Higher

My husband's first love was the little girl he would meet for a swing after Captain Kangaroo. Here's to the happiness of swings, friends, summer, and free time.

1997 NYC Times Square Mother and Daughter Braving a Storm

If only there were blogs in '97 when my husband and I painted and wrote about Times Square for a year. Although, it is fun to blog about it now.

1997 NYC Times Square 42nd Street Subway Entrance

NYC is the place for such highlights and shadows.

1995 Me with my Head Shaved

My senior year at Parsons I shaved my head in reaction to being dumped by someone who loved my long hair (curious behavior, I know). I didn't shave my head in NYC where I was living. I went "home" to RI and had my Dad's barber, Mario, do it.

It physically pained Mario to shave my head and he gave me every chance to change my mind. Slowly, he cut my long hair shorter and shorter, asking at every stage if "maybe this was enough." I finally insisted he get out the clippers and do the thing.

Much to my surprise my mom and nonnie liked me with a shaved head, they said it reminded them of when I was a baby. The lesson: when you do something in anger, you look like a baby. The most enjoyable thing about having no hair was looking the same when going to bed, waking up, and after showering.

1997 Times Square Man Before a Storm

Here is another from my 1997 Times Square series. This was a stormy night, I had an old-fashioned camera with film and had terrible fear of people. I would quickly snap all these photos while trying to be invisible and later develop them to paint from.

1997 Times Square Man Resting in the Shade

This is the second painting I ever sold, to my creative director at Travel and Leisure, who I loved working for.

I got news today, that literacyhead.com will use a piece that I painted with my daughter in an upcoming issue of their magazine to illustrate the term 'properly."

I think it's a little funny because in the painting we are playing some serious kick ball in the house, which is not quite proper.

1997 Me in Blue

I painted this in 15 minutes while living in our apartment on Bergen Street in Brooklyn. As I dashed off to work I almost tore it to pieces because I was so frustrated by the end result. Luckily, I simply tossed it on the floor. When Harold got home he found it on the floor and called me at work to tell me it was my best work yet. Later a work colleague offered to buy it and it was my first sale. A note to artists, it's sometimes better to judge one's work after some time has passed. It's acrylic paint on blue paper.

1998 Harold in Quebec City

I was able to rescue zip disks full of old paintings this week, thanks to a very organized and generous friend. I think I'll post some of them on the blog.

Sometimes I forget that my art career didn't start with this blog. But thanks to it, maybe someday it will be an accurate archive of all my work.

Driving with Daddy in His Red Truck by the Sea

My goal this week: start sketching at least one spread based on the new Super Baby story board. I chose to start at the end of the book and with the big picture. As I went over the story board, I took notes on objects to research ie: old trucks, cool houses, basketball courts, the coast from above. For this sketch I mostly did old truck research. Luckily living in Austin I found examples everywhere. My daughter and I found an old blue Chevrolet and she was quite upset to see me color my truck red. The other elements are from my mind. The coast is a mix of Matunuck and and Narragansett Rhode Island. The hill is more from the west coast where my husband is from. Looks like the book will be set in the land of Texarhodefornia.

On a news note. The Bill Walsh book Hello Week that I illustrated and first published images of here in 2007, is going to become a children's book app. thanks to Touchoo Publishing. I designed it with tiny app size images years ago before apps. Psychic?

My Animal Kingdom

I'm working on my Super Baby children's book. And I am in the process of developing the characters and the scenery. I feel a bit like a director. These are some of the characters in my life that I know best.

Reinventing the Wheel

The Life of a Watermelon

The only gardening experience I had growing up had to do with marigolds. It was sometimes my job to collect the dead flowers for the following years planting. My husband had more experience than that and thanks to him and my daughter we have a little garden going these past few years in Austin. My daughter's favorite food is watermelon, so we planted some seeds and have crossed our fingers. She saw this illustration and said, "Mama, I like your watermelon painting."

Rainbow Wish

It has been said that your body actually gets sleepy when you say you are tired. That said, I'd like to take this opportunity tell you all how awake and youthful I feel.

Golfing with Friends

My husband and I love to surf together. We even took our surf boards to Hawaii with us when we married in 2000. I think its one of the reasons he agreed to date me (long story), I told him I was going surfing and that I could teach him. Austin has us so far from the ocean that we needed to find another outlet for the competitive sports component of our relationship. Enter golf! We are both close to terrible, and more importantly pretty equal. My dad got me golf lessons when I was a kid, after I gave up my pipe dream of becoming an olympic gymnast (even longer story). I have a great swing when I manage to hit the ball. My husband beat me last time we golfed, he watched some movies on line and totally improved his swing. We are too poor and occupied with our daughter to golf often, but if we can ever get out their regular don't you know I'm buying some cool golf outfit.

Texas Oil Derrick

This illustration just ran in Alcalde Magazine. I created it using illustrator and photoshop. My art director at UT Austin,Kevin Rathge, and I collaborated on the vision.

I had to work for many years as a lone designer, I don't recommend it. If you really want to grow as an artist it is best to have other artists by your side.

Chicago, LA, Scotland, South Africa, and Heaven

Someone contacted me through Daily Painters Gallery and asked me to do a personal "Visiting family at Christmas Time" illustration. I posted the original illustration in December based loosely on me and my family. I really enjoyed the process of learning where she and her family reside. Any mini geography lesson gets me longing to travel.

At a Table with Friends

I somehow landed at the head of a table and felt a little strange. This illustration is all of us as squares at our table, the colors are based loosely on our shirt colors.

Lucky 13

Here is another of my silly abstract illustrations. I think they would make beautiful large scale paintings. This one was done on the 13th of this month. I was born on Friday the 13th, and married on the 13th. Let's just say I'm a fan of the number. I had to do some historical research recently for a logo design and learned that our country also has close ties with the number 13. The Great Seal of the United States depicts an eagle with a bundle of 13 arrows in its left talon, (referring to the 13 original states), and an olive branch in its right talon.

Snowman in the Moon—Illustration 3

Snowman in the Moon—Illustration 2