Happy Thanksgiving! Go see some art!

I fully admit that I should have posted this BEFORE the family open house that was on Oct. 27 (my bad). BUT! It's not too late to check out this fabulous illustrator exhibit anyway. It's up through January 8th, 2014 in Downtown Seattle at the Convention center.

I have a piece in the show. Here's a cheesy picture of me with my piece:

I also posted some pictures of the family event from the end of October on the SCBWI Western Washington Website (I've joined their blogging street team as a part of getting back into the swing of things after having my baby).

Anyway, especially if you happen to be in downtown Seattle this weekend enjoying holiday festivities, swing by the convention center and enjoy our show!

I look forward to catching up with many bloggy friends soon. I just started getting a good childcare schedule going and I've been enjoying the last few weeks of Picture Book Idea Month (more on that soon!). Still, babies are sooooo fun to have around. I have so many things to be thankful for this year. I hope you do too.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

My photo in the NYT

I'm a little late in posting this but remember when I said I'd have a photo in an up-coming op-doc on high-rises for the New York Times? Here's the op-doc! My photo is in the middle of part four, about a quarter of the way in. Enjoy!

A day of fun at the Eric Carle Exhibit, Tacoma Art Museum

Pardon the lack of posts the last few months. I've been busy getting ready for baby #2 (could be any day now!) as well as catching up on some personal projects after I put in such a push with my illustration work over the spring. 

But I thought I'd check in and post some pictures from a fun day I spent down at the Tacoma Art Museum a few weeks ago. I went to see their latest Eric Carle exhibit and also partake in a fun afternoon of collage with other Eric Carle fans.

 We made our own paste papers in an upper work room of the museum.

 It was a jolly fun time of paint and messes. I felt like I was my son's age again! Fun!

 Here's the two collages I made. The paper we glued on wasn't taped down or stretched so the collages desperately warped (I suspected they would while making them), but it was still a fun exercise in play.

I hope you are getting some play in this summer too.

Happy Summer!

A Mother's Day Treat

Yesterday when I picked my son up from school he had a belated Mother's day surprise for me.

 He had painted a flower planter yellow (my favorite color) and planted yellow flowers in it for me. 

 He also gave me a special drawing/card that made me melt.

That picture is of us in my studio making art together. He said: "There aren't faces on us Mommy because those are the backs of our heads." 

So sweet!

I think I'll read him an extra story today to celebrate children's book week!

Delicious Spring

I love journaling.

Often I think the act of keeping a journal helps me look out for things worthy of journaling about.

Blogging is no different.

Increasingly though, I find that this often takes a non-written form. I look for color or light that's just so. And that's somehow what I feel like recording.

 And so sometimes my camera is my journal.

And so I share some snippets here on my blog of moments I've spent recently, relishing spring.

This is my nephew, Richard.

I'll catch up with posting some drawings or process pieces for recent illustrations and current illustrations I'm working on soon.

 

But, as hopefully most out there know, sometimes life is too rich to spend too much time plugged in or online.

But it is nice to stop in now and then and share/record the richness.

:) 

Kjersten's photo on the NYT website

A few weeks ago I submitted a few photos from my time in Kuala Lumpur to the New York times for a project they are working on about living in high-rises. Last week I got a nice note back from an editor saying my pictures were exactly what they were looking for. Cool!

Check out the submissions page. One of my pictures is an example! (You can't see it from a mobile device). Can you tell which one is mine?

(For anyone who doesn't know me personally, it's the one with the mom and her kid with the sun streaming in behind them).

She's Nurturing A Dream

I made this collage using some of the paper-cutting techniques I've been experimenting with since attending the Nikki McClure workshop a few weeks ago.

She's Nurturing a Dream

I made it as a celebration as well. Big news: I'm expecting another baby! I'm due in July. If you look closely at the picture of me in the last post (the one at the end where I'm standing next to Nikki and holding up the picture I've made) you'll (maybe) see my blossoming bump.

I've had it in my mind for awhile to start making collages that are a bit more journal-like. Or a bit more like my own journals, which are full of torn bits and discarded (and then reclaimed) evidence of regular life.

I should note that this is just a lousy snapshot picture of the collage. I still need to scan the image for best quality. But I wanted to share now.

More in the works! Fun stuff!

Workshop with Nikki McClure

I've followed Nikki McClure's art since the early 2000's when I stumbled upon her paper-cut work on BuyOlympia.com (one of my favorite early indie craft web sites). Paper-cuts always catch my eye, but Nikki's work especially did so because of its intimacy and heart. Her pieces capture the warm lovely feelings of everyday beauty and relationships. She has a nearly spiritual way of elevating the ordinary through her images that appeals to me. Well that, and it is paper art.

Over the years I've sought out and bought a couple of Nikki's annual self-published calendars and I smiled wide when I saw that she had broken into children's illustration a few years back.

 

So I was thrilled this past fall when I got an email from the Bellevue Art Museum advertising her then forthcoming (and now nearly over! quick rush to Bellevue this weekend!) exhibit. I immediately went to the Bellevue Art Museum's website to see if they had any special events. They did. In early December I attended a great lecture and slide show and then a couple of weeks ago I attended an all-day paper-cutting workshop that Nikki McClure instructed!

Watching another artist at work always helps me gain invaluable insights into new ways I can approach my own work.

 

Nikki McClure's workshop was certainly no exception.

 The day was just the right mix of instruction and play.

 I cut this fish as a warm-up exercise.

 I've always favored using a scissors to a knife in my own collages, but after using a knife that tightened at the bottom (as opposed to where you grip the knife) I felt liberated.

 Who knew such a thing existed? Um... Can I just say sometimes you don't even know that you should be looking for something?

 We can get stuck in ruts and used to working on things our own way with our own methods. I have so long ago rejected using a knife that it had never occurred to me I maybe had never tried using the right knife. Looking outside our usual perspectives can be so, so, valuable.

 I've had some ideas for my collage (for a LOOOONG time) that involve a paper-cut aspect and this workshop has helped me break through the technical side of my ideas so I can make them reality. Cheers for shaking things up.

 I've been playing over the last week. I'll post pictures soon. Meanwhile, here's the piece I made during the workshop (using a drawing from a memory).

 And here's me with Nikki!

Thanks Nikki McClure, wherever you are, for your fabulous workshop, for the inspiration, and for the lovely art you bring into this world! Cheers everybody! Go check out Nikki's work.