I.F.-Shaky (warning this post may contain spoilers)

The House Of Clennam comes from Charles Dickens' book Little Dorrit. It is the house where Mrs. Clennam lives with her servants and it's totally creepy and shaky and at the end it falls down. Sorry to ruin the ending but really it's Charles Dickens' so you can pretty much conclude that there is a lot more to the ending than a house falling down. It has murders and secrets and all that. So really I didn't ruin it.
I did this sketch with pen and watercolor.

If you like to scrapbook or make cards...

...check this out!
Sherrod Studio
I did the little illustrations for the stamps.

Pro 4 way stops, The Weeks Adventures, and My Favorite Holiday

I am Pro 4 way stops. I really enjoy how even they are for all involved. A great invention those. (my opinion of course. I know some of you are against 4 way stops. Too bad.) I bring this up because it was one of the more deep and important (I am using sarcasm here) conversations I had with my friend Erica on the way down to Colonial Days.

This is an event it Provo Utah that is part of their 4th of July celebrations. (Yea! for Independence day! My favorite holiday) I did some watercolor painting and chalk art for the event. Now I'm exhausted.



This is me and Shawna in our fabulous colonial costumes. You can see a little of her chalk art on the ground behind us. She's a great artist check her website out. (Go on do it. It's good)



Here I am working on my chalk art. The two girls in the background are my sisters Kezia and Lariah. I recruited them towards the end to help me fill in some of the larger areas of color. I was so tired and just wanted to be done. They did a fantastic job.

Here is the finished art. It's not the best picture, it's hard to get a good angle on a picture that big, but you should get a good idea of what it looked like.



Not too bad for my first attempt at sidewalk chalk art.

Now I'm off to wash my knees (They are pretty green from the day's exploits) and zonk out until tomorrow. Yea!! Tomorrow I love the 4th of July! I love parades! I love fireworks! I love barbecues! I love this country! Oh I'm getting excited just thinking about it. Have I mentioned that it's my favorite Holiday?

Oh Boy!

Colonial Days

This weekend I'll be doing some chalk drawing at the colonial days event in Provo. I thought I give you all a peek at a couple of the watercolors I created to sell there. If any of you want to drop in and see me I'll be there Today and tomorrow from 4-6.

It's a Hate, Hate, Love Relationship

Yesterday I came upstairs after a couple of hours in my downstairs studio/bedroom and found a fabulous package on the kitchen table for me. Was it the travel set of watercolors I recently ordered from ASW and am anxiously waiting for? No,it was copies of a book illustrated back in March. A little book of short stories that I did a cover and interiors for. Here are a couple of my favorites.




Mostly it was pretty darn exciting to get the books and see my stuff but at the same time there's that part of me that hates the whole thing. I mean, there are my illustrations in a book. I did my best on them at the time but now I can see so much that I could have improved. Ulgh! (isn't just how it goes) In fact I feel like I'm being a little risky sharing these pictures because of that part of me that hates them. (I mean, really I hate them.) But there is also a side of me that really likes them the compositions are fun and, heck, they are in a book, a real book. So...I guess that side of me wins.

I'm such a Blog slacker.

Sorry, I've been such a blog slacker lately. So much has been going on, including a couple of funish projects I've been working on. Maybe sometime I'll show them to you.

So, here is some of what I've been up to. (In Washington DC)







Most of the sketches are form Mount Vernon. The last sketch is of some of the people on the flight home. Besides Mount Vernon I also go to see, a car on fire in Missouri, the National Gallery of Art, the Freer Gallery, (my favorite, tons of Whistler paintings, so great!), the Ruby Slippers, (who wouldn't miss out on those), and the White House. (Lucky me! Thanks again Thad!)
And there was a lot more to see but I only had 5 days and it's exhausting doing that much sight seeing.

I know that is only one week out of the four I haven't posted so what else has been going on? Well it may or may not have included seeing UP multiple times since it's come out. GO SEE IT! It's brilliant!

Illustration Friday- Theater

Ok so really this is kind of cheating. I did this poster for a production of See How They Run that is coming up this Summer at the Empress. So even though I didn't create this illustration specifically for IF, I'm posting it any way. I decided it was worth kind of cheating because (1) I haven't posted in a couple of months, (2) and this is one of the only things that I've done since that I can post right away, (3) and it goes with the Illustration Friday theme more or less.

Hopefully there will be more soon. I have done a bunch of work in the last couple of months so it seems like sometime soon I should be able to share some of that too.

Go see the play!

I've been waiting to post this. I did it a couple months ago for the Empress Theatre's production of Guys and Dolls. I really like how it turned out and I'm excited about the play too. If you think you might want to go see it there is more info on the theatre's website. The play starts February 27th.