Advent calendar begins

Yay! It's December 2nd! We're a day late, but we've started creating our advent calendar for Archer. Last year, we made a Brooklyn-style brownstone facade out of a cereal box, with windows and doors that opened to reveal each day's surprise. We are in a new home this Christmas, and since we have a fire place and mantel, I've decided to use it as part of our advent calendar display.

Here's how its looking so far...

Today's star, #2, said "Choose 1 gift." Archer is starting to read, and it was so much fun to hear him sound this out, and then look around with excitement for where this gift might be. My husband made up a bowl of advent gifts, all with a different wrapping paper. Archer chose the brightly blue wrapped present, which was a collection of Eric Carle stories. Eric is one of my all-time favorites, and I cannot wait til Archer gets home from school so we can read them together.

Cat foot

I unpacked my acrylic paints a few days ago and decided to make some new textures on canvas. Without intending to, I created another Midwestern landscape. So, I added some ghostly/dreamy hay bales. Archer wants me to add a man inside a tractor, but I'm liking its calmness right now, and I'm not sure what I'll add next.

While taking a picture of this stage of the painting, no matter where I went, my cat, Milla, insisted on putting her paw in the shot. For now, I'll call this, "Nebraska With Hay Bales and Milla Foot."


My latest order from Skreened.com

Yesterday, I received onesies from my Big Bridge Studios shop on skreened.com -- "Rocket Memory" and "Boom Boxes." Once again, Skreened did an excellent job. The colors are clear, and the line work, though digitally printed, looks great. I'll be sending these off to my friends with new babies in the morning!






















All designs are also available in various toddler and adult sizes and colors. Please visit http://skreened.com/bigbridgestudios for more information, or feel free to contact me at kendra.shedenhelm (at) gmail.com.

More collaborations with Archer

As I've mentioned, my five year old and I collaborate on art projects quite frequently. We generally begin with some sort of painting, and then we forget about it for awhile. Weeks or months later, one of us will find what we'd started and add to it using another medium.

Below is a painting that we created together, that I later picked up and penciled on some birds.




















I then cut it into a postcard shape and laminated it with packing tape. I experimented with some sewing (in lieu of the Great Stitched Postcard project), but I became discouraged, and I put it away.

Archer ran across it a couple of weeks later and thought the stitched buildings were fascinating. He immediately asked for a Sharpie, and drew "buildings with portals" hovering above my pink brownstone.



Although it's not complete (Archer has a few ideas about what to add next), I adore how my son saw a story in this, when I was ready to throw it in the trash.

I will post again once its finished.

Foxes

I've started a new book illustration project this week, and this one features a fox. Not a cuddly fox, but a rascally one, and I've been drawing, painting, and collaging foxes like crazy trying to find my character.

Though I decided against this more painterly fox below, I found him quite beautiful, and I think I'll keep him around for some other ideas.


Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap

Last week, I stitched my first postcard for the Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap. How strange it was to compose a scene so slowly, thread in, thread out. It was difficult for me at times, because I wasn't exactly sure where it was going, but I also found it quite calming.

My recipient was a woman in Australia. I'm not sure if she's received it yet, but I hope it makes her feel like home is a good place to be.





I am finally posting my fired piece from the Painted Pot (I posted the unfired tile here several weeks ago). It turned out better than I'd even expected -- colors were so bright, and all of my erase lines and scratches are still in there. It was my first painted tile, and I loved it so much, I'm considering a series. Any suggestions on products/glazes/local studios are very welcome.




Ustyme launch and my illustrator debut

The new children's book publisher, ustyme, launched on September 25th, and with it, was my illustrator debut. Since March, I have had the tremendous fortune to illustrate three of the books in the ustyme library. Below are some samples of the illustrations I created for Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat, plus my original thumbnail sketches:

The Bong Tree
© 2013 Kendra Shedenhelm

The Piggy-wig © 2013 Kendra Shedenhelm

It's Love. © 2013 Kendra Shedenhelm

The Wedding Feast © 2013 Kendra Shedenhelm





































































Initial thumbnails/storyboard
for The Owl and the Pussycat



























Ustyme even included my Owl and the Pussycat illustrations in their launch video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CNXnYhfYf4. Their app is free, and the books are available for download at about $.99 to $1.99 each. The ustyme team has been amazing to work with, and I hope that anyone that has the technology will give this app a try.

To see my selected illustrations for Edward Lear's Nonsense Alphabet and the Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, please visit my new online portfolio at http://kendrashedenhelm.com/.

We are leaving Brooklyn this week, so I went to The Painted Pot on Saturday night for the last time.

My son and I have been going to this local pottery studio since he was about 18 months old. He's glazed piggy banks, mugs, bowls, light switch covers, and several other gifts for the family. Oddly, though, I never really participated. I just watched, admired and supported him, but I didn't create anything myself. However, after my wonderful experience painting with the Empty Bowls Project, I really wanted to paint by myself this time.

I started with several layers of glaze, and after some drawing and re-drawing, I ended up with this bird. I loved making this painting. I can't wait to see what it looks like when I pick it up this week. I'll be sure to post it. Stay tuned.



Geometric Patterns

After I saw this call for geometric pattern submissions at print & pattern, I began sketching a variety of shapes. I soon realized that many of my shape combinations looked a lot like my old ghetto blaster. So I made several.

I'm not sure what I'll do with this quite yet, or what color combinations would work best. Suggestions?






I took myself on a little date yesterday to my favorite place on the planet: Central Park. I couldn't stay long, but I did have a time for a quick sketch.


