Sherry Meidell's Blog, page 4

A New Picture Book

Early one morning I was riding my bike on a trail near my home, through cow pastures and the bird refuge, when I saw a mother cow lick her baby calf. For the rest of the bike ride words bubbled around in my artist brain, and I couldn’t wait to get home and put them down in a picture book.

 “Kiss Cuddle Tuck” was born. From first light of morning til last light of night, animals are taking care of their young while a family takes care of their own little ones. Alert: the cow and calf didn’t make it into the final picture book. I tucked them on the back cover.

It’s a long process to write and illustrate a picturebook. You would think it would be simple to write 48 words and draw the pictures that go with the words but at first it’s a daunting task. It doesn’t settle down until it all compresses into exactly where it should be and then suddenly it looks simple. Then you know you are nearing completion.

I’m showing some of the process and steps on the next few You tube videos. You can check out the first one at the link below. The Hatchlings. Have you ever tried something that looked simple but turned out to be extremely complicated?

The Making of Kiss Cuddle Tuck – Shoulder Those Hatchlings

Arts in the Parks 2024

Getting out of the studio and painting Plein Aire brings a lot into your artistic life. I’ve put my experiences this yer up on a video on you tube you can check it out at this link.

https://youtu.be/GOi2gB9fFCw?si=UyHUWRS1Vcu7i9mj

uws25Download

Camping Where the Buffalo Chomped Right outside of our Trailer

You can always find time to do a little watercolor or ink sketch even when on vacation. The above watercolor is of the Badger Clark Cabin in Custer State Park in South Dakota. This cabin is a hidden treasure that we came across on a mountain bike ride..

I couldn’t swing the sketches nor the watercolor sketch while on the bike ride with friends, but early the next morning was open and I circled back to do a bit of sketching. The inside of the cabin was like walking back into the 1950’s. We had gone on a tour the day before. Now what’s this you say about a buffalo?

That’s our trailer. And that’s the gigantic buffalo. You could hear him chomping the grass from clear across the street. So when we heard that chomping about 2 am in the night, right outside our trailer, we did not peak. You don’t want to disturb a giant buffalo when you are in a flimsy tent attached to a trailer.

We survived. This is the trailer park in Casper, Wyoming. Get a watercolor sketch book and an ink sketchbook and take it on your adventures. Maybe you’ll run into your own gigantic buffalo.

Things I Learned From a Night at Girls Camp

You can learn a lot about life with only one night at girls camp.

1. You can learn that you can get one watercolor sketch done even if you’re interrupted several times.

2. Walking uphill is much harder than downhill.

3. Girls can still stay up later than you’re used to and louder than your ear pods can cover up.

4. You can sleep on a bottom bunk with only a wooden slab beneath you. (Well there was that thin backpack mattress that had a bit of air in it.)

5. Hamburgers taste pretty good when you’re hungry but the foot long hotdog might have been a bit too much.

6. People are kind and friendly young and old and their good words bless us all.

7. Sitting around a campfire under the stars reminds us that there are beautiful things above us every night so take the time to look.

8. There are people that go to a lot of work to serve others.

9. Faith in God blesses our lives and gives us hope and direction in life.

10. God can bless us at all ages with a knowledge of His goodness and kindness.

How Adventures Turn Into Paintings

A few years back, my husband and I hiked the Inca trail with a group of friends. It was a grand adventure at high altitude. I always take sketch books and painting supplies with me when I travel. But the camera is a great tool for catching things on the fly. It’s so amazing to look back through those photos and find treasures that I’m so excited to paint. That was the case with this Peruvian Porter. I created a video of the process and you can check it out at this link on YouTube. https://youtu.be/q5xjp6UGO2Q?si=MGQd0TpU9oPlqF3r There are so many things I want to paint. I find them all around me no matter where I’m at. Look around you and see the beauty and amazing things to enjoy. What have you seen lately that brings you joy? Let me know how you liked the video.

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Magic Pen

I have a little sketchbook for church. It’s small so I can be discreet but sometimes it can be a distraction for those sitting next to me. I write a few notes with the sketches. See I’m listening. One friend sitting next to me asked if those just came out of my head?

