A path near the Atlantic Ocean and Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, Canada.
©Rebecca Peed

(Click on the image to see the painting larger).

Watercolor of a rocky coast line at Prince Edward Island in Canada.

©Rebecca Peed

The Discipline of Daily Sketching

Today, in my attempts to start sketching diligently again, I dragged out some old, dusty college sketchbooks. I find it sometimes helps to look back at older work in order to motivate myself to move forward. It's like I can see what worked and what didn't work in different approaches I've taken in the past.

During a drawing class in college, I had a professor who made us persistently sketch for at least a half hour every day. Though it was sometimes difficult to make time to sketch so often between all the other classes and course work, I ended up being thankful for this discipline (this professor also liked to say that "discipline frees you" which I also love).

I found a style I enjoyed by being consistent with my sketchbook. I was free to explore and experiment on the pages of a sketchbook that no one would be critiquing. These days, I don't have an art professor grading me on the merits of my dedication to my sketchbook; it's up to me to keep plugging away, finding the things that inspire or move me and recording them dutifully in my nonjudgmental sketchbook.

I suppose it's like other tools of creative professions - the private journals or rough drafts of a writer, the hours of unheard practice by a musician - the more you employ it, the greater your potential for growth. I know this isn't always the case for artists. I had another prof in college who never sketched, but is a master painter whose work has hung in the Smithsonian. I guess to each his own. But, for me, looking back and seeing how the sketchbook has worked, I've decided it's time to get back to the art of daily sketching.

*The first sketch was taken from a portrait out of National Geographic and the second sketch was a study of one of Andrew Wyeth's paintings. Both are meant only to show studies in drawing.*

New Children's Illustrations

The Red Umbrella and The Bamboo Snout.
©Rebecca Peed

Studio

Smitten by watercolor (and lots of color) lately.

A Conversation on Color and Gratitude

Spicy, decaying fall leaf: watercolor, colored pencil, ink.

Snippet of a little watercolor sketch.
This bright morning on a brand new week, I'm thankful for: November sunlight. My morning cup of coffee. Fragrant fall leaves. Long, daily walks in this beautiful park near my apartment.


Also today, I find these paintings beautiful and inspiring.

Necessary Delay

After a little bit of a hiatus, I've started to feel ideas percolating again.

Trying to sketch more...
read more...
rest more...
generally, learn how to sustain periods of creativity more.

Stay tuned.

New Work

These are the final three paintings for the project I've been working on with World Hope International. Taken from my reference photos when I traveled to Zambia this summer, the complete series of five images will be used for note cards for WHI.

I've posted the other two before, but I thought I'd include them below to give a good idea of what they look like together as a series:


All images ©Rebecca Peed

Painting on Location

Fresh air and sunshine, a hike back into a trail to find the perfect spot, mosquitoes biting me, keeping an eye out for potential water moccasins at the water's edge, trying to figure out how to get all this into one painting...this is what I did Saturday afternoon. It was all very nice.

Portraiture

Christy
Andrew
Emily
Lucy
Langdon
Tene`
Andrew
Matthew
This is what's been keeping my days full and busy and happy: drawing, drawing, drawing! Faces always intrigue me; I feel I'm getting to know the person as I'm drawing them. These are all done on special Strathmore charcoal paper in "velvet gray" with rich, chalky pastel pencils.

Here's a little plug: these make great gifts, especially around Christmas time, birthdays, and weddings. To get more details please contact me.

Mother and Child

Click on the image to see it larger and brighter.©Rebecca Peed

Studio Updates

©Rebecca Peed

This is a commissioned painting based off of my "Market Day" series that I've been working on for the last couple of weeks.

Also, I've updated my website to include prints that can be purchased directly off of the site through paypal.

Today, I'm hoping to make some good progress on a new painting and likely will post it soon. Tomorrow, it's painting in the park with my art group if the weather holds up!

Zambian Children

©Rebecca Peed
A new painting from my trip to Zambia. Things have been busy in the studio, with working on this painting and a commission back to back, but I was eager to start on the Zambia paintings series while the trip was still fresh in my mind.

Gloom. Now Sun.

Close up of stitched paper birds from the above painting:

The sun is out today, leaving the gloom and gray of the last few days out of sight and out of mind. Try as I might, I can't seem to help but absorb the mood of the weather around me. This is why I moved: for more guaranteed deep, warm rays of happy sunshine. So, walking down tree lined streets of my new city today and feeling the heat and shine that was so kind as to influence a cheerful demeanor in me again, I was feeling especially creative. Add a cup of coffee from a cute neighborhood cafe into that mix, and I'm about as good as I get creatively. After exploring new neighborhood streets a little more on foot, I returned home to my little studio and have been painting most of the day thus far.

