Zombie Thursday

Doesn't that sound ...fun?  Actually my two youngest children have been ill and we have not had much sleep.  I missed a class and am now even further behind than I already felt.  Andrew says I must just have fun!  Yeah - ok.  It is great and I do love it but it's a strong push to keep up.  I am a mother first - but my artist has waited so long!

Here is what I've managed so far from our new project for a page layout from Scarlet (I'm struggling to find the exact link for this exact series so I am giving links to get you at least some of the material.  Alex Maleev and Michael Bendis are the original creators)

This is my first try at Officer Guzman

This is my first attempt at scarlet up close and personal - the rough below is the second cell on a 6 cell page.

Please excuse my less than stelar photos - It's the best for what I've got at the moment.  Maybe by next week I can have some character roughs for my picture book idea too.  I am hopeful at least.

SARK TUESDAY

Today's SARK GAME Card snippet:

ASK YOUR SELF:
What excites or inspires you about living more of your creative dreams?  Are you hiding for some reason?

Make a list of [people who are living their creative dreams].


From me:  Do you have anyone in mind?

This makes me think of role models.  I don't really like to have a role model.  I find it makes me push to hard for a perfection that doesn't exist.  I know - it's good to strive.  My point is that we often live our lives under the illusion that our role models are or should be perfect.  They NEVER are.  They are real people.  I'm inspired by REAL people.

For me -SARK, Piet Grobler, Helga Pearson, Tanya Liebenberg, Julie Hedlund -  They start my list - it's a long list.  They make  me laugh, think, stretch and grow.  Also this little guy - you can see from his eyes that he asks WHY a whole lot.  AND he's excited about most anything in life.  (he's a bit tired here from some late night Christmas spoiling)

Now some of them you may know and some of them - well -they are my friends - you might not know them.  Those you know:  Piet and Julie - well they inspire me because of their amazing ability to move things forward and go beyond the expected.

My friends; they inspire me because I see them reaching for their dreams and I know some of their challenges make that a very interesting journey across the proverbial tight rope.

Who inspires you?  Could you see yourself having a similar impact on others?

(and of course - Happy Valentines Day - send yourself some roses!)

Scarlet Update

After a few fine hours of work I've managed to get this far.  I must admit - I'm not into guns.  Not even in paintings.  There is still a good bit of work to go but I wanted to post the progress as we may have a new project in class for the coming week and ol' Scarlet may be waiting for the finish.  I don't think Marvel Comics will be signing me up anytime soon!  What's with the chain link on her top?

What's on the GO

Scarlet Brief in process

I started my part-time Fine Arts Program with Andrew Owen.  It's going to be a great learning experience.  The challenge will be patience.  I would really love to be a full time student.  The truth is that's incredibly difficult with young children, (I will be patient - they are only small for a short time).

Our first assignment is to reproduce "Scarlet" as close to the original as possible (to find out more about Scarlet visit:http://www.brokenfrontier.com/headlines/p/detail/preview-scarlet-3) -using the prescribed supplies.

This was my first try  - I am on the second attempt and will mostly likely have a third and time allowing a fourth simply because that's how it works right?  I've not managed to get her correctly organized - I don't think my illustration shows her weight in her right foot, (this is how I see the original we are to emulate) - also her legs are generally needing better work.

I did learn how to make a super turquoise colour that pops so beautifully!  My wash here is not strong enough in this timid attempt for you to see.

Lastly - I am working on quite a few changes to my blog at present.  You will notice Tuesday's post was late.  This was due to the learning process.  Please be patient - leave your comments, suggestions or better - YOUR story of learning as a creator.

SARK Tuesday

Each Tuesday I am going to play the SARK CREATIVE DREAM GAME.  I will randomly draw a card and share a portion of the card and my thoughts with you.  I hope this will assist us both to move our creative dreams to fruition!  You can get your own game HERE .

Inspiration:  You and your creative dreams are nourished by inspiration.  To inspire is to give breath.

Not so very long ago I was not breathing.  I was not allowing myself the space to create - to be filled with inspire-ation!  What I realized was that those things the inspired me the most (painting/creating) I was actually holding OUT.  I had actually exhaled and was not inspiring.

I took action - I enrolled in a part-time fine art program,  I enrolled in Make Your Marks, Make Your Splashes (How To Be A Children's Book Illustrator ), I took  the 12x12 in '12 challenge (thank you Julie Hedlund – Write Up My Life ) and I've further joined the picture book dummy challenge (#kidlitart: #PBDummy is back! ).

I was so inspired I began inspiring my family again.  My husband, my children and even my friends.  My son wrote a story inspired by an event at his school!  Each day I am inspiring myself to not only dream big but find the WILL for the WAY, because if you don't have the will you won't find the way.

Are you breathing?

In what ways do you inspire?

In what ways does your daily life allow you to breath?

What is inspiring you?

Please stop and share your ideas.  If you'd like more creative inspiration please visit Planet Sark at Creative Inspiration  Even check out CREATORmakers

A Big Wave

First...I would like to thank the new folks visiting my blog and those of you who are interested in following this exploratory blog.  The crits from blogfest are really helping me to crystalize the vision I have for this little blog.  

Now...about that WAVE -

"And the wave came crashing down like this!"

