You know you’re in the right field of work when even making fliers for your business is fun!

I made this flier to hang and pass out locally about my illustration services. I wanted to make the flier fun and eye-catching—showing people how creative illustration can really be exciting and attention-grabbing. Did I succeed? Only time will tell—but I sure had fun making it—got the chance to flex my hand typography muscles!

What does this flier say to you? I’d love to hear your thoughts, or any experience you have in success or challenges with fliers as advertising.

I just got back a bunch of original drawings from a couple of shows I participated in this Fall, and I’ve decided to share the art love by doing a special FREE SHIPPING SALE on these selected framed originals through December 16! If you ever needed an excuse to give the gift of art, now you’ve got one!

I probably don’t have to tell you that this is a great deal, but this is a GREAT DEAL—you’re getting more bang for your buck, and avoiding the substantial addition of shipping charges on these bulky framed items. Not to mention, these are really some great pieces of artwork, if I may say so myself. Actually, I feel pretty attached to some of them and had a moment where I thought I should not put some of them up for sale, at least hopscotch because I love it so. But perhaps there is one of you out there that would feel the same way? Also, the more I sell, the more art I can make—help me make room for more art!

Look for any items that say FREE SHIPPING in the title in my shop or the framed originals section of my shop.

Here are a few of them, check out my shop for more:

“Goodmorning Sleepeyes”

“Hopscotch”

“Seed”

“Trio”

“Conversation”

“Laundry”

If you’ve had your eye on one of these pieces, now’s the time to snatch it up! My sale ends on December 16—just in time for all of you United Statesers to receive shipments by Christmas. If you’re from outside of the U.S. and would like to receive one of these by a certain holiday, please contact me, and I can see what I can do. Yay! Tell your friends!

Have you ever gotten to a certain point with one of your own annoying habits, when you just decided, “enough—I can’t take it anymore?”

["Shadow Button," week 4, number 61, from my Quit Your Day Job Buttons]

The word is fear, and my frustrating habit is: motivating myself with fear.
I think most of us do this to varying degrees—here are some examples:

“I’d better get this done tonight, or else I’ll just get further behind tomorrow, and then I’ll never get it done.”
“I’d better exercise, or else I’ll feel sluggish and guilty later.”
“I’d better clean the house, or my guests will think I’m a slob.”
“I’d better say the right things in the interview, or else I won’t get the job.”

It’s funny, I noticed in writing these examples that some are very embedded in my brain and therefore sound like realism. How about you?

Do you have any little lines that you recite in your head? The reasons you create to scare yourself into doing things?

Personally, I’m most able to notice when I’m motivating myself with fear by how I feel—when fear is the motivator, I feel a weight in my chest, and start to feel a little sick with panic. My brain gets frantic as I start to think, “I should/must do this, this, and this.”

What is your tell? How do you feel when you give yourself an ultimatum—”I’d better do this, or else?”

The opposite of fear seems to me to be joy, or excitement. What does it feel like to be motivated by joy or excitement—that moment when you think up a wonderful little scheme? For me, it feels like laughing, like a joyful internal laugh, like being a little kid. It’s an expansive feeling of possibility and fun. We all have many examples of being motivated by simple joy:

“Wouldn’t it be so amazing to go on a trip to . . .”
“Ooh, I’d love to have a slice of pizza for lunch today!”
“It would be so great to call my best friend right now.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun to try and make . . .”
“I would love to be a ______ when I grow up!”

All of this thinking got me wondering:
What would it be like to only do things that I feel positively motivated to do?

My first response to this was, “Well, that wouldn’t work—how would I get anything done? I would never pay the bills or wash the dishes. I wouldn’t be motivated to do anything that isn’t fun.” But when I really started thinking about it, isn’t this the answer to creating a fulfilling and exciting life—doing more and more of the things you love and feel joyfully motivated to do?

Before the alarm bells start going off in your head, let me clarify—I’m not suggesting we all quit doing everything that we don’t love doing. What I’m really talking about is letting go of fear, and the process of trying to re-learn how to motivate yourself in a positive way. I’m also talking about living with intention. When I’m being motivated by fear, I often find myself grasping frantically at tasks and goals, and therefore not doing my work with intention—not really putting my focus and full creativity into it. When I’m operating from a place of excitement and joy, I am able to appreciate the process of doing something and really put my positive energy into it.

While it’s true that there are two ways to look at everything—any action can be motivated by fear or joy depending on how you look at it, I think that the best way to get started with this is to begin noticing when you’re feeling one or the other, and try to start acting on the joy, in as many situations as possible.

What would change in your life, if you spent more time living and working from a place of joy and excitement? If you made more choices based on what sounds exciting to you? Would you feel less or more energy and motivation? Would you feel less or more fulfilled?

