{"id":3370,"date":"2014-04-06T00:01:04","date_gmt":"2014-04-06T06:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=3370"},"modified":"2014-04-06T07:15:15","modified_gmt":"2014-04-06T13:15:15","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-376-featuringup-and-coming-illustrator-christine-allen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=3370","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #376: Featuring
Up-and-Coming Illustrator, Christine Allen"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\nIt’s the first Sunday of the month, which means I welcome a student or new illustrator. Today, Christine Allen<\/a><\/strong> visits. Christine, who lives in Colorado, studied painting and is transitioning into illustration. She tells us more about herself below, so let’s get right to it. <\/p>\n

I thank her for visiting … <\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/font><\/center><\/p>\n


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My Schooling\/Training and
Transition into Illustration:<\/em><\/font><\/strong><\/center><\/p>\n

I received my BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago<\/a><\/strong>, where I studied painting. I also studied at Parson\u2019s The New School for Design<\/a><\/strong> and Yale School of Art and Music. All exceptional experiences, all challenging and fulfilling. Following all of this study, I had a bit of a crisis, a loss of excitement and energy when it came to painting. I began to realize that, despite identifying as a creative person, I was at that time very rigid in my thinking. It was painting or nothing. As I began to lift the walls, so to speak, and go (not to sound hokey) where the energy took me, I came to children\u2019s books. And as often happens when one looks back, it seemed exceedingly obvious that this connection had walked with me all along the windy road and back to where I began. <\/p>\n


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What I Am Working on Now:<\/em><\/font><\/strong><\/center><\/p>\n

I am currently playing around with circus images. The imagery is rich. The animals are unsettled and haunted by distant memories of life in the wild. I am also painting animal gods that look to be from somewhere in China. <\/p>\n


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Inspirations:<\/em><\/font><\/strong><\/center><\/p>\n

Illustrators and writers I greatly admire are David Lucas<\/a><\/strong>, Jon Agee<\/a><\/strong>, Tove Jansson<\/a><\/strong>, David Small<\/a><\/strong>, John Burningham<\/a><\/strong>, and of course all things William Steig<\/a><\/strong>, James Thurber<\/a><\/strong>, and Virginia Lee Burton<\/a><\/strong>. I am in complete awe of Rob Dunlavey<\/a><\/strong>, Blexbolex<\/a><\/strong>, Laurent Moreau<\/a><\/strong>, Astrid Lindgren<\/a><\/strong>, Maira Kalman<\/a><\/strong>, Quentin Blake<\/a><\/strong>, Sophie Blackall<\/a><\/strong>, Kevin Waldron<\/a><\/strong>, Marjorie Priceman<\/a><\/strong>, Mo Willems<\/a><\/strong>. Honestly, it\u2019s just too many to name here, but it’s hard to stop. I want to just keep naming them. So much incredibly wonderful work out there. <\/p>\n


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What I Am Reading Now and Love:<\/em><\/font><\/strong><\/center><\/p>\n

Unless I am deeply absorbed in a novel, I usually have two or three books going at once and another 20 due back to the library. Currently, it is Design as Art<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Bruno Munari<\/a><\/strong>, The Bat Poet<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Randall Jarrell<\/a><\/strong>\/Maurice Sendak<\/a><\/strong>, and The Owl in the Attic and Other Perplexities<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by James Thurber<\/a><\/strong>. Since the day I became a parent, in addition to pleasure reading came the desperate reading of books by experts on child-rearing and of self-help books. <\/p>\n


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From the Sketchbooks:<\/em><\/font><\/strong><\/center>
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\nAll images here are used by permission of Christine Allen.<\/em> <\/p>\n

* * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n

Note for any new readers: 7-Imp\u2019s 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 kickers are always welcome. <\/p>\n

* * * Jules’ Kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font>
<\/center><\/p>\n

I’m going to keep it short today, since I’m going out of town later this week for work and have my work cut out for me (for before I leave). <\/p>\n

I’m grateful Christine visited today, as I enjoy seeing her artwork. <\/p>\n

My big kick is that I finished Meg Wolitzer’s<\/a><\/strong> The Interestings<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, such a great novel. <\/p>\n

What are YOUR<\/font><\/strong> kicks this week? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  It’s the first Sunday of the month, which means I welcome a student or new illustrator. Today, Christine Allen visits. Christine, who lives in Colorado, studied painting and is transitioning into illustration. She tells us more about herself below, so let’s get right to it. I thank her for visiting …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3370","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=3370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3370\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}