She Sure is {Wandering with Whispering Thoughts}

Psssst.... Lately I've been thinking a lot about 'being nice'. Last weekend I had the chance to go to an anniversary memorial service for a woman who knew me seven years ago when I felt like my life was falling apart. I had just started working at job-job days after ending a years long relationship. I felt like a shell of a person and everything felt overwhelming. I can remember most of my interactions with her, because they always coaxed me in to feeling so good. For hours after we finished a quick five minute chat I'd be calm with the expectation that everything was going to be grand. When I think about her now I am impressed at her wonderful kindness. This week I've been marveling at what a unique thing it is to be able, at the end of your life, and for years afterward, to be remembered as that one beautiful word, kind.

I left last weekend's memorial service for Naomi with a keen sense that I need to try harder. I need to be kinder. I am working on it - which is all we really have to do in this life. As a health coach I am so lucky to be able to coach people to be kind to themselves too - because that teaches me a ton too.

Listening to.. right. this. minute: "Chasing Pavements" by Adele

She Sure is {Botanical}

Last night I painted this Okra.

Than I put it in a stew (the vegetable, not the painting). I know. I know. I am so legit domestic.

She Sure is {Sketchy} Field(ing) Dinosaurs

I jumped and jogged along the Chicago Waterfront's freak 70 degree magnificent mile this week. I stayed at the Chicago Essex where I swam every morning, raced instep with sailboats every evening, got schooled in bagpipe traditions in dimly lit pubs, took care of mega-business and fell madly in love with every freaking thing I came across....

I'm sure I'll be back in the windy city before we head into June. In the meantime, here's some of the blueprint babies I found on my walkabout. Seeing so many skeletons was exhilarating. Process wise, I started by sketching an accurate representation with purple ink ballpoint. I'd cop a squat and whip out a little pot of ink and a waterbrush to really bring it home. Without further ado, these are straight from the book, done whilst I floated on dinosaur cloud 9.

(Admire that sexy-sexy bandage on my thumb. If I had procured said gash in the 18th century that paper-cut would have taken care of any malady imaginable. P.S. Chicago's ER was a breezy dream when it wasn't a disappointment of 90's proportions. I did not see a single man worth of Noah Wyle's pointy nose cuteness or George Clooney's eye crinkly laugh.)

Jumping Julian Rex' development was one of the focus' of this week's sabbatical. I had no idea how much I would learn, or the fact that there are a ton of T's in the world, and not many Rex'. It makes Julian that much more special, but it also is sure to expand his social circle ;)

 

There were lots of reasons I found myself in Chicago for St. Patty's Day, but now that I'm back in my Brooklyn art studio, I have to wonder if this sketch was the main reason ;) 

She Sure is {Thrilled}: The First Day of Spring

In which I sketch out of doors without a coat.

 

Little-Bitty-Itty-Widdle Paintings

of plants from my homeland.

mostly from memory,

but some from a blury picture

I found in a shoebox last week.


There are more, but these are special.

I am letting you look at them because I like you.

Every Little Thing We Can

When I was 22 I fell in love for the first time. I couldn't believe the magic that I felt was everywhere around me. When I tried to explain it to the boyish object of my affection, the only way I could describe it was

"I feel the same way about you as I feel about water."

To me that is what love is.

To this day, nothing has driven me in my life and my work more than my love of the sea.

I grew up on the North Shore of Oahu. My bedroom was closer to the Pacific than it was to the living room. My entire adolesence, every frustration and every horrowing (now hilarious) pain was always washed away by ocean waves. The sea has always been one of my closest confidants.

When I came to New York after graduating from Kahuku High School I couldn't sleep at night without the pounding of the waves on the sand. I longed for the Pacific the way I longed for my family. I am always homesick for the ocean.

When 9/11 happened I was close enough to watch the towers in the distance. I walked in Forte Green Park and had ash fall into my hair like snow. I felt the hollowing absence everywhere I went. I felt like nothing could ever be OK again. In my pain I was angry at the nation for feeling like they owned this tragedy. It had happened right in front of me, in my adopted home. How could anyone not watching in person feel the pain I felt?

On September 14th I went to Coney Island and sat on the boardwalk for hours, quietly staring into the horizon. That day my love affair with the Atlantic officially began. Through every heartbreak, and every outside stress, personal or public tragedy, nothing ever heals me like the reassuring calm of the sea.

This spill in the Gulf weighs on me like nothing has in years. I try not to think about it, and then feel guilty for protecting myself from that pain. When it washes over me it feels unbearable.
For the first time, I truly understand National Tragedy. I see how it touches all of us as Americans.

