The Pineapple Diary

Flashback Friday

Monoprint, 1996

Sometimes I get so focused on my children's illustration work that I forget that I've been creating art for a much longer time frame in all different media. The above is a monoprint from a printmaking course in college. I have a love and affection for all types of printmaking and while I never mastered ANY, I always enjoyed the rituals and surprising outcomes. This piece is so different from my current work but I see a bit of me within. Bold and simple composition, an attempt at a stylization and simplification of form. I'd like to try and do more Flashback Fridays, I have so many odd pieces that are fun to share.

Where have you been in your path as an artist?

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And slowly I paint. I do paint very methodically - background to foreground, characters last. Describing it sounds dull, but it's my favorite part of the process - seeing the final picture emerging.

And to make more comments re: Twitter... I wish I had more time to tweet randomly throughout the day. I sort of tweet in bursts which is less than ideal for readers. Usually I catch up at naptime from my PC, or nursing time from my iTouch (which I am utterly addicted to since Miles' birth - perfect for new mommies, esp. if you nurse and need a quiet distraction to get you through the long nights).

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Someday I'll finish this. It was going to be the Thank You cards for my baby shower. Work and life (then baby!) interrupted. Bit by bit. (Bird by Bird?)

Speaking of birds, do you tweet? I caved a few months ago when Dani Jones said illustrators were missing out if they didn't. Would this dilute me even more or enrich my creative life? So far, it's mostly enriching. It's been particularly nice at night when I'm working (or with baby) when quiet is necessary.

I think you can easily go overboard with Twitter by following too many people. It's similar to blogs. Have your close friends and favorites. Rotate some new people to keep it interesting. I'm not claiming to have the most interesting,witty,or focused tweets by any means. I'm also not campaigning for followers (but I welcome you all the same!).

Reading...

Miles and I have this book in heavy rotation:

Lots of little windows for little hands to explore. Big foldout. Fun popup. He's really fascinated and I love finding the little sub-plots throughout. It's holding my attention really well considering we've read this at least 20 times in a week. And of course I'm a huge fan of Delphine Durand which doesn't hurt. *I just discovered this book is only available used, so maybe I shouldn't be so casual about Miles' tugging on windows, haha.

I just got Kathy Griffin's memoir today so I plan on diving into that when I find a free moment. Not sure when I'll have one of those since I'm spinning a few too many plates right now. All fun stuff, but why do opportunities present themselves in avalanches rather than trickles? Hmpph.

Birthday Monkeys from the Past

I was looking for an old illustration to share for today, and since my birthday is next week this seemed like a good choice.

My husband and I usually like to make cards for each other. This was a card for him a few years back. It's always fun to dig through old work and reflect, and get inspiration! Through all my evolutions of media and styles I can find value in certain ideas and layouts. I probably could rework this piece in gouache, but I'm trying to not get too distracted! Lately though I've been focusing on my book dummy. I've tried to work on it a little bit each day, just jotting down notes, ideas, and quick sketches. More to come soon!

Oh, and I was partly inspired to dig through my archives while reading all the great posts over at Illustration for Kids Blog. Fun reads, go check it out!

What are you reading?

Miles is reading Jannie Ho's The Haunted Ghoul Bus (written by Lisa Trumbauer). He's getting great at turning pages and loves the bright colors and shiny spot varnish in this book.

I finished reading Lucky Breaks, a beautiful follow-up to Higher Power of Lucky. I actually forgot that one of the main characters was named Miles, can't remember if I was pregnant when I read HPOL.

Our rotation for naptime board books are Freight Train, Charlie Harper's 123 Book, and Leslie Patricelli's Quiet Loud. Every time I read Freight Train I marvel at it's structure and rhythm. And the illustrations in Quiet Loud charm both Miles and I. It's a new education for me, reading aloud with the age-appropriate audience. Books I may have passed over before because I wasn't drawn to them visually now stand out for their true, active value.

What are you reading?

20 days later...

Wow, I'm terribly remiss in blogging. It's been 20 days since my last post. Tsk tsk! Here are some recent sketches. Nothing worthwhile. Just playing with a brush pen, etc. I liked the little onion-head girl so I played with her some more...

I have all these lofty goals floating around in my head, but if I can tether myself to the earth, perhaps I could just work on blogging twice a week? About whatever it is I'm up to, which changes daily really. I looked back at old blog posts yesterday and realize how much stronger my blog used to be when I was sharing a variety of things - events, shows, books, decorating, other illustrators, etc. I'm going to try to return to that. I'm guilty of beating myself up for not sketching/painting more, or failing at little goals (3 week challenge, hello?) so instead of dwelling in failure I'm just going to move forward. Isn't that what Mondays are for?

Oh, and my friend and critique group member Jen has started a great challenge that sounds about my speed these days - check it out.

Matchbook Sketches

My morning beach walk was foiled by a napping babe. And it's only a 7 min drive to the beach! Never prone to waking a never-napping Miles, I drew a little since I had a nice view of the beach-goers. This little matchbook-sized sketchbook sits in my car for just these moments.

3 Week Challenge: To resume at a later date...

Due to a good amount of freelance work and a short amount of free time, I've taken a break from the challenge. I will hop back on once the paying work ends!

In the meantime, be sure to check out this month's New Moon Girls Magazine. I illustrated a story called 'The Jungle Out There'. I'll post an image of it soon but you can also see it online here, page 21

3 Week Challenge, Week 2, Sketch1

If the big guy is scared of water, I thought the little guy should be scared of... cats.