Happy November to one and all, and I hope everyone had a great Halloween yesterday. <\/p>\n
I love the first Sundays of every month at 7-Imp, in which either a student illustrator, a newly-graduated illustrator, or someone otherwise new to illustration stops by to share some art. This week we have Tess Bailey<\/strong><\/a>, who recently graduated from the Ringling College of Art and Design<\/strong><\/a> in Sarasota, Florida, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in Illustration. Tess, who I believe is in Maryland now, is sharing with us this morning some of her thesis art work, which I think is beautiful stuff. Pictured above is Spirit Horse<\/em>, probably my very favorite piece. Pictured below is Hawaiian Legend<\/em> (click on that image to enlarge and see more details), followed by a little bit from Tess herself about her work. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n “<\/font>My love for art began at an early age, inspired by my Aunt Beth, an established artist in Hawaii. I love exploring color and textures. I enjoy working with just about any medium I can get my hands on. I find it difficult to stick with just one for too long. So, I experiment a lot and sometimes uncover interesting techniques that really get me fired up. <\/p>\n This happened for me when working on my senior thesis collection in my last semester at Ringling. I began exploring the world of watercolor and played with different ways of creating textures and interesting effects, using this medium. As I played and experimented, I thought it would be fun to integrate these effects into a digital environment. So, I began digitizing the watercolor effects I had created and collaged them into my computer illustrations. For my thesis, I chose folktales from different countries around the world and illustrated them using this technique, incorporating colors and symbols indigenous to each country. I started scanning different watercolor textures I had previously made and collaging them together to form a colorful and expressive image.<\/p>\n This whole process reinforced why I love illustration. The possibilities are endless. There are no limits, no boundaries, and the more you play, the more fun and interesting it is.“<\/font><\/em><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Isn’t her work eye-poppingly, wake-you-up wonderful for a Sunday morning? Or any time, really. She vividly reveals the colorful spirit of folktales, almost like a Stefano Vitale<\/strong><\/a> in training — which is a huge compliment, in my book. (I love his art.) And I don’t know about you, but I’d love to see a story wrapped around Waterbike<\/em>.<\/p>\n Many thanks to Tess for stopping by and sharing some of her art today. Best of luck to her. I hope we’ll be seeing her illustrations soon, gracing the cover of a book — or the pages therein. <\/p>\n {All illustrations are \u00a9 2009 Tess Bailey and used with her permission. All rights reserved.}<\/em><\/p>\n As a reminder, 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New folks are always welcome. Please, come kickin’… <\/p>\n Happy November to all…Many of you probably saw Eisha’s post<\/strong><\/a> on Friday. I’ll miss her like hell at 7-Imp, though of course we’ll still keep in touch like crazy. I hope she’ll come kickin’ with us on Sundays, if and when her kicks strike. To Eisha, I shout one final Spartan-like, “JUGGERNAUTASTIC!” Or more like: “Jugger-naut-easy-to-say-goodbye.”<\/font> (Sorry that’s an inside joke, but I can’t not<\/em> type it now as she says farewell.)<\/p>\n My seven kicks this week: <\/p>\n 1). Little Willow<\/strong><\/a> coined the word “7-Impterview” on Tuesday, and I love her for it. And I’m so totally going to steal it. With her blessing, of course. <\/p>\n 2). Speaking of 7-Impterviews, how great are those DiTerlizzis<\/strong><\/a>?<\/p>\n 4). I chaperoned a field trip my kindergarten-aged daughter’s class took this week to see a performance in Nashville by the travelling Mermaid Theater of Nova Scotia<\/strong><\/a>. It was a one-hour stage adaptation of three of Eric Carle’s<\/strong><\/a> titles (Little Cloud<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, The Very Hungry Caterpillar<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, and The Mixed-Up Chameleon<\/strong><\/a><\/em>). Now, I once co-founded a children’s theatre (which is still going strong), and I’m very particular about the whole endeavor. Too many companies condescend to child audiences and mount very didactic and dry productions (we all know a similar thing happens with children’s lit), the kind of thing no adult would ever want to sit through. But, holy wow, this was a great show. Absolutely spot-on pacing for the youngest of children. So good that the wee, wee kindergarteners were ooh’ing and aah’ing so much that it was hard to hear sometimes. But—and here’s the next best thing—they opened the show with an announcement that said they “are not a shush-y theatre.” Lucky kids. <\/p>\n Even their mission statement<\/strong><\/a> gets me geeked-out happy: “Mermaid Theatre’s emphasis on imaginative design elements, original music, and challenging texts<\/em> provides a rich opportunity to acquaint young spectators with the visual and performing arts as well as with the pleasures of reading<\/em>.” (Nerdy emphases are mine.)<\/p>\n You can see some photos from the show here<\/a><\/strong> (as well as this one above). Beautiful puppets with black lights on a dark stage — with colors that perfectly matched Carle’s style. Evidently, he consulted on the show. It was good, good stuff. <\/p>\n 5). I’m still enjoying the delicious coffee that one Mrs. BlueTeaBerrry<\/strong><\/a> sent me from one of her recent adventures. Also, Adrienne<\/strong><\/a> has good stationery, which has delighted both me and my mailbox this week. She even ordered the notecards of an illustrator I’ve featured here before<\/strong><\/a>, which makes me happy for many reasons. <\/p>\n 7). This week, for Halloween, my kindergartener got to wear her princess costume-of-choice to school one day. That morning, she put on her dress and I braided her hair. She thinks the latter is staggeringly cool. Braids even make her walk more slowly, as if they’ll disappear if she doesn’t walk with the utmost grace and care. After braiding, I watched her stand in front of the bathroom mirror and smile at her get-up. Now, I’m here to tell you that I nearly cried. I try so hard<\/em> not to get all kids-say-the-darnedest-things on you guys every Sunday, so my apologies and bear with me: I just watched her stare and smile in wonder and stare and stare some more. She knew<\/em> how beautiful she was. With just a pretend-fancy dress and one loose braid. It was like time stopped for a moment, and I realized that I may not have too many years of this, that before I know it she may start judging herself more harshly, given the culture we live in. Of course, I’ll fight it tooth and nail, and—if I’m lucky—she won’t do that. For now, I’m going to appreciate the inherent kick-itude of her seeing beauty in just about everyone<\/em> and everything<\/em>. <\/p>\n Did I mention I’ll miss Eisha at 7-Imp? Maybe every now and then she can pop in and we can talk like Spartans. Just for fun. <\/p>\n What are YOUR<\/font> kicks this week? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Happy November to one and all, and I hope everyone had a great Halloween yesterday. I love the first Sundays of every month at 7-Imp, in which either a student illustrator, a newly-graduated illustrator, or someone otherwise new to illustration stops by to share some art. This week we have Tess Bailey, who recently graduated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n
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(Click to enlarge.)<\/center><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/away-we-go-movie-postersmall.jpg\")
3). I watched Away We Go<\/em><\/strong><\/a> this week. (Now, that<\/em> movie was different from anything Sam Mendes<\/strong><\/a> has ever done before.) I liked it. I understand that some critics gave Mendes a hard time for the the-love-is-the-syrup-that-holds-us-together scene, but the acting from Chris Messina<\/strong><\/a> was so good that I damn near teared up. <\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/chameleon.jpg\")
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6). I read an advance copy of Laura Amy Schlitz’s<\/strong><\/a> The Night Fairy<\/em><\/strong><\/a> this week to my girls, and it was the first children’s novel that my youngest has sat through, listened to, and requested. She even wants to read it again. I hope to post about it soon-ish. (Illustrated novel! Illustrated novel!) <\/p>\n