Oh my God you guys; I got a Barnes + Noble Nook Color for Christmas and I LOVE IT. I don't understand what the big huff is over e-books, even for children's books. I'm so in love.
B.N. Times (Before Nook)
When it comes to legit books (by that I mean novels 'n' such) I spend waaay too much money annually. The alternative is the library but my library sucks. All the new stuff I want to read they either don't have or have but is taken out by someone. Now I can buy on the cheap AND I can share them with other Nook users. Plus the way we read has changed. If an obscure fact is mentioned in a book and I want to know more about that, I can just Google it right there. In BN times I had to find a piece of paper to bookmark my place, get out of my comfy reading spot, go to my desktop, turn it on, Google it, go back to my reading spot, read. Pfh! So old school!
Of coarse some books just need to be read in print like art + design books and I'm always willing to pay money and make storage space for those, as I feel many artist and designers are.
I would also enjoy being able to watch the movies that are made from the books I read on my Nook. Just throwing that out there because Netflix doesn't work...yet
Kidlit + e-books
I think it's a smart move for the teen/YA market. Not many kids whip out a book in public. Lame. But a little gadget that can hide a secret book obsession because it's disguised as a little computer? Awesome.
Now with the kids books it makes sense to take out a Nook and read an e-book if you're waiting at the doctors office and have a restless little one at your side. It's a healthier option than killing their brain with a computer game. And if you're feeding your children e-books when they are bored then I'm certain those same parents are feeding their kids a healthy dose of print before bed or at home.
I would however like to get the authors or a few actors for each character on bored to read a story. Now publishers have the option of controlling the presentation of stories, so, let's make it worth while.
Print is an art. Art will die with the last person and digital isn't dying any time soon. We adapt or we die.
This is Harold. He's a North Pole employee. He works in the Department of Candy as a Licker. Best. Job. EVER!
Wishing everyone a lovely, fun, warm, giving, and deliciously sweet Merry Christmas! XOXO
I made this for Issue 4 of Peculiar Bliss (check it out....awesome interview in there with illustrator and wolf enthusiast Sandra Deickmann). The topic was travel.
By the way, I edited this post. The original rant was not helpful.
I just saw an interview with the director of the film Never Let Me Go, which is based off of Kazuo Ishiguro's book Never Let Me Go (it's on my bookshelf queue). I liked the title of the book and film but I started thinking about how much I don't like the concept behind those exact words; Never. Let. Me. Go. Weirdly enough, it led me to consider how much I hate Facebook.
Why do I hold on so tight to people from my past? For what reason? What are my expectations here? Facebook creates ghosts of people. I could know intimate details about someone's daily life but not REALLY know them as a person or talk to them at all. The people I still have connections and relationships with exist outside of FB. They are real and tangible relationships. Everyone else just haunts me, why be on the site? It's ok to let 300 ghosts go. So, I deleted my Facebook. They weren't real to me (and I wasn't real to them) anyway. I have never felt so free.
I had some down time over the weekend after finishing up some jobs (Woop woop! Just in time for the holidays!) so that meant making one of my favorite things: PORTRAITS!!!!!
CHECK THE TECHNIQUE:
I wanted to see what would happen when I combined my usual black tea splashes (this time around I used Whole Foods brand of 365) and Tazo's Passion Fruit tea. I'm trying to work out putting in more colors into my artwork. Although the Tazo tea is in fact a lovely burgundy red in my teacup, it dries uber purple. SURPRISE!
DOUBLE TAKE THE FACE:
Maybe I was exhausted or something but none of these portraits look like who they were intended to be. Louise Brooks looks like no one in particular. My Feist turned into Esthero. Louisa May Alcott feels more like Princess Beatrice, and Coretta Scott King looks like Whitney Houston (post Bobby Brown?). Isadora Duncan and Annie Oakley...got close but not enough.
