The Unproductive Blues…

What is it about this time of year that always sucks the energy right of us? After Halloween candy for way too many nights in a row, school craziness, and birthdays and holidays, these past couple of months seem like a blur.
This happens every year. The “new year” of school and promises begins with pre-made dinners, clean laundry, an exercise routine, and the vow of going to bed early each night. And for those first few weeks, life is good. I am motivated and so on the ball.
Now, at the end of November most meals are frozen for the kids or out of sad vending machines for me. I haven’t exercised in weeks and I am happy to get a shower in, let alone clean house or laundry.
And as for Matt’s art, there has been none. He had such momentum in the beginning, and needs to get it back. He was painting nightly for a while, and the improvement was amazing, even over such a short period.

Now it is time to start again. To get off the couch and remember what are dreams are. It’s hard to fight back against all of the obligations of life and win time for yourself and your goals. I guess the biggest way to influence your actions is to keep reminding yourself of where your priorities lie.

Happy Halloween!

Sorry for the delay in content everyone! It’s been a busy but not very artistically productive month!
Here’s a pic of the latest fun side project I did… For our son’s Halloween-themed birthday party we thought a “Pin-the-tail-on-the-Werewolf” game would make a great addition to the festivities. Here he is, along with 6 different colored tails for the kiddos to play with. Final size is 18”x24”; black art marker along with pastels on a large drawing pad.  We ended up having everything laminated at Kinkos (actually very cheap!) and used masking tape to stick the tails on with. The kids had a blast!
I had a lot of fun working on him and hadn’t drawn at this size in a while (too used to keeping it around 8”x10” I suppose). It reminded me of the large-scale drawings I did in college on those huge rolls of butcher paper (again with pastels).
I am looking forward to producing a lot more this month and have a lot of great ideas!  Stay tuned…

Pin the Tail on the... Werewolf!

Illustration On Paper…Taking A Break From Canvas

Greetings and salutations kind readers, Matt here! This is my first official blog post (so prepare yourselves)…

I’ve been trying to expand my artistic horizons lately by dusting off the colored pencils and watercolors. I figured these would be quick and fun diversions from the acrylics for now.

First up is a modern-style birds, bees and heart-flower design I drew up a while ago. The original (top) was drawn out in ink first and then some glazes of acrylic color were added. I liked the design enough to revisit it in another medium. And while the colored pencil and watercolor version (bottom) is much softer and delicate, I think the strong sketch lines in the original suit the design more.

Birds n Bees

Next up is another singing bird design, this time done with ink and colored pencils. I tried to add some depth to the coloring and was fairly happy with the result. I could have worked the piece up a bit more with the colored pencils, but I wanted to keep it somewhat simple and innocent.

Birthday Love Bird

And last up is a cartoon of chess pieces that I had a lot of fun with. Being a chess fan myself, I’ve always been fascinated by sculpted “novelty” game pieces and also by the computer animated “battle chess” video games, so I wanted to create my own ‘toon versions. The interestingly illustrative part of it was creating characters that matched their corresponding gameplay (i.e. the knight is jumping up off the board to attack, the king is royally bloated and can move only sluggishly, etc.). The colored pencil on these was really more of just an afterthought to bring some color to the ink drawing.

Chess Characters

Well, that’s it for now. I have one more non-acrylic side project I’m working on at the moment, and then I’m back to canvases!

Beeing Friends … A New Sheridan Story Art Painting

Beeing Friends

Matt’s latest painting, “Beeing Friends”, adds a cartoonier take on his other bee painting, “Bee Happy.” I think this is moving towards Matt’s true style, which has always been in the traditional ‘toon mold. I really liked the added personality in the flowers and the sun. Matt also listened to advice about adding more depth to the eyes, and made a happier tail pointed upwards (thanks Kerry!).
We both agree that this piece isn’t as modeled and painterly as his last, “Slippy the Snail” (v2.0!), however the personalities of the characters and composition of the scene are both much stronger than in his earlier work. He’s still struggling with spontaneity, as opposed to dwelling on detailed line work.
Let us know what you think. We love your feedback!

Painting = Productivity + Passion + Promise

I love the feeling of productivity; it stirs up so much excitement in me. And, as much as I love to produce, the feeling seems tripled when I produce on a larger scale with another person.

In this case, I am creating a business but Matt is creating the product. The largest part of my job is to enthuse and inspire Matt to paint and paint and paint. The secondary parts are marketing, research, and all else to start a business. I think many people don’t value the motivators of others in this world. I have an unbelievable amount of energy to put into others, and I see it as a real talent.

