I've Moved!

Please visit me at my new blog! www.anniepatterson.typepad.com I won't be updating this one any more...I hope you'll visit me at my new address!!

Sunday

Mi Familia

Illustration Friday~'Alphabets'

'A' is for Arctic Flora...This collage started with a found receipt from 1975, in German, for a book called Arctic Flora. It was going to just be about the plants and lychen and birds I find in my back yard and then the black drops appeared and they could be about the oil that brings development and problems to this part of the world, or it could mean melting ice and warming climate. Acrylic, collage, pencil, and water-soluble pastels on canvas.

Migration Time

Here in the Arctic, the coming and going of different species of birds signals the seasons quickly changing. In the Spring, it is the Snow Buntings returning after a long, almost birdless winter that signals to us that the snow will melt and summer will come. Now these beautiful Greater White Fronted geese, also known as Specklebellys, are suddenly everywhere, signalling the end of summer and beginning of Fall and Winter.They are stopping in large groups to eat before they make the long journey south to Mexico and Texas. The sounds they make are beautiful, if I stand outside I can here them echoing all over the area. This group has been camped outside my house all day, just 20 feet or so from the house. There are alot more of them, they just didn't all fit in the picture!

Hi there

Hello, just a short note to let you know I'm still here. Baby is sick and we're all sleep deprived! I'll be back soon with more art and things to share.

Eye Candy

I made a point of visiting the Paper Source store while I was in Washington...can I tell you how much fun it was to see all that beautiful eye candy in person? I've only shopped through their website before. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! We just dont have stores like this where I live! This photo is of all the papers and stickers I brought home with me. I'm excited to mix them in with collage or make my own cards, etc.

Sea Turtle Fan?

Barrier Island Girl has posted some wonderful pictures of a sea turtle nest hatching, that she was lucky enough to see in person! Check it out here if you are interested in seeing these cute little turtles! Her blog is filled with beautiul photos from Pensacola Beach, Florida. They remind me of what an amazing planet it is we live on.

Wednesday, yay!

Still recuperating from my trip! I got a cold and now Isabelle has it, so we are all a bit worn out.

I have one major change to make on my sketches for the book I'm working on. I had hoped to get it done by last weekend but time has just slipped by! So it is top on the agenda for finishing by next weekend. I'm also currently engrossed in the New Harry Potter book, it is hard to do anything but read, read, read! This snowy owl was behind my house last night, too bad I couldn't zoom in more. I couldn't help think of Harry's owl, Hedwig.

I love the JK Rowling success story, how she wrote parts of the book as a single mother in coffee shops while her daughter was sleeping in the stroller, or 'pram' as they say in England? What an encouraging, inspirational story!

Home Sweet Home

Ahh it is nice to be home! It felt like a month of being away from my daughter, but was only 6 days. I flew from Barrow to Anchorage, then my flight from Anchorage to Seattle was cancelled after waiting for 6 hours for the airline to tell us what the situation was, so I ended up at the Anchorage airport for over 10 hours...AND landing in Anchorage, the captain got on the intercom and told us that there was a 'flap malfunction' so they couldn't land and were going to 'try it again'...well it's things like this that just make me really really not like to fly. We did end up landing but it just about made me faint I was so scared. My dad is a pilot, and I've flown all around with him. So I wasn't always afraid. But since becoming a mother, I have become a scaredy cat, of everything. Also the freeways of Seattle, which I used to navigate with the courage of a superhero now make me nervous even in the slow lane. Anyway, thank goodness I made it back to my little girl again and everything is fine. Although I was travelling for work, I did get to visit with my 90 year old Grandmother and see other family too. We ate bbq dinners on the deck of my uncle's farm and watched the black cows wander around the bright green grassy fields, with the warm soft western washington summer air keeping us comfortable. So those times made the trip worth it. I got to take home a big box of old family photos to scan and then put into photo albums, it is so much fun to look through them. I did a little bit of drawing, the 2 above were airport drawings.