They still turned out pretty cool even though they didn't exactly turn out how I wanted them to... ya know, like most children when they grow up.
I made this illo/doodle because plain + simple: I was dismissed from a freelance job which left me feeling defeated. So I made myself a little Underdog momento to keep going. I sometimes feel like my icon for life is the Underdog. Partly because my personality and my artistic style are both young, innocent, and quirky and people mistake that for Racheal Anilyse the illustrator, designer, writer, blogger, and publisher as naIve and maybe even an immature individual.
I've gotten used to being underestimated, rejection and doubt from others are a part of the world. I've had friends doubt my choices to pursue art in school, I've then had professors doubt my capability. It just becomes annoying after awhile because I know they have no clue what they are talking about! Their judgements on my abilities are terribly wrong.
I know the truth and not only about my capabilities but also my potential to move past them. This is why art exists; to express your grievances with those who give you grief, and it's also why I have a blog.
If you ever find yourself feeling defeated on the art + design path, there's no need to prove anything (to others or yourself). Just keep making, keep expressing, keep expanding, and keep moving forward.
I thought most of my childhood momentos were lost in the Great Basement Flood of '92. I had come to terms with my deceased Mario Lopez and Mark Paul Glossaar "signed" photographs. They were classic relics of my healthy Saved by the Bell obsession, perhaps it was time to move on. But it's hard to part with your first loves.
(Please note two forms of young love: Mark Paul/Mario Lopez and hand drawn typography)
With Thanksgiving approaching, I'd like to take a moment to thank my parents who were awesome enough to let me borrow $10.99 when I was in 5th grade to get a little piece of love mailed to my house. Furthermore, I'd like to thank them for saving my loves from the flood waters and for keeping them dry by holding them hostage in the bowels of their house for 15+ years while I grew, graduated, moved out, came back, worked, cried, laughed, left, got sick, and got better.
"I'm too scared!" Pudding whispered to his Mom.
"It's ok dear. Just be yourself," encouraged his Mom.
"Ok," Pudding paused and rang the doorbell, "TRICK OR TREAT!" he screamed.
"Oh Carl," Pudding's Mom turned to Pudding's Dad, "look at our little baby boy! Just yesterday he was screaming for a diaper change and now he's screaming at our neighbors for free candy."
"I know Carol," said Pudding's Dad, "those were the simpler times. Like when I understood what our costumes were! Uh, by the way, what are we supposed to be?"
"Carl I told you," Pudding's Mom said with disappointment, "Lady Gaga and Edward Cullen! Now look brooding," she commanded.
Pudding could feel his bucket being loaded with delicious treats. He looked back at his parents. His Mom started to cry and his Dad was staring at things awkwardly. I LOVE THIS HOLIDAY! he thought.
It really gets my goat when I have my mom call me saying:
"Oh, so and so asked if you would be selling prints of that illustration you made of that building. The one from a few years ago? And you know that other person, well her mother called her asking if you were going to sell postcards this year."
That's when I lost my shizz. All over my poor mom.
"Ma, listen, I love that people are supporting me and all and that they want reproductions but I don't have the time to sit at my computer for a week printing ink jet images of an illustration I made 4 years ago that just won't effing die because it is the most commercial thing I've made. And I certainly don't have the funds to pay for a bulk order of postcards of recent work which probably won't even sell because all people want are a picture of a freakin' house. If you want random floating girls heads with hands, or an overtly optimistic hairy ghost, or a dog with a mohawk, or hand lettered Kerouac quotes or a girl drowning in water grasping a red rope for survival, then have them call me. But if that's not what they're looking for, tell 'em go buy a Kinkade."
I mean, she cut me off in the middle of my first sentence with "ALLRIGHT, I GET IT" but I'm certain my point was received.
I'm not trying to be Thomas Kinkade (and kudos to the man for filling the market where us too serious artists don't want to go) but I'm trying to make children's books here and it's my own fault for previously selling people crap.
