She Sure is {Sketchy} - A Return

A few months ago I had a creative crisis that resulted in the symbolic breaking of a 4b pencil over my knee. I declared myself the un-artist. It was done in an eff-this-crap kind of way.
Here's the thing -- the low down is this:
IT IS THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD UNTIL IT SUCKS

Two months ago it sucked. I was so OVER it. I stopped blogging, I stopped drawing. I still had to go to my totally artistic job-job. While there, in one of the more creative adventures of my life, (an irony not lost on my Pratt friends) I built a video game with an amazing team of people. Other than that I declared myself NONARTIST.

My dad (a fineartist) was rather supportive. However, he also managed to piss me off by laughing at me.
--"Sorry, kid - It's too late. You're an artist. It's OK to take a break"

"NO! I am not taking a BREAK! I am DONE! I say who... I say when..."
(When I am truly lost I retreat in to quoting Pretty Woman). 

Anyway. They were right. I was wrong. I'll blog more about this later. I'm actually a driven and dedicated artist who had a total meltdown. It might help my readers to know that that stuff happens even when you're not painting starry nights or sculpting vaginas -- and on that warm and fuzzy note...

Yesterday I went to the zoo. I innocently thought I'd maybe take a pen. Then I thought I might want to take some written notes or write a letter. I'd need some paper. Last Spring Ashley Robison organized my studio to absolute dream perfection, making paper oh-so-accessible. Fine. I thought I'd tip-toe in to that scary space I haven't been in since May. She'd mounted some hanging clipboards for me up against a wall. I reached in to the room. This way I didn't have to fully cross the threshold. I ripped a pre-papered clipboard down and scampered towards the Bronx with it.

It started innocently enough. There was this polar bear. He was a show off.


I sketched him without thinking about it.

Later, on the monorail, there were some deer.

So  this just happened:

Totally understandable. 

We happened upon this expansive bramble of peacocks.


I watched them for a long time. So long, I absently doodled them on the edge of my clipboard.
Nothing wrong there. Sometimes non-artists doodle! Whatever.

We packed up at the end of a looong day of Bronxing. I stepped on the 2 train.

Then we hit 129th street. I thought, maybe I should just look at those sketches...

By the time we hit Carroll Street, things had gotten out of hand. Apparently I'm an artist, and I'm back. Expect more blogging.

(Credit for All Photos Goes to April Alvarez, my kid sister who is more than actively shutterbugging her vacation in NYC).

She Sure is {Wondering} In Times Like These...

I woke up to see my twittersphere aghast at the passing of our darling Mr. Sendak. My twitter feed is alight with children's authors galore, NPR listeners in droves, and elementary school librarians en masse, so when your idol dies, of course you hear about it, but... what do you say?

The Christmas of 1987 my gift haul was about as tall as I was. There were toys to play with and crafts to glue and a million things that needed my attention. However there were also a set of two delicious books entitled, "What do you do dear?" and "What do you say dear?"  I specifically remember laying across my parent's gigantic bed, basking in the sunlight while they read them to me and reread them to me and then PUHGLEEESE read them again! The thing is, I don't think they really minded that very much, because these books are absolutely brilliant. They made me double over with laughter. They made me scream with delight. How many memories can you say you specifically recall in sharp detail from when you were four?

These illustrations do that for me. They give me that moment back, when I am very small and in a HUMONGOUS queen sized bed and laughing with my family until I vaguely want to puke. 

Two years ago my mother and I had an epic difference of opinion that spanned three long months of stoney silence. My mom and I are best friends unless we wish we'd never met. One late night, missing her and desperately needing a loving conversation, but not enough to fight it out over the phone in the inevitable brawl before the calm, I crawled out of bed in my Brooklyn apartment, and grabbed this from the place of honor it holds on my bookshelf:

Little bear, that's me. Let's be honest, it's probably you too. When I turn its worn and grubby pages, I can hear my mother's voice. I can have the nicest conversation with her. We talk about trips to the moon and birthday soup and things I have always loved. How many permanent ties to the love you felt as a small child do you really have in this world?

Little bear was the beginning of Maurice Sendak's career, he and Else Holmemund Minarik created a beautiful collection of I Can Read books, way before anyone thought a child could ever be left behind. I know that as a child the words of course mattered, they always matter, but OH the PICTURES. I'd lay on my stomach on our 80s shag rug and study them for hours. You can just catch the humor in Mother Bear's eye as she cradles her little bear fresh from a moon landing. I know that in my life I've focused all the better on perfecting my ability as a line artist, because Maurice Sendak could say so much with a pen and two colors.

He has given me more than words can say, so let's move on, shall we? In times like these, at the passing of an idol, I ask....

I say the best we can do is remember him fondly, share him with the littles in our life, delight in the details or our lives and try to see the world as a child would want it shown to them. We can push ourselves to create things that will make a difference, but I think the greatest thing we can do to remember him is simply live our art. 