Off to Seattle

Here are some flowers for all of you wonderful bloggers out there! I sure have enjoyed the past couple months since I started this blog, reading your comments is so much fun, and so encouraging. The pretty blue paper in the background is what my etsy order from French artist Anne-Julie came wrapped in. It was too pretty to throw away! I'm off to Seattle in the morning for 1 week. I'll be back next weekend, hopefully with sketches to share. I'm bringing my sketch book and my watercolors, so hopefully I wont get too swept away by all the tempting shopping possibilities. See you soon!

More Beautiful Book Art

I love the artwork of Marie Louise Gay. She uses bits of collage mixed in with her watercolors.

And here is more work from Elisa Klevin who I posted about a couple days ago for her book 'Abuela'. She also uses bits of collage mixed in. So lovely...makes me want to play hookie from work and play in my studio all day. :)

(Insert long sigh of relief here)

Well, they may look like just a bunch of papers taped to a wall, but in fact they're my finished final sketches for the children's book I'm illustrating now. After looking at so many beautiful photos of underwater scenes, coral reefs, turtles, fish, I'm so ready to start painting these puppies-er, turtles. It's a nice feeling to be done with this major step. :) I couldn't have done it without the help of my very patient husband for taking care of our daughter for 4 days while I locked myself in my studio with This American Life, Creative Thursday Podcasts, Neko Case , The Be Good Tanyas, and Lucinda Williams, among others. I should really show you a picture of the chaos that is my studio now, it would probably be more interesting! I better get to cleaning it up. :)

Illustration Friday~'Missing'

Books I Like, etc.

Here are a couple of books I found in Vienna in 2003. Just wanted to share the covers because they are so cute and different. Chiara Carrer of Italy is the illustrator. A couple of her illustrations for Otto Karroto are in the 2001 Bologna Annual. I think she has work in more of the annuals but I know she's in 2001.

I dont have much else to post today, I'm super tired from working all day and being momma until 10 pm when Isabelle fell asleep. Sometimes I wonder how in the world I am going to finish the artwork I've signed up to do...but it always turns out ok, and I do finish and I move on to the next project. Sometimes I envy those artists out there who are single with no kids, with allll the time in the world to make art. I miss those days of painting for 10 hours straight until my fingers ache, only getting up a couple times for absolute necessities. I know in time I will be back to a place where I have more balance in my life, or where the scale is tipped more towards art making than day jobbing. I guess that's what keeps me going.

Summer days...

The cotton grass is in full bloom right now! It is one of my favorite things about summer in the Arctic. Notice Isabelle's layers of clothes, mittens and hat! Yes even though the sun is out, the wind blows and the temps can be 50 degrees and feel cold. Quite different from the rest of the world at this time of year! She is wearing her hats that I bought from the Portland Beanie Company on etsy. I love their hats, this is the 3rd one we've bought. The shop is closed until August 15th but you can see pictures of what she makes here.

Illustration Friday~'Moon'

A Little History

Here is my Danish great grandmother Dagmar, at age 20 in 1915. My grandmother would be born 2 years later. I just love her hat, it's so feminine.

Tuesday

Watercolor with Photoshop.

And these flowers I noticed this morning while walking my dog. They are called Melandrium apetalum.

Watercolor Ladies

Love

My little Moppet looking out the window at 'booww' (birds)... And on a drawing note, it's interesting how clearly you can see the toddler body proportions and how the head is so much larger in comparison to adult bodies. A good thing to remember when drawing wee-ones. You can really see it if you squint your eyes at the image, so you just see the real basic shape.

Some Town in Alaska, A Long Time Ago

Pencil drawing from an old historic photo.

Favorite Books

Here are a couple of my favorite children's books. I just wanted to share the lovely artwork. The first one is Abuela, by Arthur Dorros and illustrated by Elisa Kleven. She uses a lot of collage in her work, and I love all the colors. The second one is Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson and illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke. Her work has always appealed to me, she doesn't seem to get hung up on details and it has a childlike quality to it.

