Roscoe, Rosie and Max came to life this weekend

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and are ready for the holiday season. Since I do not venture out to shop on Black Friday....even though I want a Wii....I thought I would sew on my woodland plushes and watch the SVU marathon on USA. Three more animals are ready for outfits.

Roscoe

Rosie...again a rabbit with glasses

Max

Max 

Renegade Craft packed car

If you all remember back in September I told you all about my trip to the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago with my friend Joyce. Joyce finally sent me the pics of the packed car with our Renegade purchases, my IKEA frames and Joyce’s flat files.

I Spy A Red Car

I just got this job done for Scholastic yesterday. It is a poster that will be hung in classrooms during Valentine’s Day 2011. You are getting a sneak preview! 
All of the trinkets and treasures in this piece of artwork I found in my stashes down in my basement...I did not have to buy a single item...scary thought huh one woman should have so much. (It certainly is to Gary)
One would think I was a hoarder but it is all organized in ziplock bags....dogs in one bag, cakes and sweets in another bag and so on and so on. I do not think hoarders feel the compulsion to organize their stuff...maybe instead I am OCD. But at least I can find my stuff in a day if I need it.
So here is the words that go in the middle of the heart. You need to find the following:
A pink star, a red car
A red clock, a pink sock
A pink bear, a red chair
A red hen, a pink pen
A pink book, a red hook
A red string, a pink ring
I trust you all will be able to find the stuff...this game is for  a 6-7 year old child.
As always the photography for this piece was shot by my trusty and immensely talented photographer, Curt Dennison. Here is his link... hire him for a job wwwcurtsdennisonphotography.com...he shoots great corn.

I am on Print and Pattern blogspot today

The Print and Pattern blog is my favorite blog....it is so wonderfully visual, showing and reviewing all kinds of gift, stationary, and home products especially those products which feature patterns on them. I love pattern, most any kind of pattern...a product is always better with a pattern on it.

When I started working as a licensed artist I knew I wanted my artwork to be featured on Print and Pattern’s blg...it was a real fantasy for me. And then one day my husband called me down to his studio, he had something to show me. And there on a Friday at the top of the blog post on Print and Pattern was my artwork. Dreams do come true I thought as I sat there with tears in my eyes.

Since then I have been on Print and Pattern again last May before the Surtex show in NYC. And to further sweeten the cake, I was one of the artists picked to be in the Print and Pattern book which came out earlier this year. 

Today my Love Crush bird art made it onto the blog. Today I feel will be a good day. You have to celebrate the little victories in life.

Print and Pattern www.printandpattern.blogspot.com

My Woodland Animal sketches are coming alive

Just thought I would give you an update on the woodland animals I showed you sketches of two weeks ago. Three of them are sewn together...now they just need their outfits. I am thinking they are turning out so CUTE! They are Phoebe the bear, Madeline the fox and Scamp the squirrel. How do I pick the names? I just look at them and use whatever pops in my head.

Love Crush Art on my Etsy site

Last Valentine’s Day I participated in a fundraiser “Love Crush”sponsored by the St. Louis Chapter of the AIGA. About 30 artists were asked to submit a piece of artwork to be auctioned off in a silent auction with benefits going to the American Heart Fund. My piece got one of the highest bids.

I am now offering a print of the artwork for sale on my Etsy site www.lindasolovic.etsy.com

Sketchbook Time

New feature on my blog...sketchbook pages. 
Whenever I attend any kind of meeting or lecture I always bring along my sketchbook. I listen better when I am doodling. Sketching ideas keeps me awake. I always bring my sketchbook  to faculty meetings. These meetings occur in Steinberg Auditorium....the same auditoriun where I had Art History 101 when I went to school at Wash U long ago...I always fell asleep during class....class was at 8AM and the seats were so comfy.
A word about sketchbooks first. When I was a student at Wash U all the professors wanted us to keep sketchbooks. I hated keeping a sketchbook. I hated sitting in grocery stores sketching people buying tomatos. I thought a sketchbook needed to be filled with observation drawings. Guess what... when I started teaching I learned a sketchbook could be anything I wanted it to be. So I fill mine with ideas for products and plushes, I work out handmade lettering for my artwork and I love to just doodle flowers and animals.
Here are a series of sketches I did last week when I attended a class on marketing. I have been wanting to create a new line of plushes to sew at night when I watch TV. Here are the sketches. I then cleaned up my sketches so I could begin to make patterns for the plushes. Look back because I will be posting the plushes as I work on them.

My artwork is in two openings tonight in StL

Tonight is a big night for me....I am going to be in two openings.
The first opening is at the Mad Art Gallery in Soulard. My former student, now great buddy Dan Zettwoch, (www.danzettwoch.com) puts together a show he calls Famous Fiction. Each artist Dan ask to submit needs to create two images within the theme Dan picks for the show. This year the theme was Famous Fictional characters, one from a verse and one from a song. 
I told my daughter Anna about the theme for this year and she said you have to do Little Bunny Foo Foo...it was one of her favorite songs when she was young....I used to sing it all the time in the car with her when I drove her back and forth to school. Okay, so I had the song character picked now I needed the verse character. I knew what I really wanted to do was Here Comes Peter Cottontail but it was another song. But Peter Cottontail was perfect..both pieces would then contain rabbits and Here Comes Peter Cottontail was the song I sung with my Dad whenever we drove around in the car. It didn’t matter what time of the year it was....we sang Here Comes Peter Cottontail at Christmas. I asked Dan if Little Bunny Foo Foo could be my verse and he said yes.
Here is my artwork

I made the artwork reflect Anna’s and my personalities and taste....Little Bunny Foo Foo fits Anna...the verse is a little edgy and punny....humor she gets from her Dad, it has her colors black, red, blue purple.
Peter Cottontail is sweet and cute...I would love to pretend that I am above sappiness but no matter what I do, cuteness follows me. I have decided it is my cross to bear that I feel the need to fill the world with cuteness and whimsy.  The color palette is Linda to a T and I adore bunnies in glasses.
Here is the info on the Mad Art Show.
Opening 7-11

I am also in the Design Faculty Show at the Des Lee Gallery on Washington Street. This year the faculty show for WU faculty has been split into two shows....one for the design faculty and one for the studio faculty. The opening is tonight from 6-8. The departments featured in the show are my department, Communication Design, and Fashion Design. Heather Corcoran and John Hendrix have structured the show so you can learn about design while you view the show.

ATC cards

During the summer I had an intern, Kristen Powers, who worked for Gary and me. She was a fabulous intern, so fun to be with everyday. We did a lot of talking while we worked in my office. In fact sometimes we did more talking than we did working. Kristen is amazing at working very small. I am in the process of making a boatload of pattern designs so I can print out those patterns and use them in my cut paper illustrations. I will not longer need to worry about having any copyrighted paper in my artwork.


Since Kristen is so amazing working small she taught me how to crave erasers so I could make patterns using my own stamps. I was not the greatest at carving out the small details....I like to work fast and tiny details evade those of use who work fast.... so what we ended up doing was that I would work out designs in B&W on paper and then Kristen would carve them. We made a great team.


Kristen is working on a book about ATC cards and asked me to be in an ATC trade with 12 other women artists. I had never done an ATC trade but for Kristen I would do a series. Those of you who know me know I am great working with client’s directions but when I am doing artwork that are personal I tend to fudge the rules. So my ATC cards are not all the same size and they had frames around the artwork.


Here are my cards:

Kristen is a wonderful artist and is going to school at Maryville University.


You can see her artwork at her website: www.kristenpowersart.com 

and her Etsy site www.etsy.com/shop/kristenpowersink

Kristen and me