I've been feeling the need to experiment a little more with my painting style. Just for fun, not trying to be too perfect, because - after all - isn't creativity born out of play? Above is something I worked on a few weeks ago in that spirit of experimenting. It ended up being a slow process of first putting down the paint, then stitching with white thread around the shapes, then painting over the stitches, then tearing pieces of white paper into bird shapes, then stitching with white thread over the paper to reinforce it in place. I sat with the piece for a while, not sharing it, because I needed to figure out if I liked it. I still don't know if I like it. But, maybe that's not the point. Maybe the point is to keep working. Keep experimenting. Keep playing. Keep pushing forward with our work - rain or shine - while hopefully growth takes place.

Going Back

©Rebecca Peed

As seen by the lapse in time from my last post date, a lot has been going on this month, the most exciting of which was going back to Zambia after over a ten year absence. It was amazing to go back to the country where I grew up! I took lots of photos which will be used as reference for future paintings.

Wednesday's piece

©Rebecca Peed

New Painting

©Rebecca Peed

I desperately need some color therapy in my new, all white-walled home...no time to paint all the walls right now like I eventually want to, so I instead went to work with the lively colors of bright green, yellow, and red in this new painting of summer tomatoes...if I go crazy looking at the bare whiteness in the living room, there may be another similar posting.

A Pause

©Rebecca Peed

A cloaked woman, done in the style of my Old Man, and oh-so-fun to paint. It's kind of an unconventional way of handling oil paint, to dilute the paint with turpentine and make drippy washes and splashes like you would with watercolor. I love painting this way, though...it's a good way to end what has been a much needed and enjoyed artist hiatus.

The definition of hiatus: a pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process.

This has been a really lovely pause for me.

So, four months and thirty-eight paintings later, I am at another pause, gap, sequence, series, process, whatever you want to call it.

Major transitions and overseas traveling will most likely prevent me from updating this blog regularly (which, by the way, I've come to really enjoy) atleast over the summer but, I'm hoping once my life settles down a little, I'll be back. Until then...

Weekend Activities:

Art AND play.
I worked on this painting a bit over the weekend - again, based off a photo a took while I was in Italy. And also had fun learning how to to ride this scooter:
going...
going...
gone!

It was a good weekend and now my head is full of dreaming...Italy, zippy little scooters...

Observing

The sun is streaming through my window and now quickly setting, and these interesting shadows keep forming from my "deadline paper-chain links." I've been interested lately in what light and shadow does to objects in enhancing, distorting, or playing off of them.

Kiwi

Orange and Pink

©Rebecca Peed

Today

There's been the most gorgeous light all day...
bright and cool, reminiscent of crisp fall days...
except I'm happy to say it's eager spring...
with the anticipation of a hopeful summer to come.

Florence

©Rebecca Peed

Comparing

I did this scene of a market day in Zambia a few years ago using watercolor:
And then a few years later tried oil paint with a drippy turpentine wash on the same scene. I've finally been able to get a good photo of that painting to show friends:
©Rebecca Peed

Finally!

Yikes! More than a week since my last post! I feel like a blogger failure :-) Blame it on a bad spring cold that I've had a hard time shaking. But, I'm back now, with this painting I've been working on since early this week. I'm really trying to find my style and what it is I do or don't do best...this is an image born out of that contemplation and experimenting...more experimental paintings to come...for better or for worse!

(click on the image to see it larger).
©Rebecca Peed

Angels

©Rebecca Peed

I loved the sly, mischievous look of sister #1 and the open, curious gaze of sister #2 in the original photo of these girls from Swaziland. I wanted to get those raw expressions across in the painting.

(Click on the image to see it larger).

Illustration Friday - "WRINKLES"

©Rebecca Peed

Reading Pleasure

Feeling a little under the weather, I've had to force myself to take a break from my art. Even though I hate time that's taken away from painting, it's also a perfect excuse to cozy up under a blanket and peruse the pages of some artsy books. One that I love and never get tired of pouring over is Artist to Artist, a book featuring art and interviews with 23 major children's illustrators.
Art and an interview with Petra Mathers:
A self portrait and interview with Chris Van Allsburg from "The Polar Express":
Another book I've enjoyed looking at is the new Picturebook '08, with hundreds of beautiful illustrations being featured. I'm so humbled by all the incredible art talent out there! It's been amazing to work with some of these illustrators and now to do it myself.
This year, I had a page with some of my illustrations published in it (right page):

Paint

Pretty...
Not so pretty painting apron, but I've resolved to wear it since so many of my clothes have gotten the marks of a painter...
About to start a new painting I've been thinking and dreaming about for weeks...
I'll post it soon...