I hurt to hurt the Ocean. I realize that my loss is not the loss of fisherman and families watching the damage happen moment to moment. My home is not immediately threatened but it feels as if my heart is. I love the sea. Nothing is more sacred to me. We can help in little ways though we may be far away.

This Baby Mermaid illustration will be up for purchase with lots of other amazing art donated at
http://ripplesketches.blogspot.com/

later this week you'll be able to find larger prints of it at Etsy's Help the Gulf Coast Shop.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/HelpTheGulfCoast

In both cases 100% of the money raised goes to Gulf Coast charities.
Please pull out your wallets or your paintbrushes and contribute to this cause in your own way. With a problem this big, we all need to do every little thing we can.

So Sunny.

So Thankful.

So Thankful for Friends who sacrifice their Saturdays to cut and mount and glue and hammer.

So Thankful for family who fly across country and always say they're "Happy to help!" even when they accidently slice their fingers with an Xacto blade mounting your drawings on 30x40 sheets of foam core.

So Thankful for this big, gorgeous printer I totally impulse bought last Fall.

Oh sooooooo thankful....
3....2....1.......
SURTEX

It Is Supposed to be Spring

I don't know about you...but THIS bunny feels jipped.

Hopefully we'll get some sun and tulips soon. Hopefully I won't be sweater clad and drinking HOT beverages for too much longer. Afterall, it's almost APRIL. Way to fake us out NYC, way to fake us out...

Ring Out the Old!

Ring in the New!

This morning I arrived moody and upset at the airport after spending a hellish red-eye flight next to Neanderthal man and his lesser-half child bride. I was already a little homesick. I know that with my family in Utah instead of Hawaii and my brother working for Delta that I get to see them much more than any other time in my adult life, but the drama queen in me likes to wonder "When will we meet again?!"

I hailed a cab from the curb of JFK. Stepping into the familiar yellow taxi I shook out my snow covered scarf. We left Queens, keeping to Atlantic Avenue in a wild flurry of snow that blanketed everything in sight. I couldn't help but feel a deep satisfaction and calm wash over me as we made our way into Brooklyn. When we turned on Court Street and I felt my neighborhood get closer, that familiar warmth of belonging made my pulse quicken in excitement. I hadn't been out of the cab long enough to grab my suitcase when the grocer from the fruit market across the street yelled out "Ahhhhh Happy New Year Miss Amber!!!!" I lugged my "way over-sized" luggage up to my third floor apartment. At the top of the stairs it hit me, we're at the end of a decade! I hadn't really put it together yet. I took a moment to reflect on the past. I was senior at Kahuku High this time ten years ago. Now I am here. (picture a big red x on a map of awesome)

I CANNOT wait to kick 2009 to the curb, let's be honest, it's been seven kinds of lame. At the same time, I smile so broadly on the the last decade.

Ten years ago I rang in the decade of double zeros with my family, Pacific Ocean side. I distinctly remember chasing my twelve-year-old sister down a sandy stretch of beach with a sparkler held aloft.

at that point in my life

• I hadn't ever spent a night completely alone.
• I didn't know what it felt like to have friends that are like family.
• I'd never been in love.
  
• I'd never swam in the Atlantic Ocean.
• I didn't comprehend how a computer could do anything but hinder you as an artist.
• I had absolutely no idea how anyone could stand talk radio.
• I swam faster than I walked.
• My skin was about ten shades darker.
• I wanted to be a full-time animator.
• I hadn't lost anyone close to me.
• I hadn't graduated from high school.
• I was more interested in biology than I was in any other subject in school, including art.
• I had in no way embraced my inner-nerd. I spat at her, embarrassed when she showed her 'glasses-face'.
• I had no idea how to walk in heels.
• I was torn, wondering whether Blink 182 or Weezer was the best band of all time.
  
• I didn't know how to ask for what I really wanted.
• I was often paralyzed by my fear of the unknown.
• I didn't know how to stand up for myself.
• I trusted so easily.
• I wouldn't ever guess that I'd live for tough contract negotiation or that I'd thrill at the challenges that come with new clients.
• I didn't have an identity or a style as an artist - I was fairly sure I wouldn't ever find one.
• I was terrified at the idea of disappointing my family and my community.
• I hadn't yet made the decision of Brooklyn's Pratt Institute over Valincia's Cal Arts.
• I was sure I that no matter my choice, I would want to work for a huge company in California as an animator after I graduated from college.

I had no idea that a decade later I'd be in love with my life, confident in who I am as an artist and an individual. How could I know that I'd be thriving, making a living as an artist in New York City? I didn't know that I'd have so many rich experiences or that I'd live through so many hard lessons. I didn't know that I would have so many people in my life who make living fun, exciting, challenging and oh-so-rewarding. Who could know that I'd love Brooklyn as much as I loved my sprawling white-sand "back yard"? When I'm here, I am home, my soul knows it.