The Global Talent Search

Yesterday was the submission deadline for the much-anticipated Lilla Rogers' Studio Global Talent Search. As a recent student of her Make Art That Sells course, I was automatically enrolled in the contest. All I needed to do was make the art.

First, I must say that I am huge fan of the artists Lilla represents, and to be among them would be an absolute dream for me. A life-changing, enormous deal. After recently taking her class, I can see why such amazing talent would want to work with her. I can't remember feeling more inspired and encouraged by a single person. Lilla has an immense gift. She is a Wow.

The Talent Search assignment was to create a 5x7 journal cover with a playground theme, also including the word "journal." While preparing my submission over the past two weeks, I felt intense pressure, because I so deeply want to be a finalist, and my biggest battle was allowing the joy of art-making to make its way into my work.

On the last day before the deadline, many thanks to my almost-five year old son, I was able to do so. Created with watercolor, ink pen, graphite transfer and a bit of digital collage, this piece is called "Vintage Playground, Rocket Memory," and is based on a memory from childhood in Omaha, Nebraska. I feel that my joy really came through.

My non-type variation is below, followed by two different styles of lettering for 'Journal':



Drawing again

As recently as a year ago, I told a friend that I just didn't love drawing anymore. I remember feeling sad about saying this, but since I haven't drawn much in the past 10 years, I felt it was probably true.

Five weeks ago, however, when I started my amazing class with Lilla Rogers, I found myself not only loving it, but craving it. I began carrying a sketchbook and an ink pen again, everywhere. I have been drawing the shapes of the hardware in a subway car, my shoe laces, my son's face as he plays iPad. I have also begun drawing from my imagination, which, outside from my childhood, I don't do much of. And this is where I've begun to find some unexpected joy -- in my imagination. How cool of a (re-)discovery after all these years.

For this week's assignment (the last one of Part A), we focused on the gift market and created a zipper bag with a "lush" or "hyper-lush" design. Popping colors, florals, fantastical or dreamy subjects, lusciousness. Because I enjoyed my first assignment so thoroughly, I decided to also draw this design with a black pen and an 8.5 x 11 sheet of printer paper. I scanned it in, added color, and moved the elements around. The first image here is the one I submitted, but I really loved creating the bottom two as well, so I thought I'd include them here.


Painting again (Welcome back!)

This week's assignment for Lilla Rogers' class was about wall art, with a focus on collage, paint, layers, and text. Our color palette was limited to neutrals, plus the colors of our birth sign. I'm a Taurus (May), and my colors were green and yellow.

I'm a somewhat messy artist, but because I've been working out of our bedroom, I don't go nuts very often anymore. But this week, I did not hold back, and I pulled out art supplies that I haven't used in years. It felt tremendous to just sit down and paint, and to smear around so many layers of oil pastels that my finger nails were caked with the colored oil for days. I kept saying to myself, "Welcome back."


Hand lettering

This week's assignment for my class with Lilla Rogers was about children's books. Everyone was to create a cover or a spread for Hans Christian Andersen's tale, The Snail and the Rose Tree, with character development and hand-lettering as our focus.

Although I pretty much choked on developing my characters, I spent a ton of time on hand-lettering. I absolutely love illustrations with hand-lettering, but I never felt I'd be very good at it, and I found this part of the assignment to be extremely rewarding. I've already incorporated some of the lettered styles I created into my current children's book illustrations, and it felt great!

A bit of what I made this week:






Pods and plates

This week's assignment for my class with Lilla is about Home Decor, and we are focusing on pod-types of plants and dinnerware sets. I'm still not sure what I'll go with, but here are some possibilities. If you'd like to weigh, your comments are most welcome. (:








Over in the Meadow submission

Outside of some freelance work and being Archer's mom, I've spent most of the past three months illustrating books for a new children's book publisher. I've said this about a million times lately, but it really is a dream come true.

It was my teacher, Mark Mitchell, who notified my class of the call for illustrators back in February. I read the submission guidelines and got to work. About a week later, and with crossed fingers, I sent these two pieces in. Over the next several days, I refreshed my email's inbox about 500 times, hoping for good news.

That email did arrive, and it's been a scary-wonderful experience since.



A long lost painting found. Thanks, Bobby.

A couple weeks ago, I received a friend request on Facebook by someone I did not recognize. I generally try not to answer those, but I accepted right away. I was annoyed at myself for doing so, and I decided to keep an eye on his posts for any chicanery.
Yesterday, I had this sudden urge to check my Other section within my Facebook messages (which I almost never do), and I had this message:
Hi! So I'm pretty sure I bought gigantic painting of yours. It's about 6 ft tall, and it appears to be of a man that looks not unlike Norman Mailer, sitting in a flannel shirt, with a cup of coffee. He looks to be sitting in front of a computer, and the word "The" is below the computer, as in "...New York Times"...did you paint this portrait? If so, I love it! Who is that guy? Is it Mailer?
If you didn't paint it, I still love it.
Thanks!
Bobby

I was FLOORED. All caps.

Back in 1994, I had lent a painting to a local Chicago restaurant. I moved to New York in 1995, and I just didn't take care of my loose ends. I failed to inquire about it, the restaurant closed down, and I never saw that painting again. I have always kicked myself for letting that happen, as the painting had represented a shift in my student work, and the actual painting of it was a very meaningful memory for me as well.

And then this message one day on Facebook. How amazing.

Now I know that it wasn't trashed, that my immature inability to call that restaurant before I left in 1995 didn't result in complete regret, and that there is a person out there that would not only pick up that painting, but he would search for me, just to let me know that he had it and liked it.

It was quite a day for me yesterday. Meaningful in so, so many ways. Thanks again, Bobby, for seeking me out. I suspect your life will be full of creating little miracles for people.