Last few days, I’ve been juggling photo shoots, end of school year mayhem, dance performances, ER visits and illustration deadlines. All this makes a girl a bit creatively drained. Recuperating from it all, I’m making small attempts to begin sketches for long time client, Grand Rapids Community Foundation. Again, I’m looking back to old illustration I’ve done for their newsletter, Current, to see if I can find what I’m missing. That creative mojo.Here are a few spot illustrations from past issues of Current:

roadside desires, originally uploaded by yodraws.

I desire a road trip.

the venue, originally uploaded by yodraws.

Yes, it’s official. I’m not participating in ArtPrize this year. Instead I plan to enjoy a lazy summer and anticipate another great ArtPrize event this fall. I hope to see great works of art, huge crowds and a dash of controversy.

Creating poster artwork isn’t as easy as you may think. Especially today, listening to birds singing out in the lovely sunny spring. Still, I’m expected to create the next round of images for next year’s Opera Grand Rapids. Things are moving along ok, but being that I’m a little distracted, and Mike scored us some sweet tickets to Porgy and Bess this Friday, I thought I’d share some of the color studies and sketches for this weekend’s performance.

Color is always an important element in my work, so when sketching I like starting with color right away.

Sometimes I scan the sketches and play with color and compositions in photoshop.

For opera artwork, I tend to listen to opera cds from the library. My kids do not really appreciate this.

Once a concept is settled, many color studies are made. Pencils and gouache make this process easy and fast.

Art finally gets done thanks to great art direction from Lisa at Square One Design

I’m all over the new Henri Matisse exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. Road trip! In the meantime, I’m feasting my eyes on this well put together site.

flight, originally uploaded by yodraws.

love dog, originally uploaded by yodraws.

Cute little Valentine’s day art I recently did for the Grand Rapids Community Foundation.

rocking the new year, originally uploaded by yodraws.

love this paper blog. love.