Dragonfly Dance

Your long fingers -
White exposed and bare -
Reach high heavenward
And clutch to new life.

Ready to feel sun and warmth,
You wait for impending growth
While dragonflies dance
With anticipation.

Fly

A quick watercolor sketch and an attempt to get some creativity flowing.

One Part of Home

©Rebecca Peed

Growing up in Africa kinda sticks with a person. Here's another painting based on my memories, photos, and experiences there. To see my other Africa paintings, click here.

Breakfast

©Rebecca Peed

Tilly, the curious bird, especially likes cake for breakfast.

Illustration Friday - "FAIL"

They "fail" to be caged in.
©Rebecca Peed

Home

So, I got carried away. Lost in my world of oil paints. Mmmm...I really do love that world. I know I was supposed to post this new painting this morning, but I had a few last minute "tweaks" to make on it, and "tweaks" led to major changes, and then other mini paintings. The thing is, I was really digging the colors in this painting, and I wanted to do a new painting with some of those same hues for my blog header. Blah, blah, blah, that is the explanation to THAT...

The explanation for THIS...
©Rebecca Peed

A sense of "home." Aaah...that word has been elusive to me for a while.

"Where are you from?" is really a question I don't know how to answer. Usually my response is, "how long do you have to listen?" Grew up in Zambia and Kenya, came back to what was supposed to be "home" (Chicago area) at fifteen, bewildered by this "home," spent some time in the city (Chicago) after going to college in Indiana...just moved from Chicago...onto...???

After years of not being able to pin point where exactly "home" is, I no longer define "home" as a place. These days, it's a feeling. While mostly it's defined as a landmark, your house being the root, to me it's a sense of feeling rooted in yourself. So, where ever life may transplant you, that sense of feeling at home in the world stays with you. That's what I wanted to get across with this piece.

Next

"The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves, they find their own order...the continuous thread of revelation." - Eudora Welty
©Rebecca Peed

Tweaking

I've been busy, busy, busy tweaking and, in some cases, re-designing things entirely. It's been fun! My shop and website have both undergone re-designs. In fact, my shop is now under a new name - check it out if you have a moment. I've been brainstorming like crazy, so more things are in the works up in the old noggin.' But for today, the website and shop makeovers will have to do. I'm trying to make the most of all the hours in the day! (The illustration of a sundial I did for an educational publisher keeps track of all those daytime hours!)

Happy, Inspired, Good Morning

I've been pondering the idea of letting life surprise and delight you - allowing that time in our schedules to try new things, take new risks, and freely move forward, uninhibited, on our path to let whatever comes our way truly amaze us. This morning, I'm happy and inspired to seek that out; and I'm keeping my eyes open to what's around the corner. And, not only what's around the corner, but the gifts that might be along my path now.
©Rebecca Peed
My father is a morning person. Growing up, he had an infamous saying in our household - "It's another GGGGRRREAT day!" He would cheerfully pronounce this as my mother, siblings, and I (not morning people) would stumble out of bed and to the breakfast table.
I happily embrace this saying this morning (after my cup of coffee has done its work, of course). I am excited about what this new day and new week will bring!

More on "Save"

Yesterday's Illustration Friday theme was "Save" and I decided to go with the idea of saving resources/conserving and getting rid of plastic grocery bags.

I'm so into my new, reusable grocery bag, I just had to post it. It's so very cheery!

And, yes, we did buy all that fruit. And, yes, I really LOVE fruit. Besides coffee, it's gotta be my favorite food, plus it's so aesthetically pretty. Grapefruit is actually the current obsession.

Mmmmmm...all the pretty colors.

Illustration Friday: "Save"

©Rebecca Peed

"Save" your resources; ditch the plastic bags.

I am so taken with this charming character, coming back from the farmer's market, shopping with her own market bags. She was born in my Spring painting series and I just love her. There, she was riding away from the market on her bike, with her basket loaded with the flowers she's now inhaling. She's my new muse and will be popping up on this blog every once in a while, no doubt.

Chocolate Shared Between Friends Is Best

©Rebecca Peed
It's one of my best friend's birthday today. Though I can't be with her, as hundreds of miles are between us at this time, I wanted to paint a picture for her. First of all, you must know that at this present moment she is obsessed with pink and brown. Secondly, she and I share a strong appreciation for rich, dark, hot chocolate with cream on top - the more, the better. When we were actually living in the same city, we would share many, many cups of hot chocolate together while we discussed our current inspirations, dramas or ideas.

Motivation

This has inspired me lately.

