LAUNCH.... as in Blast Off!

Illustration Friday gives us a word each week and we draw an illustration with that word in mind.  Today's word is LAUNCH.  Which is ironically what I'm doing these days. Launching forward. Having the courage to step into the unknown and trying new things. I'm taking more chances. I'm saying Yes more and and saying No less. And enjoying my life so much more.


Life goes by like a flash of light that you're not even sure you saw in the first place. You turn and it is already gone. Long gone. Where did it go? And what's around the next corner? 

Who knows? But I'm running toward it with gumption and not willing to sit on the curb and watch it pass me by.

It's blast off time. Time to launch. 

IF: Bicycle

This week's Illustration Friday's topic is Bicycle. 

This was a fun project for me. I had the job to create fabric out of some bicycle illustrations that were given to me.  I added more of my own and placed them into a repeat and this is the result!

When I was a kid, I had a teal sting-ray bike with a banana seat, white wall tires and the requisite basket with flower appliques. (which i later replaced with a steering wheel I ordered from a Montgomery Ward's catalog).

I can vividly remember riding over tree-root-cracked sidewalks over to my best friend's house. A doll with clumps of human hair taped over the bald doll's head and belted around my waist behind me as if she was holding on to my waist; a playing card tucked between the spokes to sound like an engine.

I will never ever forget that one hot summer evening when I was probably 7.  My sister and I and best friend Terry donned on baseball caps over our short pixie haircuts and pretended to be boys.  We pulled off our shirts and raced our bikes around the block feeling dizzy with excitement wearing only our shorts and keds... 

Racing

Racing!!!

Wouldn't it be fun to be tiny (as in my favorite third grade book: The Littles Take a Trip) and then discover a child's bedroom filled with hotwheels and tracks! Ohhhh to be able to race along the actual hot wheel tracks and sit in the plastic toy bleachers as a Little.

I spoke about this a few posts ago, but incase you missed it... when I was a child, I believed that Little People might really exist. I hoped they did. I wanted a little family to take care of. To carry them in my pocket when I went off to school. Feed them crumbs from the dinner table and give them a ball of cotton to sleep on at night.

Somewhat similliar to my "transportation piece: TotTown" Here is such a land for the Littles...

IF: Transportation

When I was a kid, I read the book The Littles Take a Trip and totally fell in love with it and in the idea of little people! I imagined there were entire cities all around me that were so tiny that I could not possibly see them with my human-sized eyes!

I would even leave out my matchbox cars and hot wheels for them at night ... just incase....

This transportation scene I designed for Michael Miller Fabrics is called Tot Town.

Bravery

And in that moment... feeling resentment of picking up my next door neighbor's dog poop week after week and throwing it away in my garbage can...  I picked up a pile with my gardening shovel and without thinking of the consequences, I flung it as far as I could over her car in the driveway so it would land in her yard. I misjudged my throw as the poop was only as heavy as cotton and it landed instead, on her car rooftop and some of it slid down her windshield and onto her hood.

The noise of the poop hitting her car, however, was not as quiet as cotton. Suddenly, the neighbor walked outside with her dog.  She had heard it and was coming out to check the skid marks.

It was a moment of sheer panic and embarrassment and I knew I had two options.  To either drop and roll out of sight   ....   or be brave and fess up to the mess.

I decided to side on bravery (and do the right mature thing) and started to rush toward her when she and her dog turned and walked on down the street oblivious to me or the brown smears down her car window.

i stood there, breathless with my heart beating out of my skin and realized that I had just experienced a miracle.

I whispered, thank-you-god, thank-you-god, thank-you-god  while I cleaned up the mess on her car in neck-breaking speed.

And then, after observing the lesson I had just learned from my experience, I shoveled up the rest of the poop, and this time walked closer to the edge of her yard before flinging it.

Just as I should have done from the beginning.

Perspective Tea Party Rug

I was commissioned to draw this tea party scene to be a children's interactive rug. The idea behind this is for the children to have make-believe tea parties with fake plastic food that was packaged with the rug. But... if I were that little girl, I don't think I would have enjoyed eating the plastic food nearly as much as the real thing.

