The Pimento Files

Juliet Darken's Illustrated Epistolary Short Story (a work-in-progress)

This story tells of a young girl’s transition into a new adopted family after some traumatic events. To help her cope, an imaginary friend named Gooberhunter acts as her guide, leaving her letters that address her hopes and fears.

As stated, this is a work in progress because there is more that I’d like to do with it. Aside from editing and adding to the written part of the story, I would like (when time permits) to create some more illustrations for it that would show more of the story that is not explicitly told in Gooberhunter’s letters.

1.Dearest Margo,
He will not hurt you anymore. And through my influence a new family has found you. Your new mother is a good one – not a stripe of violence in her coloring. I can tell she loves you already. Don’t be confused by blood – the mother you knew will always be that, but this one is too, and better able to be. When you go to bed tonight, listen to the crickets. They will help you sleep.

Love, Gooberhunter

2.Margo,
You must try to listen to your mother more. She has many things to teach you and only makes you do things out of love. Remember when you dreamed I’d gone from you and you woke her? How she helped you make a potion to bring me back? She did not doubt you. She knew the importance of the potion. Please try to remember her feelings. She cries sometimes when you can’t see. Meanness is hard on her.

I was in the woods today and had a talk with a nuthatch. Talking to nuthatches is quite difficult because they are so focused on foraging that their responses do not often make much sense. When he stopped paying attention to me completely I just watched him for a while. He repeated the same action over and over – descending the tree branch headfirst then taking flight to land on the underside of a higher branch and descending again, combing the bark for boring insects. The tree stretched her limbs, shook her leaves out, and radiated contentment. The woods are a good place to be.

Sweet dreams tonight
Love, Gooberhunter


3.Dear Margo,
I am happy to see you taking so much interest in drawing and painting. Keep doing this – you are doing exactly what you’re meant to do.

I think you should apologize to the boy on your bus. Alex. That was his favorite book, one of the things he values highest, and you threw it out the window onto the side of a road. You may as well have burned it because he’ll never get it back. I understand how angry you were at him for asking to peek up your skirt, but he asked out of innocence and he has learned his lesson now. He is not a bad person and neither are you. It would be good for you to be friends. Show him your sweet side.

Love, Gooberhunter

4.My Margo,
A sad thing will happen soon. It is time for it to happen and it’s not because of anything you did or did not do. Know that you are loved and that I will be with you. Your new family will help you. I am sorry because I know it will hurt you, pretty girl, but even I cannot prevent it.

Love, Gooberhunter

5.Margo,
It’s alright to let go of your sadness. Your mother has gone from you, but she told me to tell you she loves you and is proud of her life because of you. I don’t think I should have to tell you this – you should already know. So please burn it onto your memory. She doesn’t want you to be sad and if you stop being sad it doesn’t mean that you’ve forgotten her. Sometimes it’s good to just feel earth under your feet. Walk around barefoot. Think of concrete beautiful things: an elephant’s great flat ear, pollen stuck to the legs of bees, wild growing blueberries, pale birch bark, the star shape inside an apple.

Love, Gooberhunter

6.Dear Margo,
When I was young I used to have nightmares too. I had the same frightening dream several times. It started out with my sister and me having a tea party on the carpet of our bedroom. We’d laugh and pour orange soda in the porcelain cups, but the part of me that was outside the dream was scared because I knew what was about to happen. Always the same – the sun suddenly went down, a wind picked up, and it started storming. There’d be a flash of lightning that illuminated a figure at the window – a slobbering rabid wolf with deer antlers. It snarled and charged the window. We knew it wanted to eat us and we could see the glass beginning to break. I always woke up when it finally burst through the window. I’m not telling you this to scare you – I just wanted to show you that everyone has frightening dreams. You’re not weird or broken. Try to see what your dream is showing you about yourself.

Your parents are getting you a bike for your birthday. Don’t let on that you know. They like to surprise you.

