At the beginning of the New Year, I began my search for a word. Something to focus on for my life and purpose. I was drawing a blank. This was unusual for me. Then it came to me. My focus would be on my line of chickens! This year I was going to draw 500 of them. Why 500? Why not. By the time I finish, I am sure I will find a place for them. I’m already up to 109 and having a jolly good time of it.
I’m still honing my book, The 12 Days of Christmas.
Stay tuned!
Ahhh summer nights. I love night ball games with my grandkids. It’s easy going and fun to watch the kids try their best to win. The kids on each team come from different backgrounds with different stories. Some are sad as the kids have to deal with so many adult issues but at the game, all of that takes a backseat as they cheer each other on. it’s heartwarming to be sure.
It’s good to get out of the studio after a long day of class homework and enjoy summer. It comes with the smell of fresh mowed grass, flowers, fields ready to harvest their hay and more. I think that is why I love summer. Slowly we make our way to late summer and fall. Each season having its own activities to indulge in and also new smells. I love the transition and I savor these days before winter days are upon us.
Early mornings are my favorite. Often I bring my breakfast outside and eat with the birdies! Good morning world! Hello Summer!
“Build it and they will come.” It’s a famous line from the movie, “Field of Dreams”.
In my case, it’s a new area in my home where I can devote myself to writing my stories. Until now, I have found myself scattered around in different places, trying to find the best atmosphere for my work. My art studio, coffee shops, our little travel trailer, the library… but nothing seemed quite right. I would find myself getting distracted.
One day I picked up a magazine called, Where Woman Create. An artist told about her studio set ups, all THREE of them. One studio is in her house, another is out in her backyard and a third is in her basement where she builds her frames for her paintings. My mind went to a room in my house I affectionately call the YaYa room. The closet is full of toys for our grandkids. The sofa bed is ready for when they spend the night. BUT, mostly, the grandkids grab a toy and head for the family room. Basically, it is an unused space until now.
I went to Habitat for Humanity and purchased a door. I set it on top of a file cabinet and another small table and painted it black. “Voila!” a desk! Oh… I did have to paint the walls too. They were green, now gray! I love the peaceful tone. My sister gave me some lamps a couple of years ago. I replaced the shades with these white ones. The whole setting is magical.
I worked all day on a new story. What fun! A new place and a new grace. Keep on creating!
Leslie Ann Clark
leslieaclark.com
Life for the artist is a continual collection of ideas. Those ideas generate new work. It’s a fun process.
Ideas come from so many sources. Books, movies, fabrics, nature, magazines, paintings, dreams and more. Sometimes they simply drop out of the sky into my thoughts. I love good ideas. They are scrumptious morsels to feast on. I have some waiting for me now.
Oh What fun!!! The Art Licensing Show website is up and running today!! You may ask, what is it? Here is the explanation by founder Cherish Flieder.
ArtLicensingShow.com is a permission based, virtual portal where artwork can be reviewed privately by Art Directors who are looking to commercially license artwork. Authorized Art Directors may request to see art from a wide assortment of participating Artists and Licensors and highlight favorite art pieces, all with a single login.
It is an online directory where art licensing companies and professionals in supporting roles can be be listed and found with a simple search by name, keywords, subject and genre.
Lastly, it’s a a social gathering where industry professionals can network and connect with one another in groups, site updates, and via direct messaging to advance their goals.
All of us on the site have been working hard to get our art up and loaded. Today is our big day!
Am I finished? Is an artist ever really finished? There are always more things to do! More drawing, more coloring,
more ideas, more more more!
Do you ever have those days when nothing goes right? When everything you try does not work? That was my day today, accompanied by a doozer of a headache. Photoshop just quit on me. I could not open CS5 or CS6. Finally at the end of the day the Adobe Twitter Support came through! Hooray! It works!!
While I was waiting for support to write me back I was able to begin writing my stories for Burt ad Briley, my new characters. Their conversations made me smile. All’s well that ends well. I will post another picture soon.
Childhood, The Grand Adventure! Kids just wanna have FUN!
There is nothing like a nice cup of steamy hot coffee with cream and conversation with friends. Since all my friends are working or busy, I am having coffee with my other friends. Today it is Toola. … and no, she is not sharing that second cup with me. She likes two cups of coffee at one time. It’s kind of hard to get her to sit down (obviously), but we must love our friends no matter what!! It takes a lot of interesting people to make a world. Enjoy your day!