IF: Pattern

Click on artwork to view larger

Here is a retro piece I designed as fabric. The pattern is put into a half-drop repeat. And one of these days, by golly, I will be sleeping in pajamas made of this flannel fabric.. even if it's only in my dreams.

Illustration Friday: Zoo

I had a really fun experience creating artwork for the various sets on The Rockimals. These signs in particular were some of the zoo signs they asked me to draw. The last time I was at the san francisco zoo was about 15 years ago and I couldn't remember what zoo signs looked like.

Do they tell fun facts? They should if they don't! I got these facts off the internet.

Buzz (around)

I love the word Buzz.

It has an assortment of all sorts of meanings.
For instance, you can say "give me a buzz" to someone you want a phone call from while sitting in a barber chair and walk out with a completely different haircut than you intended.

"There's a buzz in the room" could mean... "do you hear the excitement in the air?" or it could mean "watch out and don't let that bee sting you."

And, feeling a buzz can mean something different, too. You won't want to feel a buzz if you're putting in a new light fixture. But a buzz is kinda nice when you're sitting in front a fire with an adult beverage.

Another meaning of Buzz is to move. Zip around. Scoot around. Buzz around.
So here is my scooter girl buzzing around Paris with a buzz in the air and one in her hair.

Illustration Friday: Cake

A lady from a large grocery store chain with a bakery department called me on the phone from seemingly nowhere and asked if I would like to come in for an interview to be a cake decorator.

A cake decorator! I never had ever thought of being a cake decorator before-- except maybe once when I was using my Easy Bake Oven as a kid. It sort of appealed to me in that moment.

"When do you want me to come in?" I asked.
"Anytime today, " she said. "Just come into the Manager's office and ask for Char."

So I did. She took one look at me and said, "You're hired".

It felt pretty nice to being hired so quickly and easily on the spot. But then my smile and feeling good about myself faded instantly when she said, "You'll be making approximately $8 an hour, just four hours a day, then we take out $40 of union pay out of your paycheck each week so you'll gross $120 and with taxes and benefits taken out, you can probably count on about $78 a week. Sound good? Plus, you get one floating holiday off your first year and then after that you get your birthday and anniversary date off. Come in on Monday, to pick up your uniform"!

On Sunday, I walked into that large grocery store and told the young teenage manager that I could not take the job.

She just jeered at me and blew so hard, the bangs of her hair flowed back and forth by her breath and said, "Well, it's a GOOD THING you didn't quit AFTER we paid the money for you to attend Cake Decorating School!"

Illustration Friday: Sorry!

It's always funny to watch people monkey around at the beach until someone gets hit in the head by a beach ball. Then it's hilarious!

Glamour

Illustration Friday:Glamour

I remember the old TV Show "Hart to Hart" and thinking Stefani Powers was the most glamorous woman on television. Whether she was climbing through a sewer pipe or in a fight scene, she always had that natural glamour.

For those of us who aren't Mrs. Hart, we already know it takes a lot more than makeup to make oneself glamorous. Because it's more intrinsic than anything else. But it's a good start.

E is for Early Bird

Not being much of a fan of worms, I never saw the incentive of waking up early to catch them.

I know they are good for the earth ... (and for fishin') ... but it has always been easier for me to be a ... (whoo? whooo?) .. a night owl instead.

Imagine

Driving through the neighborhood, I can't help but notice every home seems to have an inflatable Santa or Snowman or Reindeer just laying down on the grass flat as a pancake. It's kinda sad in a way, but I slow down and imagine, anyway, what they would look like if they were filled with air. "Oooooooh, pretty!" I whisper outloud.

Surprise!

You know how it is when you're a kid sitting in the backseat traveling for hours without air conditioning and you think you're actually sweating to death and dying of thirst so you beg your parents to stop so you can have a coke, and they say, "when we get to our destination, you can have a glass of water."

It was one of those vacations.

"I have to go to the bathroom."
"You should have gone when we stopped for gas three hours ago! You will just have to hold it."

It was in the middle of July. We were driving across country from California to North Carolina. We had no air conditioning and it was HOT.