Love, Gooberhunter

7.Dear Margo,
There will be a meteor shower tonight that you can see if you go to the roof of your house – you’ll have to be above the treetops. Ask your mother to take you up. You’ll be amazed. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Hold your mother’s hand. She will like that. It’s so easy to make her happy. You think she’s always mad at you, but you’re not really paying attention. Sometimes she has to be tough with you – don’t hold it against her.

A spider that lives in your room asked me about you today. She wanted to know if she’d built her house in a safe place or if you were likely to squish her. I said I’d ask you not to. Will you let her be? She only wants to do her small work in a corner. She’ll eat the other bugs that come in and she promises not to crawl on you.

Love, Gooberhunter

8.Happy Birthday my Margo,
I would like to be you today just for the pleasure of eating cake. Even though yours is called a Devil’s Food cake, chocolate is definitely not a food for devils. Personally I’d like shortcake with whipped cream and fresh strawberries. Enjoy!

Love, Gooberhunter

9.Dear Margo,
You are too much in your head. I tell you about the fascinating small things in the world and still you’re not paying attention. I told you, he will not – cannot – hurt you anymore, and you must trust me. Become an observer – talk about what you see. If you look long enough you’ll see things that others don’t have the privilege of seeing. Listen too. Have you ever heard a moth’s wings beating the air? Or watched a candle burn? Or looked at the shapes made by wood grain?  Try these things, and do not dwell on the voices in your mind that say such hurtful things.

Love, Gooberhunter

10.Margo,
You’re shy. And you’re afraid to speak up, but you should tell your teacher that you want to join the musical strings program. Try Cello. I know you want to, and even though you were supposed to have enrolled by Tuesday, they will still let you join. Don’t think that you can’t do it.

Love, Gooberhunter

11.Dear, Dear, Margo,
You have not been thinking of me much lately. Don’t worry – I’m not sad, I’m proud of you. I’ve been traveling. I love this earth so much – everything fits together and everything grows! Have you been looking like I told you to? Is the shape of a leaf not amazing?

Love, Gooberhunter

12.Dearest Margo,
You’ve lost so many teeth! Congratulations. You’re right, there is no tooth fairy. It is your mother who leaves the dimes beneath your pillow. But it’s nice that you humor her.

You’re growing up and you don’t need me anymore. I’ve been called to keep another girl company. You can always talk to me, but I won’t be upset if you don’t – I can tell that your attachment to me is already fading. It’s okay if you forget me.

Pay attention. Be kind. Attempt to understand as much as you can. Don’t stop learning. I will see you in your dreams if you look for me in the woods when the moon is like a smiling mouth.

Love, Gooberhunter

As Juliet’s agent, I am excited that she is experimenting with storytelling. This seems to me a very natural progression of her thoughtful and engaging commercial illustrations.  You can see more of that work at her online portfolio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

True Up | All Fabric, All the Time » Blog Archive » Meet the Sponsors / Giveaway: Laura Coyle of Reneepearson.com

Last week Kim was The Expert on Reneepearson.com‘s Meet the Expert series, where Atlanta-based designer and instructor (and jazz vocalist!) Laura Coyle gave her a warm welcome and asked some questions. This week, the tables are turned!

Laura is an extremely talented freelance designer whose client list will make your head spin. So I asked her here to talk about her work, sing the praises of Adobe Illustrator, and tell you about the online classes she teaches.

You can read the rest of the interview here via www.trueup.net

Stanislawa Kodman combines words and images to create her unique illustrations.

Stanislawa Kodman was commissioned to illustrate the brain for two different clients telling two different stories. What made these particularly interesting given the subject was the chance for a quick peek inside this artist’s brain to see how her choice of using a fluid line combined with hand-rendered type was a perfect solution for interpreting the ideas expressed in these articles.

This was for the Emory University Health Magazine about “The Myth of Rational Thinking” where a study in neuroeconomics (a blending of neuroscience, economics, and psychology) questioned the idea that people make rational decisions and then posited that they do not know they are irrational. You might even find this article quite interesting!