They do come out of my head. But sometimes it feels like they come out of the end of my pen while I’m watching it take place. It is amazing what the mind and practice and imagination can do. But do you see it in your head before you start drawing?

Sometimes they come from the subject matter that the speakers is talking about. It’s spurs an image in my mind. Sometimes it seems to come like magic from the end of the pen.

Where you are sketching always has an effect on what you sketch. When you are painting plein air, you catch the atmosphere around you and it ends up in your painting. When you sketch at a concert, you are caught up in the atmosphere of the music and it changes the mood and the speed in which you sketch. When you are sketching in a church meeting, you catch that spirit and it ends up in your sketchbook unless for some strange reason a little old lady crossing the street with her walker seems to pop up.

She better hurry across the street so I can get back to something a bit more spiritual. It is fun to be able to put some of the feelings that come from church and capture them on paper. Later on I might use them for a larger painting. The sketchbook can go to a grandchild who is getting baptized as a gift from Grandma.

A Death and a Marriage and Art

So you get every emotion in this life. You get a leaving of one soul from this world and the start of a new young couple’s life together with all the sweet looking into each others eyes, the excitement and new adventure of starting a life together. The soul leaving loved life and still had goals and things to work on, movies to see, weights to lift even though the strength had gone from muscles There is a love of this life and all it involves which teaches us to miss with all our hearts those we have grown to depend on and love in this life. If we didn’t love so dearly, we would not mourn so deeply.

So we wake up every morning and venture forth. We spend time with those around us and cherish the.moments. And we find time to create and do some art because it nurtures that spot in our brain and heart that wants so much to share the joy and beauty around us.

How Do You Teach Art To Kids?

One of the best ways to learn to draw, is to draw. It’s the same whether you are young or old. I love having drawing time with grandkids. I love having them pick what they want to draw. It’s usually different than what I would choose. I think that’s what makes art interesting for us individually, there are different things that grabs our interest. What makes us want to capture what we see and love around us. What makes us want to capture that beauty, that person, that light.

So how do you help that budding artist? You give them plenty of art supplies. Paper, pencils, pens, clay and other things that you find. You also give them time to draw. Teaching art has blessed my life. I’ve found great joy in sharing art with those around me. It has brought me adventure and new friends. And when I paint, I can hear my own voice ringing in my ears, telling me important information to improve my art.

I love the art that kids make. They just sit down and draw. There’s a real freshness to their art. Here are the two giraffes that we drew during the Art time.

An Illustrators Workshop

They wanted a small intimate group for this workshop. They were all interested in illustrating children’s picture books and wanted to know more about how I approach illustrating. It was also a group of friends. We were able to stay in beautiful St George and provided with a wonderful spread of food each day. It was so nice to see the ladies dive in and start working on their story boards and character designs. The above illustration is from a picture book I’m working on. I jump back and forth from story board, to story rewrite, to character studies. All of the steps help with the other steps. It’s is like solving the greatest puzzle, to decide which words go where on which page and how to best illustrate the words. How do you illustrate more than the words. How to make the pictures and the words combine and work together. The picture of the group was taken by a kind electrician passing through.

Someone asked what I wanted to share in the workshop. I said to entertain, educate, and to inspire the people who participated. Hopefully I accomplished that. At least this group of ladies were really into it.

Do you have enough time to learn something new in your life? No reason not to.

An Ode to Mothers

My mother is bringing smiles and laughter to her family long after she is gone. I put out one of her photo books in which she had carefully put little typed comments with each picture. Different family members sat with her book and chuckled. Here is a picture of Peter with a Grass hat on his head, while on his mission in the Philippines carefully labeled Luke on his mission in France. Here is another picture of Katie who did her hair all the time labeled Kathy. (Which was close) And here is another Granddaughter-in-law labeled Jen which is not even close to Kim.

So I’m not sure in what state of dementia she made these labels. Some were correct and some were way off but with the careful collecting of photos and the job of placing them in her book and the careful typing them up on one of them new fangled computers, and cutting them with one of those old fashioned scissors, she showed us one thing, her love for her family and her desire to capture and keep those memories in her book.

So we smile and laugh because it is so much mom and grandma. And when you spend a whole lifetime loving those kids and grandkids and great grandkids, why not spend a bit of time celebrating that love. Thanks Mom.