I have lots of favorite picture books. One of them is Kitty's Cuddles by Jane Cabrera.
It's a simple book where we get to see different kinds of cuddles, and in the end figure out who is Kitty's favorite friend to cuddle.
What made me fall in love with this book was the amazing illustrations! They're colorful with big, bold shapes - and you can see the strokes from the paint brush. It's definitely worth a look!
Summer is a great time of year - but it also has some challenges when it comes to work. One of them is the lack of motivation to work when the weather is perfect.
For me it has always been important to take some time off during the summer, just to relax and enjoy myself. Often summer is a bit slow when it comes to work, but sometimes projects just piles up not caring about the nice weather. My motivation to get to work is the deadlines. It's important to meet your deadlines even if your office feels like an oven and you're struggling with paint drying way too fast. If it's really hot I try to get my work done in the morning, and if I can I take some time off later in the day. I also make sure to get a lot of work done on rainy days, and take some time off to enjoy the nice weather when I have days where there's not much to work on.
It's also easier to motivate yourself to work when you enjoy your job. I love working freelance, even though I never know if I have to work during a vacation!
Quite some time ago, I purchased Riven Phoenix's figure drawing course. It's been sitting here on my desk every since, but last month I made a commitment to starting plowing through the five DVD set. I promised myself that I'd do at least one lesson a day. At first I was having trouble getting into the lessons but now I'm really enjoying them. And it has definitely inspired me to concentrate more on anatomy when I draw. Often times my figures are very cartoony but there are those projects that require a more realistic drawing style and I think a good understanding of anatomy is good in either case. I'm only on lesson 37 (I think I have 200 or so to go!) but I've definitely learning quite a bit.
Some of the things that inspired me in May:
- My trip to Barcelona. The old streets and buildings, the modern parts of the city, the long beach, all the trees in the city (especially the palm trees) and the harbor with what seems like millions of sail boats. Also the food market with all the fruit and juice stands. Just look at those beautiful colors in the picture!
- Big fields of green grass with lots of bright yellow spots (flowers) all over. (Can you tell I get inspired by colors?)
- Walking in Oslo and suddenly finding myself looking at a huge door with my design on. It was the door of a bowling alley that I have done a lot of design for, and I had no idea one of my designs was used to decorate the whole door. (Does this mean I got inspired by myself?)