~ Leslie Ann
What warms your heart on a cold day? What warms your heart when the tides of change come crashing in? What warms your heart when the” no’s” become overwhelming? What warms your heart when the crowd scatters and you are “Home Alone”?
I have a whole list of favorite things I like to look at periodically. These are things that Warm My Heart. I found myself smiling and even laughing. They are things I feel that God has blessed me with OR I often dream of. When I look at my list I see stories! I see people, I see events… and more. Life is so much more than what we see during our day. Life is a tapestry of stories that intertwine and make memories for us. Some are so real we can almost re-live them just recalling them to our memories.
Favorite Things
Today’s Warm Fuzzy came from a friend. She took this wonderful picture of her son sleeping with my Peepsqueak plush. He is so cute! Matthew is on my list!
What are your favorite things? I am sure mine will grow!!
Winter is on the way OUT! I say this as a huge storm is coming into Colorado right NOW!! No, I did not go to the grocery store in freak out mode stocking my cupboards. Instead, I spent a bit of time today digging in my garden resisting the urge to acknowledge the storm at all! ha!
Alas, tonight I will hunker down with my pens and paper and continue to work towards deadlines for up and coming trade shows. That is the good thing about storms! They keep me focused. I wonder how many artists are like me?
I have one problem. I can’t seem to go out to my studio to work. It’s covered with papers, receipts, file folders etc. It is my new book-keeping system in progress. Eeeeek! My friend is helping me set up my Quick Books program. She entered all my checks, deposits etc, and sent me the disk. I bought the program, installed it, imported my files… … then I went to reconcile the two bank statements that my friend did not add and suddenly I am thirty dollars off! What on earth? What could I have done?
So, I did what I do best, I locked the studio door and went in the house. ha! My right brain is not in the mood for numbers! Happy Spring everyone!
Peepsqueak LOVES BEARS! …. and so do I!! I LOVE toys! I love weird toys, stuff animals, special teddy bears, and more. Having three grandsons gives me a great excuse to buy MORE toys! I took a trip to the thrift store just this week to look for action figures! I ran them through the dishwasher and stowed in my big toy trunk. Three more trucks are sitting near the book-case in the “YaYa” room. Its great fun! On Tuesday I played “Superhero”! My youngest grandson loves the stuffies! Including my own little Peeksqueak plush by Merry Makers. If you want to order one, you can go to the website, or call them.
retail orders online at http://www.merrymakersinc.com and retail and/or wholesale orders at 888-989-0454 or via email at merrymakers@merrymakersinc.com
They are a great toy company. I want ALL THEIR TOYS! ha ha!
You can also find Peepsqueak on his Facebook page. I am going to have another book Give-A-Way as soon as the new toy gets here! Peepsqueak and I are so excited! I may also put it on this Word Press site so stay posted!
Place your order online or by calling retail and/or wholesale orders at 888-989-0454 or via email at merrymakers@merrymakersinc.com.
I love flowers!
The weather is teasing me! A warm day, a nice breeze, flowers peeking from the cold wet ground, and then WHAM! A freak snow storm! Such is life in Colorado. Peepsqueak is not worried. As you can see in this picture, he is thrilled to find the first Spring flower.
Do you have any flowers up yet? We only have a few tulips and iris peeking out of the dirt. Flowers are still a few weeks away. I am ready!
I have no idea why I am getting such a kick out of this? This is my website. This little square with the black lines is me! Ha ha!! If you want to see the image you might have to click on it.
For as long as I can remember, I have LOVED toys! To have a toy made from one of my cartoons is my dream come true! It will help the world see my character the way I see him. REAL!! ha ha! This series of plush Peepsqueaks in the pictures above, were the first proto-types that came to my home. Merry Makers is the toy company we worked with. It was so fun to see my little Peepsqueak transform from page to puff! He is such a cute little plush!! Merry Makers did such a good job! You can buy Peepsqueak now if you go to their website. They welcome retail orders online at http://www.merrymakersinc.com and retail and/or wholesale orders at 888-989-0454 or via email at merrymakers@merrymakersinc.com.
Below is the final Peepsqueak. I just love him! Isn’t he cute!!! I brought him to a preschool yesterday and the children loved him and all wanted to pet him…. so they did!!!!
So order your Peepsqueak now! He is waiting to live in your home!!! Don’t forget, the books, “Peepsqueak”, and “Peepsqueak Wants A Friend” are at your bookstore waiting for you too. They would all make great gifts for the kiddies on Easter.
“Welcome to the studio, Dahlia! I am so glad to meet you! Your entrance made me smile! Now let’s get down to business! Tell me about yourself? “.