Stanislawa’s second brain illustration was for Cedars-Sinai's Catalyst magazine. This time, the subject was the Brain Trust of Cedars-Sinai whose members support the work of Dr. Black and his team in their research for cures of brain diseases.

For some time now, Stanislawa has been combining words and images as a way of illustrating complex ideas. In addition to the human brain, she has also created portraits of people and animals.  This child was one of three portraits for an assignment for CARE which focused on creating resources for families and communities.

If you would like to see the other CARE portraits and additional figurative type-driven illustrations, click here to go to Stanislawa's new blog, Leaves, Wings, & Other Such Things. And read her most recent post, "human type".

If you’d like to see even more of her illustrations especially without words, go here.

 

 

 

Digital artist Judy Reed Silver puts down her mouse and picks up a paintbrush.

Like many art student graduates, Judy began her career juggling fine art, graphic design, and illustration. She was having gallery shows interspersed with design assignments creating stationery, working on campaigns for corporate clients and illustrating for magazines like Bon Appetit.




Very soon, Judy realized that the commercial side was taking up more and more of her time. With the advances of digital software, Judy took advantage of all the wonderful features that enabled her to combine her design and imagery into unique collage illustrations. Her interest in fashion and textiles even inspired her use of patterns within her art.

The new frontier of retail on the Internet also provided opportunities for Judy to see her designs translated into fabric, wallpaper, shoes, and totes.

But, even with all the wonderful new tools and opportunities, Judy has been itching to get back to the tactile nature of working with paint on canvas. For the past year, Judy has been staring at three blank 3 foot square canvases leaning against a wall in her studio. Recently inspired by some architectural drawings she admired coupled with a blank wall in her living room that needed some art, Judy finally pulled out her brushes and paints. She created three images digitally which she then translated onto the canvases.

These are the three finished paintings.

And here is the digital version.  Click to see the animated version.

Now that Judy got that impulse scratched, she can get back to her commercial interests.

If you’d like to see more of Judy’s work, click here and here.

 

 

 

Juliet Darken – inspired by literature and film

I love reading books and watching movies. Meals without company are spent leaning over an open book or sitting cross-legged with a plate in my lap in front of a laptop or TV screen. There are a few books and films that have particularly inspired and haunted me. Sometimes they have affected me so greatly that I decide to make my own mock-version of a cover or poster for them. Here are some of the books and movies that have moved me. I will show you my images next to a published cover or poster for each film or book. Because there are several versions of each published book cover, I’ve chosen the ones that are on the covers of the books I read and own.

Little Children is a movie that is based on a book by Tom Perrotta. Because the story is narrated, viewing it is a little like listening to a book read aloud. It is a complicated story about several different families living in a suburban neighborhood and how their lives intertwine through speculation, fear, friendship, deception, and love. There are some dark moments in the film that can make the viewer uncomfortable or frightened, but these are balanced by quite a few funny or tender incidents. In planning my composition, I decided that the title itself - Little Children - embodied enough of the lightness of the story, and so the image should be somewhat dark and eerie. I decided to use a tense moment very near the end of the film when Kate Winslet’s character, Sarah Pierce, has just decided to run from her marriage taking her child with her. When she briefly loses the child, who is found a couple of blocks away mesmerized by flying insects swarming beneath a streetlight, she is so upset by nearly losing everything dear to her that she changes her mind and takes her daughter home. In my poster, the swarming insects become a metaphor for the people of the neighborhood – only a small range of perspective available to their small lives, but each has a role to play in the greater story.

The original poster focused heavily on the affair Sarah had with her neighbor (a contributing factor to her decision to flee her marriage). I felt that there was much more to the story that is too important to be overshadowed by that one piece of it.