I wish I could go back there for just a moment and really see my seventeen-year-old self. I know how scared she was and how worried she was that she couldn't make it in this big world. I know how terrified she was to leave her family all the way across the country. She loved where she was but she needed to go somewhere new. She wondered if it was a mistake to fly off to a totally new existence in a far off place where she knew nothing and no one. She wondered how New York could be the right choice. How could you ever feel at home somewhere so big and urban? Plus, what if she didn't make any friends? What if college at an art school was as hellish as high school had been? What if she wasn't even that great an artist? What if she couldn't do it?

I'd go back and hold her hand and tell her that she was in for such an 'effing-fantastic adventure. I wish I could let her know that in ten years time, at twenty-seven, she wouldn't change a thing about the path she'd taken. It's been a Robert Frost journey. I wish she would know not to care when people tell her she's throwing away huge opportunities. Then she wouldn't be so nervous when she turned some things down for other chances that just "feel right". I wish I could let her know that broken hearts mend, that career crises subside and that the people who matter most are the people who let you be yourself. Most of all I wish she knew that New Year's Eve 2009 would find her shimmying into something fancy and scrubbing India Ink from under her nails before running out into the night full of glee and anticipation for everything that is coming now, without a smidgen of worry. Then she'd know that it's a wonderful life and that everything works out the way it's supposed to. I wish she knew she'd be giddy about staring down a New Year, excited to get started on a new decade, "a new day with no mistakes in it yet."

Happy New Year, my loves. I hope it finds you and everything you love, healthy, happy and ready to pop the cork on a bright new future. Let's see what the next ten years brings us, shall we?

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

listening to right this second: "run" -- snow patrol

Owl Done

Hehe. Sometimes I crack me up.

You can see the progress on this little journey here
and don't here.
Voila!

Crunch-Time

Entangled

A quick concept swatch.

Thankfully

An ex-boyfriend once diagnosed me as suffering from "movie-life". If it could happen to Julia Roberts it can happen to me. I was supposed to be riding horses in Italy tomorrow. I missed my plane to Europe when "bad day Saturday" spiraled out of control. I was taken to the wrong airport then the wrong terminal and then the wrong life - in that order. Air France refused to help. Instead of finding myself in seat 34A I took a Red-Eye F train - landing me back in Brooklyn.

On a scale of 1-to-Suck 2009 has seemingly failed to launch successfully. Things have not been up to snuff. Embarrassingly enough, I was sure that this trip to Europe was going to fix the entire year. Missing my flight and then realizing that there was absolutely nothing that Air France was willing to do to get me on a plane was devastating. When I thought about what I was thankful for on "bad day Saturday" all I could really focus on was the fact that when I am wealthy and successful I will be able to take Air France down stone by stone. I decided it would be best to start with a defamatory Super Bowl commercial. Luckily, today rolled around and I had the chance to reassess.

It might sound trite, but I'm thankful for Thanksgiving. I am grateful that I have a day in my life devoted to remembering how much I have and how freely I am given the things that really matter.


At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
-- Albert Schweitzer

• I'm thankful that when I got back from the airport mad depressed and disappointed I had a warm and inviting home to sprawl out in. I am not so naive as to think that when other people have bad days they have a wonderful place to lay their head down.
  
• I am thankful for the plethora of invites to Thanksgiving dinner that rolled in the second it was discovered that I'd be spending the holiday state side.
  
• I am overwhelmed by my 'urban family' of friends who take me into their homes and their lives. They pull me in and love me no matter how quirky or odd I am.

• I'm thankful for my roommate who leaves me notes of encouragement and warm cookies on the kitchen table. It is a relief to come home to someone who is always fun and positive to chat with after a long day of drawing robots.
• My clients and the projects I'm handed offer me the chance I have to live my life as an artist in New York City, a rare and marvelous gift.
• I am thankful for great music, good books and sunny Fall weather - things that make every bad thing seem better.
• In this time of uncertainty and fear in the world I am thankful for Brooklyn, for the inspiration it provides me and for the way it makes me happy to be alive.
  
• I am indebted to my kooky family. They are among those rare kind of families who are truly and unconditionally there for one another. They make me laugh when I want to cry and vice-versa. I can't believe I get to call them mine.
• I am grateful that I have lived my life in the best of two places. I would most certainly have a much different outlook if my parents hadn't decided to raise me on the edge of reality, nestled against the coast of the Pacific Ocean. I won't ever be able to understand how or why I was handed such a blissful and perfect childhood.