“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.” ― Maurice Sendak

and as As @sjaejones said so perfectly this morning in my twitter feed.
RIP Mr. Sendak, Let the Wild Rumpus Begin, wherever you are...

She Sure is {Impressed} Subaru's New First Car Campaign

In new Miracle on 34th Street like glory, Subaru has paired up with a few brilliant programmers to create the greatest ad campaign known to aging Americans with reminiscent stories of their glory days. I have friends tell me all the time that they're mad jealous of my animation skillz, now you can dive in to my tool box and make your own little movie. Shine on, Americans. Shine on.

Here's a little blip of days gone by I pulled together this morning.

 Share your great car memories in the comments.
Rock steady.

She Sure is {Organized} - A Guest Blog Post of Magical Proportions

I'm baaack!! Remember me? It's Ashley! I was a guest blogger here about two months ago blogging about keeping your art space organized. 

I first want to start off by thanking you all for the amazing comments and inspiring links. There were so many wonderful ideas and I'm so glad that many of you shared with us! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Okay, so you are probably wondering why I am back? Well, do you remember this video Amber posted showing off her fabulous art studio:

Amber challenged me to come organize it for her and I am here to tell you: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! And of course we wanted to share the transformation with you! Here is my version of Extreme Makeover: Amber's Art Studio Edition.

My first task was to get a list of everything that Amber wanted in her new studio. I told her to make a list as if money were no object. I truly wanted to know exactly what she wanted to get out of her space.

Here was her wish list:

• Pegboards with buckets 
• Re-purposed dresser for storage  
• A baker's rack to hold her large paper (as seen in my previous blog)
• A classy shoe rack that could go at the end of her work table  
• Clipboards to hang in-progress children's books on or other sketch ideas. That way she can just grab one on her way out the door this summer  
• Place to hold her paper towels and freezer paper  
• Shallow shelf for children's books  
• Something to house "paper and tools, paper and tools"- since that is the majority of materials that she uses.  Plus she also does her make-up in the studio so that area needed to be added as well. She needed room for it all! 

I looked at her list and made an estimate that it would cost about $280 (NOT including the dresser). For those of you who don't know me, I am a bargain hunter. So let it be known that I was able to get everything but the shelf, bakers rack, and dresser for only $120!

Here is a list of the supplies I bought:

Pegboard

Buckets (12)

Ribbon

Spray paint

Clipboard (4)

Towel rods (2)

Paper towel holder (1)

Shoe rack

Banker boxes (for storage, they are cheap and can be decorated with wrapping paper because they are not the nicest things to look at. And they are cheaper than plain white storage boxes)

Screws and wall anchors (for pegboard and hanging items)

This past weekend I drove up to NYC, power tools in hand, and organized her office. Now let's take a look at some of the pictures and I will walk you through how I did it.

The pegboard was normal white. We couldn't have that. So I bought some iridescent spray paint and made it a little more interesting. 

Before:

 After:

Alright,  here is a before collage of what Amber's studio was looking like when I first came over. 

A little intimidating, right? In a nutshell, she had a lot of stuff and nothing really had a home. She felt overwhelmed. First things first, we took everything out. Gutted it. Then we cleaned it (wiped down counter-tops and floors). It's always good to start off with a clean, empty room. I knew she was super excited about the pegboard so I put that up first to keep the morale up. She snapped this shot as I was drilling a large hole in her wall:

Here is the end product:

This is a 2 x 4 peg-board from Home Depot for only $8! If you are wanting to try this at home, make sure to buy hooks to hang your items on. I would buy a multi-pack, they are the best! Here is an example from Amazon: Multi-pack.  The most important thing you need to make sure it comes with is spacers. The pegboard cannot be attached directly to the wall because then you cannot hang your hooks on the board. So buy the spacers! It is super easy!

Luckily, with Easter around the corner, it was really easy to find these buckets. This tin one (shown below)actually had terrible ribbon on it so we switched it out to match the color in Amber's studio.

We kept finding scissors with every new drawer that was cleaned out!
Now there was a place for them :)

Go ahead, Pin it! You know you want to!

Here is Amber's clipboard idea come to life. I bought clear ones so that she could decorate them in whatever pattern/paper she would like. I am excited to see how they turn out!

Another small project involved these towel rods:

We attached them under her desk and voila, there were her paper towel and freezer paper holders! Out of the way yet easily accessible!

After we put up the peg-board, clipboards, and towel rods, we had the tough task of going through everything we took out of the office and finding a place for it.  Here are some amazing before and after pictures:

This is where she kept all of her makeup! On her scanner!

