Sunday I just returned from Mackinac Island for the annual NAEA conference.. (National Art Education Association) It was held at the Grand Hotel!!! Like woah! It was fantastic. Before I tell about the conference let me tell you about the hotel. Overall, the hotel was pretty elegant. There was live music every night which was such a treat. I even got the chance to dance! Which you know is always a good time. 

And it was weird being on the island in the fall. It was soooo dead that it was kind of creepy. You would just see some locals here and there. But when it came for the day they celebrate halloween, the streets were packed! So much fun!

Anyways, the conference was great! It was cool to connect and talk with other art teachers and learn from them. I've taken back some excellent art lesson ideas, contacts, and some free art supplies I get to play and have fun with. 

there was a guest speaker, Robert Sabuda, who creates AMAZING pop up books! One of my favorites is his 12 Days of Christmas pop up book. Its amazing and mind blowing to think that every single pop up book is made by hand!! 

And to end the conference, there was a steampunk theme party. Everyone made some steampunk accessories. Some teachers went all out and had on full costumes!! It was great. i made a little "steampunk" little headband which kind of looks like a little flapper headband then steampunk, but whatever. haha (see above photo) 

keep a look out for some NEW artwork that I will be posting soon! updated my art lesson page tabs, "elementry" and "middle school" 

Peace and Blessings!
 

Hey! So what is your take on candy corn. Delicious three color goodness? Tasty little triangles? or disgustingly sweet rot-your- teeth little nasty pieces?

Well, I happen to love candy corn. I don't know why a lot of people are hating on candy corn. Yeah, it's probably the cause of cavities but I love the stuff.

Did you know that it takes 156 kernels of corn to make one kernel of Jelly Belly candy corn? Me either. Why am I tell ya'll this? for our next editorial project we have to create three spot illustrations for three random facts that we choose from a list. This one is pretty much finished. Isn't this little corn so cute?! 

my other two facts are 45% of adults eat Lucky Charms cereal (I'm proud to say I'm part of that 45%)
and the average number of times each week U.S surgeons operate on the wrong patient or body part, 40 surgeons. Rank f preventable medical errors among the leading causes of death in the U.S: 3

So there you have it. Now you just learned something today. You're welcome. 

So more illustrations to come! Still working on my devo, and just about to start my forest friend campfire painting. So keep a look out!

I'm just curious: who likes candy corn?

Cutting paper with scissors is not bad at all. I actually enjoy mindlessly cutting up strips of paper. Its...just relaxing. Am I weird? haha Anyways, cutting paper with an exaco blade, is another story. I'm kind of lazy and cheap so I don't change my blades often as I should. So here I am trying to cut things out with a dull blade...that may be the problem that my finger hurts because of all the pressure I putting on it and the blade is not as sharp. So it's been taking me longer than I thought to create these paper images.

 But I'm loving how its turning out! This is all for my devotional on Heartbreak. The cover turned out excellent! I'm just trying to figure out a technique that works so I don't waste time or paper.  And now I'm working on the page where I take about God made you unique and beautiful. So I'm going to have all different looking girls that are different ethnicity. This is to show that no matter what you look like, God made you beautiful. Because I feel like after a heartbreak, a girl may to start to doubt the way the look or dislike their own personality when they make up reasons why they got broken up with. 

Anyways, I don't want to give too much detail on the devotional right now. Back to what this post is actually about. Cutting things out of paper is becoming something i really like. I think I want to do other illustrations this way. So keep a look out!

I guess thats really it...haha 

Peace!

Hey people! So I'm pretty excited for this next painting for my series called, Camp Memories. It super adorable, I think, and it just brings me back to the memories I had with some awesome people sitting around the campfire making smores and singing songs to the God. This painting also makes me think about the moments I had consoling and talking and making smokes with the campers. The ultimate smore is one that is made with a whole gram cracker, a whole bar of chocolate, and four marshmallows. Yes, people, I'm talking about a smore sub! If you want to get fancy, you can add Recce's peanut butter cups, or Hershey's white chocolate. What is your best smore?

Anyways, this painting is cute because it's little forest animals making their treat over a big roaring fire. I can't help but think about what the fox says when I drew the fox character. Also when I was looking up photos of foxes, images from the movie, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, came up and I immediately wanted to watch the movie. If you haven't seen it...HOW DARE YOU! Go watch it, it's pretty great. 

And there are other little details around the painting. Notice the little mouse chopping down a gram cracker? Or the little box of gram crackers and marshmallows? What about the three headed dragon eating a plate of pancakes in the trees? That one is a tricky one to catch. 

So the drawing and the color studies are coming along great. Now I just have to figure out which one feels the best. I want the fire to be the most warm thing, obviously, and have everything cool around the animals. Which color study fits those requirements? Thats the question I need to answer. I'm thinking the bottom right . What do you think? you can see all my process work for this project here.