"Can we get a motel with a pool?" we'd beg.
"We'll get the motel that we get".

I'll never forget how wide my smile felt on my face, when we pulled into a motel with a pool!

"I love you Pool! I love you Pool!" I sang over and over again. I couldn't have been happier! I snapped open my suitcase, threw on my bathing suit, and within moments, I was on the diving board hopping UP and down and UP and down preparing for my plunge into that glorious refreshing swimming pool... when I noticed ... something ... terribly strange.

It took a long time for me to shake the shock from my eyes and realize that I was actually staring down into a giant waterless hole in the ground. That stupid pool I was singing love songs to, was shut down for repair!

I cried enough tears that afternoon to nearly fill that pool back up. My mom said all my tears still wasn't quite deep enough to wade in, so we cooled down by drinking a coke with ice from the motel ice bucket.

And that night before I fell asleep, I followed the road map with my finger to see how far we had traveled. We were getting closer, but we still needed to check in one more night in a motel before we reached Swansboro.

I got giddy with excitement. I couldn't help but believe we would finally get our motel with a pool. And it would be worth it.

Winter Blues

I thought I suffered from the Winter Blues.

But actually, the Blues in winter make me quite happy and rejuvinated.

It's infact, the Grays in the winter that bring me down. (gray sky, fog, mist, rain...)

So cheers to the Winter BLUEs...

The Broken Necklace

I just got back from clothes shopping.

Can pants getting any longer? I am of a fairly average height of 5'5 so why is the length so long, they fold at the bottom of my feet and stick out under the dressing room door! I heard a woman's voice say, "excuse me" as she stepped over them.

Quietly, inside another dressing room, I could hear two teenage girls talking a few feet away.
"Oh, m'gawwd, like that tee is rilly, rilly cuuuute. And it's just plain white, so no one will know you got it here, ya know?"
"Totally. Do you like these pants? Does it make my butt look small? Oh m'gaawwd, what is THAAAT on my face? Is that a pimple!?"
"I don't see it. Oh, yes, I do. Ewwww... get it awaaay from meee!"
"Why didn't you tell me? Oh m'gawwd, it's covering half my face!"
"Ewww, I think it just popped up. I would have seen THAT!"
"Let's get out of here. I could JUST die".
"Are you getting those pants? I totally love them".
"I love them, too. Not totally."
"If you don't love them totally, then don't get them".
"I WOULD totally love them, but I just don't like this pucker".
"What pucker?"
"This pucker."
"Where?"
"Here!"
"Ohhh m'gawwwd, now i see it! Maybe you can find another pair that doesn't have it!"
"Why didn't I see that pucker on you when you tried these on?"
"Like, I'm a little smaller than you..."
"I hate you."
"i hate you more."
"Did I just make that zit larger on my face?"
"Ewwww. Let's go. My mom's going to pick us up in less than five minutes!"

Just then, I pulled a sweater over my head. I had forgotten I had a small beaded necklace on. And, as I pulled, the necklace went with it. Out of the silence came loud pinging of the smalll colorful balls bouncing to the ground and spraying out everywhere like a clogged faucet!

"Oh m'gawwd! What is that sound?" One of the teenage girls shrieked.
"Is that the ceiling crumbling?"
"NoOoOoo, look! LoOoOok! Someone broke their necklace."
"Oh m'gawwd, how saaad is THAT!"

They gathered them up and waited for me to open the dressing room door to hand them to me. But I couldn't. The sweater was still stuck around my necklace.

remote

I wish I had a magical remote. So I could click on any wish I had and it would come true in an instant.

Stuck In a Snowglobe

That's how I've been feeling lately. Misplaced in the season. Stuck in a snowglobe.

It seems our weather has turned on a dime. Sometimes it looks warmer than it is, and I trot off on a walk and there's a small chill in the air. I'm still not accustomed to putting on a sweater or a coat or a sweatshirt. I just venture off wearing clothes appropriate for the tropics!

But I am enjoying this time of year and eventually I'll get the hang of what to wear as I venture outside....

Lost

Losing a sock is sad. But sadder still, is a lost sock monkey.