From the Sketch Book

image via: me!

I've been experimenting with new styles lately to try and find *my* style when it comes to illustration. Some of my inspiration can be found here: Danny Roberts, Caitlin Shearer, Catherine Campbell, Chrissy Lau. I'm having the hardest time trying to master pesky hands and feet!

Matthew Lyons had a funny quote this morning on finding your style:

After adding milk to cereal I can not be distracted. Must eat cereal before it turns into soggy cereal. I know of humans who put their cereal with milk in the microwave to make it purposely soggy cereal. Everyone is good at drawing it just depends on your inspiration. Your taste is what directs the work and knowing the range of different ideas to steal and mush together so no one knows is the secret. I have to trust my taste. Cereal should not be soggy.

ADDY Awards

Oh hai! So, do you know what the ADDY Awards are? Only the largest advertising competition in the world. And while I may live in a tiny town in eastern Idaho, I just wanted to let you all know that we made a clean sweep at the Eastern Idaho GEM Advertising Awards! We won Judge's Choice, Best in Show, and a Diamond of course! This means we now get to compete for the Rockies in Boise . . . then the Northwest ADDYs in Seattle . . . then the National ADDYs!

Will we get that far? Who knows; when your competition is a sweet ad agency from New York, that answer is most likely "no." But you always compete against companies of a similar size (and we're quite small despite our international clientele) so there's a chance. Anyway, we won! Namely, my copywriting and my coworker's awesome graphic design abilities won. w00t! ADDYs, here we come.

{images via various 2011 regional ADDY posters}

His & Hers

His nightstand, my nightstand.

 Yes, we're messy, I know.

Le Artiste

Seve got me some watercolors and new brushes, and I couldn't be happier.

My attempt at drawing hands based on Love, Sweet Love by Caitlin Shearer. Not very successful!


 For some reason I draw veeery tiny; this last drawing was near microscopic.

Little bird, little girl

I haven't put a pen to paper in a very long time. I'm a "typist" at heart and my handwriting is no more than chicken scratch. But drawing is something I used to do everyday, years ago, so I thought I'd share some recent doodles on behalf of my resolution to draw more.

The last one is a peek at a little project I'm working on, shh . . .

p.s. NPR is hosting its sixth round of Three-Minute Fiction! At a requirement of merely 600 words, it seems silly not to enter (hint hint).

I made this today

Photo Snappy Time

As was a goal in my resolution post, Seve and I got a new camera! The Canon Powershot SX210 IS (in gold, of course).

After some research, I decided I didn't really want a DSLR, but something compact that still packed some great manual features. I would have liked the Panasonic Lumix LX5, or, sweet heavens, a Leica, but considering I'm not actually a good/experienced photographer or, you know, made of money, the SX210 fit the bill.

Here's some sample shots:

Oh hai Jen!

Mah office books.

Obligatory artsy brick background picture.

Ditto.

These are all a bit aperture-nutso, but I'm still happy with our first experimental shots.

It's me, your Cathy, I've come home

One of my favorite books is Wuthering Heights - I wrote my last ever research paper on the novel - and with Kate writing about her first read of the book, I thought I'd address its latest big screen adaptation (first promo poster above).

For the first time, a black actor has been cast to play Heathcliff. The film is set to be released this year or next, it's a major picture, not made for TV, and directed by Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank). I couldn't be more excited - it's always bothered me that white (not to mention old) actors have traditionally been used to portray Heathcliff. While Brontë never outright stated that Heathcliff was black, she clearly described him as non-white. As a child, Heathcliff was adopted by Mr. Earnshaw after being found abandoned at a slave port in Liverpool, and he was written as a "dark-skinned gypsy in aspect and a little lascar," that last word being a 19th century term for sailors from India.

While his ethnicity is uncertain, I always felt his non-whiteness was a vital part of Wuthering Heights as it affects his relationship with every character in the novel, especially Catherine (especially himself!), and I've been disappointed to never see this portrayed in film. I like to think that Brontë intentionally set out to write a novel where the main love interest was of a different ethnicity, but given the time period probably had to address the issue about as head-on as Thomas Hardy's rape scene from Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

p.s. Haven't read it? You can read online for free, here.

p.p.s. Oh goodness, this post was featured on the Brontë Blog! Welcome, Brontites.

Little List: New Year's Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions. People have been dogging on these lately. Come on people TRADITION it's just fun.

I have one resolution this year. You know that question "If your house was on fire and you could only save one thing, what would it be?" Assuming my spouse and kids make it out of the house fine with their own one special item, my answer has always been "my laptop." Because it contains my journal, stories, art, etc. Things that can't be replaced. But now with DropBox and my new external hard drive (Christmas present from Seve!) I can free up my one item to be a cake or my favorite dress or something.

This year, my resolution is to make those irreplaceable documents/pictures more worthwhile and relevant. So, I'm going to:

1. Get a camera. A nice camera. And take pictures. Lots of 'em.

2. Draw more. (btw, image Kelly Thompson)

3. Blog/tweet more. It really amazes me how out of touch with social networking some people are. I'd like to second Rachelle Gardner when she says people who scoff at blogging/tweeting just don't get it.

4. That being said, I'm totally Facebook retarded and should probably fix that.

5. Write more. Finish this.

K, now that that's out of the way, it's time for me to make a big announcement: my mother, who has been writing and querying for the past four years, has just gotten an agent and her book has been requested by six different publishers. 

Congratulations, Mom! You're going to be a published author!

Behind your eyes, the holiday

Florida, oh, Florida.

We watched the first sun rise of the new year from the shores of Fort Lauderdale. We spent our anniversary in Key West, and carved our names in the Autograph Tree.

We ate alligator tail, and key lime everything. We spent Christmas and New Year's with Seve's family, we watched dolphins and sea lions perform tricks in Miami, we saw tiny blue jellyfish scattered along the shores of the east coast. We came, we saw, we shopped(!), we slept in. We were warm, we were well fed, we were happy.

But, most importantly, we were lazy.

It is so great to be lazy.


What what? A new layout? Already? Oh, Jules, you're so restless.