Silent Auction for NieNie (Closed)

The Nielson Family, our prayers are with you!

Don't forget to visit Design Mom for other amazing auctions. All helping to raise funds for Stephanie and her family.

UP FOR AUCTION

"Sleepyheads"

Shhhh! Momma Owl is trying to get all her little owls to settle down, for the moon is waining, and the sun will soon be ready to say hello. She is reading her little one's their favorite book, Goodnight Moon. Looks like little brother has already fallen asleep from a busy night of hide and go seek and lightning bug races. Good luck Momma Owl, those other two look like real night owls. (sorry guy's, I couldn't help myself)

Up for auction is the original painting "Sleepyheads" in this lovely wooden frame. This is an original painting (not a print) using watercolors and acrylic paints. The size is 5"x 7" and the painting is mounted on coordinating acid free scrapbooking paper.

Stephanie and Christian and their beautiful family

I just visited Kathleen's lovely blog, Grosgrain, and found out the most heart breaking events that have happened to the family of Stephanie from the very well know blog The NieNie Dialogues. Stephanie and her husband Christian were in a plane crash two weeks ago. From what I understand Stephanie received burns over 80% of her body and her husband received burns on over 30% of his body. It is speculated that the medical bills will soar to the upper thousands if not millions. I am touched by Kathleen's kindness. She has decided to auction off one of her beautiful handmade dresses. Although I am new to the NieNie Dialogues ( I found them through Grosgrains links) I feel the need to help out in any way possible. I have decided to follow in Kathleen's footsteps and host a silent auction also.

Instead of hosting a giveaway this week, I am going to put one of my original illustrations up for auction. To purchase the painting, just leave your bid in the comment section. Check back often. If you would like to increase your bid, just leave another comment with your new amount. Bidding will end on Sunday August 31st at 12 pm my time. The painting will go to the highest bidder. The money will go straight to a fund set up to help the family with all the upcoming expenses. 

I will be keeping this sweet family in my prayers. I pray that they both have a speedy recovery.

I would like to thank Kathleen for passing all this information along. I hope she doesn't mind that I used the images from her blog to put on this post. If you want to find out more information on ways that you as a fellow blogger can help, please visit C Jane (Stephanie's sister's blog) for more details.

I am Working on......

A book every artist should have. There is tons of great reference in this one book. I am constantly pulling this out and looking at the different animals in the book when I do my animal illustrations. It is very helpful for proportion and placement of limbs. Plus I don't always know what these animals look like in fine detail. It's not like I sit and look at Egyptian vultures all day. There are also chapters dedicated to bugs and sea animals. This book retails for 14.95. However I am sure if you do a little hunting you can find it for less on Ebay or Amizon.com.

Lori over at Morning Glories and Moon Flowers has already started craving fall and all the wonder's this very fun season brings. It happens to be one of my favorite times of the year also. There is something so exciting about the changing of the leaves into all the beautiful fall colors, the crispness of the fall air, the upcoming festivities of the holiday season just around the corner. Most importantly, Fall reminds me of Family, and brings back a flood of great memories from years of family gatherings past. So all of Lori's talk of pumpkins and fall has really gotten my creative mind into gear. I couldn't sketch fast enough today, and I am worried weather or not I will be able to finish all the new paintings I want to do before fall is over.

Here's what I am working on right now. I got a lot of the under painting done yesterday (as seen in the photo above). I hope to show the finished work by Wednesday. Then I will be adding it to the shop. The next few images are a little showcase of how I gather ideas and thoughts to create an illustration. I use the Internet sometimes for creative inspiration, but I have this huge file of "idea's" that I am constantly referring to for most of my inspiration. 

I love monkey's. they have always been my favorite. These old toys are so funny. The vintage feel is what I tried to capture in my current illustration. I found this image via suzisshabbydecor.com.

I found this cute vintage children's fabric on Fifth Ave Designs website. The frogs playing instruments are my favorite.

Vintage posters have always been something that caught my eye. I especially love this one because "Ringling" is very dear to my heart. I was lucky enough to attend a year and a half of art school at The Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota Florida. I wish that I had been able to finish my education there, but I went and had my little Sloanie instead. Still paying off the student loans though. I'm not bitter, just wish I had not wasted such a wonderful opportunity. Just to set the record straight, there are many things I regret having done in the past. Having my daughter was never one of them.

So I went on the hunt to find some lettering ideas and I ran into these wonderful paintings on Creativereview.com. I think they are super fun. Just thought I would share with you how I gather my thoughts and ideas for sketches. It's fun to get inspired by the creative images I have found. I always make sure that I don't copy someone else's art work though. Making my own artwork is so gratifying.