Illustrated Mail

Call it the artist (or maybe the kid) in me, but I think things would be more interesting if every piece of mail came with some sort of illustration (although I'm not sure what a bill would look like???).
With this thought in mind, and also knowing that news can sometimes be boring, I've decided to start illustrating my art newsletters. For those on the newsletter list, you're getting a sneak peek at what will be delivered either later this afternoon or tomorrow morning. (And if you'd like to sign up for a newsletter, just click on the "email me" link to the right under the bio).

Illustration Friday - "HOMAGE"

©Rebecca Peed
Homage: to a beautiful culture and the one I was raised up in. I lived in Africa for my first fifteen years, and love portraying some of the scenes I grew up seeing.

Keeping the Clouds Away

©Rebecca Peed

Seven Ways to Greet Spring - #7

©Rebecca Peed
The seventh and final painting in this Spring series.

Seven Ways to Greet Spring - #6

©Rebecca Peed
More of the illustrator was coming out in me today. This Spring painting/illustration is what I want to be doing right now - riding my old blue Schwinn from a farmer's market with a basket full of flowers and wearing a red striped scarf, a yellow polka-dotted dress, and red ballet slippers. And maybe sporting a new cropped cut.

Seven Ways to Greet Spring - #5

©Rebecca Peed

Seven Ways to Greet Spring - #4

©Rebecca Peed

Seven Ways to Greet Spring - #3

©Rebecca Peed
One of the first fruits of the season, these berries make me so happy!
In observance of Easter, I won't be posting a painting tomorrow - but will be back at it with daily spring paintings on Monday. Happy Easter!

Illustration Friday -"PET PEEVES"

Closed Minded-ness.
©Rebecca Peed

Seven Ways to Greet Spring - #2

©Rebecca Peed
Spring bulbs! Once, after a particularly dreary Chicago winter, I was so inspired by this light, bright green that I painted an entire bedroom after it...hellooooo gorgeous green!

Seven Ways to Greet Spring - #1

©Rebecca Peed
It's the first day of spring! I've decided to celebrate with seven paintings, one new piece for each day of this first week of spring. All of the paintings will be reflective of this much-anticipated (by me, anyways!) season! Bring on the sun!

Forms of Inspiration

Lately, patterns, designs, and colors have been inspiring me enormously. When I’m at my art desk, playing with all the cut out pieces, seeing what colors or designs merge together, I feel just how Brenda Ueland described when she talked about writing: “...like a child stringing beads in kindergarten, - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.”
It’s fascinating to me how inspiration comes in so many different forms and is unique to each person. We may not know how it affects our art at first; there could be no rhyme or reason to it, but looking back it’s interesting to connect the dots on colors that appear in paintings and songs formed from earlier thoughts.

Wishing you a day full of unlikely inspiration!

Illustration Friday: "Heavy"

©Rebecca Peed
Inspired by the owl I saw in the backyard a few days ago...

On Friendship:

"MY FRIENDS ARE MY ESTATE." - Emily Dickinson
©Rebecca Peed
Been thinkin' about and missin' my friends from Chicago lately!

A Word About Ideas...

I can't keep track of them all. Thus, the wall in front of my art desk looks like this:

I need them in plain sight right in front of me, or I'm afraid they'll all fly away...

Illustration Friday - "GARDEN"

©Rebecca Peed
A lovely garden in a tiny town in Italy. I painted this from a photo I took several years ago when I was there...it makes me want both spring and Italy at the same time!

Bookmark

© Rebecca Peed
Last night I got the scissors, glue, and paper out and a few minutes later found myself lost in rainbow-ish patterns of collages. This little bookmark was one of my results - I had so much fun making it.

Illustration Friday - "LEAP"

© Rebecca Peed
Leaping into unknown waters...

Brand New Website!!!

CHECK IT OUT HERE

Illustration Friday - "MULTIPLE"

MULTIPLE little ladybugs...I'm itchin' for spring!!!

A Creative Quandary

Illustration Friday - "THEORY"

The THEORY of metamorphosis - that we all change and grow...

A Recent Painting...

A painting from a photo of Italy, which - as my friends know - I'm obsessed with.

Illustration Friday - "CHOOSE"

"CHOOSE" to build castles in the sky...
Thoreau said it so well: "If you have built castles in the sky, your work need not be lost; that is where it should be. Now put the foundations under them."

Getting to Work!

Well, it's been one week since I've arrived at my new "artist retreat" as I like to call it :-). I've had fun setting up my studio space, getting my brushes into some smelly oil paints, and starting to make some ideas visual realities! There's nothing quite as inspiring as seeing all the shiny supplies laid out: globs of paint, brushes laid out like pick-up-sticks, and a blank new canvas. Time to work...and play!