CATS I Know and Love - A Calendar for 2012

Hooray! I finally finished my cat calendar, ready to go for the holiday season. It's a funny, skinny format. The size is 5 1/2" by 17" - fits into lots of unusual places. Hangs by a sturdy metal ring binder loop. Just flip the page to go to the next month. Printed on 110 lb. heavy weight card stock. All my favorite cat friends posed for pictures and I have more waiting in the wings. Wings? Did I say wings? Today I found feathers in the leaves I was raking. Naughty kittys. The back of each month is blank. This is an afterthought, but it's a perfect place to keep a secret diary.

You can see what he's made of; a kitty and a couger all in one.

To spend the year with my CAT FRIENDS just go to 

http://www.cookiefriends.etsy.com where you'll find them on sale.

Bunny Boy Lives

This spotted bunny boy came to me by default—left behind by my daughter along with a crafty mouse who'd had the presence of mind to hide beneath the rabbit and escape being dinner for Royal Python snakes. I don't know how to reach this animal or if that's possible at all. Food is the main thing he responds to. Lots of times I've been giving him away but he's still here. Please observe that it really doesn't seem to matter. The mouse sleeps in the hollow right behind the rabbit's ears, a good eiderdown substitute. I feel as though I need to do a story about this guy and in so doing I'll make profound discoveries. Who knows. I'm waiting for spring when my friend from Lebanon county will loan me a big cage that I can put outside. Then the bunny boy and I can do gardening together. The mouse can stay inside. Knowing he has no loyalty I need to keep him in captivity while I discover the story.

Happy St. Valentine's Day

I lived in Pennsylvania Dutch country (Perkiomenville, PA) during my teenage years
and certainly my CookieFriends art is a reflection of my interest in the history of the German Baker's Art tradition. Lately I've been rediscovering that area. A visit to historic Schaeffersontown, Lebanon County, PA. found carved on a barn a beautiful heart  c. 1758.

Merry Christmas—Santa rides again in gingerbread

 

I've started my cookie baking and promise not to taste too many!

Soft gingerbread is my favorite and hard to resist.

Happy Birthday to me!

September 3rd is my day. I think I was four years old in this picture. I remember the dress—slippery and the smell of the curling iron—singed hair. This is probably a year before kindergarten when I started to draw and paint and never stopped. The kindergarten room was so wonderful. It was huge with enormous tables and big sheets of paper with pots of paints and brushes and clay and glue. Lots of room to spread out. My father liked to tell the story of other "artwork" I did at home when I discovered a hammer and what it could do and had a good time putting dents in the screen door. No little angel was I.

COOKIE Friends

Looking back over all the years I've spent doing illustration I was always trying so hard to develop my own style. But it happened when I least expected—when my daughter was little and we had time to play and make things together. And we loved to make cookies. When I put these characters all together I realized they were the beginning of a new way of working that combined my love of cooking and baking with art and design. Then there's what happens in the oven that creates a bit of magic over which you have little control.

Constructing an Online Presence

It was exciting to post my card shop on Etsy—www.cookiefriends.etsy.com.  I invited people to come and I waited. Pretty soon I had to ask myself, "Does anyone know I'm here?" So I began to read about other sellers' success stories and their advice and I looked for examples of what worked. The Etsy community is a quite active and supportive place. Plenty of help is available and it's a real study.

I realized that I hadn't told a proper story about what I had for sale. So I took this picture to invite a potential customer to take time out, to sit down at the table or desk and have a quiet moment to write a special message to someone. You can compare this with my previous post of the same card entitled, "Look who's appearing on Etsy." How could I have missed the point of creating the background and attitude that I'd expect in my own shopping experience. I'm learning!

An Oldie but Goodie

Some ten plus years ago a good friend of mine who worked for the Free Library of Philadelphia told me there was a competition to create a logo for the Pennsylvania Public Libraries. Because it was for the millennium year it was special and rarely does an artist have complete freedom on a project. I simply decided to show the children who read and was amazed when my idea was chosen. They liked the iconic quality and strength of the art and used it for their website, button pins, posters, tee shirts, canvas bags, cups and a full size banner for the front of the center city branch and lots of other things. Pictured here is the requisite bookmark. The other side is a ruler because the program blended math and reading. This was one of my early Adobe Illustrator creations.

Spring is coming—I hope!

Now that I have a brand new studio with lots of places to store things I'm discovering all the old stuff. It's like another life, a whole different mindset. I'm digging out all the drawings I did before I thought I could do them better on the computer. I miss my colored pencils and wonderful handmade papers and the feel of the surface. One thing I don't miss is the Rapidiograph pen and the french curves I used to outline things. Also, the concept of doing the drawing was so different. It was a complete thought that had a beginning and an end with no endless edits and revisions until you drained all the sap out of it. My drawings were never freehand. But all the designing went on way before the finish and when that came it was the grand finale—over, done, with no second guessing. If it wasn't right you had to do it over. You were committed.

Hummm! Computer generated vs Hand drawn...

Be my valentine had no computer assist. This was from my Atlantic Monthly stipple period when I did a lot of drawings with a Rapidiograph pen. Actually I was thinking the other day that I'd like to do some more. They had an airy ethereal quality without the outline and just the dots. They weren't funny like this one; they tended to be a little spooky and serious, discussing political issues and books. There are some things you want to do on the computer and some things you don't. It's just another tool. Before I got computer happy I remember being at some media expo where an artist was demonstrating his work in Adobe Illustrator on the Mac. But he only developed his sketches electronically because of the wonderful editing facility and then he did the finish by hand. I was very disappointed.

Be My Valentine!

Look who's appearing on Etsy

A Friend of Peter Rabbit?

Please check out my new Etsy Shop at www.cookiefriends.etsy.com. You'll find a collection of greeting cards for all sorts of occasions. Have fun sending them to friends and family.

Watercolor wins out

Disney's Family Fun Magazine

Collage of the mom who makes all the weird and embarrassing food for the family parties, holidays and school events that makes you want to run and hide under the bed.

Sesame Street Magazine Hallowe'en Article: The Count's NUMBER OF THE MONTH 7, seven trick or treaters

These cookies are made from non edible Baker's Clay (dough sculptures). The shadow makes the picture and takes you back to the time when you weren't quite sure if it was fun or scary — real or fake.

Picture Books Reading List

A list of 100 books for young readers, meant to be carried to the library by parent and child. At home it opens up to a large octopus poster to decorate the child's room.

These characters are made of cookie dough, painted with natural food coloring
and are completely delicious to eat, with the exception of the pencils and the "books."

This chubby guy took up the entire oven.