In Philip Roth’s book American Pastoral, Seymour Levov’s “perfect” upper middle class life in New Jersey is shaken up by his teenage daughter’s violent acts of terrorism and protest against the Vietnam War. The story is told through an outside narrator – an alter ego of the author himself – who knew Seymour (“the Swede”) as a boy. To me, this book is mostly about perceptions versus realities and the pain that sometimes comes with revealing the truth. What do you do when things do not turn out the way they are supposed to – when things don’t look the way you thought they would? I chose to explore that theme in my mock cover with a few iconic images within a dark space. Seymour’s father had been a successful glove maker, and he eventually takes over his father’s factory. Roth goes into a lot of detail about the intricacies of glove making itself and the kinds of business practices that developed over the years. Since this seemed to be such an integral part of the character’s life, I've made the largest image in the composition a hand with an American Flag glove draped over it signifying Seymour’s part of the “American Dream” – find your niche, work hard, and you will be successful. The problem for Seymour, though, was that it did not matter how hard he worked or how much money he made. There is still tragedy in the world. Keeping that in mind, I put a silhouette of a girl – still not an adult, but not a small child anymore – in the bottom left corner and an image of a burning house above her. The house is the perfect dream in flames. The girl is his daughter, a person with her own faults, emotional hardships, and choices to make – transformed from a beautiful little child who looked up to and admired him to a person he cannot control or even understand anymore.

The original cover had only a small image in a solid color background– probably because Roth is such a well-known, well-received author that his name alone on the cover of the book will draw readers. The publishers also probably wanted to make space for the praise and awards the book had earned. The small image at the bottom – a framed family photo (in which all the people have their backs turned toward the camera as if to suggest they are stuck in the past) covered by broken glass – was disappointing to me: a simplification of the story meant to be a metaphor but a choice that seems a little too expected.

On a more sinister level of the same theme (perception vs. reality) is Blue Velvet – a David Lynch film starring Kyle Maclachlan, Laura Dern, and Isabella Rossellini. Lynch’s films are so visually striking and intellectually intriguing that it is hard not to find them inspiring. Kyle’s character, Jeffrey, finds a severed ear in a field while visiting home from college. Instead of leaving the situation alone as he is told by the police officer/detective to whom he brings the ear, he embarks on an amateur sleuthing adventure. Though he starts out with the best of intentions, he is very quickly pulled into a dark underworld. His attempts to help the helpless and solve the mystery bring him only deeper into the darkness. I chose to simply amplify the moment of finding the ear for my mock poster and to incorporate the title and the mood of the film by turning the grass and ground to shades of blue to mimic the look of light playing on blue velvet.

The original poster for the movie focused on the sexual encounter between Kyle Maclachlan and Isabella Rossellini’s characters. I think that many film marketers use this approach to attract viewers because “sex sells.” In my opinion, it fails to fully evoke the dark and otherworldly feeling of the film and does not allude to how very frightening it is.

I read Lolita for a fiction-writing class in college. From a writer’s perspective, it is a fascinating book. The story is narrated by Humbert Humbert and tells the story of a middle-aged man’s (Humbert) obsession with a 12-year-old girl whom he privately nicknames “Lolita.” The extent to which Nabokov persuades you to trust what Humbert says and later to sympathize with this pedophile before you even realize what you are doing is amazing. The writing style is inspiring. Instead of disturbing you, it entertains. When an uncomfortable feeling creeps into the reader, he/she is soothed by her old friend humble Humbert who explains everything with a note of comedy in his voice so you cannot be too upset – even while knowing you should not believe him. In this book is a look at something truly evil that really does exist. It is inspiring to see a writer tackle such a difficult subject in this unique way. My image for the cover attempts to show the nature of Humbert’s obsession. He is turned into an almost useless tower of flesh, eyes focused on an image of a young girl’s painted toenails. He wears a bowler hat on his head to uphold the illusion of sophistication and trustworthiness. From inside his chest, the girl’s face peers out. She looks more overwhelmed and confused than frightened unable to fully understand what is happening and unable to stop it.