Sketches

I don't have alot of free time to do finished artwork these days, between working a full time job and having a 16 month old at home, it feels like a huge accomplishment to finish a sketch! But having this blog has really inspired me to draw more. I'm glad I finally started one! I was playing around with Photoshop on these sketches. The top one could go along with this week's Illustration Friday theme of 'Discovery' - 'she discovered she was being followed- by a two headed bear!'.

Some Visitors

Both of these birds were on the front porch a while ago. First the white bunting then the other one came along - I will have to look him up and see what kind he is. These pictures were taken at 11 pm, so you can see the midnight sun is shining bright up here at the top of the world!

Saturday Art

Today I spent a couple hours playing. I made this: and this:

and this:

and this:

And I used these:

and these:

and these:

I'm happy:)

Friday Photos

A couple posts ago I showed a picture of the tundra and explained that although it looked brown and plain in the photo, it is rapidly changing and if you look down low you can see a whole little world of miniature plants. Here are some photos. Click for larger version.

This third picture is of the tallest tree that grows this far north.

It is about 1-2 inches high and part of the willow family.

Having grown up in Seattle, I miss trees so much.

Here I have circled a lemming hole. A lemming is a small hamster-like rodent. Isn't it a cute little home, with the flower just outside the door?

And this, well this was a surprise! I was taking pics of the bird on the ground when all of a sudden Mr. Love Bird decided to try his luck.

And this little lovey is Mr. (I think) Snow Bunting bringing a fresh mosquito to the babies that are chirping in the nest box outside my kitchen window. I tried getting a picture of their little heads but it didnt turn out. Hopefully I can get some pics when they fledge and are hopping around before flying south.

Conversation with a Bird

Sketch Evolution

I added more to my sketch from a couple weeks ago. I wondered for a few days what could she be walking away from? Aha! the hooka-smoking caterpillar! And is that the white rabbit hopping in front of her? We'll see when/if I turn this into a painting!

Tuesday musings

Here is an experimental painting from a few months ago. It is acrylic and digital. I was happy with the colors and the loose style. Today I received in the mail one of my favorite summer treats: The Communication Arts Illustration Annual! AND the new issue of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine. I have lots of fun reading to do! The CA cover is really scary, I can see the beauty in the artist's technique but it is really gruesome. I won't post a pic but you can see it here. Cloth Paper Scissors is inspiring as ever, and I discovered the work of Juju Vail, who makes some really cool altered sketchbooks and collage art.

And here is one of my favorite paintings, by the artist Claire Fejes.She passed away years ago but her daughter still runs her gallery in Fairbanks, Alaska. The colors she uses are georgeous.

Long Weekend

It's been a heavenly three day weekend for me. Monday was

a local holiday, and we have the 4th of July off too. Yay!

Although here we can't enjoy fireworks because it is daylight 24 hours a day right now.

I am almost finished with my snowflake(!) and I did some procrastinating and made this sea inspired, fiber, bead, found-things wall hanging. The shell and sticks that I shaped into a circle came from the beach here, I've had them for years waiting for inspiration to hit. The green lichen like plant is from the tundra. It sort of resembles the tangled clumps of ocean stuff that wash up on the beach, but I like it anyway... :)

Oceans and Mermaids

I love the ocean, everything about it. It's beautiful colors, it's mysteries, it brings gifts to the shore with each wave's roll. Even the Arctic Ocean in summer is wonderful. Shells and beach glass are two of my very favorite things to collect. One night I was lucky enough to find myself on a beach near Venice, Italy, and the shore was covered with perfect, beautiful shells. I couldn't understand how they were all still there, after a day of sun bathers and swimmers you'd think everyone would have picked them up, such treasures. But I guess they must be so common to the locals that they just leave them. I made it home with a handful and still have them. And with my love of all things ocean, comes a love of mermaid lore. Here are three different artist's versions of mermaids that I wanted to share. Aren't they wonderful?