In the end, what is life about? Is it about getting ahead in any way possible, or enjoying the ride and appreciating every day?

There is a big learning curve with this type of change. To be honest, I have been aware of this tendency in myself to motivate with fear for a long time, but a part of me has still thought that somehow the fear was really motivating me to do things I wouldn’t otherwise do—the fear was keeping me in line.

A life coach I like to listen to, Michael Neill, often talks about this, and he says that the key to changing a behavior is to really understand that it’s hurting you. He compares a hurtful behavior/habit to the act of hitting yourself in the head with a shovel. Obviously, we don’t hit ourselves in the heads with shovels because it hurts. When we can get to that point of understanding with a behavior (worrying, motivating myself with fear, and smoking are like hitting myself in the head with a shovel) then, changing the behavior is simple—you just do it because you know it very blatantly hurts you.

Do you have any habits/behaviors that you continue to do, even though you know (on some level) that they’re hurting you?
Do you have any habits you’ve kicked by realizing that they’re no good for you? How did you make the mental switch?

I’m trying something pretty new today—a poetry podcast! I won’t write too much because I want the podcast to speak for itself, but this is a podcast of me reading and talking about one of my favorite poems, “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver. Also, as I mention in the podcast, here’s the post with the written words of this poem from Kerri at Songs of Light.

OK, so here it goes—a little something to look at first, and then the podcast. Please let me know if you have any troubles listening!

Wild Geese: the podcast:

I wanted to let you all know about a new part of my blog. I am now officially starting to put myself out there as an illustrator, and so have created an Illustration Portfolio to showcase some of my work, and give people an idea of my style.

If you’re looking to add a unique touch of creativity to a project (think books, pamphlets, e-books, event posters, magazines), or would like to have a fun and one-of-a-kind way to promote your business (think business cards, fliers, postcards, and anything else you can dream up), I’d love to talk to you! Check out my portfolio:

You may be wondering, “what is the difference between an artist and an illustrator?” Well, I think that depends a lot on the type of artwork you do and where it’s used. I tend to think of illustration as “art for a particular purpose” (it also kind of blurs with graphic design). The first thing that comes to mind is children’s book illustration, but really, illustration encompasses a whole world of things: technical illustrations (think vacuum cleaner manual), magazine illustrations, posters and promotional materials, the surface of packaging, and the list goes on—basically any drawing that is adding a visual component to something. This is a very non-technical definition—I am kind of new to these distinctions, so this is my own personal working definition.

I have often been told that my particular style works well for illustration—it’s simple, fun, and easy to reproduce. I have also been really gawking at magazine illustrations lately and thinking it would be fun to get a little more into the illustration arena. A lot of artists that I’ve seen, working in contemporary styles similar to mine, are also doing illustration work, and I have started to do that with a few recent projects—most notably some greeting card designs that are currently going through reviews at a greeting card company (more on that in coming months).

I think, especially with my work, art and illustration are really blurred, more than say, with someone who does abstract art. I often create drawings that really illustrate a message, and I find it fun to figure out a unique way to represent something visually. I think it would be fun to bring that creativity into more venues. So, check out my portfolio! If you’ve been following this blog, you will probably recognize most of these illustrations/drawings, but basically I organized some of my best illustrations into some applicable categories.

I just dropped off a whole bunch of art at Nina and Tom, a cute little gift and hand-screen printed clothing shop in downtown Davis, CA (where I live).

Above, you can see a picture of their store—it’s the cutest little shop with so many lovely creative items—often handmade and local. The owners, whose names happen to be Nina and Tom (coincidence?) are a very creative duo. As you can see by their website, they’re more than just a store—they create many wonderful screen printed items themselves and sell them near and far.

I’m so happy to be a part of their creative line-up! You’ll find Blue Bicicletta originals, prints, buttons, cards, and my Eat Well & Slowly Tote Bag too! So, if you’re local, or happen to be in the area, go and check out my work in the flesh!

Hello, I’m here to give you another update on “life as a full-time artist,” a series of posts I’ve been doing about my first months as a full-time artist. You can see the previous posts here.

If I could give this post a sub-subtitle, it would be “ups and downs.” Everybody has ups and downs—it’s just life. Even when you’re doing your dream job, there are still good days and bad days. A couple of weeks ago, I had a pretty low week—worries about whether or not finances were going to work out for the creative shenanigan that is my life right now, were consuming me. I felt a bit like I was dragging around a couple of heavy weights in my heart, as I worried my way into a case of the blues. Talking to my husband, he said these sage words, “Everybody has down days.”

