Joyce Shelton's Blog

Yummmm.... strawberry short cake!

Long time between posts... I know.  But I have putting in some 12 hour days, finishing up a new collection for Giftcraft.  Can't share it just yet, but I will say this... all you cat lovers out there will love it!

Today I was determined to break out my pastels.  For weeks I have been craving a session of just playing with them.  Messy as they are, pastels are truly one of my most favorite mediums.  So immediate and bold are those juicy colors that I found myself getting lost in the process and in little more than an hour, this little illustration immerged!  It was so much fun and I'm so pumped up about it that I decided to start a new series of images done in this style.  How about this?...  "A few of my favorite things".  I know, not too original, but it gives me a sort-of "assignment" to carry through.  It's so easy to come up with a list of my favorite things.  I can't wait to do some more.

I'm missing my honey is who is wowing his fans at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, but I did get to enjoy some much needed "buddy time" with my oldest, dearest friend, Diane who came over Saturday and spent the night with me.  It's been raining in central Florida for over a week.  (Check out BJ's photos of her neighborhood in Daytona!) Thankfully, our area did not flood, just remained dreary and soggy all week, bringing on some serious cabin fever.  (Seattle, how do you do it?) Having been in all week, we were more than anxious to get out and run through the raindrops on Saturday ending up in one of our favorite hunting grounds.  Who can spend almost 3 hours in Tuesday Morning besides us?  By the time we got through touching, analyzing and pondering every item in every aisle of the store, we were ready to stop at Panera's for some girl tawk over a cup of cawfee (Jersey girls, we are).  She went home yesterday afternoon, leaving me feeling refreshed after spending some valuable girly-girl time together. For some unkown reason, I've been attacking one project after another like the energizer bunny ever since!

I finished up some beading projects that I have been dying to get to - not that I need another bauble or bangle to adorn my body- but since when does need figure into that?  and I started a crochet project... thank you Carol! 

For now... back to my list of favorite things including those messy pastels!

A Sunny Day in Whipple World

... Lynn Whipple's world, that is... and a fun day it was!  Just for kicks and giggles, my friends, Christy, Linda and I decided to take a Saturday workshop with Lynn.  I mean, why not?  Who wouldn’t want to spend a day creating with the brainchild of whimsical collage?  Not to mention she’s really, really nice... and sweet too!  Throw in a fabulous lunch prepared by her hubby, John and his Mom, Marty, (both also accomplished artists), and you couldn’t ask for a more fun day.

Having a pretty extensive background in experimenting with just about every medium known to man, I knew when I signed up there probably wouldn’t be too much new to learn from Lynn as far as supplies and technique.  What I was hoping to gain from the workshop, was a bit of Lynn’s free spirit.  When you work on assignment with deadlines, it’s easy to lose your playful soul.  Lately, mine has been begging to resurface.  Seemed like sitting around a big table full of art supplies and 11 other fun, creative souls might be the perfect opportunity to coax some silly spirit out of me.  From the looks of my first "masterpiece", it was beginning to work.

Lynn's method is to find a photo, slap it down, start arranging other elements and let the entire piece take on a life of it's own.  No planning allowed.  I know many artists work like this, but I have never been very good at it. (back to my working for assignment issue) I had my doubts as to my ability to master this approach, but that was what I was here for, right?  So, I just relaxed, got silly and let the people in the photos talk to me.

No doubt, Clara is having a good hair day!

Everyone hard at work.  Who, among us, is not jealous of this  studio?!

Time for show and tell!

I did expect that I would take something new home from the experience and I was not disappointed.  I learned that if I let go and listen, I do have the ability to let my inner artist speak and that I really do need to give myself permission to do exactly that every now and then.  My plan is to set aside a day out of every week - no matter what deadline I am working on - and just experiment, play and create without a purpose.  It’s an exercise I truly need to practice to keep my creative soul alive.

Here are just a few of Lynn's "Ninnies".  You can follow Lynn's show schedule and visit her booth and even own one yourself.  She has been written up in Mary Englebreit's "Home Companion" as well as countless other publications and how to books.

Lynn, your art brings a smile to our faces and your spirit glows from within. I thank you for sharing and giving of yourself.  It’s a day of fun I will always remember!

P.S. It was great fun to reconnect with Rick Kilby, an art director whom I have had the pleasure of working with, and who also attended the workshop.  For Rick's accounting of the day and more interesting and historical facts about Lynn, John and the McRae Street artists, click here.  

