink well from one end, and the cap from the opposite end. These tubes are general a bit smaller that the barrels of colored pencils, so depending on your level of comfort, you can either chew the end of the pen tube until it's flexible enough to wedge a pencil in (just let it set for a bit and you can easily exchange pencils) –or– use a candle flame to soften the pen-tube ends and expand them with an awl or screw driver and gradually enlarge the openings on either end, until the pencil fits snuggly. As long about about a quarter inch of the pencil fits in the tube, it should offer sturdy use.

However, no matter what you use to extend your pencils, you eventually get to a point where you can't sharpen them anymore, they're just too short to hold AND turn a sharpener. I've ended up with tons of little nubbins of the colors I use most. *I never throw them away - I've used them in craft projects and various other things… but ideally, I'd like to find a way to use them up in my artwork! When I saw the Glu-it To-it product online, I thought it was a pretty clever solution, but being the thrifty/crafty artist I am, I thought it might be a pretty easy thing to make myself (and by that I mean I KNOW someone that works with wood regularly, has scraps and know-how – and I asked him if this would be a relatively easy project: he did, thanks Dad!). 

It's a simple concept, a narrow wood block with a pencil-barrel-size channel cut in it, and one area hollowed out as a waste/glue-drip well (so your pencil doesn't end up clued inside the channel). Simply put a little crazy glue on one end and hold the ends together until the glue sets (which is pretty quickly). Now you can keep sharpening the nubbin all the way to the end!  

this is how it works

There does come a point when there's so little of the glue left that the joint breaks, but in my first try it lasted until the very tip, which saved me about ¾" of pencil. That doesn't sound like much, but I either go through a LOT of pencils where these nubbins add up (white for instance, I probably have one or two whole pencils worth of white nubbins) … or I run down to a nubbin of color I'm currently using and I need to order another that will take a few days to arrive – using this technique just might hold me over until the replacement arrives!

So, did you find this post helpful & informative? I hope so… because I really should be working on a few other projects and the "procrastination blog-post monster" took over! ;)

PiBoIdMo 2012!

So, I haven't posted in a few weeks, it's just been madly busy. But it's that time of year again, and time to spread the word — PiBoIdMo 2012 is upon us! 

So get out your pens, notebooks, or computers ready and head over to Taralazar.com to find out more about PiBoIdMo. This will be my third year participating. I'm not much of a writer (yet), but I'm so thankful the month-long guest blog posts, inspiration, and support PiBoIdMo provides. I have 60 ideas just waiting for me to turn them into amazing books thanks to the driving force of this event and I'm about to add 30 more. I can't wait!

Sign yourself up here or just follow-along privately on your own.