Not very much to say here, just some fun pictures to share. I had the pleasure of touring the Goat Farm open studio days two weekends ago and it was pretty much the best day. I love being able to explore artist studios, no matter what the work looks like. It’s always inspiring to me to see the physical spaces inhabited by creative minds. It didn’t hurt that it was a beautifully crisp day either!
Something that I really love and want to get back to is interviewing other creative and stylish individuals. The connections I get to make in this city are more inspiring than anything else could ever be. I do tend to make connections with other women, not because I particularly choose to, but because there’s a deeper understanding between us about how our creative pursuits really affect the trajectory of our success – both professionally and personally. As women we are carriers of the responsibility to nurture families and raise the next generation. That added layer of pressure on top of trying to chase our dreams makes every step feel that much more crucial; every success and every failure is that much more important. Anyways, I digress.
Today I introduce you to Anna, a fellow artist who is brimming with talent and just trying to make her way up in the world. She’s already got the hard part down, I mean just look at her illustrations. Now all she has to do is be patient and wait for the world to pay attention. I have no doubt that soon this girl’s IG followers with explode and I’ll be seeing her drawings all over the industry. Her work is effortlessly precise yet loose, a striking balance of form and free strokes.
When did you start illustrating? How did you decide that pen and paper was your destiny?
I started drawing early in grade school–really the same time anyone else starts drawing. Nothing else really “clicked” with me like art did… and I threw myself into it wholeheartedly. Maybe art found me 😉 I haven’t stopped drawing since.
I’ve been pretty quiet on the blog front, but it’s not for a lack of desire, interest, or content. I’ve been spending my free moments over the past few weeks being a maker – doing things instead of dreaming of doing them.
Earlier this year I applied to Indie Craft Experience’s Holiday Spectacular thinking that getting into this event would light a fire under my butt and.. boy, did it ever. Feeling under the gun, I’ve been making decisions and spending money on new products without second thought. I leapt.
I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch, but I want this to be it. I want this to be the real actual start of me feeling like I’ve got a direction. It’s never felt so close to being real and I don’t want this to stop. As exhausted and scared as I am, I am happy that I’m willing myself into this. More to come soon.
Can you imagine what your life would be like if your job was to make and sell craft marshmallows?… I think it must involve a whole lot of s’mores and smiles (I obviously try to alliterate whenever the opportunity presents itself)! Aside from that though, Malvi Marshmallow Confections adds finesse to a treat we’ve always known to come out of a huge plastic bag. For the better portion of our lives, marshmallows have been a throwaway food relegated to act as a sugar filler, just a topping. Malvi, on the other hand, takes them to a level we’ve never been able to dream of.
Inspired by the wonderful simplicity of their flavor origins, I decided to doodle and paint around these little confections. I only wish the quality of these pictures was a little better! We’ve got chocolate mint, vanilla, and raspberry hibiscus…
If you haven’t gotten the chance to try this pillowy goodness.. get you some!
For the first print of 2015, I decided it was time to incorporate some hand lettering into my work. I knew I wanted to create something romantic for Valentine’s Day, but I was afraid it could turn into something trite. While I’m a big fan of a bunch of stuff already out there, I just wanted to make something at least a little different. Something that would be a bit more unexpected. And then it just happened upon me one afternoon, all of a sudden.
This famous French phrase, technically a couplet, is something I recalled from my high school days. Don’t ask me where I originally saw it – I think maybe on a locket from Etsy somewhere. Anyways, it is originally written by Rosemonde Gérard, from her poem, “L’éternelle chanson” (“The Eternal Song”) or “Les Vieux” (“The Old Ones”) and translates to:
For, you see,
each day I love you more,
Today more than yesterday
and less than tomorrow.
What do you think? .. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback. If you do love it, they’re now available for purchase in the shop here!
I call this post stretching because this pattern was a little bit different than what I’m used to doing. I’m trying to stretch my painting muscles here and really figure out what it is feels most natural for my hands while still having great visual impact. Sometimes that means planning and sometimes it means diving right in.
The inspiration for these shapes was a combination of retro 70s textiles and Dutch illustration. Looking back on it, I could have thrown in a variety of colors to play up the floral-fruit motif, but I stuck with blue for harmony’s sake.
You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance doing what you love.
This is a doodle from my sketchbook, drawn on the fly. I remember it was a lazy afternoon sitting on my boyfriend’s couch and I just let my micron pen run itself across the paper. Sometimes these spontaneous kinds of drawings end up being the best. I wonder if I could cover a much larger space with these forms. They seem to be some weird kind of floral vegetation, but I can’t say exactly what. It kind of reminds me of kale. What does it remind you of?
Before this commission, it had been a long looong time since I had made drawings or paintings from reference material. I knew I could do it, but I was secretly a bit intimidated and even doubtful of my skills. As I got started sketching, it was like my eyes came back to life. I guess after a whole adolescence of drawing and doodling, your hands just don’t forget. I’m so grateful to have been given the opportunity to be reminded that I can do this.
Unfortunately my photo editing skills still leave something to be desired, so these pictures don’t do my handiwork as much justice as I’d like. Hopefully you can still at least get a sense of how they might look in front of you; they are lighter and more delicate in real life, which is true of all my drawings and thus always presents problems in translating to digital form.
Regardless, I’m pretty happy about the end result. The whole process helped me learn more about how to create work within my new living context; you’d be surprised by how much of this I did sitting in my own bed! These drawings were built layer by layer, very slowly, and I had to figure out the point at which I could stop painting and feel like I had accomplished a finished product. With a firm deadline, I was finally able to do this and what’s more thrilling to me than anything is that there is someone out there honoring me by hanging my work in their home (hopefully I can have pictures of that soon). I’m so grateful to have found this support in a time of uncertainty in my life and my work. I’m hoping it only grows from here.