My Website created in Typepad

Well, it's been a week out of my life, and I'm sure I've added a few extra inches to my butt from sitting for so long, but it's done!  I finally have a somewhat presentable website!!  And, you might also notice, I tweaked a few things on this blog.  It was about time for it to get a face lift as well.  So one of my short term goals from January has finally been accomplished and I feel pretty darned good about it!!  It's nothing fancy, but the best part is, I can now add to it or change it for free whenever I want without the help of someone who knows html.  I did it all in Typepad and even mapped my domain name from my web host, which to my surprise... actually worked! 

I first learned about all this by reading Craig McGinty's article after seeing it posted on Kirsten Farris's blog.  Working with Typepad's software is so easy once you play around a bit and learn the ins and outs.  Their Help knowledge base is pretty good at answering most questions and they even provide free live tutorials. 

Now this week I will get down to some real work.  I do plan on posting later about a really fun workshop I took this past Saturday, so check back later to hear all about that!

Plein Air Workshop

Wow!  Finally something really exciting to post about!  Glad to be home, sleeping in my own bed but what a wonderful experience my plein air painting workshop was!  I am so in love with the whole process!  Why didn’t I try this sooner???!  There is way too much information to fit into a blog post, but all in all, a FANTABULOUS experience!  It felt really, really good to get outside of my little 10 X 10 studio, away from commercial illustration and my Mac and to paint (or attempt it, anyway) like a “real” artist! I highly recommend taking any workshop in whatever you are interested in, but if it’s plein air painting, Larry Moore’s the guy for you.

Aside from learning the ins and outs of painting in the great outdoors, I gained so much knowledge about basic oil painting with regard to mixing color from a limited palette of red, blue and yellow as well as the three color key components: hue, value and chroma and how it all relates to quick, impressionistic field studies. Working at becoming an artist is just a continuous series of learning experiences, isn’t it?  I guess we are never done and why would we want to be?

I was fortunate to know Larry personally so I knew ahead of time that I was really gunna learn sum’pin!  Thank you Larry, for all the knowledge and experience you shared - the laughs, and personal, one-on-one attention you gave me, and most of all for teaching me the basics of “Impressionating.”  This is a word I made up at breakfast one morning... it just came out and he liked it so much, he used it all week.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see it show up on his blog or in future hand-outs!

Larry... you are indeed The Impressionator

As the weekend progressed we all came up with a few other “Larry-isms”... “smurteling” (schmering paint around), “grello” (greyish-yellow),  “breen” (a lovely shade of army green),  “flabert” (a flattened down version of a filbert and flat brush), “palm-fronder brush” (self explanitory...we were all wishing someone would invent one of these) and last but surely one of my personal favorites, “scogs” (while painting downtown we witnessed several packs of retired-folk zooming by in hog-like gangs, on their scooters!)  Good one, Jeff!

I’m not posting any of my little practice paintings for obvious reasons.  I will say this, though, I went on this excursion purely to learn the basics, with no expectations of bringing home any masterpieces.... and I was not disappointed!! 

Here are a few highlights from our adventures. 

Our hotel, The Hotel Jacaranda, or as we fondly like to call it, the "Jac"... a relic, to be sure, but clean and comfortable.  Not to mention reasonable.  A mere $62.00 a day for the two of us.  Right within the starving artist's budget!

The lobby.  Not too much has changed here since 1920!  One of the pluses for us was the  $8.99 lunch and dinner buffet.  Including delicious iced tea, great fried chicken, stuffed cabbage, mashed potatoes and gravy... salad bar.. yummm... I knew I was going to miss that!

This elevator had a crank mechanism inside and only the hotel office girl could work it, so you had to ring a bell and wait if you needed it.  She had to carefully stop it so the floor of the elevator would be even with the hallway floor.  Sometimes it took more than one jumpy try!

Anyone else thinking of "The Shining"... "here comes Johnny!" For some reason, whenever I trudged down this massive hall, The Eagles "Hotel California" kept replaying in my mind.  "You can check in anytime you want, but you can never leave!"

This was the funniest thing. The sink was in the middle of the room!  It had the 2 original knobs- the old fashioned kind spread far apart-that makes warm water impossible to attain! The bathroom had a toilet with no lid and a stand up shower, also with two knobs.  I guess we were lucky, Larry had only a footed tub with a hand held shower attachment.  By the way... yes, the TV had a remote control, so the room does not meet my camping criteria, but darn close, to be sure!

