Five Pieces

Since I’ll be an exhibiting Illustrator in the Decatur Book Fair in September, a wrench has been thrown in my plans for Five Pieces. But it’s a huge blessing since this type of event is the best challenge I could face, while I plan for my personal show. Naturally I’ll probably move the date back a few weeks since my husband has just confirmed the in laws will be arriving the week of the original date I chose. But for now the focus is the Book Fair where I’ll be selling a few pieces for children’s interiors and showing my portfolio. I’m so excited to be focusing on illustration full time again.

With that being said I’ve put aside all of my book fair notes to write this month’s blog. I've decided to touch on The Bear and Twins and the newest Fawns and Pear Tree.

I saw a bear somewhere a few months ago and couldn’t stop thinking about him- then I felt like he was the biggest symbol in my life. I wanted him to be Balanced, Tender, and most of all Large. When the thought of him wouldn’t go away I decided he was here for a reason. I put in strawberries for youth that we all possess, robins for the meaning of opportunity and a Magpie to show that I finally get to say something out loud, a symbol of expression for this new thing I’m doing.

http://www.doubleflydesign.com

The robin presented himself at 3 am when I went to the front door to look for the noisy bird keeping me up and has been a symbol of Opportunity that waits. The twins are literal, and when I think of myself that’s how my twin sister and I look…short bobs, sticky fingers and bare feet. Obviously my child hood comes into play for this piece and when I recall it I can see and smell it. I’ve invested memories in this- Cool ,damp grass, dinner smells floating out as Holly and I scramble back to the house to eat biscuits made by the queen. Naturally we lived in a heavily wooded area- I can honestly say that I touched every tree around the yellow house I grew up in because I thought they were magic. And they all are- I mean remember snow white; in a forest, sleeping beauty; in a forest and especially the Smurfs living in mushrooms in a forest. Any way my point is that you’ll see a lot of trees and forests in Five Pieces as another symbol.

I’m realizing many symbols I choose are coming to me naturally, subconsciously. Symbols were one way to go about the planning of such a large body of work, the other things involved were to think of issues I’ve had in the past with chalkings such as dynamic composition, lighting, and impatience which sacrificed my love of detail leaving me feeling flat when its was done.

The Fawns and Pear Tree were problematic for me. I kept seeing this tree heavy with pears centered by my old play house and the fawns which are so fragile yet resilient. I wanted text to be placed in, text that could easily be interchangeable in a variety scenes over and over again. I’m not sure I’ve completed my thoughts on this piece (even though the art is complete) and whether I’ll place this same verse in another piece to stress the multiple meanings. It’s quite possible I’ll redo this arrangement. I hate the idea of that but its like an itchy toe! You can ignore for so long before you HAVE to scratch it.

SO this is where I've been in this stage of planning. Torn between the book fair and trying to plan this show but also trying to incorporate the two somehow. Biscuit hasn't offered any inspiration on this matter and where is my Corgi? I need an Orangina....

Welcome to my blog. People usually blog about one of two things- something they love or something they hate. My reason is my very serious love for storybook art. Of course I have those silly things that I love that make up the core of my inspiration, like Corgis and Orangina and especially Corgis drinking Orangina, but the one thing I truly love more than just about anything is Storybook Illustration. It’s sort of like it’s in the center of a spinning wheel that I have created. It’s surrounded by creative projects, past art, my creative experience, corgis, chocolate, and chalk, among other things.

As a working artist I don’t always get to choose projects that are truest to my heart. As a matter of fact it can be rare to find those projects that give me satisfaction. And where would these fall on my wheel? Somewhere in between Dry and Controlled along the outer rind. I’ve illustrated in the past for books and a few publications and even designed textiles for a while but none of these were close the center of my wheel. So for myself I have chosen a serious challenge- to illustrate exactly what I want. To bring out my inner youth, to illustrate and express this youth as a quality in my work and explore the notion that youthfulness is not always a physical state of being. I’ll create a family of work that tackles all things about illustration I love and struggle with. They’ll be scenes from another place that conjure memories of some sort that I sometimes forget to enjoy.

So with that I’d like to share that I recently saw a beautiful example of inspiration. The Society of Illustrators hosted a show of “fantastic” art in an exhibition called Spectrum.

I had been thinking of this idea of Five Pieces for a longtime and when I saw the amazing work in this show it blew me away. Here was the visualization of what I had wanted for myself- a collection of pure, original illustrations. So with this being said, my goal will be to create Five Pieces, from my truth, my center on the wheel. My deadline I’ve given myself will be for October 2^nd at 7:00 pm. I’ll show these in a celebration that Storybook Illustration deserves.

My next blog I’ll show snippets of progress and probably talk about where the heck I’m getting my subjects and ideas from. And of course the symbols and why I put them in.