I just learned what Maycember is, but it perfectly encapsulates the chaos of remembering all the scheduled activities, special outfits, gifts, etc. of the last month of the school year.
Anyway, here’s some more things I made this month…
For Mother’s Day weekend, we went to Alligator Point, Florida, a quiet stretch of beach on the Forgotten Coast. Living in Destin, it’s nice to visit a beach town where you’re not likely to come in contact with other humans, let alone fight traffic or jostle for space on the sand. It rained most of the weekend, but that was fine by me. I loved relaxing in the beach house playing games and doing art projects with my family.
Pictured above is a watercolor scene of the beach, a beach house living room drawing I had fun doing in a wonky style with my Caran d’ache Neocolors, and a ink and watercolor gift for my mother-in-law - a bouquet of her eight grandbabies’ birth flowers. My son also wrote a story (The Cowboy and the Pancakes) and asked me to illustrate it for him, which you can find here.
Every quarter, I do a poster and postcard design for Camille’s at Crystal Beach, and we’ve started creating animations for social media as well. I really loved the process for our octopus animation - adding the jellyfish and shrimp swimming by was so much fun. I’m really happy with how it turned out.
The Sand Flea is my husband’s new beach bar that just opened March. It’s really cool and I’m proud of him. :)
Going into the Digital Graffiti festival, I had serious imposter syndrome. Stalking all the other artists’ websites beforehand, I could see that I was probably the least qualified on paper - I don’t have an art degree or any experience in audio visual effects. All these folks are incredibly talented and I’ve only been playing around with animation for a little over a year now. But seeing all the pieces together made me realize that part doesn’t matter - the work speaks for itself and my work deserved to be there as much as anyone else’s which was a really heartening experience.
When the curator mentioned my animation on the walking art tour before the festival began, I learned that the technique I used - slowing down a video and drawing each frame before splicing them all back together - actually has a name…
I made a video with clips from the festival if you are interested in seeing more!
Finally, I created a new Destin Summer Bucket List this year! If you’ve been here awhile, you’ll know this is how I transitioned from art as a private hobby to making art for other people. I made my first bucket list back in 2020 by request from friends, and I’ve made so many since then - both for my town and for resorts and vacation destinations all over the south. Anyway, you can download this summer’s version here and be sure to tag me if you post you or your kids checking them off!
Some art books I’m working my way through:
Making Comics by Lynda Barry - Amy Cowen of Illustrated Life is hosting a group of artists working through the exercises in this book together. It’s been fun seeing what others come up with and helpful to have a group keeping me accountable. I tend to move from shiny thing to shiny thing, so Amy’s weekly guidance has helped me stay focused.
Drawing Is… by Elizabeth Haidle - I took Elizabeth’s online Secret Sketchbook class back in January and really enjoyed it. Her book is just as playful, whimsical, and meandering (in the best way) as her work is. It’s a short book but I’m working my way through slowly to kind of savor it.
What’s on your summer bucket list? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll pick someone random to get a snail mail surprise!
You have been busy! So many recent projects. Love the bucket list!