Inspired by "Three Cups of Tea"

I was inspired by Greg Mortensen's book "Three Cups of Tea". After reading his book about his committment to the wonderful and important work that he is doing I could not get it out of my mind. For those of you who have not read his books, he is building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, educating the children and giving them so much more than an education. He is giving them hope. It is also the story of how the compasssion and action of just one man, with limited means can be the catalyst to make a change for good in the world. He is an inspiration. This image was created in acrylics on 140# Arches hot press.

St. Lucia's Day

These two images are part of a series on St. Lucia celebrations in the Swedish tradition. They were done in oils on primed 140# Arches hot press. In one illustration the daughter is looking out the window thinking about the next morning. In the other, the family wakes the father up with a tray for breakfast dressed in the Lucia day costumes.

Digital Illustrations

This piece used as inspiration a layout from Paste magazine. The illustrations were done using fairy tales and other children's literature as this is my area of interest. All of it was created in Adobe Illustrator with the exception of the mermaid which was taken from public domain clip art; the dragon which I took from one of my 3-D pieces posted on this blog; and the hedgehog photo which was manipulated in photoshop. The work was brought together and finished in Adobe Indesign.

Illustrations for original poems

These two illustrations were done in oil on primmed 140# Arches hot press. "Berries" was created with a pre-school age range in mind. "Clutter" was done for an elementary age range.

Inspired by Vera B. Williams "Something Special For Me"

I was inspired by a SCBWI post that talked about the power of words and how illustrations compliment the text. There were partial texts from several very well known books referenced in the article and I was inspired to try my hand at illustrating one of the texts. The text I selected was from "Something Special For Me" written and illustrated by Vera B. Williams. I chose this text because when my oldest was little, I read another of her books, "A Chair for My Mother" to her frequently. It was a well loved book. This illustration was done in gouache on Arches 140# hot press.

3-D Creations

I enjoyed creating these two dragons in 3-D. The were exhibited in two shows during Fall 2009.

"Dream So You Can Soar" features a dragon made of Sculpty, paper wings enhanced with dimensional paint with a background of various papers and layers of painted tissue paper. The wagon in made of cardboard with button wheels and raffia substituting for hay. The girl is made of paper with ysrn hair. The harness is made of ribbon.

"The Castle Dragon" features foam core board in various uses. The castle is made of painted foam core. Parts of the wall have been mitred to enhance the perspective and depth and were raised from the paper to add more dimension. The turret is also made of painted foam core that has been back cut so that it could conform to the rounded shape. The dragon is made from foam core covered in paint enhanced paper, sequins and seed beads. The harness was made of ribbon, the collar of cardboard with small bells attached with wire. The wagon and the girl were constructed the same way as in "Dream So You Can Soar". Moss was used for the shrubbery at the base of the turret and in the archway of the castle wall.