Blog

Finding creative outlets for your artwork.

 

The Baby Calves Adventure Series children’s book: “Real Butter is Best!”

What does that have to do with art? Everything.

 

Many of my artist friends are saying that Covid-19 has made it exceedingly difficult to get motivated to create their artwork. With no outlets for their creations with galleries closed and art exhibitions cancelled, they find it hard to get inspired to create.

 

I feel overwhelmed with the amount of artwork that I need to complete! You see, I illustrate the children’s books that my husband and I write with fine art paintings. Each book takes about forty, yes forty, paintings. At first, I used large formats, but now I include little 4”x6” paintings. Utilizing fine art, some of which that has been accepted into international and national art exhibitions, to illustrate the children’s books is how I find inspiration to continue my artistic journey. “Real Butter is Best!” is our latest effort. You can find a picture of the cover on my home page.

 

Why a book about butter? Well, it is not just about butter, but since we make our living in the dairy industry, it is a logical choice for us to include it. Please allow me to explain how this process evolved to use my artwork in a different way.

 

The first children’s book I wrote was inspired during a trip when we visited our son and his family. At that time, the oldest of his four children was the only one that they had. Since she had been seeing us for months on the computer through video chat, she exclaimed when she first saw me walk through the door, “Grandma, you got out of the computer!”. On the flight back home, I wrote a story through her eyes, and illustrated it as if she drew with color crayons to tell her story of how “Grandma & Grandpa are trapped in the computer!”

 

After that book, I drew some cartoon illustrations for my children’s books on coping with dyslexia for letters and numbers, as well as science storybooks about unique animals. Since drawing does not come naturally to me [I paint the color of the shapes that I see, so I rarely sketch] I mentioned to my husband that it was a shame that I could not use the fine art that I create to illustrate my books. As my husband and I were relaxing one evening in my studio, we looked at the paintings on the wall and did an impromptu story, talking back and forth, using the paintings on the wall for a storyline. We looked at each other and said, “Why not?” Just because it hasn’t been done before, doesn’t mean that we can’t do it.

We decided on “The Baby Calves Adventure Series” to help promote the hard work that his clients do on their dairy farms and the great product that they produce. These little calves explore the land outside of their barns and learn about nature. Both of us are animal scientists, so writing about the interaction between wild animals and the calves was a natural fit. Of course, since is a storybook, there is a lot of leeway for our creative juices to flow. As we write and edit, we use humor in the dialog between the various animals. These stories are meant to entertain readers of all ages.

 

I have decided to do some blogging about these books, to create a narrative of the background of the various books. “Real Butter is Best!” has the calves learning about the difference between animals that live in and on water compared to their life in the barn. This kingfisher that I illustrated on these pages, “Fast Food”, has been selected by jury for inclusion of the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum’s “Birds in Art” exhibition for 2020.

 

Do you have a different way to use the artwork that you make? I would love to hear about it.

 

 

 

Read More