While this phrase did not immediately pull me up into the sunshine, it worked on me, it stayed in the back of my mind. As I continued to work on myself—realize that my worries were not helping me in any way (actually they were hurting me)—I was able to make a little peace with my blues. I ended that week with a little champagne to celebrate all that I have, and many prayers for guidance in figuring out how to navigate things. A few days later, I was on fire with possibility, and last week became a week of great possibilities—some new ventures, a lot of new ideas, and much renewed hope.

Writing this, I begin to wonder what the lesson is, or why I’m sharing this information. I suppose the moral could be what my husband said, “Everybody has down days,” even when they’re doing what they love. Actually, I think it can catch you even more by surprise when you’re doing what you really want to do. You wonder, “why am I not happy? I was supposed to be on cloud nine here!” As I’m learning, there will always be ups and downs, no matter what you do, but the real test is how you deal with them. I’m finding that if you just keep doing your work, the downs will pass, and if you keep asking for guidance from your inner self, the universe, god, whatever larger power you see in life, you will find your way, even if it’s slow. And sometimes it may be slow. But maybe it’s not supposed to be fast? This is something I struggle with often—patience is a virtue that I wish I had more of. From my art desk: I’m wishing you patience, the courage to carry on, and of course, as always, buckets of hope!

Hello! As some of you may know, today is Black Friday—the biggest holiday shopping day of the year in the U.S. As even fewer of you may know, this coming Monday is known as “Cyber Monday,” because everyone goes back to work after a weekend of shopping just to continue their shopping online. Artists and crafters on Etsy are having lots of fun sales all weekend, me included.

I am offering FREE SHIPPING on all of my FRAMED original drawings. This is quite a deal, if I may say so myself, since these items are the bulkiest items to ship (compared to just a single, unframed drawing or print), so if you’ve had your eye on one of my framed originals, now’s the time to grab it up! My free shipping sale is going on through this Monday (from 11/27/09-11/30/09). Check out this section in my shop. Also, you can see this post and this post to see all of the framed originals I have recently mentioned. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Eat Well & Slowly

Value Your Time More Than Your Money

It’s a good thing when you share your spouse’s particular brand of weirdness. The other night at dinner when my husband described to me a giant tumbleweed he saw on his bike ride home and suggested he might like to go pick it up and photograph it, I didn’t think this was weird at all. My main comments were various suggestions on how we could get it home. “We could drive,” I said. “I don’t think it would fit in the car,” he said. “Could we put it on the top?” I questioned. “That might work,” he replied. In the end, we decided to walk.

It was dark by that time, so the actual size of this tumbleweed remained elusive to me until we were upon it. As we walked alongside the large field this tumbleweed was said to inhabit, I began to make out a giant orb. The plan was for Mike to somehow hoist this mass of viney limbs on his back and carry it the 10 minutes back to our house, while I managed the dog. I wish I had had a camera. The sight reminded me of a Diego Rivera painting, with one of those enormous bundles of flowers on someone’s back. I couldn’t help myself from giggling all the way home. Towards the end, the tumbleweed began to catch on too many trees, so Mike began to drag it. What a sight he must have been to innocent bystanders, walking along the side of the main road with an enormous ball of limbs.

We decided, as we discussed how he would photograph it (he wanted to take it out of its context and create kind of a “studio portrait), that even if the photos didn’t work out, it was a really interesting natural sculpture on its own.

It reminded us of Andy Goldsworthy—such a perfect sphere that it almost looks man-made, or perhaps it is what man would try to create in order to imitate the perfection of nature. We plopped it in our front yard, and it nearly took up the whole space. Mike quickly dragged it to the back yard to try and capture it with the black backdrop of night.

Now, when I look out my office window, I see it sitting there, like a giant guffaw from nature. Even more, it reminds me of Mike, and how I love our brand of weirdness, and I hope we just continue to get more joyful in our weirdness as the years go on.

Check out Mike’s Post on the tumbleweed. Also, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my fellow countrymen.

[in case you didn't know, this is me being silly with the tumbleweed in our back yard]

You may remember this post recently about the book I’m working on called Black Hole. Well, I’ve been working on it for the past month or so, and am beginning to accumulate quite a few pages. I’m so excited about it, that I couldn’t resist giving you a little more of it—and bringing you into the world of what I think is best described as an adult fairytale.

This is a picture of most of the pages I have so far, and here is the beginning of the story. Click on the picture to make it a bit larger so you can read the words:

It feels amazing to be working on this book—it is so much of me—the story, the drawings, the individual words—that every time I work on it, the work fills me up. I suppose I could say this about much of my art, but there are some pieces that really run deep. This is one of them. It is like nothing else to be doing work that lives so deep in you. It is an experience that goes beyond any job or career.

I realize that while it would be nice if someone else wanted to look at it, or if I could sell many copies once it is finished, I would make it even if no one else was ever going to see it. I need to make it that much. This is the kind of work I want to always be doing—this is what I want to drive my life—experiences that feel like this.