Illustration Friday~Reflect

It's time to shake off the old and start fresh. Cleaning the studio and coming up with a new game plan to market my illustrations. I think I'll chew on it a bit :)

Illustration created for Stories For Children Magazine

In memory of John...

This was originally posted March of 2012 as Illustration Friday's word of the week "Intention" It felt appropriate to repost it today.

In the beginning I struggled with this piece. The fear of the "white paper" had me in its grips. I wanted to create something really good; this was going to be my submission to the 2nd annual May Show at the community college. I knew I wanted it to be something that was true to who I am. A few roughs, and it still wasn't coming. I let myself go--I stopped thinking of it as a competitive piece. I just wanted something that I could be proud of. I let myself get into that frame of mind where it's all about the "feel," where your hands move effortlessly and your brain goes into a meditative state. And then a song starts playing in my mind, Imagine, by John Lennon. He is one of my favorites. One of the few that I shed tears over at his death. It was so senseless. I wonder how many other beautiful songs he would have sung if only...

This piece is called: "Thoughts of John" It's pen and ink, with a watercolor wash in the background; reminiscent of the psychedelic era of the 60's. What I found interesting, was at some point as I was creating this piece, I turned on the radio and guess what song was playing--yep, "Imagine"

How's this for a lovely Intention....

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

~John Lennon

PS-It was not accepted in the May Show.