Ready for CPSA

My Twix Mini piece is back from the framer, and I'm really happy with how it came out. (This is a terrible picture of it, sorry. My wall does not in reality gradate from light blue to pale green - nor does the art!)

I'd almost forgotten what a rush it is to see your art framed. Well, it is for me, at least. A proper framing job always makes the piece look better. I remember my graduation show from art school, with all my selected pieces up on the gallery wall on Sutter St. in San Francisco - wow! I was a 'real artist'. All those drawings and illustrations that had been laying around my studio were all of a sudden 'important'.

I think I might start laying aside a tuppence or two here and there to put into a 'framing fund', and get more things framed on a regular basis - whether they're going into a show or not.
This frame had to meet CPSA show requirements, which, in a nutshell, was "keep it simple". We pondered several "white" mats, as well as which type of narrow black frame - even with "simple" there are a lot of choices! I think the mat we settled on is Heritage White, and although you can't see it here, it compliments the art perfectly.

So now I get to pack this up in my special Airfloat Systems packing crate and send it off to the show.

One little thing I wanted to mention is about pricing your art when you do something like this. We all know a gallery will take its commission - usually 50%, and in the case of this show, 30%. Then you have to figure in framing costs. And for a show like this, crating and shipping. It can add up! The crate alone for this little piece cost $50. I don't know how much the shipping back and forth will be. The framing, as simple as it was, was over $100. (I did spring for UV plexiglass, but it wasn't that much more.) I'm just saying. Be sure you think it through before you name your price, or you'll be the proverbial starving artist.

Musings on being an artist these days

Dark Apple © Paula Pertile
Coloursoft pencils on LeCarte sanded paper
6 x 6 inches

I spent half of today fiddling with blog/Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/website/logo kinds of things. Endless endless fiddling. I'm trying to get up to speed with all of this 'stuff'. Now I think everything I think or do or say, even if its not online, will somehow end up there. I'm a little afraid to check in with myself, for fear my grocery list or some goofy thing I said to my cats will somehow appear as a 'tweet' or a 'comment'.

I also made myself a Facebook fan page, which feels a little - odd. Like, when you buy that new outfit that's a way brighter color than what you usually wear, or get that new fab hairdo, and you're not sure you feel quite like yourself, and like everyone is staring at you ... when in fact, no one notices or gives a darn. (But if you would like to 'like' me over there, please do, and know that you will have done wonders for my self esteem today.)

So after all of that I just had to draw something. Not 'illustrate' something. I mean get out the pencils or pastels and turn my brain off for a few minutes and just be an artist. Yesterday I was attracted to these really dark purply-red apples at the store, and picked a few to bring home to draw. I did this little piece with Coloursofts (which I haven't used for a while) on a dark piece of LeCarte sanded paper. Somehow I thought the dark paper and dark apple went well together. I think this purply-red must be my new favorite color (like the beets in that last piece).
The piece changed quite a lot when I sprayed it with fixative - it all kind of squooshed together and looks less like a pastel drawing than it did before, and is even darker than it was originally.

When I draw like this I hold my pencils like pastels, and really hack at the paper, which is sooooo different than how I do my fussy tight other drawings. This is more intuitive and just 'let it all hang out' and 'I don't care' and 'just feel it'. You know, like art. And its fun. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But the 'doing' is what its all about.

I sort of miss the days when just doing the art was all you had to do to be an artist. You know? Can you imagine Michelangelo "tweeting"? Or Leonardo updating his FB fan page? (Actually, I can imagine Leonardo getting geeky with it all - Michelangelo, not so much.)

Sistine Chapel up close

© Musei Vaticani

Click the image, or here, to go to the Sistine Chapel for free. When you get there, move and click your mouse around to go up the walls, look at everything up close, spin it around to get a different view, etc. Amazing!
What a world we live in now, to be able to do this.

I always secretly thought the restoration they did took away a layer of something that gave it its 'oomph'. I'm still not quite used to it without that wonderful 'dark' it used to have. But that's just me. Wish Michelangelo was around so we could ask him.

Thanks John Nez for sharing this so I could 'borrow' it!

Herding Cats

Today was "flea medicine day". If you have cats, you know what that means. They run. They hear you pop those little tubes out of the foil packet, and off they go ...