The actual published cover shows a vaguely sensual image of a girl’s lips. There is nothing to really signify the girl’s age. It does seem to evoke obsession – a person obsessed can be fascinated by a very small detail – but not as fully as it could.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is possibly my favorite book of all books. It takes place mostly in Prague in the 1960s and 70s and explores the artistic and intellectual life of Czech society during the Communist period. Telling the story of the intertwining lives of two men, two women, a dog, and the story of language itself, it is written in a very unique format. Instead of trying to describe it, I will just urge you to go read it (if you haven’t already)! To try to summarize this book with an image is tricky. I could not use the bowler hat – a symbol other artists have used for the cover of this book over and over – so I chose to show the life and death of Karenin, the dog. The characters sometimes communicate to each other through him, but he has his own simple, yet complicated life (in the way all life is) that Kundera describes for us through Karenin’s perspective. He lives on the sidelines of the human characters’ lives, but he is also, in a way, a vehicle for their day-to-day actions and therefore helps to shape their stories.

The published cover is a nice simple symbol, an object from the story amplified, and it does bring to mind the idea of lightness in the way that the hat balances on the tips of the woman’s fingers. I wanted to delve a little deeper into Kundera’s analysis of lightness and weight through the use of Karenin when making mine.

Which design would make you more likely to buy the book or see the movie?

If you would like to see more of Juliet's illustrations, go here.

 

 

 

 

 

Nip Rogers has another successful show using Facebook as the jumping off place.

Nip Rogers has been in my group for over 20 years. In all that time, I have never seen him slow down. When he is not busy creating illustrations for the publishing field, he is always stretching his art in new ways. While many artists working solo in their studios often feel isolated from the broader community, Nip goes out of his way to connect with other artists wherever they may live. A year and a half ago, Nip embraced a new personal project: Portraits of other artists. Starting with artists that he knew, he soon began reaching out to other artists whose work he admired. Not content to keep this work for his own enjoyment, he came up with an idea of a show called Social Faceworking in which he paired his portrait of an artist with that artist’s own work. Last May, his first show opened at the Fenimore Gallery at the Proctor Theater in Schenectaedy, New York. Subtitled: 40 Artists, 780 Connections, 1 Show, it was a big hit!

Of course, Nip got started by doing his self-portrait with his own art in the background.

Now 8 months later, Nip is having his second Social Faceworking Show held at The Lake Placid Center for the Arts. Opening this past January 13^th and continuing through February 17^th, this show features 19 Artists, 170 Connections, 1 Show. Nip wanted this show to be geared more to young and upcoming artists. 

Following are some of Nip’s portraits with the artists’ work in the background and his comments about their work.

L – Sara Mazdzer,  “one of the young artists in the show. She is in her second year at Pratt and has a bright future ahead of her!”
R – Brooke Noble, “I have never seen anyone put images onto pottery the way Brooke does...her work is outstanding in every way!”

L- Andrew DeHond, "Andrew illustratres characters and writes about them within the artwork itself...Even though these people come from his mind, he really makes you think about how people might feel about themselves and the world around them."
R - Eric Ackerson, "Eric takes his imagery in the direction of "Pop Art" to an extreme...if you talk to him about each image, you will soon realize that they have much more to say than meets the eye!"

L - Dave Fadden, “Dave is an illustrator and painter who has some unbelievable talent with a paint brush.
R - Shaun Ondak, “This here with the hat on is Shaun Ondak. And that in the background is one of his photos. Shaun spends much of his time (winter and summer) out doors camping, and it pays off with some incredible photographs!"

L- Peter Seward, “Peter was in the first Social Faceworking show in Schenectady back in May...since then he has been working on a series of "paint by numbers" paintings...reworking them and adding visual commentary about what is going on in our world today.”
R - Vicki Celeste, “Vicki is a painter and co-owner of The Local Fringe in Saranac Lake, NY. You can check out more of Vicki's work at www.thelocalfringe.com”

So, how was the opening?  Read some of the reporting by Naj Wikoff of the Lake Placid News.

Neither rain, sleet, snow, high winds and whiteout conditions could keep people from attending Nip Rogers’ Social Faceworking art opening at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts. The demographics of those attending would have set the hearts of school superintendents, tourism marketers, and economic developers fluttering, in short the vast majority were between 20 and 40. The organization and the marketing of the exhibit represented an ingenious new model for the traditional group show, a main stay of the Art Center and many other exhibition spaces throughout the region.

