Saturday, August 26, 2006

IllustrationFriday: Run

This really happened when I was little. My parents' & neighbors' perspective from the back deck: suddenly all the kids come running out of the field toward the house yelling "Tommy caught a snake!" Here are my preliminaries:

Sunday, August 13, 2006

StudioFriday: Desert Island

"Desert Island" topic for StudioFriday. I composited this for a card for my husband, it's "Isle of Ewe"............get it? :) edit: for my non-english-speaking friends, the joke is that when I say "isle of ewe" in English, it sounds just like I'm saying "I love you."

IllustrationFriday: Play

"Play" for IllustrationFriday. This is one of my four seasons illustrations which are all of kids playing, for self-promotion of my work. To view the other seasons in the series, begin here then click "next" for the others too!

Monday, August 07, 2006

StudioFriday: my creative roots

My “creative roots” :

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord…

He will be like a tree planted by the water.

Jeremiah 17:7,8

[I altered a crop of a photo by Ken DeQuaine found in my calendar]

Anyway, my literal creative roots:

My paternal grandpa was an artist for fun—he painted a lot of local scenes. My parents and my grandma have them so I don’t have a photo to share. I never met him so I feel very special that I share his fondness of painting. In different ways, my parents are also excellent craftspeople. My dad can build anything, I mean anything—and it will be finished with excellent skill and attention to detail. He is employed as a product modelmaker but also built his house with his own two hands and he builds theatre sets for fun and fixes up antique Singer Featherweights on the side. My mom runs her own quilting business and proves to also have high standards for what she does. She is creative and made crafts with me and my brothers growing up—she has a good mind full of great ideas. (by the way, here’s her quilting website). My maternal grandpa, come to think of it, also had high standards in his craft of fixing up/working on/painting cars for people. He was very good at it.

IllustrationFriday: Capture

The topic this week for IllustrationFriday is “capture.”

This may look to you like these birds are not really captured—the door is open!

But the “capture” I focused on for this one was of a heart being captured.

This is in part a tribute to a dear friend of mine who had decorative bird cages in her home. One day I realized why she displayed them with the doors wide open: I said, “hey, that’s like when you’ve allowed your heart to be captured by God's Love, you come under His spiritual covering and you are there because you want to be. She smiled her million-dollar smile and replied that that kind of freedom was exactly what she was symbolizing in those decorations.

It’s one of the many beautiful paradoxes of God’s plan in Jesus: it is when you let Him capture your heart that you are set free indeed.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

StudioFriday: Music to my ears

Below are four designs I made as a pack of notecards for a gift to a musical friend. Each one represents a season by the underlying type of photo, and by the color scheme. (please click any one to view it larger) speaking of music, here are one of my favorite songs' lyrics which seem to be written for me (it's my life story)

Illustration Friday: Clean

"Clean" The verb, rather than the adjective... This was inspired by my daughter. She was finally unafraid enough of her toy vacuum to imitate my actions just before her 2nd birthday. I hope this does come across as the right age: around 1 1/2 or 2 years old... but i do have to work on drawing feet! The actual toy is black and red like a real "dirtdevil" brand, but I thought the pink colors would communicate more clearly that it is a toy vacuum.