All the Words of a Language | Blog

things i've made recently // Little Miss Muffet

 Little Emma Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her curds + whey 

 When along crept a spider 

 Who belly flopped down beside her 

 and splashed little Emma... 

...away! 

Happy Holidays!

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

"The world i know is a world much too slow"

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.

grievances: Facebook

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.

 

things i've made recently

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.

things i've made recently

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.

the catcher in the rye

I have been slowly inching and working my way on a children's/young adult book promotional of which I thought "I like making book covers, I should add some in the promo." So, I am.

  

The reason: I never understood the original cover design of The Catcher in the Rye. A bull? Really? Like most 20-something girls, I have been pining to re-design and re-draw it since forever. Here was my chance. Plus, we all have a little bit of Holden Caufield in us, don't we?

The intention: For my version of the Catcher, I tried to make 16 year old Holden Caufield as having just enough prep with just enough edge*. I see Holden as being pissed, realizing the idiocy of society and human behavior. People are fake and he can't take it anymore. He wants to save us from this game, he wants to be the catcher in the rye, but he's too confused to save us, or himself. The only one who can is his little sister; a return to simplicity, the innocence and fun of childhood.

The process: Eek! This came out exactly the opposite of what I envisioned. There's no hand drawn typography! I thought that would look super bad like a hand written note, but executed it looked lame. Sometimes you just need to use a real font. I also tend to forget that just because I give a character a peacoat does not mean they look modern and edgy. The pencil and tea stains really aged the whole piece. It looked like it belonged in the history section of the book store. I had to fix that issue with design and strategic color placement. I'm really comfortable with this illustration style right now, so I need to work on how to freshen it up for the kids.

*I was going to attempt a witty joke in which I compared Holden to perpetual rebel prep extraordinaire Scott Disick, but that would be like spitting in Salinger's face. So I didn't. I really should stop watching reality TV.

weekly Tao #10

The problem is that I will not sleep, I will skip meals, and sometimes I refuse to go to the bathroom all for the love of art. I think some people call it passion but I know it is definitely unhealthy. I've hit my tipping point.

Zen Habits recently had a really great article on killing to-do lists and Michael Nobbs has been writing some awesome articles for Underground Art School which got me inspired. They were about measurable goals and creative routines. 

Recently, I have started working on my own routines. 

A few of my important ones are to be in bed by 11, the first Thursday of every month are when I set up blog posts for Underground Art School + Pikaland, and soon I'm going to implement Internet Sabbaticals; pre-planned Internet vacations because man, social networking art sites are suffocating my work. Now I'm working toward daily routines in regard to art + work.

How do you set limits on a limitless activity?

One of the selling points of freelance was I didn't have to work a 9-5 and I could wear hats all the time and now I'm discovering that routines fuel accomplishment of goals, ideas, productivity, and a balanced life. The silver lining is I still can do all of that while wearing hats.

 

scribble sheet

I needed to do something creative but fun today so I made a Scribble Sheet! Apparently, only a few minor details have changed since childhood, such as the ability to listen to explicit music legally. Have you checked out Lisa Currie (aka OPPY's) The Scribble Project? Do it! You should totally make one of these too!

While you do that, I'm going to write Maria a letter and we both can wait for Jonathan Taylor Thomas' comeback!

Weekly Tao #9

One of the greatest challenges of being an artist is never being satisfied. Does this sound familiar to you: once I make something the next thing I want to do is create something new. OR, and even worse, start judging and editing the piece I just finished. Can a girl get some satisfaction up in here?

 

I edited this post because I didn't know what I wanted to achieve with it. Such a fantastic example of how blogging about art even leaves room for expectation. Ok, I feel satisfied now.