Mermaid Waves

PAjaMa pOLka !!

Time to dance!! Again!   Spider Magazine’s March 2011 issue features my illustration with Eileen Spinelli’s poem “Pajama Polka.” A delightful weave of imagination that shows the effect “of March wind’s sudden music.” Nightclothes fly with dayclothes  for an eleven city block parade!

I played with perspective on this one, wanting to show a close-up pajama couple as well as suggest a parade and an audience.  I played with texture too.  Before I started painting, I laid a brushy undercoat with light molding paste.  You can see better evidence of it here:

Currently working on another magazine piece for LadyBug Magazine, their July 2011 issue.  Can’t divulge anything yet, except that it’ll be hot hot hot.  Nice project for the cabin fever blues...

 Also working on a website update... Coming soon.

 ;o)

Terri Murphy

http://terrimurphyart.com

 

 

 

 

 

COLLABORATION...

Creating art...it's a solitary endeavor.   It is a leap of faith, that we connect something true in us to something true in others. My friend Chris and I have been talking about collaboration for a while.  We had our first taste this weekend.  

Drawing from imagination and dreams, our session spanned seven hours within two days, producing several paintings.  Fueled  with caffeine and occasional carbs, a real sense of play transpired as we experimented and learned from each other.  We talked about technique, color theory and touching the archetype in dreams...interspersed with music and Chris’s theory of heartbreak economics 101.  

A beautiful thing, painting alone...and a different beauty, painting together.

Creating toward a child’s initial exposure to universal language...priceless.

 

 

 

GHOSTS and GHOULS and GOBLINS, oh my!

I’ve got Halloween fever.  It started back in April when I was assigned a double page spread in Spider Magazine...an “Old Ogre” deck of cut-apart  playing cards.

And as always, I try to stick a little humor in.

Illustrating monsters, ghouls and halloween characters is great fun.  It’s the little girl in me, playing dress up....except now I’m fashion coordinator for Frankenstein, a witch, or a skeleton.  “Old Ogre” is a matching pair game, so I wanted each “pose” to be distinct from the other, yet have them engaging in an action to show personality.  A pirate touts his found treasure, a flower unravels the mummy, a ghost falls in love with a distant moon.

Just finished another illustration for Spider Magazine, which will be in their March 2011 issue...art for a poem called “Pajama Polka,” with flying dancing nightclothes.

 Some other exciting things in the works, but too early to talk about them now.  Stay tuned...

 Terri

http://www.terrimurphyart.com

STELLLAAAAA !

 

    It was the mood.  An ornery one.  And so... I wrote a picture book story. Now the healthy thing might have been to confront the source of my angst but nope...  I had fuel, I wanted fire...I lit a match. 

    It’s a story of Stella, a blackwidow spider...dangerous, diabolical, and darned cute!  Writing her misadventures into a picture book is a fine balance.  If the black humor carries too much darkness the reader builds no empathy for the main character; doesn’t invest in the outcome.  Not enough darkness, and there’s no tension to pull the reader in.

    So it is in the creation of Stella.  Drawing a cute spider was not the challenge.  Drawing “Stella” was.  She needed to have just the right blend of  threat, vulnerability, whackiness and charm in order to be invited into a reader’s acceptance.  She is to be feared and loved simultaneously.  The first attempts at Stella in clay and sketches were “too cute.” 

    Once I was satisfied with the body and legs, her face was a matter of  sizing and placement of  features to create the right look and expression.  I kept drawing until she made me laugh and I fell in love.  And as with all my characters, I see a bit of me in her, a bit of you.  Or should I say, a bite of you.  Chomp!~

 

Invite her in. Could you?  Would you?

 

Night Lights....

    “Tree of Life” is a popular motif in many cultures...Mexican, Hebrew, African, Celtic.  Last weekend,  our SCBWI Illinois Illustrators Network held a benefit auction for the Art Creation Foundation for Children, a children’s charity in Haiti.  This organization provides education, meals and medical care for impoverished children while teaching them the native arts so that can become self sustaining adults.  Eighteen illustrators donated their version of “Tree of Life” for silent auction at Ridge Art in Oak Park, Illinois.  All pieces were sold, and we were honored to provide a sizable donation to ACFFC.  Here is our forest of trees: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13397053@N02/

Above is my Tree of Life titled “Night Lights.”  From the beginning I knew I wanted to convey a magical night scene with the moon, birds and mythical  creatures.  Much of this illustration was carefully planned...the perspective, the play of light and shadow, the simplicity of the leafing.  Other parts happened spontaneously during the painting of it, the top branches releasing hearts that find other hearts and become butterflies, the creatures that wear camouflaged hearts. In this painting I hope you climb the branches, search for the story, find magic.