When I create a new character I have to find out who they really are and what makes them tick! Will they be loud and boisterous? Will they be shy and hold back? Will they run to meet the world or hide behind trees and bushes? It’s great fun to imagine!
Since Dahlia is new, let’s walk this process together. Let’s get a good look at her and ask ourselves some questions.
Here she is, in her great BIGness. As you can see, Dahlia is running! That gives us our first clue. She is ready to meet the world!
(Another little tidbit you can use when creating a character. It is a link to writing a character profile. It can get your wheels turning!)
http://www.squidoo.com/CharacterProfiles
In order to decide WHO Dahlia is, I look into her face. Her eyes are not like our eyes, but expression and body language are quite helpful.
Dahlia is running. Dahlia is laughing. Dalia is carrying a flower. Dahlia is practically leaping off the ground! I can almost hear the ground shaking! So, she is a “ground shaking” happy elephant.
But wait! She has no tusks! That tells me she is a baby elephant. My imagination is taking off now! Dahlia tromps! … but no… I found out that tromp is not a word… (hmmm…it seemed so fitting). So, Dahlia thumps, stomps, tramples and plows through! Thank you dictionary.com! Love all those words!
Looking again at this picture, I see that Dahlia is also clumsy. She trips, stumbles, tumbles, plunges, sprawls and topples. Even so, she is not bothered by falls. She simply rolls over and gets back up to her feet laughing! “What great fun!” she gigglies, “Let’s do it again!”
This tells me that Dahlia does not take herself too seriously. She is playful, but is she smart?
More of her qualities may surface once the other characters in her story emerge. Bring on the monkeys!
Every day I go out my back door, down the walkway to my studio.
It is still winter around these parts, even though severe cold appears to be behind us. In Colorado we KNOW that we could still get 3 feet of snow! .. all the way into April.
Still, in my mind I have been planting flowers now. This flower bed that looks so bare, will be full of plants in around 12 weeks! The grass will be green even before that! I am so excited! I love Spring! I love when the birds get back from their vacation down south! The woodpecker is already pounding on our chimney and I just smile! Its all signs of Spring! Soon I will be working in my studio with my door and windows open. I am READY!!!
2 1/2 years ago I bought my trusty little Apple laptop. The other day I was working on it and up came a window telling me I had about 100 GB of information on it! This memory includes programs that I run, but most of it is ART!! Fabric design, product concepts, children’s books and more. Peepsqueak and his friends, Newton my lamb and his friends, a friendly new elephant and monkey, some babies, some clowns, Lae Dee Bugg, Snofolk, and more! Always more. What great fun it has been to look back at the last 2 1/2 years! It has me wondering just how much art will fill this computer by the end of 2013! I have some ideas right now!!!!
The last few months of preparing for Surtex have been grueling at times. It is amazing to think how sitting at desk is so hard on your body. Today we took some time off for a nice ride through the parks in town. The roses are peaking everywhere. We passed garage sales, people walking dogs, and once in a while the smell of breakfast was in the air. That always makes me smile. Our bicycle built for two was a very good investment in time together many years ago.
After months of prep work, Surtex 2012 is history. It was a great time of meetings, and visiting with other artists. It almost feels like a dream now that it is over. I am filled with ideas and hope for the future!
Here is a picture of Margaret Anastas, my editor at Harper Collins, me, and Annie Stone, Margaret’s assistant. It was so fun sitting at Harper C. and visiting with everyone who worked so hard on Peepsqueak and his promotion. I do love my HC family. They had a nice breakfast for me and we all met in the Harper Collins library. I wish I had a picture of Jeanne Hogle. She was my graphic designer. She escaped the room before I could snap her picture.
After our meeting, I packed up 30 books and headed to the Javitz Center in a doozy of a rainstorm! I LOVED that cab driver for picking me up!!
Messing around with my friends Jane Shasky and Megan Halsey during my Peepsqueak book signing at Surtex. Everyone was in such a good mood!
Here is my teeny tiny room at the Best Western. I was surprised at how small it was, but in the end, it was cozy and I was so glad I stayed there. It was a good retreat after a busy day.
Can’t forget my sweet agent Alicia Dauber. She had everything running smoothly!
Outside my window all the horse drawn carriages were lining up. New York is so full of LIFE!
As amazing as the big city is, it is always nice to come HOME! I had to get my zinnias planted!! Now it is back to work for the next show!
leslieskye.wordpress.com 