We had two outing days to the nearby Highlands Hammock State Park, a very cool place indeed.  Fortunately we didn't have to stray far from the main area where there were restrooms and a really great restaurant for lunch.  So all that stuff I packed did not have to be schlepped too far.  I still managed to lose my prescription glasses somewhere in the madness.

This was our first day in the park.  By the end of the second day, we were all pretty tired of painting trees and various clusters of green & brown - a difficult subject to make sense of but a great lesson in value and hue.  Here are some progressive shots from Larry's first demo.  The Impressionator managed to make sense of this blur and pull a great painting out of it!

Day two demo of nearby building.

 

Day three... out of the woods and on to Main Street in downtown Avon Park.

Here's a shot of our group, intently watching every stroke. 

Thanks Larry! Can't wait to do it again!

One more thing... while reviewing Larry’s hand out and recommended reading, a title looked awfully familiar.  So I took myself out to my bookshelf and sure enough, I already own this book!  “Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light And Color”, by Kevin D. MacPherson.  I am sure I bought it at least 15 years ago and this morning I reviewed it once again with my morning coffee only to find that now, after the hands-on-experience of painting plein air, it had taken on a wonderful new meaning!  At the very back of the book, in a small yellow box, Kevin states this very true message, “Read art books over and over again.  What doesn’t make sense today may make sense down the road when you have more experience.”   Good advice to remember.

A fan from Norway!

 

 

Every now and then someone out there reaches out and just makes your day!  I was thrilled to receive this hello from a new friend in Norway,  Line Wennersgård.  While on vacation in the US, she bought one of my Giftcraft "Catititudes" and he's been an inspiration in her studio ever since.  Here's what she wrote:  ( I am humbled)

Dear Joyce!
I`m writing to you from Norway! 
My name is Line, i`m too an artist and an illustrator, and I just wanted to tell you how much joy your Picatso bring me! Its just so funny and cheerful J Its become a symbol of my love for my art, and that I have to remind the playfulness, its so easy to get stuck up in all the buisness…
It has a place on my desk and I fell in love with it in a second in a little shop in Palm Springs. I have family in California, so for  about 4 years ago, I bought it and carried it carefully with me home to Norway! I`m not so good at using many colors in my artwork, so for me this cat is a colorful moment in the days. And ofcourse I love cats too.
It also reminds me of Usa, that is my vacation place No.1! Last summer we visited New Jercey, Vermont and beautiful Holden Beach in North Carolina! Just loved it, and I get so inspired of all the great impressions America gives me.
So now that i`ve found your website, I will be checking in sometimes, to get colorful inspiration, and I really like the way you write too. I have been trying to blog myself, but its hard to start, but you inspire me to make it more artful, and personal. So I am trying too.
 
I wish you a great day, and thank you for making the Picatso!
 
Sincerely,
Line Wennersgård

Thank you so much, Line... for taking the time to write such kind words.

Now... back to packing my clothes for that workshop!  Getting very excited! 

Well, my backpack's packed

...and I'm ready to go! 

(Not leaving on a jet plane, though!)

My pal Loreen and I are heading south to Avon Park... somewhere in the middle of po-dunk Florida, for a plein air painting workshop!  Yep... we're going out to be "real" artists this week and we're pretty darned excited!  Leaving behind the children's book illustrating and the nifty-gifty product designing and heading out to paint nature for 3 straight days! 

Mind you, packing, schlepping and trekking through the brush, is not usually my cup of tea. Looks and sounds a lot like camping to me... and my idea of camping is a hotel room with no remote control for the TV!  But I am willing to make a few sacrifices to learn from my oh-so-accomplished fellow artist and good friend, Larry Moore .  I'm really, really looking forward to the whole experience.  Larry says I will be addicted after just one outing. I suspect he is probably right.  :~)

We are actually staying in the little town of Avon Park at what appears to be a charming inn right on Main St. called The Hotel Jacaranda (I'll let you know if it passes the camping criteria test) We'll be painting at Highlands Hammock State Park.  The weather is turning cool which is okay with me and I'm feeling pretty well prepared for a "delicate flower" who needs many creature comforts - most importantly - a place to plug in her flat iron!  No worries, though... the hat is packed along side the insect repellant.  (I'm nothing if not adaptable). 