You can see a larger version of  “Night Lights” here: http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2203/2532773/5363393/387378690.jpg

Working on:  a Halloween spread for Spider Magazine

       facilitating an artists’ retreat in June, in Texas

************

In Everything

Do you hear the night birds sing?

"Believe," they sing, "in everything."

In the thick as well as thin 

Can you feel the dawn begin?

The sweet, together with the sour

the idling boredom of the hour

In a quagmire on our knees

or flying past the midnight trees

In your eyes, reflecting sparks

of buried treasure in the dark

Yes, dear heart, in everything

the thorny branch, the silken wing

Then by some untimely clock

Wind lifts one, and then the flock, 

Kaleidoscope jewels, circle and fly

Rainbow dancers across the sky

ART KIDS

I love connecting with children.

For the past year and a half I’ve been holding art workshops for kids at area libraries...sometimes a single session and sometimes a series of workshops.  Each workshop focuses on either a  theme, a technique, or an artist.  I try to make work environments creatively stimulating, with work stations in the round, selected music in the background and an open casual format. And right when we think it can’t get any better, I break out the Oreos!

In the photo above, the theme was Op Art Portraits and the artist presented was Victor Vasarely.  We focused on hot and cold colors and how to make colors pop, or recede if you so choose, just by their relation to each other.  Each workshop lasts 90 minutes. The beginning is a short power point presentation introducing the artist or technique, and a step-by-step demonstration of the project. 

Above is a power point presentation on a workshop called Print Station.  Kids drew an image, transferred it  to a styrofoam tray, and embossed it with a pencil or wooden dowel.  They applied black or white paint with a roller and pressed the styrofoam to paper to form their printed image.

 Here are the Young Artists Workshops I’m currently facilitating...and I’m always adding!

Under the Sea Batik

Aboriginal Dream Painting

Woodcuts

Op Art Portraits

Print Station

Mexican Sun,  Embossed Foil Art

Creating Mood with Sculpture

The Peace Quilt

Mondrian Animals

Street Scene Collage

Up-Close Portraits (art of Chuck Close)

Currently working on: writing a Valentines Day picture book story

       a drawing a day (a New Year's resolution)  

Boogie Villa!

Time to close out the year with yet another dance and music theme! The above is cover art for a children’s music cd “At the Boogie Villa”  by Ginny Halstead and Michelle Phelps aka Found a Penny.   Two California singer/songwriter musicians who found me on the web, attracted to my color palette and quirky angles. They had a wonderful design sense themselves and this project was truly a collaboration.  Ginny sent me demos of songs to get a sense of their musical style and to kick-start my imagination. With original compositions and crystal clear voices that could compete on any stage, Ginny and Michelle offer up catchy songs that kids will love and adults won’t tire of. It’s not pablum!  I can’t wait to hear the final cd.

I had a book launch party for the release of the picture book Dance Y’all Dance. A little nervous...the remote mike kept throwing me off.  Had some olde timey country dance music playing...the soundtrack from the movie O Brother Where Art Thou?.  Prizes for any spontaneous dancing (glass boot mugs filled with M&Ms) were offered and we had some takers!  A PowerPoint presentation included a Where’s-Waldo-type search of Texas symbols I planted in the book with more prizes for that.  

I talked about inspiration, about how much of the time an artist’s head is in the clouds, searching, while the deadline looms nearer, and the design planning, character fleshing and topical research that goes on before pencil hits paper. There was a little Cinderella story segue  about me riding off with cowboy Russell Crowe as he showed me the ropes in an old Old West Dance Hall. What?  You just go with the flow when then muse hits! One of the best compliments I got was from a man who said “I never realized it before... you’ve built a whole story in pictures but you  start out with just words.” 