This illustration is from the Lisbeth Zwerger version of The Little Mermaid. She is my all time, unsurpassed, very favorite illustrator. Her work is so amazing I could cry. And this lovely version of The Little Mermaid is by another wonderful artist, Sulamith Wulfing (1901-1989). This image is titled 'But Only a Mermaid Lying Fast Asleep' by Jessie Marion King(1875-1945). The book I found it in is a wonderful collection of mermaid images called Mermaids Nymphs of the Sea, Aurum Press.

Sketchbook

Sketchbook

Pictures

Isabelle's Grandma sent her this beautiful little easel, we just got it today. This photo was taken just before she decided to try and eat the chalk. :) Victor, Isabelle and Nuq, in our 'backyard'. The tundra is still brown from a distance but up close there are many little green stems and flowers coming out. It will soon turn green and just as quickly it will turn red and brown again. The Arctic summer is very short but alot happens, with the sun shining 24 hours a day. I'll post some more pictures of the strange little plants that grow here. You have to get down close to see, it is like a miniature forest garden. Last year there was a polar bear running along the hill back where you can see the snow in these pics. I took these pictures from our window. Here's a corner of my studio. My trusty table and projector have been with me for about 10 years, since art school. The projector has had the same light bulb in it the whole time. I'm not sure how it keeps on going. I packed them into my Subaru and drove from Seattle to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska where the car was put on a barge and shipped to Barrow where I live now. We have no road access and everything comes in by plane, or by barge in the summer. You can sort of see my cards from boygirlparty and a bookmark from Anne-Julie. There's also a Carl Larsson bookmark, he is one of my all time faves. And the paint color chip folders I picked up at Home Depot. The colors are so inspiring I had to hang them on the wall. Well goodnight, until tomorrow.

Terrier Dream

Who doesn't love a sleeping terrier?

Acrylic and pencil on 4 x 4 inch gessoboard.

A Little Painting

This is Esmé Rabbit, she appeared on my canvas today!

Acrylic on 4x4 inch gessoboard.

Sketches

I'm so happy it's the weekend! I plan on working on the Turtle book sketches, and on my snowflake. I ordered paper storage boxes and a file holder, along with some pretty white hanging files from The Container Store, and some Cavallini folders from Flax Art. They all arrived today and I'm excited to get all my paper in order. Right now my art papers are in drawers that Isabelle loves to open and empty, so I'm thinking these boxes and files up on shelves will be the solution to saving my paper collection.

Library Mural

This is a very small picture (click to enlarge it) of a very large painting I finished last October for the local library's children's room. The actual painting is 12 feet long x 5 feet tall. It took about 3 months to finish, because I have a day job and a baby at home. The mural depicts children of the circumpolar North, walking together. From left to right: Chukchi boy (Siberia) Yakut boy (Siberia) Nenet girl (Siberia) Greenland Girl, Sami Girl (Norway) , Inupiat girls on bear(Alaska) and Inuit boy (Canada).

The Blue Box

I painted this box for my neighbor who is moving away this summer.

She is 11 years old and a really cool kid. She speaks English and Russian fluently. She was excited about the box and will use it for jewelry! The fish and turtle are collaged on with origami paper. There is glitter here and there but it doesn't show up well in these pics.

I got comments back from the Art Director on my initial sketches for

the book I'm illustrating now- I was happy that for the most part

everything is working, with only a few minor suggestions.

That feels good!

I have some ideas for my Robert's Snow snowflake, and hope to get that finished in the next 3 weeks. I'm really excited to be a part of it this year,as I've been a fan for the past few years!

Isabelle is sleeping now, I should go and get some drawing done. I've been dying to draw all day but when I get home from work I'm just spending time with her until she goes to sleep. So, off I go!