Dear Mr. Burton, I’ve found myself in a desperate rut, the likes of which you’ve managed to retrieve me from in the past, and I’m hoping you will be available again sometime soon. January a year ago, I made a trek to the Museum of Modern Art, specifically to view your work on display there. I bought a membership just …
Blogging combo
I’ve been trying to keep way, way too many blogs in the air at the same time, and for all the right reasons I’m in the process of combining as many as I can. So my graphic design/editorial illustration/fine art blog posts from a different blog are now integrated into and between the posts in this blog. And you probably …
Convoluted painting
I finished a new painting a few weeks ago, and I wasn’t all that satisfied with how it turned out at first. But I put it aside, and now that I’m looking at it with fresh eyes, I think I can deal with it. It’s called “Drop Away,” and I painted it with acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 36″x24″. The …
Not bothering to bother
I admit it: I’ve been shirking my kid’s illustration duties lately. When frustration and discouragement sets in, it’s hard to keep banging your head against the wall. It just feels so good when you stop. I’ve been leaning lately in a direction where I am getting positive feedback, and where I don’t feel like what I’m creating is getting sucked …
iFrank in Technicolor
Here’s a little guy I just painted this afternoon. I did a version of him earlier that was a take on the iPod commercials and was originally posted on The Rots blog.
New business card design
I’ve finally redesigned some new business cards for the graphic design offshoot of my freelance work (the white cards below). I had redesigned my Web site over a couple years ago, but until now I’ve been using the old business cards with all the old fonts and graphics and abrasive attitude (the black card to the right). I guess I thought I could use them …
Paintings I did 20 years ago
I’ve posted a few scans of paintings I did around 15 and 20 years ago as a photo album on Facebook. If you’ve seen the scans of drawings from around that time, you’ll know these were all finished before I went back to school for art. I used to use really tiny brushes at the time, and it took me …
Drawings I did 20 years ago
I’ve scanned in photos I found of some old drawings I did a long, long time ago. These are way before I ever went back to school for art, so everything you see in this album was self-taught. You can tell I was still tight with my lines and basing everything on realism, but you have to get that part …
New banner design for Etsy shop
Here’s a new banner I designed recently for The Dreaming Owl‘s Etsy shop, along with the matching identity icon. The Dreaming Owl sells handmade mittens, scarves, jewelry, bookmarks and purses, and requested a banner to reflect the shop’s personality. We went with this hand drawn and stylized owl and banner.
Molly Leach
Few designers actually get recognition in the world of book publishing, but thankfully Molly Leach seems to be getting at least a little of it. Molly is the brilliant designing mind behind many children’s books including The Stinky Cheese Man. We’re used to books breaking the rules these days, but The Stinky Cheese Man expanded the boundaries of what was …
Finally moving on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NoraThompson Combination of all the work I do: fine art, kid’s illustration, graphic design and The Rots©. Kind of a daily updating of my working life.
Women in Art 2009
I had two pieces juried in to the 2009 Women in Art exhibit at Harlan Gallery, Seton Hill University, Greensburg, PA. Titles: Thirteen (shown here) and Eleven (shown below, bottom). Both are in the portfolio section of my fine art Web site: www.norathompson.us. The show runs November 1 through November 22.