Skinny Jeans

Another commercial assignment from a retailer for an upcoming back-to-college catalog. These marker sketches are not final art but rather meant as visual guides for the photographers - they are fun to do and quick, with immediate deadlines! They did not want facial features since the image will be cropped, probably just below the shoulders, so it looks a bit weird. The new leggings that look like jeans are great - if you are skinny!

Know your own bone

I've been formulating some ideas for new work, and I have to admit, I'm thinking, this is really goofy, why am I doing this, and have I lost my mind? But on the other hand, it feels so right. I am having so much fun watching the work unfold in surprising ways, even as I wrestle with it. I encounter stops and starts - one idea might bloom into another, while yet another idea withers on the vine. And sometimes no ideas materialize at all. It is such a fascinating process, this unfolding of creativity.

Annie Dillard writes, "You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment. The most demanding part of living a lifetime as an artist is the strict discipline of forcing oneself to work steadfastly along the nerve of one's one's most intimate sensitivity." And Thoreau, the original Follow Your Bliss cheerleader, wrote "Know your own bone: gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still." That spark of astonishment is what thrills me - it's the carrot that dangles in front of my artistic nose and keeps me at the grindstone. Or gnawing at that bone.

Collage Magazine Cover

Last week I received a call from Janna Netland Lover of Local Design Group here in Minneapolis. Would I be interested in doing a collage for the cover of the April Minnesota Medicine magazine? Oh yes yes yes I would!

The featured article addresses the topic of innovations in medical practices, in thinking outside the box. I submitted the above thumbnail sketches, using a template of the cover (working with a mailing label is always a challenge!). Janna chose the second one, the vintage clip art profile, which was my favorite, too. I'll post the final version next time.

Happy 99th, Dad!

                                                                from Dad's sketchbook

                                                         Dad in the clubhouse, 1955

                                                 Dad at the Farmer's Market last fall

 Today is my dad's 99th birthday. To the man with the biggest heart, who for nearly a century (!) has encouraged my creativity and independence, who gave his community fifty years of fun and entertainment with his miniature golf course, who to this day is my inspiration and mentor,
---- HAPPY BIRTHDAY!