• I am always thankful and will forever be grateful I am an American.
• And on this day of days I am thankful for potatoes, mashed and otherwise.
• I am thankful for you.

I'm grateful for long and flourishing beautiful Autumn days and for the wild fire of sparks in my life that kindle a flame inside of me. It's amazing how lucky I am. Happy Thanksgiving, my loves.

We Don't Have Time to Get Restless

There's always something new!
Time for a little PbIdMo deviation.

Check out this mischevious watercolor over at Watercolor Wednesdays where you can see the whole banana.

listening to right this second: "over rainbow/what wonderful world" -- israel 'iz' kamakawiwoole

Picture Book Idea Month

I lifted this banner from Tara Lazar's über informative blog. As I'm sure most of you know, November is National Novel Writing Month - thirty days and nights of literary abandon.

OK. OK. You may not be as a completely dedicated nerd as I. Maybe you spend November riding motorcycles and getting in gang fights, things I merely read about because PEOPLE WRITE ABOUT THOSE THINGS! You're not getting off the hook that easily.

Several friends of mine participated in NaNoWriMo last year. My interest in the challenge was sparked. I was Charlie Bucket, my face smashed up to the glass, watching as they tarried away clickity-clacking their keyboards. I just didn't have the kind of time needed to dedicate to the monumental task of writing a novel. I was too busy with clients and children's illustrations.

Enter PiBoIdMo. This one month challenge mirrors the work of authors around the globe who are churning out page after page of double spaced. The difference is it's geared towards authors and illustrators who cater to the children's market. PiBoIdMo challenges you to generate one new picture book idea a day.

Here's a glimpse at my inaugural idea. I'll be keeping my actual ideas pretty close to the vest. Here's some art for you to look at so you know I'm keeping my end up.
I join Tara and we urge you to grab a crayon, a pencil, a word doc or a post-it.
Change your perspective and go be prolific.

If you're not writing a novel this month but are participating in PiBoIdMo you might want to stop by National Novel Writing Month site from time to time to get some inspiration for your one idea a day goal.
www.nanowrimo.org

I'll be here as well as I attempt my first novel. I might give you updates at She She Sure is Sketchy here and there, but it's not nearly as visual as my participation in Picture Book Idea month and probably not close to as fun.

I will however, be all a twitter about both. So keep an eye on my twitter feed as I continue to document everything I overextend myself to do. Why would I ever choose sleep over fun?
listening to right this second: "Such Great Heights" -- Postal Service

Snack Time

This illustration is both fact and fiction.

Fact: On any day in Autumn you can sit in a New York City Park and
sketch kids who are desperate to befriend the "wildlife".Fiction: No New York City squirrel is ever thankful for a hand out. NYC park inhabitants turn their nose up at friendship, but they'll grab that nut and run like mad.

Stop by Watercolor Wednesdays for more fab fall colors.

listening to right this second: "Jackson Cannery " -- Ben Folds Five

Frankie Stein

Frank always was abnormally tall for his age.See this illustration in carefully restored to its original full color at Watercolor Wednesday

listening to right this second: "Crazy" -- Gnarls Barkley

Circle, Circle, Dot, Dot

Yesterday I decided there was no way I was going to tough out Illustration Friday this week.

Germs are so not my thing. I closed my laptop, hoping next week's theme would be "chubby birds and flowers" or
"Skinny GIrls in Fancy Dresses".

This morning walking through an old mining shaft (have I mentioned I freaking love Montana?) I was hit with a 'soup for brains moment.' --Duh.I did these designs two weeks ago to compliment a cirque series I recently added to my licensing portfolio.
They're totally germy!I'm happy this worked out so well because I love using any potentially appropriate moment to share this oldie but goodie. This was originally introduced to me by the Duchess of Justice.
As usual she hit her target audience square on the head.

It's the first thing my mind shoots to when I think of germs.
Happy weekend. Don't forget to get vaccinated, for yourself and for the world.

listening to right this second: "Dirty Laundry" -- Bitter:Sweet

My Creative Space

You know that book, 'If you give a Pig a Pancake'? --far superior to 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie' -- To your right you'll see photograpic evidence of 'If You in a Moment of Weakness Share Your Watercolors with a Five Year Old.'

You can see more great creative space at Kirsty's Space.

Zukie Cutie

See? Just like that: Veggie Medley!
I'm going to continue this with other veggies and fruits - can you imagine berries and blossoms? I think this would be perfect on a bib or mini apron for a kiddo with culinary aspirations.As always Surface design on She Sure is Sketchy is available for licensing for all your market needs.
OK. Berries it is.