A Goddess For BWI

By in General, Other Challenges, Women, Work

babywearing_color_pencil_lo

That’s Babywearing International, not Baltimore Washington International…

If you’re a member of thebabywearer.com, please go to this thread to vote (“like” my post) if you love my submission.

I submitted this to an image contest to try and win some lending library items for our local babywearing chapter (this link will probably only work if you’re a member of the BWI website). They’ve been quite helpful and an all around bunch of great folks. I started wearing JaegerThing1 when she was about 4 months old and have somehow managed to stave off a woven wrap addiction (I currently only have two). I do have to stifle myself a little when I see other moms and dads babywearing. I can get a little over-exuberant about it. I like to help out folks who are new to wearing and don’t know a lot of their options. I always point people towards the local Babywearing International chapter.

Anyway, about this illustration… I had a bunch of ideas and not a lot of time so this is the one that came out. Maybe another time, I’ll do some of the other illo ideas I had. They were a bit more representational and less presentational (which is often a criticism I get of my illustration work).

This was a tough one, really, because the theme is so open-ended. And because babywearing is so much about everyone, I didn’t want to do an exclusive illo. However that is indeed what I’ve done. Another goddess. I am just drawn to drawing goddesses I guess, so apologies to the men right off the bat.

My sketchbooks of the last 20 years show me that I have always seen women as goddesses. I look to other women for guidance, inspiration, and often spirituality. When I became a mother, one of my goddess friends introduced me to our local babywearing group. I had inherited a mei tai and had been gifted a Moby, two Ergos and a Pikkolo and I needed help figuring out what to do with all these things.

Now, as a mother of two, I find that wearing my children is essential if I want to get anything done. All of the moms in our playgroup have now had their second children and even the ones who didn’t wear their first are now starting to wear their second. I am happy to be able to guide them.

I am blessed to be among these groups of mothers helping and supporting mothers. Even on our worst days when we haven’t slept at all and are covered in food or milk and whatever else our kids have wiped on us, trying to muddle through dinner time and feedings to bedtime, and we feel like complete crap, we have this wonderful network to insist to us that we are wonderful radiant goddesses and that we created these little lives and continue to nurture them, our partners, and if we can manage a little time to ourselves, ours as well. My image is one of those times, when you can just savor being in the moment. And the strawberries. They’re in season here now, too.

Also, at the suggestion of my husband, I tried color pencil for the first time in aeons… so long, in fact, that the only pencils I own are watercolor ones. I did not use water on this though I may go back and see what happens. I did screw up the color on the border oval pretty badly. I had to clean it up in Photoshop. I never can get 100% away from the computer anymore.

Fluevog Creative: Soprano Carey

By in General, Other Challenges

lutist sketch
5/15:
Yes, I’ll be updating this post… later. I just haven’t posted anything in a while and I wanted to share this little sketch with you. I like him. I think I’ll use him. But I just need to change the style kind of like changing a font. No matter how hard I try to force my style in a certain looser direction, it keeps coming out the same way. I’m really not sure what to make of that. Do I resign myself to “this is the way it is” or do I push it a little? I’m going to try to push it and see what happens…

opera_carey_lo
5/21:
Ok here’s the update. Submitted for the latest Fluevog shoe ad contest. If I win, they use my ad and I get free shoes. But first, I have to make it into the final four. I’ll keep you posted! There are a few things I would have liked to fix, change, update, or do better (like maybe I should have had a “!” after “Sing”), but the deadline is midnight tonight. Best to just get it in. Amusingly, I wasn’t able to push the style at all, though I did try. Predictable. I guess I should just own it.

6/26:
I didn’t even make the final four. So I kind of forgot to update this post. There’s another Fluevog contest starting now. Maybe I’ll try again.

Sketchbook Throwback: The Conversation Heart

By in General, Revisiting Older Works, Throwback

conversation_heart_lo
Yes, you read that right, 1988. I’m sharing it with you because it’s almost Valentine’s day and because I still think it’s funny. My brother, Harris, and I loved to collaborate on projects. Especially when they were either intellectual or goofy. We made a “radio show” on audio tape when we were 7 and 9 years old and then later, we made some video movies. This was a storyboard for a commercial idea we had for conversation hearts. I miss you, baby brother! Happy Heart Day.

Sketchbook Throwback, “I called her, Max…”

By in General, Revisiting Older Works, Throwback

max1a

I am tragically unhip. I don’t even GET the concept of the Throwback Thursday so I’m not even going to attempt to prove how square I am. Yes I said square. I just so like the sound of Throwback Thursday that I want to do it my way. So keeping with the theme of my year of looking back and going forward, I will now do a sketchbook throwback every so often (but not more than one a week). I was always a lousy sketcher but a fairly prolific ponderer. So sometimes the text is going to be a lot more interesting than the image. I suspect that will happen pretty often, actually. You see, I used to know everything.

This page appears to be from that very prolific year, 1995. I have no idea where the text came from. Maybe someone said it to me. maybe I copied it from somewhere. Maybe I made it up. The only thing I am quite sure about is that I wasn’t talking about anyone in particular. But I like the sound of it now.

“I called her, Max. Just to let her know I was here if she needed me. I’ve always been here for her. She’s just never chosen to need me. I wonder if things haven’t been better off for the two of us that way… We’re beyond being unalike. But that really hasn’t much to do with loving somebody.”

Glitter Heart Love Goddess

By in etsy, General, Women

Sparkly Heart Glitter Goddesses

Just in time for Valentine’s day, there are some new Glitter Heart Love Goddesses in my Etsy shop. I had fun figuring out how to integrate glitter and I think these came out nicely.

The Filled Heart Part 4

By in Cards, Crafts, etsy, General, Illustration Friday, Revisiting Older Works, Women

filled_heart_lo

I first painted this image during in my purple & silhouetted people phase. So probably in 1995. The original was done in watercolor and acrylic on a brown paper shopping bag. The image is of a woman looking to fill the void inside herself that was left when she lost her heart. She is choosing to replace it with a new heart symbolizing love. I’m pretty sure I did this one after a breakup. I was in my early 20’s. Everything was much grander back then. So a breakup was kind of epic.

filled_heart_3d_lo

At any rate, in 2003, I updated it in order to enter a small Valentine’s card competition (it won). I recreated the image digitally in order to make it into a template so I could construct it into three-dimensional layers using cardboard.

In 2005, I went back to the rough digital and cleaned it up to make it available for sale on Greeting Card Universe. The inside of the GCU card reads, “Of every heart, I choose yours. Be my Valentine” I realize it’s a bit of an odd image for a Valentine’s Day card. Conveniently, it went along with the Illustration Friday topic that week, Choose.

And now here we are in 2014, almost 20 years later. This little image has become part of my Goddess pendant collection that I used to sell on Etsy.

IMG_6043_lo

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