Early Girl

Summer is fading fast, and my tomato plants are pooped. I had 2 big "Early Girl" plants in my little garden. I watered them, weeded them, lovingly tended them for nearly 4 months, and in return, they gave me 5 tomatoes. Five! They were rather small, hard as nails, but a brilliant MAC lipstick red and nary a blemish. They not only looked perfect, they tasted deeeeeevine!!! So when I ask myself, was it worth all the trouble when I could just drive to the farmer's market and buy tomatoes instead, the answer is, YES YES YES! Nothing in the world tastes as good as a homegrown tomato straight out of your own garden.

First Day of Fall

First day of fall? Today? Wait a minute! I'm not through with summer yet! I haven't had that vacation to some far away national park, I haven't cleaned out the garage from last winter's collection of debris (well, now I won't have to, since winter is nipping at our heels), I haven't been to a picnic...I'm just not ready to say goodbye to summer yet. So I won't. The first day of fall is now officially November 1, please mark your calendars accordingly.

Ivanhoe Road

I had an epiphany the other morning while driving in my car. An epiphany in a car is almost as dangerous as a spider, I nearly drove off the road. Sometimes it really IS just how you choose to look at things that determines what you see. And if that doesn't make sense to you, I'll try and illustrate it with these photos of my neighborhood.

This is a little side road, off the beaten track, near my home where I walk every morning. Even though there are homes along the way, I never see anybody in them, there are never any cars or people. It's just quiet and other-worldly, quite different from the noisy middle class neighborhood my tiny house sits in, where I hear roofs being repaired, the hum of the freeway, kids screaming and trees being cut down, lawns being mowed. You know, the usual never-ending racket of summer in the burbs.



But just a few blocks away is Ivanhoe Road, a secret escape where I can walk and feel as if I am on vacation a thousand miles away.



There are marshlands and prairie grasses flooded with sunlight, and all I hear is the silence broken only by the wind or the birds and the frogs.
OK, you get the picture. Now it's important to note here that there is a big tall fence in the background of this picture. You can't see it, it's hidden by the foliage in the background. It was ages before I even noticed it.




Here's the picture taken the day of my epiphany. I was driving along humming a tune thinking of the groceries I had just picked up and how they were probably melting when I looked out my window. OMG, there was that fence! That meant that Ivanhoe Road was right on the other side, but I couldn't see it because of all the foliage. That meant that for years I had been driving down this road to the grocery store, going past this strip mall and all the urban blight that was so annoying, and hidden on the other side of these trees was Ivanhoe Road. My Paradise Lost was right next to a mall. Only 50 feet away! What a difference 50 feet made - it was like living in a dual reality. It made me wonder about the rest of my life, and how I could look at it. Ivanhoe Road and the strip mall were almost the same, it just was a matter of sliding a little more this way or a little more that way that determined whether you were experiencing heaven or hell.

This sounds so dumb. One person's epiphany is another person's "well, yeah...". You just had to be there.

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Pardon me while I interrupt the dazzling stream of posts to put this code here. It's so rude, I know. This is to connect my blog to Technorati.com. Technorati is a search engine and blog directory. A better (and definitely longer) definition is here.

So now my blog will be easier accessed by those who are looking for illustration sites, and I can find other blogs with similar interests to link to.

If you'd like check out the indexing and search for blogs and specific subject matter, it's an amazing directory! Check it out: technorati.com

Buggy over Buggies

More stationery illustrations I recently created for moms and moms-to-be (the calligraphy is by the talented Crystal Kluge), all available for purchase at Pretty Girl Designs. Check it out - there are pages and pages of cute illustrations (mostly created by owner Darcy Jerome's current illustrator, the above mentioned fabulous Crystal Kluge) that you can select for your very own customized invitations, announcements and general all-purpose happy day greeting cards!

Memory

I had something really profound to tell you today, and I forgot what it was. Unlike an elephant, who never forgets, I do forget a lot lately. Someone told me that as we age, we store a lot more memories in our brain, like an overloaded file cabinet. So when we go to retrieve that particular memory, we can't remember where we filed it! That makes sense! And it's profound, but that's not what I was going to tell you, maybe I'll remember tomorrow.

Pretty Girl Designs

I'm so thrilled to have my illustrations included in Pretty Girl Designs! Creator Darcy Jerome began her stationery/gift business with the motto, "Happy girls are pretty girls", and when you see these sparkling creations, you will just light up! She has taken glitter to the next dimension, finishing each piece by hand. Be sure to visit her shop and blog and check out the fun announcements, invitations and cards available for purchase.