So... I'll let you know how it goes.  There will be lots to tell upon our return.  Speaking of posts, this one is pretty lame compared to what Loreen posted on her blog yesterday! While I was hunting, gathering and packing supplies, she was actually doing a dry-run practice session in her studio.  Check it out!  No pressure there!

Happy Easter Everyone!

Newly Recycled Logo

I know, I've been absent for quite a while now.  I don't know why I fall so easily off the wagon. Life is just so all-consuming sometimes! 

I am busy trying to create new work as well as designing a new website in-between real work. This week I found myself with a small window of "deadline-free" time so I seized the opportunity to tackle the first order of business.... creating a new logo for myself.  I've had the same old one for at least 15 years now.  Funny thing, though when I revisited it, I discovered, I really still like it!  It's graphic, simple, not particular to any one painting style and pretty much "me".  So I spent some time beefing it up and trying to make it a little more up to date.  I'm posting it as a test for color. I am hoping it shows up in nice bright colors as it does on my monitor.  The brush jar is turquoise, the cup is chartreuse, the saucer, a dark blue and the background olive green. (Below is the old version) I think it might be a fun exercise to repaint this in a few different styles.  Great idea!  Just what I need... another project!

So whaddaya think?

 

Next order of business... a website and maybe a re-designed 

blog.... what the heck!

2009 Goals & Plans

Okay, so I'm almost a month behind on the goal planning post.  Guess I'd better get to it before it's 2010!   It may seem as if I've been doing nothing towards this yearly ritual, but behind the scenes, I've been working hard.  I have a long list of home projects as well as studio/business goals.  I've also noticed there have been  no art posts for a long time... like since before the holidays!  This is something I can not tolerate, as my goal from last year was to make my blog mostly about art!

Cleaning up and re-organizing the piles in the studio has been the job of the month.  Since I am scattered and unfocused, the big help thus far has been the new set up with my long time friend and fellow creative scatter-brain, Loreen.  (Sorry, Loreen!)  We have decided to commit our weekly goals to paper, then keep each other on track with regular Monday check-in meetings either over the phone or in person.  We both work alone (which is sort of like working in a vacuum) and often send each other "What do you think?" emails throughout the day, so this is really just an extension of that process.  So far, so good!  Here are a few of my most important goals... wish me luck!

Number ONE...I desperately need to get a new website up.  Working on that.  I recently learned I can do this on Typepad,  from a great article written by Kirsten Farris. There are many other helpful links on her blog- thanks Kirsten!  I'm going to teach myself how to do this so I can make changes and add new work easily on my own without the expense and aggravation of an outside web designer. 

Number TWO... I want to do more fine art painting.  I recently stumbled upon this fabulous website.  Someday, maybe I can commit to a painting a day like these wonderful artists.  My favorites are the impressionists and I'm longing to take a workshop from either Camille Przewodek or Tom Brown .  To master quick plein air oil sketches, loose and free... ah, lofty goal, I know, but it doesn't hurt to throw it out there. 

Number THREE... Get that portfolio in order!  One for illustration (which I desperately miss)... an assignment with a deadline and a paycheck at the end -what a concept!, And yes, some new licensing pieces as well. 

Fooling around with components lying around, I came up with this quick editorial type illustration just to see if I'd like the process of mixing things up in Photoshop.  I would probably like it better with hand written type, but for an experiment, it's not too bad.  Made me feel like I accomplished something creative yesterday, anyway.  :~)

On that note, here's some food for thought! 

 

Out with the elephants

Monday night we took Heidi to the Circus for her birthday.

Couldn't resist posting this photo in honor of yesterday's historic event!

What a great day it was!  I worked at the computer all day while tuned into the inaugural festivities with my favorite news guy... Charlie Gibson.  Such an amazing time in our history!!  I'm so pumped and excited! Obama fever seems to have swept the nation. I was so proud to have been part of the process and feel confident that I made the right choice in the voting booth. I thank you President Bush, for all the good things you have done and recognize that you did the best you could under a most difficult and turbulent time in our history.

Anyone catch the interview on NBC with Colin Powell?  What an eloquent, brilliant and classy guy!  He expressed my sentiments beautifully.  Still a republican, but happy to live in a by-partisan country.  Time to embrace our differences, look for compromise and work together for the good of the country.  Whooo hoooo!!!!!

He can't help it... it's in his blood!

Larry the Lounge Lizzard update

Larry's friend "Louanne" has come to visit.  It's official... I have lost my mind!