At work:

Shh! You spied Alice McKinley on my desk! We've been hanging out a lot since I've started working on a series of covers for this classic series . It's made for some sweet summer reading–I recommend. I ♥ Alice M.

Event! Grandma's Gloves Launch Party

I'm so happy to announce a book launch party celebrating the release of Grandma's Gloves! It will be on Saturday, August 14th, noon, at that close-to-my-heart indie bookstore in Harvard Square, Curious George! Grandma's Gloves author and acclaimed YA novelist, Cecil Castellucci will be here on a special visit from the west coast so be sure to come by and meet this fantastic lady (I can't wait to myself!) Please come join us for a garden-filled afternoon. We'd love to see you. There will be books to buy and read and sign, paper blossom-making and refreshment. Wear your best garden wellies, sundresses, and old lockets.

RSVP HERE!

...so if you are in the Boston area and not on a sailboat or family vacation on Saturday, August 14th, hop on the Red Line, jump on a bus, hitch a ride to Curious George! You could also steer your sailboat to the store too:

Curious George Books and Toys
1 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617.498.0062)

*If you'd like to follow my illustration updates page on Facebook, and "attend" the event and future events, feel free to click here. The event is open to the public in the "events" tab...and shhh... In my "photos" section you can spy a few sneak peek thumbs of Grandma's Gloves art...more to come very soon! Hope you're enjoying the summer.


Many many thank yous to Candlewick Press and Curious George for coordinating this event ♥

Stretch 2: Color fever!

Too much has been happening on the visual front for the past month to put most of into words quite yet... Learning at high speeds from the intense relationship between color, shape, and pattern. My whole life, when I've been stuck on an art problem, sometimes I'd wake up with the visual "answer" materialized vividly for me in the last seconds of a dream before waking up. I realized I'd finally hit a little art peak after weeks of chasing pattern, when I woke up with the clear view of this (below) one morning last week:


You have to see how absolutely thrilling/frightening this is for a lifelong drawer: running to my drawing table to lay in chunks of color? sitting at my desk trying to get pattern ideas out? letting the line go? For the first time in my life I feel that visceral "need to get it out" art feeling, drawing aside. Now all I want to do is place colors together and watch them vibrate and be. I'm sure it will be informing my color palettes in my client work soon. I also think Hawaii blew my color mind a little. It's even got me contemplating going back to school for some textile design courses...?

Anyway, here are some odds and ends. I feel like I'm equally losing it as well as FINALLY finally getting to the meat of something, who knows:








P.S. I've just bought Jonsi's (from Sigur Ros) new album, Go. Painting to it is incredible!

Happy Summertime to you!

Ta-da! Summer's here again! Time for thunderstorms, sandals, and peaches. Time for soaking life in through the roots.

Maui: Ana's Art

On our last day of Maui, we met Ana Faiva, an artist in downtown Lahaina. She had a breezy roadside tent set up to sell her work. We almost walked right by, but she welcomed us in warmly (despite our wary Bostonian ways) and told us stories of her art. I was entranced : she uses kukui nuts to make the dye on her tapa (bark cloth), and red dirt for the middle value, the way the women in her family had done for generations.
After talking to her about our honeymoon, she turned around and began to make an original tapa for us right there! She even paused as if thinking over her work for a second, until she said "Aren't you going to take my picture!?" Of course!
She found out I was an artist and gave me a big hug. She was very careful to date and sign everything and tell us the value of each piece...It was beautiful work. Ana was one of those souls you'll always remember, very full of stories, warm and in love with life. After her hugs and little gifts she'd given us and the tapas we bought from her, we smiled all the way back to the car. She wanted us to take this picture to remember:
I can't get the "leis" as she called them, the vertical vine motif, out of my mind. So here is a painting I made : a girl, reading with a (cinnamon) rabbit on her head, in the middle of a little tapas jungle. "Leer" means "to read" in Spanish.

Mahalo, Ana ♥

Stretch 1: Lady Line

Sometimes, RIGHT in the middle of drawing a piece of art for a job, and I'm plugged into some good music, I see something completely different and unrelated that I need to draw before it disappears. That's when art making is so so crazy. You feel vulnerable and like a "channel". Ideas are freely flowing through you without much input from your brain. It's the best place to be, and it's the place where I learn my lessons, which eventually make their way to client work.
I want to try to start a series of blog posts called "Stretches". It's a little nerve-wracking to expose something unfinished that I am still learning from, but I think it will be a good exercise. Yikes!

It feels like a good stretch to make personal work ... stretching for something visually, and teetering on the edge of something and reaching far out. Making a new wrinkle in my art brain. Completely letting go, unhinging my mind for a second and speaking in color line and texture impulses. Letting things get weird. It's like a wild little race for a few minutes, chasing after the flash. Sometimes what you end up with is ugly but exciting. I think this gloved lady is about what line can do on its own when it is not told what it should be doing!
I want to hear from you, artists and writers and musicians...what is it like for you when you "stretch"?

Flash Flash Flash

We're back! We flew home last week from the Big Island and Maui and settling back in after the most whirlwind 3 weeks ever! Matt's back to work and it's catch-up-week for me as Mrs. Perlot (woah). Catching up with art directors, the inbox, getting terribly re-acquainted with FB again, reading blogs, and letting the loads of inspiration I unpacked with our clothes and flipflops SIMMER. Mind and heart are as full as they could be! I am in the "flashbulb" stage of things, watching it all.

Flash: a "dinosaur chicken" from the Garden of Eden on the Road to Hana, Maui:


Art and pictures to come! Love from our new ohana to you! ♥

Song of Songs

Matt and I are heading back to our families and childhood hometown to be married. Days are blurring into something bright and without time. Here we go!!!

Be well & See you in June!
(Photo: Rachel Hadiashar)

Set me as a seal on your heart,
As a seal on your arm;
For as stern as death is love,
relentless as the netherworld its devotion;
its flames are a blazing fire.
Deep waters cannot quench love,
nor floods sweep it away."
(Song of Songs)

Baroness

Here's a quick little color vision I had to paint out before getting back to work! She came out of my chasing yellow all day and this song performed by the String Orchestra of New York City. She's named for Eleanor Parker: her well-known villainess role, her platinum blonde hair and austere little brows. The Baroness is gliding around in "Yellow Orange-15" Prismacolor taffeta, charcoal lashes, and a little peacock-ish crown. And now to stop playing and return to my assignments...! Today is so rich in color and inspiration–wishing you the same.

Chat with Chad

If you'd like a little behind-the-scenes for Dotty, here's a link to my interview with Chad Beckerman, art director and designer for Dotty. It's part of his Interview Adventure Series with the artists and authors he's worked with, be sure to check them out. (Also make sure you watch the video of Werner Herzog reading Madeline! Sooooo silly)...Many thanks, CW! Happy weekend.