Illustration

“Whether you are flying the Atlantic or selling sausages or building a skyscraper or driving a truck, your greatest power comes from the fact that you want tremendously to do that very thing, and do it well.”
- Amelia Earhart

Red Winged Blackbird

Red Winged Blackbird

Blogging has taken a bit of a back seat, since I’m never actually sitting at a computer anymore to write posts. Lately, I’ve been chronicling my work most on Instagram, which gives me a nice way to save some visual descriptions of what exactly I’m up to.

And, if you’ve looked at my Instagram account recently, you’ll see a whole lot of painting and drawing and not a whole lot of letterpress. This is a slower time of year for letterpress work, so a month and a half ago I decided to dig headlong into another of my long term goals: illustration.

Over the last 3 1/2 years with Charlotte, we’ve read more books than you can shake a stick at, and re-reading some of my own favorites triggered a new direction for me quite a while ago that I’m finally getting a chance to develop. Here I am, 32 years old, and some of the most important books to me are the books I read as a child; the books my mom & dad read to me. In the Night Kitchen, Where the Wild Things Are, The Wind in the Willows, Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, Berenstain Bears, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and There’s a Train Going by My Window are particularly etched in my memory. I want to create something that lasting and that important.

All of that said, I’m at the very beginning of what will be – if I continue to follow it – a very long road of developing my own illustration skills. To what end, I’m not exactly sure. It’s all about trying things out for now. I’d like to get a handle on a variety of materials so that I can experiment and learn as much as possible. So, I branched out from letterpress & pencil/pen and ink drawing to watercolor. Here’s a little visual chronicle of the last 6 weeks, and there are lots more photos up on Flickr.

cardinalside

mallard

hummingbirdflying

My first three watercolor birds: a cardinal, mallard, and hummingbird.

rwbinprogress1 rwbinprogress2 rwbinprogress3 rwbinprogress4 rwbinprogress5

Red winged blackbird, in progress.

peonies

sunflower

Peony & sunflower drawings and color separations in progress.

The whole process has jump started my energy, as well as my ability to draw and my drawing ideas and techniques. I’m full of new ideas for letterpress pieces, as well as illustrations, animals, and shapes and figures I want to get a better handle on. There will be lots more. I’ll keep updating on Instagram and Facebook and Flickr as I have new work and I’d love to hear feedback. This is all the beginning of a fun new branch for me, and I’m excited to share my work as I go!


Over the River and Through the Woods

I grew up in Nebraska and Iowa, but every other year or so (although it seems like every year in my memory), we would drive to northern New Jersey at Christmastime to visit Grandmother Maggie and Grandfather Bud. I’ve written about Christmas at their house before; it was always magical, without fail. My grandmother embodied


2013 Calendars

From the beginning In school, I only ever studied art because I loved it. Photography, printmaking, ceramics, bookbinding, and drawing were electives; things I loved to do, not things I was required to learn. High school was your standard blur of self-doubt and academic ambition, and when I was at Grinnell I tried to take


Autographs

This summer, my dad shared my Great Grandma Campbell’s 1890s autograph book with me. Jan. 4th, 1895 Dear Edna, The tissues of the life to be / We weave with colors, all our own, / And in the field of destiny, / We reap as we have sown. Ever your friend, Effie Naylor Edna Foster


October 10

October is a big month around here; Charlotte was born on the 2nd, we were married on the 6th, and today, the 10th, marks fifteen years together for Matt and me. October shadows are steep, the light is crisp and bright, the days shortening, and our thriving little family is operating full tilt, as fast