Well it is very much like that.  Last year I put several plans into motion.  The first was taking a more active roll in getting my kids OUT for homeschooling in the real world.  So I'm the parent with the first month outing to plan and the first parent evening to plan.  That is all happening in the next 4 days now.  YIKES it's like a huge wave has been building and now the crashing onto the beach to leave behind the hidden jewels of flotsam and jetsam.

The stress (a good kind still) has left me unable to draw properly.  It's good to learn what the boundaries are for future professional planning.  The best is that I will be finished and won't have anymore for the rest of the year - except that one I pushed off for March...( :-).

On the super do the goofy jig side of life - I will start my art course on Monday!  There will HAVE to be something to show by Thursday.  Also I have a second chance to get a layout done for my Marks and Splashes as the meeting somehow failed this week.  I'm taking that as a positive thing.

Look out for me again on Tuesday for the first SARK card draw!

What insights did you find in January that are going to make your February even better?
Mine are:  Don't take on too much little stuff.  Keep your pencil on the paper!

Critique My Blogfest

I've entered three wild new things this year.  I think I'm going to check off my "do three things that stretch me" goal as being met with a mighty bang.  The first was the 12x12 in 12 Challenge, then there is the PB Dummy challenge and then I thought - what the heck.... I better improve my blog too!  So I signed up for the Crit my blog blogfest too!

I am shaking my head and running around looney tunes at present.  I know I will catch up with all my Mommy items, my Art Items and my Writing Items.  I did make a list to be certain it would all work out.  I have a lot of hope, faith and trust - plus I'm pretty good at making it up as I go.

I would like to "announce" that I have two goals for this year.  The one is to post "finished works or in-progress items" every Thursday and the other ...I'm SOO excited!  The other goal is to post a SARK inspiration each Tuesday - so encourage and spark my self and others forward to reach our creative dreaming potentials!  I was unable to post this Tuesday as I was waiting confirmation from Sark and her fabulous team that my idea was acceptable to their copyright.

So... You can make comments on:

a.      Appearance: Does it appeal to you? Is it too busy, or too plain?

b.      Layout: Is it difficult to navigate? Is it cluttered, or sparse?

c.      Frequency: Does the blogger post too often? Not often enough?

d.      Content: Are the posts interesting? Unique? Are they focused, or all over the place?

e.      Quality: Are the individual posts too long, too short, too sloppy, or too generic?

For simplicity you may place your comment in the comments section - or if you feel more comfortable you can e-mail me.

Thank you so very much and know that I'm doing my very best to master this darn Apple computer so I can manage hyperlinks etc and be much more professional about my blog.  I am really looking forward to your suggestions.

Popping Ideas!

I woke this morning to some interesting ideas for the following months 12x12 in 12 challenge ideas.  I fetched my son from school and again more ideas!

Aurion in the waves with Kael

My son and I sat having a special tea and fleshing out the idea that came from his school.  It was such a special experience to be sharing this story with him and with a little bit of imagination maybe we can illustrate it together!  I also managed to get two leads on a babysitter so that I might have some serious time for illustration.  I need to get the miles in to hone the craft.

Unfortunately - our special tea seems to have left me with food poisoning.  Bummer.  To end on a great note - my Super Amazing Special Husband has taken over and I'll be all better lickity split!

Perspective

Funny thing about art imitating life or life imitating art...(it can't actually be backwards when they are the same thing - to me anyway), as I was saying - funny thing is; in both you must get your head around perspective.

Three point perspective from above and below.

The top was my "free hand" three point - I failed to actually include the third point (I see now that it's posted! Ha!)  The second is my attempt to get the coffee shop perspective...it's a bit crazy to use a medium purple ball point pen on a little sketch about 1x2inches!  So the detail is dread but the exercise was fabulous.

In my case - after all these (untold) years - I still struggle with perspective in life and art.  I'm also still trying to get my head around using Apple software after growing up on Microsoft...

So this was my - Session 10 from Marks and Splashes with Mark G. Mitchell  I am doing my best to learn how to put on hyperlinks for your ease of surfing.  The following session is about four point perspective.  I can't wait - always wanted to understand those curvy pictures.

Thanks for the visit -

Well it might seem I've taken a left hand turn in my adventures of honing my fine art skills and illustration - HOWEVER....I've not.  I've actually allowed a long held nearly secret dream of writing that's bursting forth!  AND I did say this blog was about ARTISTIC EXPLORATIONS - so...there you go.  I think I should call it explodations but the computer thinks it's a typo and someone might get confused thinking it's some inappropriate social faux-pas.

I've joined a challenge with Julie Hedlund (I'm really fighting to work out how to use the MacBook Pro to add my links!  Please excuse me!!)   It's about writing 12 picture book drafts in 12 months for 2012.  I love this idea - I always like to see authors illustrate and illustrators write.  It's very "wholistic" -  I know...I just like to write it that way!  (Whole vs hole - it's always struck me as odd.)

Anyway - I've completed my rough draft for January's Picture Book (PB) story idea and now - I will squeeze time into an amazingly wild January to try and complete the illustrations as we are now on WEEK 10 of the Marks and Splashes illustration course!  The wild and wacky Space Commander lessons.

Oh...I have a working title for my first draft - Hurry Hurry Mommy Dear!

Also - from this day forward my goal is to post weekly by Thursday of each week.  It could be doable...not impossible.

Thank you sooo very much for stopping by and leaving a note!