Also, I'm thinking about making paper cutouts out of my hipster animal sketches. So that should be exciting! I know I am excited. (pics to come)

And I'm just now cutting out paper for my illustrations for my devotional Its coming along well...just have to figure out how to write it. If you can pray for me that God will give me guidance, that would be wonderful. =]

Cutting out paper with an exacto blade hurts my hand...So much pressure trying to cut paper out! (maybe i need to replace my blades...) 

I'm hungry. 

Having patience is a good thing. I think I need more patience. I just want things to happen now when I want them to happen. Sometimes impatience gets me in trouble. I think ya'll can agree. 

Well, I started painting my editorial illustration for the article, Oubliette, And I didn't want to stretch the paper. Stretching the watercolor paper makes it so the paper is very tight and there won't be any bumps or lumps in the paper when you get the paper wet...Uhhhhh because i didn't do that I got exactly that.

But I think that the painting is going well. I'm the kind of artist that likes to work fast but I think I go a little too fast. Because when I rush, things don't turn out the way I want them. my work can look messy, out of proportion, and just...blahh. So I'm trying to go slow. I need to slow down so I can produce nice work. 

My impatience with drawing and painting kind of relates to my life right now. I need to learn to be patient. Because if I'm impatience I just end up in a mess. Lord give me patience. 

Anyways, here is my illustration so far. So just to remind you what this illustration is about, it's the moment after the father find his daughter in the attic. He rescues her and takes her to their favorite diner, Conrad's. Can you imagine what the girl must be feeling? What the father is feeling?What do you think? 

Hello! It has been awhile since I posted something. Thats because I've been lazy, working at American House, working on art stuff, and just been down in the dumps to be honest. But now I'm better. I like to keep it that way.

So we started a new project in my editorial class. We have to create an image for an article called. Oubliette. Oubliette means a secret dungeon with access only through a trapdoor in it's ceiling. The article is about a story of a girl who has a mother who has some sort of mental disorder and she locks her daughter in the attic. Her father doesn't know about it until he comes home and finds her. The daughter's parents split up but the father takes care of her in the hospital and when she is finally able to live on her own, the daughter goes and visits her mother and spends time with her. There is more to the story but thats the gist of it.


So I'm working on an illustration of a scene in the story after the dad finds his daughter in the attic he takes her to their favorite diner called, Conrad's. And the dad is upset and applogizes for her mother's behavior and I have the daughter just sitting and taking in everything that happened. Can you imagine what it must have felt like to be locked in the attic for hours and hours?!! She tried to get out but failed and so she just sat and waited for someone to find her. Her mom wasn't a loving mom either. 


What I decided to do was have the viewer see the two of them inside the diner through the window. I will have CONRAD's in neon lights but not realllly bright. It takes place in October so it's going to be a little cloudy outside so it contrasts with the bright window from the light inside the diner. I'm going to paint it in watercolor. 

So, there you have it. I hope to have it finished in a couple weeks. I also have been working on my devotional on heartbreak. I think I'm going to need some help writing it and making sure I make sense. haha. 

In other news, I really wish I had time to take tap dancing lessons I miss that. And I wish I had time to try and learn a piano piece. I want to learn a piece called, Radio Ballet by Eluvium. Go listen to it! Its beautiful! 

Hey are ya'll with me still? Hello? Oh hey! Okay now I have your attention. I just want to say thanks for reading my blog. I guess that means that you are some what interested in what is going on in The Life and Times of Liz Craft. 

Okay so, moving on. I finished my editorial watercolor project, Sleep Trouble! I think that the piece was a success. The whole project really boosted up my confidence in watercolor. And so did my green self-portrait. The challenging part of this painting was trying to get the nails to look like nails. One of my professors said it looked like CDs or bristles of a toothbrush...which it kind of does. So I think I'm going to try and fix it.. But since watercolor is difficult to make corrections sometimes I think I might try to put it in photoshop and figure something out. I would try to paint into it with gouache or acrylic but I'm scared I will ruin it... 

You can see the whole process here. I think that this was pretty good illustration. He looks uncomfortable on that bed of nails. Stiff as a board. He is not sleeping a wink. And the lighting of the moonlight through the window works pretty well. This photo is really dark so it's kind of difficult to notice that. (maybe I should take a better photo) Tell me what you think!

Also, six elephant practice paintings later I finally finish the first illustration of my Camp Memories series! This photo is also kind of dark. It much lighter in person. (again I need to take better photos!) But I think that this turned out well! The elephant looks so excited to jump in that lake with his little water wings and goggles. And his little buddy looks like he is in the wrong place at the wrong time. haha I love it! What do you think? Doesn't it make you wish it was summer again?