So what did we do with everything? I had Amber go through nearly every shred of paper in that office. It was her choice to keep, scan or throw away. The scan option was swell, because she uses something called Evernote that lets her easily scan documents into her computer. Then she can throw the paper away, thus eliminating most of the papers that were cluttering her office. Once most of the paper was gone, we organized the rest into these storage cabinets below. We had a craft cabinet, project cabinet, card drawer and paper shelf. Once everything was grouped into their categories, putting things away got a heck of a lot easier.

We used the "shoe rack" as her make-up holder by the mirror. We knew she wouldn't be doing her makeup anywhere else in the apartment so we had to make room for it in the studio. If it were anyone else (not living in NYC) I would tell them to move it to the bathroom. But when you have limited space (and natural light) you have to get creative. And that's what we did.

We did it! See, it wasn't so scary! The hardest part is getting started, but once you do, you will be so happy that you did. Here is a message Amber left on my Facebook wall the day after I left:

"Leaving my brand new office was practically torture. I'm pretty sure there are my fingernail prints trailing from the office door all the way to the subway station from dragging myself away this morning. I cannot wait to make home and make new art."

This is why I love organizing. :) 

She Sure is {Totally Don Draper}

A few seasons ago I was on a date with a Weiden+Kennedy storyboard artist. He looked me dead in the eye and said "So basically, I'm Don Draper." Well, color me impressed! Sometimes the boys know just how to get those gams to fly head over heels. I think it may have been the hardest I ever had to work to keep my eyes from rolling to the sky. Considering my AP Calc teacher used to teach in Pidgen, that is saying something.  In recounting this story over brunch (or several brunches) it is clear women in NYC have had a fella' lead with this line before....

These Madmen posters have been making quite the buzz around town. As their popularity grew, it became apparent that my chance to return to my Clinton Hill, Pratt kid tagging roots just wasn't going to come. I started carrying a sharpie and loitering in corners.

Since good things come to girls who wait, they pasted one up at Carroll Street yesterday. Poised at the ready last night, I realized, "Who am I to steal this moment?" In the dark deserted station,
restless in anticipation, I turned introspective....

 I snake charmed an Italian man in to standing guard at my canvas. Some dollars and a run through CVS later, I found myself back downstairs, where I velcro'd a washable Crayola and some baby wipes to a wall with my twitter handle.

Here are my favorites thus far, because I am not Don Draper, but maybe you are ;). I'm a children's book writer and a K-3 animator, and I believe everybody gets a turn....well I guess that's Don's philosophy too, in a sense.

I don't know if you can make this out, but they've labeled that cow and pig. Genius.





 

Poems on an underground wall.

She Sure is {Sketchy} - Lana Jane and the Dragons

In October I embraced my birthright and returned to the shores of Oahu for the best vacation of any one's life. Seriously, Jasmin couldn't have been happier riding Aladdin's carpet.... um.. that sentence is more awkward than I intended... than I was towel lounging on North Shore sand.

One of the sweet parts of this vacation was of course the fact that we stayed at a house any bedazzled nail flaunting reality star with a poof on her head would have cut you to bunk at.  Another sweet thing was I was formally introduced to Miss Lana Jane. Notice the artful bend of that wrist.

This kid always touches paper like she's got two turn tables and a microphone. Naturally, I loved her from the start.  During my ten days of "no work no work no work" I was slowly tricked in to a relationship with one of the most meticulous art directors of my life.

On this, the first day of Dragons, and of course, as this year's wax throwing has foretold, definitely not the last day of Dragons, I give you our collective works of fiction, as dictated to me by an ever tanner toe-headed task master in size three shoes.

As I draw Lana perches on the nearest higher plane. "Hmm, Jack is goofy, Amber, his face should be silly."  "Oh and he likes to read, but his eyes get tired because he likes the dark too. He's going to need glasses"

 "Here Amber, draw him like this! Pay attention to the spikes, k? That's his name, so they're important."

Lana would tear out of the house and then return five minutes later.
"Oh, Amber, Spike is going to need some flip flops, because it's really hot outside. My feet got burned."

Lana was in charge of connecting the feathers on Dazzle's wings, she's an angel, and drawing the eggs that each Dragon came from. Dazzle's beginning isn't speckled as much as striped.

I woke up one morning to the wind breezing across the palms, the sun glinting on the sea and this particular drawing with x' on the 'wing-ears'. I easily picture Lana knees up, my sketches in hand going over them with the attention of the Devil who wore Prada.

As the days progressed we'd do a sketch and she'd start giving me character traits to keep in mind. Lana hand drew each of these scales in shorthand on Hawk's shiny black hide.

I've saved my favorite for last. This was one of the sketches we did on the last full day in paradise. I rationed sketches as it became clear that if I did not we were going to have trouble in... well you get the picture. I'd done this one and then let Lana know I'd color these and make them more artsy in New York. I opened my suitcase when I got home to Brooklyn to find this right on top.
"Smokey is not part of the family." Important, details -- That is the mark of a true director.

Happy Chinese New Year....

Wish for Dragons, and sit tight!