Dream House

The Duchess found my dreamhouse. We are going to buy it and move to Kokomo. On the off chance it sells whilst we are scratching the 16 million dollars that we need to buy it together, I am posting pictures here to remind me of its grandeur. They'll help me when I am having it rebuilt to exact scale and specification.

Hope we buy it as is. I'm picturing it getting very Pharaoh and the Pyramids if we have to commission excellence we'd  probably have to demand.

Of course, that chandelier and the curtains will simply have to go. Jonathan Adler will help me come up with something a tad more suitable for the custom in which I am planning to become accustomed to living.

What are you dreaming of to keep you focused and motivated and happy?

Motivation Monday - Live Under the Sun

Love under the stars...

This month marks my 10 year NYC-a-versary. I've known this day was coming for ages, but it still feels like a 'pinch me' kind of moment.

I'm a Brooklynite now. I think maybe I've always been one, dormant at times, but forever moving towards this place that was always meant to be my home.

I delight in the little moments that are quintessentially Brooklyn.

Lately I feel a push towards the beyond. I wonder at the fact that I've managed to stay put in one place for so very long. That doesn't seem like me at all. Yet here I am. I keep wondering at where I'll be in years to come. I won't lie. Part of me can't ever imagine shopping at one store for everything I need. I think in my snobby NYC way, 'what a waste!' Food is meant to be gathered at the local bakery, the local vegetable store, the specialty cheese shop. Wine from a grocery store seems like a joke. I know that eventually time will pull me from this magical place, but regardless of where I go, or IF I go, I know that Brooklyn, will always be my adopted home.

When I got back from the magical and tropical paradise that was the Bahamas a earlier this month, I actually felt my pulse slow, my body calm and my lungs sigh a deep whisper of relief and peace to be back in my beloved Brooklyn.

Ten years ago I snapped this picture outside of my second story dorm room in Pantas Hall at Pratt Institute. We couldn't find a plane ticket that would get me in New York in time for school unless I went two days before official check in. Without a cell phone and too scared to scamper to Myrtle Avenue for phone cards I'd managed my first really truly all alone night alone. I woke up to find the campus full of newbies. I grabbed my little disposable camera and froze that moment of endless possibility as the sun came barreling up over the Arc.

I look at this photo ten years later, almost to the day, and I marvel at everything that girl was, more complete than I'll ever be again but so infinitely fragile.

That girl had never really been alone, never really been in love, never had the kind of friends that are family, never knew what it is to make hard decisions that will change the course of your life.

I sat on a park bench in Carroll Gardens on Sunday with my buddy Ashley. She highlighted a truth that I've been feeling but not quite able to put into words.

'We're in a place right now, where we can make decisions that alter the course of our life, and we can make them in five minutes flat!'

I remember what that feels like, it feels like being a freshman in college, with a new city sprawling out in front of me, new people and new places, and so much to learn. So maybe I am still as brave, and a little less scared, but mostly I'm just happy to be here.

So while I feel the need for a change... I look back on this decade with wisdom, love, and so much gratitude. Awww...Brooklyn, I'll love you forever.

Who knows what I'll feel when I look back on pictures from this month ten years from now?
I hope they draw a smile.

My motivation this week is being drawn straight up from the ground. For this entire week I push myself - and you, to pay attention to the world around you. Take the time to find little surprises of joy in your day to day. Step off the beaten path and remember your ten years ago self. You deserve that token of reflection. End each evening with a deep sigh of thanks for where you are and where you are going.

I hope it brings you the kind of happiness Brooklyn has brought me, the kind that fills your soul.

See?

Horsies!!!!

That's right.
Theeeeeeeyyyyyyyyy'reeeeeeeeeeeee back!!!!

What do you draw when you're just doodling without thinking?

Ommmmm...G!

I've had a few really coo artists and proactive students email me about my process lately. I thought I'd share a bit. Instead of photographing a tutorial as I go along and showing you everything once it's done, I decided I'd give you a hint of how I work on something over time.

Here's my step 1: Decide what I'm going to sketch. You'd think more goes into this. On occasion I look at upcoming trends and think about plans and things. More often than not I just draw what I want to draw. I think that trends are worshiped too much. If something is good it will sell. If you know your market, you can create for them. I'd much rather start a trend than follow a trend. When I'm drawing what I want to draw I create authentic designs that are happy and energetic. BE ENERGETIC!So here's a typical page of focused sketching: I started this after getting back from a Pilates class Saturday. My brain wandered so much during the session that I didn't get a lot from it other than drawing ideas. I ran straight home to take care of my itchy sketchbook fingers.

While I'm sketching I'll put check marks next to stuff that I think has promise:

Then I crop the page and pull each little individual sketch into Photoshop where I rename it and save it. I like to darken everything up. It's easiest for me to do this in Photoshop by adjusting Black and White Levels. I'm a hot key queen, you should be too. We get here super fast this way: Alt+Shift+Cntl+B

Shazam!

Once I crop and save every picture. I dump them all into my development folder on my desktop for later, because now they're boring to me. I refuse to ever work on something that is boring. Soon they'll be shiny again and then we'll really have fun. Now I am off to draw me some fish. Fish are never boring.