"RUN! She has the flea medicine!!!!!!!!"


"No, you won't catch me and put that stinky stuff on me, no no no no no NO!"



Around and around we went, but I won in the end.
This is my Shmoopie, the oldest kitty (15!) and she's always the hardest one to catch.

Of course the joke is on me, because now they'll all want to cuddle up with me in bed, and they'll stink. But at least we won't be eaten by fleas.

Too much info?

Working, sketching, drawing, coloring ... back to being an illustrator for a while.
Bye ~

Art Limbo

This is a piece from way back when, sometime before computers, when I was doing a lot of black and white stippling of things. Ah, the memories of putting in hundreds of hours on an architectural rendering that was all little teeny tiny dots. Fast forward to NOW, and not all that much has changed, except now I don't do 'dots' so much as little teeny tiny circles with colored pencils.

Looking ahead, I don't see things changing too much for me. This is how I work, like it or not. I'm just taking stock of where I am, and where I want to go, art and career-wise. I'm in one of those weird "what's it all about, Alfie?" moods. Art Limbo. It seems like most of the illustrators I know are having to juggle more than one (or two or three) 'sides' of themselves in order to make ends meet. Just doing children's books alone isn't always enough anymore. Art licensing takes a 'day job' to keep one afloat until things get rolling. People are teaching, doing workshops, selling in galleries and art fairs, doing online selling (etsy, etc.), selling in shops, doing ebay, and all of that. Illustrators and fine artists who are also 'crafty' are doing that as well (like me with the knitting, which I've stopped for now because it was just one thing too many).

Not sure where I'm going with this. Just venting.



This piece got reworked (the wine glasses disappeared, and grass was added) and became a greeting card for NobleWorks a ways back. But this is kind of how I feel right now - I like all the costumes, but can't wear them all at the same time, you know?

Pulling Up Roots

Finally. The title came to me. It was so obvious.
"Pulling up roots" connotes moving somewhere, and these veggie creatures look like they've pulled up and are on the move, so it fits. Also, I've 'pulled up roots' myself, so it has a personal meaning for me.

Thanks everyone a LOT for all of your suggestions! Some were pretty funny, I have to say. You're a creative bunch (hey, there's another title for another piece - "Creative Bunch". I get dibs!).

Roots, Untitled

"Roots, Untitled" © Paula Pertile
11 x 17, Polychromo pencils on Stonehenge paper

Its done. *Whew*
I'm stuck on the title. I've come up with every obvious, lame, 'trying too hard' pun on 'roots' or anything related. Roots en route. Roots Unbound. Flying veggies. I may just keep "Roots, Untitled ". I don't know.

But I'm pretty happy with it. I learned a lot on this one, and did a lot of discovery and felt like I was actually making art, rather than just rendering something, the same old way. The beets were particularly challenging. There are a lot of colors in them thar beets. A lot. Caput mortuum came to the rescue, once again. Its my favorite color in the box.

I was going to put a rectangle of color behind part of the stems to make them 'pop', and tie them in to the last piece, but decided against it.

Oh! And as Leslie mentioned in the comments in the last post, yes, the 'roots' and hairs do bring to mind my yarn pieces with all the little fuzzies. I guess I have a thing for doing squiggly wild haired things, how weird is that.

And CC, I did roast the veggies along with some potatoes, and they were yummy. Thanks for the suggestion!

Now its back to being a children's book illustrator for a while.

Beets and kitties

An update on this:

© Paula Pertile
11 x 17, colored pencils on paper

This is going crazy slow. I ended up doing a whole bunch of stuff other than this this weekend, which is why its not farther along. But its getting there.
The beets will be purplish black almost in the darkest areas, eventually. I'm digging doing the 'tails' and roots, and plan to put a rectangle behind them like I did in the last piece, with the tomatoes, just to tie the two pieces together. So I have a ways to go on this, but I'm slogging on.

And because we always like to see what the kitties are up to:


Phyllo with his roll of paper towels.


And Saachi just looking sort of not sure about what this box thing in front of my face is going to do, exactly ...
Doesn't he have great whiskers?

That's about it for today. Not too exciting. Hopefully next time I'll have the veggies done.