Reminds me of a favorite quote by the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest ...  See with your ears and hear with your eyes.  ~Ken Kesey

Working on: promotional material for a new venture

             experimenting with a new art technique!

 

 

HaPPy biRtH daY, Dance Y'all Dance

Dance Y'all Dance is born!  The picture book officially hits the shelves today, November 1, 2009.  It was quite a labor and delivery, fun actually...now how many women can say that!  Written by Kelly Bennett and published by Bright Sky Press (see link below), it's a story of one night at a country dance hall where family and friends pack away their worries and dance into the night.  The story is loaded with characters young and old--Grandpappy Skittle who plays musical "spoons" on stage, the mischievious Harlin and Beau taunting girls, and Buck the Dog who tries its best to get into the mix.

 

Toward the end, the focus switches to Sallie and Jem who just got married, engaged in dance.  I knew I wanted to convey a quiet moment between these two, oblivious to the gaiety of their surroundings, so I used an old photograph as inspiration. Changing costumes and faces, I concentrated on that kiss to the cheek and the sparkle in her eye.  It's one of my favorite illustrations in the book...one I hope will resonate with viewers.

As with the illustration of the newlyweds, I hope readers see something of themselves in the book--their own family celebrations through music and dance--and how, often, we are more alike than different.

Family, after all, can be seen in a tree-or-forest kind of way.  Dance Y’all, Dance!

*****

Link: http://www.brightskypress.com/infostore/ca.cart.asp?sAction=DisplayDetails&pid=155&id=227</a>

Currently working on:  Music and dance, again!  Art for a children’s cd called “Boogie Villa.”

dance STEP-by-STEP

Here’s sneak peek into the making of Dance Y’all Dance, a picture book written by Kelly Bennett that I illustrated and is being released this November (Bright Sky Press).  It was the most fun project I’ve ever worked on.  The story is set in the not too distant past when families, farm hands and cowboys & gals would get together on weekends at the local honky tonk.  I did some research into clothing styles, period furniture, Texas symbols and olde timey dance halls, then chose to keep the colors vivid and saturated to give the book a contemporary look.

Once I had the scene sketched, I redrew it on Strathmore 10-ply paper with a Berol Prismacolor pencil...then laid a wash of ultramarine & yellow ochre. With a wet q-tip or small brush, I began to pick out highlights.

Later, using the new tones as a guide, I start to lay in color with gouache, working from dark to light. What interests me now is the design of shadows, losing and finding edges and letting a little of the wash show through as line.  I make an effort to NOT have perfectly symmetrical faces as I believe it lends to more effective expressions. 

I continue building layers of paint to emphasize form, adding texture, patterns, detail and highlights.  Finally scanning into photoshop, I clean and fine tune the piece.

So there you have it.  I love playing with color.  I love visiting my works-in-progress (aka “children”) every morning.  I love this job!

Working on:  another country-themed book offering, but that’s all I’m gonna say right now!  In the meantime, here is an interview I did on the author’s website, if’n you’re interested: http://www.kellybennett.com/books/danceyall.html

UnsolveD MysterY

The lovely thing about mystery is that unsolved ones keep wandering around in your brain.

  

In 2006, I received my first piece of fan mail...from a man who saw an illustration of mine at a New York Children's Book conference gallery.  He wrote me, asking about purchase of a print, saying that piece had a tremendous effect on him, for reasons he may disclose to me one day. Here is part of the painting, from a story I was writing.

I sent him the print, along with what inspired me during the painting of it.  He never received it, so I sent another.  That one arrived fine.

He went on to tell me that he owned a kayak shop in  New Jersey, and was about to embark on a 14 day trip paddling the waters around Greece.  That's the last I ever heard from him. I often picture him in paddling the crystal blue Aegean Sea, tanned and laughing, wet with golden glints of ocean spray. And I wonder what it was that he connected with so strongly in the art of a little girl looking wistfully to the sky.  I also wonder who got the lost package of art and inspiration.  And if that had a synchronicity in their life.

Ultimately, I like not knowing...wondering and wandering are just fine with me.

working on: relaxing!  Just finished illustrating Dance Y'all Dance, a picture book due out in Fall '09.  Off to Florida Keys to see the sis, play in the ocean....