Instead of a juried show, this exhibit represented local artists that Rogers connected and culled via Facebook. Anybody who uses Facebook has many "friends" most of whom do not know each other, much less each other's work. This exhibit made visible those connections to the general public and to the participating artists, and for some, to Nip himself. In so doing, the exhibit both underscored the strengths and limitations of Facebook and demonstrated a new way of using social media as a means of connecting people as it further underscored the greater value of face to face conversations, perhaps to those who use Facebook the most.

The organization of the exhibit further mirrored the structure of Facebook, as well as Roger's own abilities as he created portraits of each artist which he displayed both together as a single unit and to introduce each artist's own panel of work.

"I am fascinated," said Jim Rogers, father of Nip."I hope it takes off. I hope the artists get to talk about what they do and why. What fascinates me is the diversity in this community. I like their sense of humor. Some are very skilled. Nip loved doing their portraits."

"I feel awesome because I can't believe the turnout," said Nip. "Trust Adirondackers to come out on a night like this. The process was exactly how I envisioned it would go. I was here for every artist and how they hung their work. They all do it differently. The whole reason behind this was to get to know other artists."

This exhibit pushes the boundaries of the media. This event generated a large turnout. It was organized by an artist deeply connected to the community who put in a great deal of forethought and preparation into this exhibition. I encourage those seeking to enhance the economy and attract younger people to the region to engage these artists and other pacesetters in the arts in the planning process. They have their fingers on a pulse that could bode well for the future.

Just some of the artists participating in this show. If you would like to see all of the artists participating and their art, go here.

If you would like to see more of Nip’s portraits, go here.

 

 

 

Toby Thane Neighbors finds his voice through his art.

As an image-maker, I am most interested in creating worlds and telling stories. As a child, I used to bring home books from the library and copy them verbatim - illustrations and text - but never finished any due to impatience. This desire to communicate an idea or narrative visually, though, was innate and has always been the driving force behind the majority of my images.

My work has been heavily influenced by Mid-Century design and animation, the anatomical exaggeration and manipulation of traditional caricature as well as the relationship between pop culture and society's perception of self as seen through film, advertising, and music. I am also interested in the ideas of nostalgia, folklore, the folk hero archetypes in film and literature, the traditions and sagas of different cultures from around the world, and the corresponding costumes of each.

I've always been fascinated with the history of the American West. Certain motifs from this era usually find their way into my personal work and then end up completely taking over the concept. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps it was watching all those John Wayne films when I was little. The loner or individualist anti-hero character found in so many stories from that period is someone I've always been attracted to and certainly identify with. In some ways, an artist is that character sifting through (and also juggling at times) influences, personal desires, necessary compromises, and unseen external forces while perfecting his or her craft in order to forge a specific path and individual voice in this world.

This next illustration was recently included in a show at the Compound Gallery in Portland, Oregon. It was also a Runner-Up Winner in CQ 25, Creative Quarterly:The Journal of Art & Design.

If you would like to see more of Toby’s work, go here.

 

 

 

Bill Abbott entertains with his wisecracking cartoons.

When you need some comic relief from the hustle and bustle of the upcoming holidays, you can always count on cartoonist Bill Abbott to have something funny to say.

Following are more of his Thanksgiving and Christmas cartoons with just a smattering of other festive occasions.

 

If you still want to see more, check out Bill's online portfolio.

What drives Juliet to illustrate?

In my opinion, the most important thing for people to learn is how to communicate, and I enjoy adding my personal visual language to the human conversation.

I discovered the power of illustration to communicate when I created my first children’s book at age five. I titled it Fox - Weasel. I think I meant something like The Fox and the Weasel, but as I quickly realized in the making of the book, my writing skills were not developed enough to sufficiently tell the story. There were so many words (in my limited vocabulary) that I wanted to use, but laboring over the spelling and sentence structure proved too taxing. So I drew pictures – and ended up with a story consisting of nine sentences and six half-page drawings. The little book made of stapled computer paper (recycled – the pages have something unwanted printed on the other side) is much richer with the images. And this is true of most editorial pieces, advertisements, posters, websites, books, and anything that is trying to convey some information or get someone’s attention. An image very easily evokes thought or emotion, and I am lucky enough to be an image maker.