So, back to my equation for our business:

Painting = Productivity + Passion + Promise

By keeping an organized system together for producing artwork, and inspiring passion necessary to keep it up and keep improving Matt’s skill, I feel the promise of real success!

A Snail of a Different Sort.

After Matt’s first effort at a less structured and more spontaneous style to painting, he was not that happy with our new Slippy Snail. So, for take two he decided to add more depth to the painting, not only with additional mushrooms and a change in perspective, but also by starting with an underpainting. For this Matt used the pink from the snail body color and I see a big difference in the richness of the color and the look of the painting. We are both quite pleased with the new Slippy.  Take a look at the old Slippy from our last post and tell us what you think. Thank you!

Slippy Snail #2 (New)

A clean line-obsessed graphic designer trying to paint.

That’s the feeling Matt has for his first few children’s paintings, as if he was just trying to duplicate a vector line drawing onto canvas. The design is strong and clean, but he thinks they lack energy and life (some of the most important qualities of good art). To help fix this, he’s trying to approach his work in more of a painterly and spontaneous way.

In fact, my favorite children’s paintings of his is the recent quick life-study painting he made in a couple hours of our son’s beloved stuffed giraffe, Raffy. It feels so alive and true to Raffy, not like an over-analyzed design project.

The attached Snail painting is an effort in that direction. He sketched out the composition and painted it in one evening. While he doesn’t think it’s his best work, he said that the feeling of spontaneity and urgency was very positive and freeing.

He hopes that with more painting practice his skill and speed will increase, both of which should help move his work in the direction he wants.

New Paintings. Your Feedback Please!

So I have really motivated Matt now and he has painted two more paintings. We have also been brainstorming a ton of ideas. It’s amazing how excited we both are about this. Even though we have batted around the idea of producing children’s paintings before, we never took it seriously. I guess we just weren’t motivated enough in the past, or we would always think of some roadblock and just stop and forget it. Well not this time. This time feels entirely different, and we are looking forward to learning and figuring out things as we go.
Anyway, the point of this blog is to ask for some feedback. It’s really hard for me to be the only person who sees his paintings and to try and guide where we should go from here. There are only two newer one’s to look at right now, but please let us know what you think. What could we be doing differently? Are we missing anything? Do you like the colors? What about the style? How is the overall look of these paintings? If you have kids, how do you think your kids would like them?
We really welcome and appreciate any and all feedback you can give us. It will really help us to figure out the direction we are going to follow.

Thanks so much!!

The “Bee Happy” is a new painting where Matt was experimenting on the background style.  And the “Bird-Day Song” is another version of an older painting where he changed around the colors and added new detail.

Bee Happy

Bird-Day Song

Thinking Way Ahead

Ok, so we have no really inventory yet, nor have we actually started marketing anything to anyone but I had the greatest idea. Once we have established ourselves I want to start donating paintings to all kinds of places where children and families gather. So far I have thought of Children’s Hospitals, NICUs, Libraries, Schools, Pediatrician’s offices, daycares, and YMCA centers. Let me tell you why…

Our younger son Benjamin was born prematurely at 30 weeks gestation. My husband and I spent 9 weeks of our lives basically living in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) at Washoe County Medical Center (now Renown Health). Out of the whole roller coaster ride of an experience, I clearly remember a beautiful picture hanging on the wall in the NICU waiting room. And a former NICU family had donated it.

It was a close up of an adult finger stretched out with the tiniest child’s hand wrapped around it. I stared at the photograph on so many good and bad days, and it always filled me with hope and joy.

I loved it so much that I tried to duplicate it with my little Ben, and I will have that picture forever, but the one from the NICU remains in my heart. Since I can’t show you the NICU picture, which is much more artistic, I will show you my own.

I would feel so privileged to be able to offer someone any happiness, just like the person who donated that photo did for me, and most likely so many other families. I hope that one day one of our paintings will be able to offer a wonderful memory for another child or family.

Artists and Illustrators We Love!

Eyvind Earle: classic Disney concept artist, background painter/designer

“Prelude to Slumber”   ©Copyright Disney
Sleeping Beauty concept art by Disney legend Eyvind Earle features the iconic castle from the classic movie.

Mary Blair: classic Disney concept artist, background painter/designer

Found on powers10.blogspot.com/2007/09/mary-blair.html

Tom Oreb: classic Disney concept artist, character designer

Found on http://cartoonmodern.blogsome.com/category/tom-oreb/

Bill Wray: contemporary cartoonist, background painter

Found at his site http://www.bigblownbaby.com/index.html

Julie Fortenberry : Abstract painter and children’s book illustrator

Illustration from Karen Roosa’s children’s book Pippa at the Parade.

See Julie’s work at http://www.juliefortenberry.com/