Art Adventures

Today was a fun day of various art adventures with my good friend, Heather.  She introduced me to a few places in Long Beach that I wasn't aware of.  We began at Art Exchange, a community arts center, where we make snowflakes for the surviving students of Sandy Hook.  It was amazing to see people walk in off the street and begin making art together.  There was definitely a feeling of a community in that room.

Inspired by our first activity, here are Dune (on the right) and Sparks (on the left) making paper snowflakes.

We made our way to a cool music store, Fingerprints, and had brunch and browsed the shop.  Then, she introduced me to The Long Beach Depot for Creative Re-Use.  This is a store with odds and ends that normally people would throw out, but artists may want to use in recycled art work.  It was a bit overwhelming to walk through.

We ended our Art Adventure with a trip to the Museum of Latin American Art.  I love this museum.  It is small, but it definitely puts on a big show.  If you haven't been to there, you should check out their current exhibits.  I love their permanent collection exhibit.  It always changes.  They find fun and innovative ways to display work in the permanent collection.  Last time I was there, they told a tall tale with the paintings and sculptures.  This time, they have connected work to cards in the game of the lotteria.

It was a fun and exhausting day!  I can't wait for our next Art Adventure.

Inspiration from SCBWI 2012 conference

I am just beginning to recover from the crazy (as in an exceptional kind of crazy) 4 days of the SCBWI 2012 summer conference.  There is just so much to report, which will be done, but not all at once.  I'm still processing it all.  This was my second year attending this spectacular conference.  Last year, I was completely new to this world and didn't know anyone.  I had to jump in and make friends.  This year was different.  This year,  there were many faces I recognized and knew from my region's writer's and illustrator schmoozes.  But more on this feeling later.

I began looking through my many notes and decided to look for the inspirational quotes I wrote down.  They stay with me all year long.  Here is my recap from authors, illustrators, author/illlustrators, agents, editors, and art directors:

Tony DiTerlizzi  "looking backwards to go forwards"

E.B. Lewis  "If you don't have the love of what you are doing, then you don't belong here."

Patricia MacLachlan "Children learn to speak to tell us the stories that are already in their head."

Bryan Collier "Artists, the whole world has been waiting for you to dream."  (This was my absolute favorite quote!  He spoke with such passion about artists and the "seed" of creativity inside all of us.)

Karen Cushman "To attain your hearts desire you have to help someone else."

Clare Vanderpool quoted an Siberian Elder "If you don't know the trees, you'll be lost in the forest, but if you don't know the stories, you may be lost in life."

Jon Klassen "You can't worry about the stuff you can't control.  You have to keep working and creating."

Ruta Sepetys: "You can't break the broken, but it's when you glue the pieces together you become stronger."

Antoinette Portis "Tell kids the truth."

Gary Schmidt "Write stories to give the reader more to be a human being with."

I noticed a commonality amongst all of the speakers.  It seemed as though the following phrases were heard in every keynote speech and breakout rooms.

1. Be open to surprise
2. Tell the truth
3. Create what the child version of yourself has always wanted

These things might seem like common sense, but in a conversation with a few of my fellow illustrators, we discussed how you hear the same things at every conference, but depending on where you are on your journey some words resonate with you.  We hear what we need to hear.  Sometimes we need reaffirmation of our path.  Sometimes we need guidance on a new direction.  Sometimes we need encouragement.  We all leave with something different.

What did I leave with?

-A stronger sense of community and a new friend, Laura Hoffman.  We had met at a variety of illustrator schmoozes, but we never really knew each other.  We were roommates for the conference and became good friends.  She introduced me to people, and I connected all of her social media.  She is extremely talented!  Check out her blog at http://www.laurahoffmanart.blogspot.com/.


-More confidence in my illustrations.  People had such wonderful reactions to my postcards and business cards.  I'm exactly sure how I thought they would react, but it was always fun to see them smile.

-A better understanding of how to write.  I have been struggling with my original Mizzle story.  I have been over thinking and over writing.  It was helpful listening to all of the author/illustrators, but Antoinette Portis seemed to help me the most.  At one talk, she said: "If it can go into the picture, then it has to go." At the illustrator intensive she told us: "Take out all of the words that are already in the picture and say the words that need to be said."

But before I end my post for today, I thought I'd end with my doodles and drawings from the conference.  There were more as the day came to an end. Here they are! :)

I was exhausted the last day of the conference and could not stop thinking about being home in bed :)

more sleeping

I'm not sure where she came from, but I find her adorable.

Two heads

Today was a busy day of getting my students to sketch ideas for their final drawing.  Their assignment is to create a cityscape in either one-point or two-point perspective, but they also must include one life-size realistic hand.  Majority of them came up the same ideas: hand holding city, hand crushing buildings, city balancing on one finger, and the hand is the city's sun.  But the students who discussed their ideas with their classmates were able to come up with some great ideas.  I'm excited to see how these drawings will turn out.  It goes to show that "two heads are better than one."  

It is important as artists to have a community to share and bounce ideas off of.  A lot of times we spend so much of our time so close to our projects that we fail to see where problem areas are at, or are unable to see solutions.  Talking to others help give a different perspective of the project.  Many times, another person is able to see problems and solutions that we were unable to see.  I've noticed the importance of this creative community even more so now that I have joined many writing and illustration groups, blogs, twitter hash tags, and Facebook pages.  We share sources of information and inspiration.  We give words of encouragement and support.  And we give each other that different perspective every artist needs to hear and see.  

To keep with this theme of "two heads are better than one." I immediately thought of Bebo, my two headed Mizzle that I made for my mom a few years ago.  They are an artsy duo, who work as one.  I really like this character.  I think I'm going to have to make more like him.

Community support

I have had many moments where I've felt alone in the world.  Or I didn't think anyone could possibly understand how I was feeling.  Over the years I've come to realize how wrong I've been.  It always seems when I least expect it, there is a friend reaching out giving me a hand, or supporting me somehow.  This seems to be true amongst the community of children's books writers and illustrators.  Since I've joined the many facebook groups, follow blogs, attend conferences, and enter contests, the support and encouragement is definitely felt amongst all of it.  It feels great to be part of it.  When one person has a success, it feels as though we had a success.  And when one person feels like they have failed, everyone reaches out their hands full of encouraging words to pick them up.  Again, it is quite amazing.  I was talking to one of my former students/athletes about this and she pointed out that it was similar to being on the cross country team.  Even though the sport is individual, it takes a team to persevere and succeed. Both of us agreed that was environment we were happiest in.