Weekend Bugs, Enchanted Lion Books & The Secret City!

I hope you had a good weekend! We spent some time with the grandkids before they go back to school this week and a few more bugs came to life.

These are all made with watercolor and ink only… I think I have had watercolors on my mind lately because we have been working on putting up a new watercolor class with Anita Lehmann… Registration opens tomorrow!

I am giving a Monday-Friday blog post commitment a solid try, as I have wanted to share more of what I am working on and about what is coming across my desk… books, podcasts, teacher news, etc.

Here are the two things I wanted to share with you today:

1. If you love children’s picture books and don’t yet know about Enchanted Lion Books, you should! They create and publish the most beautiful books. They recently put up a Kickstarter to help them through these tough times… I just supported them at the $27 level and am going to get a copy of our own Kara Kramer‘s forthcoming book, “Make Meatballs Sing: A Story of Sister Corita Kent” due out in Spring 2021. Congratulations to Kara!! And HERE is a link to their Kickstarter campaign if you would like to donate. (Kara has taught two classes with us!)
2. The last few months I have been part of a writing group led by a guy named Chris Wells. I have so appreciated his straightforward and insightful coaching, and I am making some very slooooooow but steady progress on a book project. Chris is the founding artistic director of The Secret City and hosts a daily livestream at 9amPT/12pmET on Facebook or Instagram: The Secret City Daily with Chris Wells. “Art, Joy, Community.” We have so much to watch and listen to these days, but I do encourage you to check it out as I really enjoy the mornings I can tune in.

Have a wonderful day and check back tomorrow for information on Anita’s NEW class!

P.S. Notes while listening to Chris’ show this morning:

Buzzzzzzzz…..

Hi everyone!

In the last two days I made a few more bugs but struggled with them yesterday.

This is a common routine… I start a new series with kind of “beginner’s luck” — everything goes fast and smooth and I think that making bugs on flowers is the easiest, most fun thing I could ever do.

But then about the third day in I start to have trouble. I seem to get timid for some reason, and then, in response, overwork stuff.

This bug-in-tree was in the overworked category big time, but it looks better now that I’ve scanned it.

The recent bugs aren’t the only bugs I’ve made. Here are a few I did two years ago for a friend… their three-person family.

Buzzzzzzzz…….

More Blob Bugs

Hi everyone!

I hope you are well today.

I added to this one from yesterday… and I’m going to keep going.

This guy is a little confused and maybe irritated to find he’s not so unique after all.

All done with watercolor. See you tomorrow!

Bed, Bugs & Adorable Chickens!

Did you know that Steve’s office is one thin wall away from our bedroom? I mean, my temporary office?

My back got slowly better over the course of the day, yay.

I even went upstairs and painted a few bugs:

And here is a collection of adorable chickens from Christine M.’s 4th graders (she had them do the Chicken! exercise which is part of our free Drawing Blast offering):

That’s it for today.
xoxo
Carla

Daily Weekday Blog Posts – Day #1

Hi everyone!

Our annual August online class sale ended yesterday and Steve and I want to thank everyone who bought a class! We appreciate you so much.

I have been wanting to add daily weekday blog posting to my job description, and today was going to be the first day. I had plans!

But I did something to my back yesterday morning — I’m pretty sure I strained it while loading the dishwasher, so I won’t be doing that anymore — and my time in front of the computer and/or drawing table has been limited the past two days. At least I’ve caught up on my sleep!

I had really wanted to post some new work but instead am sharing another elephant from a few years ago that you might not have seen… I think it only exists as a scan, as I was moving all of the parts around and then tacking the pieces down temporarily for some reason.

So now I’m going to ice my back again and hopefully by tomorrow I can begin for real.

xoxo
Carla

 

Happy World Elephant Day!

And I couldn’t resist adding this one. 😉

 

Checking in on an August 9th

It’s August 9th again!

Yesterday Steve and I got some boxes out of storage and I’ve been slowly sorting through them. I wanted to share this image I found with you.

It’s one of the first illustrations I did as an adult (I was 29). At the time I was working as a graphic design assistant in Illinois, and on my break one day started a portrait of our little family using Adobe Illustrator. I got so into it that I asked if I could take a “vacation day” and spent the rest of my work day (unpaid) finishing this illustration.

My boss at the time, Kathy Lay Burrows, took a look over my shoulder late in the afternoon when I was nearly done. She smiled, and said: “It’s too perfect and that’s all I’m going to say about it!” She ambled away chuckling, leaving me to figure out what she meant.

It took me a minute before I understood what I needed to do: muss up Batman’s hair and untie one of his shoelaces, making him a bit more human (since he really was my four-year-old son Christer and not a real superhero).

😉

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REMINDER!
Our Annual August Sale of all of our online classes is now running! 25% off any class… we have 59 of them in our catalog right now from 18 teachers. Sale runs through August 23rd.