Motivation Tuesday

My Oh-So-Fab BFF and I have begun a mutual admiration society. OK, in all honesty we did that years ago, but this time we're being productive about it. On a weekly basis we make goals pertaining to building our brands, skills and companies while bettering our lives. We have weekly check in sessions to report our progress. One of our strict rules is that we have to post to our blogs on Mondays. I have decided that I want to use these Mondays to motivate myself and also to discuss where I'm at and what I'm doing in the hopes of giving other artists out there that extra little push. Wonder of wonders

I'd already posted to my blog yesterday, so this week you're getting a 'Motivation Tuesday.' We'll return to our regularly scheduled programming next week.

When I find myself making excuses, I need to think back to this idea of priorities. I am always trying to rededicate myself. I just feel like everything is so damn important! Here are some of the things that I am constantly trying to balance.

• Living an Active Life
  if I don't make it to the gym at least three times a week I know that I get grumpy, my mind wanders, my art suffers and I feel awful.
• Being social
  As a single girl in the city this is vital. If I give this up I become that raspy cat lady who never gets dressed before 3pm, existing on a diet of stale Saltines and canned soup.
  
  Being a friend could be a full-time job if I let it. I am really lucky to have so many people I want to spend time with. It makes it hard for me to prioritize. I'm not naturally social. It takes work. I know I have the ability to go totally unhealthily recluse artist. Once I get started one direction or the other it's hard for me to stop. These days I feel like I'm spending too much time out and about with friends. I need to pull back a little but it is hard to feel like I'm missing all the fun when I sit things out.
• Sleeping
  My entire life, this is always the first thing to get cut. It just feels like if there were more hours in the day everything would be OK. So 86ing sleep buys me time. Lately I get by on about six hours on a good night. Um... yeah, so I need to reassess the importance of this. There are times late-late at night that I trick myself. I think, "I'm so close to finishing this illustration. I'll just stay up and conquer it!" But then I'm not giving my body a chance to recuperate. I always forget that whatever I'm doing will still be there when I wake up. I'm starting to set an alarm clock to make myself go to bed. I'm trying to scale back so that I say, I will go to bed by 1:30 am, working back to getting to sleep before midnight.
• My Art
  I need to put in a lot of time every week on my personal work and my client's work. It's my dream to have my next tradeshow roll around and to just casually stroll into the convention center, well rested and so completely prepared that nothing extra has to be done prior to getting there.
• My Business
  I really try to keep this separate from 'my art' in my head. I put everything dealing with liaising, follow up calls, promotion, digital footprints etc. in this pile. It is not supposed to be in anyway lumped in with the act of creating. I need it to have a life of its own. The trouble with this is that a lot of it needs to happen in the day time business hours which is sometimes difficult because of....
• Job-Job
  This is the easiest to balance with everything else. My job is wonderful. I get there, I draw some cute stuff, I talk to people I genuinely like. My problem is letting things go and leaving after I've been there for eight hours. Sometimes I convince myself I should just put in more time. It's pretty obvious I don't have any extra of that.
• Education
  I'm always working on this. I read a lot, both books that are helpful for my career and books that are fun. I subscribe to several 'smart' magazines. The subway really spoils me. I have a 35 minute commute and it leaves me more than an hour to read a day. I just feel like I need more. I'm at an age where a lot of my friends are looking at grad school and deciding where they're going with other endeavours. The nice thing is that I know exactly where I'm going. I feel like I am successful in everything I'm working towards. The goal is to be more successful.
  
  I know I don't ever want to sit down in an academic adviser's office and be told what idiot class I need to take to complete a degree again. At the same time, I miss the classroom. I miss the energy that was in such rabid supply at Pratt. Just being there is exciting to me it's almost as if the air is crackling and everyone is feeding off each other's creative process. So I'm trying to find a way to add this to the mix too.

I want to make this idea of making room for the important things my mantra. It's all a matter of balance. Speaking of which. I really need to get to bed. Typical.

She Sure is Scrappy

Where do you do your best thinking and sketching? Place? Medium?

I'm often inspired by things I can't quite put my finger on. I make shorthand notes to myself on post-its and little worn scraps of paper. The other night a friend was digging in my purse for a chapstick and asked, "Do you keep a Guinea pig in here too?" There's that kind of paper in my purse, tons of it. I clean it out every once in a while to catalog and regroup.
It was worse in college - in college I kept scraps in the back pocket of every pair of jeans I owned. Sometimes they'd make it out before the laundry happened, but the ones that didn't went the way of detergent-drowned paper pulp. Now I'm a grown up that never happens because I carry a purse, a hamster-ready purse.
Yeah.

Listening to right this second: 'Music Box' - Regina Spektor

Motivation Mondays

Gerber Daisies are my favorite-thing-short-list, barely beneath Golden Retrievers and right above Hawaiian Shave Ice. These petals are from a smart boy's bouquet. The colors were too much for me to waste in a vase of water so I taped them to some paper. I justify this flower torture because they'll live forever when i make them into a winning design.

This little orange was from a quick marker sketch done on the back of a Vitamin Water receipt from Wholefoods. I've been carrying these little baby markers around in my purse. The lack of solid black line can get me thinking in a totally different direction.

My sketches tend to be in monochrome. I try to grab a few markers or colored pencils on my way out the door an make myself use them before I get home again. Color isn't the easiest for me. Sketching just happens but color takes a lot of thinking time.

How do you incorporate color into your thought process?

Listening to right this second: 'Like Dylan in the Movies' - Belle and Sebastian