Here are some things I love about being an artist and illustrator:

I get to share my vision of the world. The fun part about illustrating someone else’s project is that I get to read it, process it, interpret it, and then create an image with my unique way of seeing. And since my work is meant to be seen in print, I believe that this process is not without responsibility. I am engaging a viewer, and then either enlightening him, provoking him, or changing his mind. I must measure my work against my beliefs about myself, society, the world, and find it worthy. But this is exhilarating, and I can’t get enough.  

I get to collaborate. A client or art director is invaluable to making a piece successful. I am often inspired by his or her initial plans or ideas, and suggestions along the way make a piece polished and perfect. It certainly beats sitting before a blank piece of sketch paper in my studio and asking myself “what should I draw today?”

I get to help people understand difficult concepts. For Our Lives Magazine’s January/February issue (2011), I illustrated an article called “Standing at the Crossroads” in which an anonymous reader bravely began questioning where and how she fits into a gendered identity. The idea of a transgendered identity is something that most people cannot easily grasp. It takes multiple encounters with transgender people or articles that speak about transgender issues for most to be comfortable with a personal understanding of people who identify this way. I felt honored to be able to amplify this writer’s message with an illustration and hopefully shed some light on the idea for readers.


I get to be part of my community. Here in Madison, WI, I do work for several local organizations, and each one helps me to feel more like I am giving back to the people around me. I advertise for local theatre (Bartell Theatre), illustrate articles about local LGBT issues (Our Lives Magazine), advertise events hosted by a local coffee roaster co-op (Just Coffee Co-op), create album and T-shirt art for local bands (Little Red Wolf, Venus In Furs), and show original works and prints at a local gallery (Hatch Art House). I love knowing that Madisonians can take a walk and physically visit my work, that they will see it posted around town, that it will bring them out to see a show, support a cause, or look at the artwork of others, that it will educate, enlighten, direct, or simply delight them. And for them too, it might stimulate a greater appreciation for their community.






If you would like to see more of Juliet Darken's illustrations, click here.

 

 

Lindy Burnett illustrates maps by seeing them first in her mind's eye.

Illustrating aerial maps can be very challenging. Artists who have more realistic styles may have trouble imagining buildings from the roof down especially since the reference is typically shot at ground level. Artist Lindy Burnett is always ready to take on these challenges. Recently, she was commissioned by Susan Jones, Creative Director of Lazydays Marketing to create just such a map.

Here was the starting point, the aerial photo.

Here are a couple of the building shots provided by Tampa, Florida photographer, Jeff Fay.

“before i begin to draw, i gather lots of reference and have asked a lot of questions of the client. the final needs to feel like i have walked the property and paid attention while there. then i do small thumbnails, kind of a 'big picture' way of seeing in my mind's eye! where does the compass rose go? is there a legend? do i bring a horizon line or sky into the picture?  and kind of design the piece by getting larger and larger with sketches. i do very tight roughs so the client can rest assured im on top of it!!!”

Here is the first tight sketch marked up by the client.

“the enormity of the task of turning this into a wayfinding piece was daunting. not only that but it had to be compelling, friendly and pretty. the most difficult part physically was, in the wee hours of the morning, i had to stand UP and lean over the piece (it was 4’ x 3’) to do the little swimming pool, lots of people, the hills in the background and the sky! there was a point where i literally could not grip my brush anymore due to concentrating for long hours while my back took a pounding! ultimately my client and good friend susan, was super happy with the piece!”

And here's the final map.  You can go to the Lazydays RV website to see the interactive version.

Here are some other maps Lindy has illustrated.

Saint Martin's University, Washington

Indian River Bay Walking Map, Georgia


805 Peachtree Lofts, Atlanta, Georgia

If you would like to see more of Lindy's work -maps and other subjects -go here.