Crystal Kluge has been illustrating for Pretty Girl Designs from the start, and I am totally awed by her playful style and versatility. Check out her blog for an artistic treat.

Happy 4th of July!

Hope your evening sparkles!

The Plaid Poodle

Here she is, the Plaid Poodle. I just love the idea of a plaid poodle, and I'm trying to decide what to do with her. In the meantime, she will be flaunting her fine purse until further notice.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY- Fleeting

Beauty is fleeting. And the older one gets, the more it fleets.

Minnesota Medicine Cover - May

DETAIL

This is a cover for Minnesota Medicine magazine, illustrating a feature article concerning the integration of alternative healing methods into mainstream medicine. These people are so wonderful to work with, they encourage me experiment with different styles, which I so appreciate!

Miss Fifi Poopoo

Announcing - Miss Fifi Poopoo

Dooley

As a child, our home was run by a sweet terrier named Dooley. This doodle reminds me of him.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY - Poised

Such poise for such a little kitty!

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY - Rambunctious

Happy Holidays, everyone, from a very rambunctious reindeer!

Treadmill

Original sketch


Cover


Detail


Here's the latest cover for Minnesota Medicine. The theme of the featured article was the increasing burnout in physicians, and the renewal of energy and insight that the Bush Foundation medical grants provide them. Since I couldn't find a giant hamster wheel, nor convince any models to dress up as doctors and run around in it, I had to invent the whole darn thing in Photoshop. Phew, that was a job, but really fun!

On the Run

Time is just flying by - I can't seem to keep up with myself. I just finished another cover for the wonderful people at Local Design Group, a big thank you to Janna and Carmen! I will post it soon. Meanwhile, my task for today is to figure out how to unclutter my work space. I need more room, I'm starting to go crazy with all the scraps of paper about, files stacked here, books stacked there, dried up paint tubes reminding me to restock. I have this impulse to take my arm and just whoosh it across the drawing table and knock everything onto the floor and then kick it all out the door. Give me room, give me the wide open spaces, I sound like a cowgirl, just give me a horse and I'll ride off into the sunset. Does this sound like someone who needs a little more free time rather than a little more space? Hmmmmm. Maybe I'll just go see a matinee instead. You are reading the thought processes of a procrastinator.

November

If anyone out there is thinking about moving to Minnesota, STOP! Don't do it! Get a grip! This is the state that the sun forgot. I moved here from sunny California, where every day was 72 degrees and the sun shown so fiercely that babies were born wearing sunglasses. Can you imagine the shock of ending up here? There is only one other state that has fewer sunny days than here, but I can't remember which one. I do remember that when I moved here, the chamber of commerce sent me a welcome brochure. Inside I found pretty pictures of people skiing and a fact (this is a true fact, in case you think there are other types) that went like this: "There is only one other place in the world where such wide swings in weather extremes are experienced, and that is Siberia." No wonder they wait until people move here to send out that brochure.

And so welcome to November, National Gloom Month.

Carry Your Heart

It's Monday, and here's a poem to accompany you through the week. It's by ee cummings.

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart
with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never
without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done
by only me is your
doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my
fate,my sweet)i want
no world,my
true)
and it's you are
whatever a moon has
always meant
and whatever a sun
will always sing is you

here is the deepest
secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the
root and the bud of the
bud
and the sky of the sky
of a tree called
life;which grows
higher than the soul
can hope or mind can
hide)
and this is the wonder
that's keeping the stars
apart

i carry our heart(i
carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

(and yes, I checked and rechecked the spelling and punctuation and this is just as ee wrote it!)

I absolutely love this poem.

Short & Sweet

I don't know what I like most about collecting vintage postcards to use in my work. Is it the imagery, or is it the writing on the back? I am fascinated with the opportunity to peek into the lives and thoughts of people who lived so long ago. Here's a card depicting one of my town's landmarks, Minnehaha Falls. It's dated 1942, and a woman wrote the following on the back:

"Dear Mother,

It is Wednesday and I am very surprised. Everything is fine here.

Love,
Your daughter"


That's it! Oh, wait. There's more under her signature.


"If I have received any mail open and send it to me. Hope you are well mother dear. If you don't answer Welcome home."

Short and sweet. And mysterious....