Elk On The Ridge is available for sale through Minted.com!
It comes in all different sizes and with a variety of frames. And you can choose the standard art paper, or the super deluxe archival, museum quality rag paper --fancy! I love that its going to be hanging up in people's homes... You can get your's here.
Like I mentioned earlier, this print will also be available through West Elm! Woo hoo!
I have some exciting news: my collaged pen and ink piece, Elk On The Ridge, was selected to be sold at West Elm through Minted.com. West Elm is one of my favorite stores. --Ever since Vanessa Holden took over as Creative Director in 2011 they've been killing it. So I'm am thrilled to be selling a print with them! It should be available any day now-- I'll let you know when! [Edit: It's now available here.]
The above piece is actually part of a series I've been doing for a while now of animal portraits over collaged pieces of vintage paper. I started doing them just for myself and they've been really fun to do:
In this series, I've combined my love of animals and vintage paper. The pieces of paper were carefully chosen mostly from discarded children's encyclopedias. Its been a joy matching that perfect bit of color and shape with the right animal.
Would people be interested in seeing more? I'm toying with the idea of selling the others as well...
PS. The Every Girl has a great interview with Vanessa here if you're interested.
My dear friend Jessika, of Oh My! Handmade Goodness, has started an amazing new project called Houseraiser. It's an online campaign to raise money, originally for her mother:
Imagine nearly losing your life, the ability to work for awhile, and a place to live all in one month. How do you recover your health when you have nowhere to go, a tiny income, and no one is willing to help? That is happening right now for my mom Stephanie-an award winning journalist and educated advocate who will be homeless May 1st after almost dying from sepsis and pneumonia in January. When no one was willing or able to help us find her a house I got creative, started this site, and decided to become an advocate for home.
Houseraiser was started for Stephanie but this is bigger then her story. Millions of people with so much to offer are struggling to simply have a place to live. If we can raise a house for Stephanie what else can we do?
So how it works is you pledge money and receive an art print and the money raised will go towards a home, or house project, for someone in need. I'm very happy to be participating with my House print (above.)
You can watch a news clip of Jessika talking more about it here.
Homelessness is a huge problem in our country-- and Canada, where Jessika is-- so head on over to show your support and/or start your own campaign: HouseRaiser.ca
Anyone else freaking out about this? I still can't believe it's happening.
So who else can't wait to go back to Neptune?
This video of how designer Rachel Antonoff's parents met is adorable. Plus it has a bunch of my fav actors in it! http://vimeo.com/78011502
I guess it's dorky of me, but it totally makes me want to make a video of how G and I got together. Aw. Happy Valentine's Day folks.
I can't get this Miley cover, by Postmodern Jukebox and the Tee-Tones, out of my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXYWDtXbBB0
So good, right?
This Ke$ha one is pretty sweet too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI1cGPfL-Bw
…Cause it's true.
I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, from Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
I think I can speak for the both of us when I say my husband and I totally relate to the "new assistant" character these days:
"IQ of a genius and body of baby", indeed.
Remember that baby I was talking about a while ago? Well, he made it! (Two and half weeks late-- such a flair for the dramatics, that one.) On December 5th, at 9:16 pm, our little baby celebrated his first official birthday! He was 48 cm long and 7lbs 10 oz. Good job Mama and Papa and amazing doula! We four all worked hard to make it happen.
And now it is a month and a few odd days later. Since then we figured out his name is Rowan and he has started babbling and smiling on purpose. His eye color seems to change daily and is he blonde or a ginger? Time will tell...
Oh gosh, I love our little Ro so much.
Around this time two (!) years ago, a few of us got together and created a children's writers and illustrators critique group. We meet monthly and review each others work. (It's been invaluable and totally deserves its own post someday.) Though I have hours and hours of art critiques under my belt, until then I had only participated in a few writing critique sessions and only for picture books. To be able to provide more helpful advice to the novel writers, in the last couple of years I've made a point of reading middle grade and young adult books. I devoured such books as a kid, but honestly, (besides the Hunger Games and the Divergent series, ahem,) at that time I wasn't familiar with any current titles. I'm happy to say that's completely changed and it's been really fun! I thought I'd periodically list some of the ones I loved and recommend. So let's start with:
Believe the hype. This book is brilliant.
Black Boy White School, by Brian F. Walker
An honest look at racial and economic lines in our society. Complicated and nuanced, Walker doesn't deliver a neatly packaged ending. (Which is a good thing.)
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
Erskine's absolute mastery of the first person account from a kid with severe aspbergers is stunning and enlightening.
Anyone out there have some recommendations for me? What are your favorite current middle grade novels?
Did you see the round-up of animated gifs in Wired back in September?
The future of online illustrations?-- Probably. And that sounds good to me.
Animated gif illustration by Rebecca Mock.
"There is nothing sexier than a man reading a children's book."
Did you guys see these? Love. It.
By Minh Le for Book Riot.
