[ Thursday 2005.12.29 ]
Creative Postcard Club - My First Postcard

A long time ago I discovered Creative Postcard Club. It was started by Travis Tom and brought together through HOW Magazine's website. Finally, in November of this year I decided to join. What a great way to network with other designers & illustrators and collect postcards of their work! It is fun opening the mail and seeing everyone's interpretation on the theme. This round was to create a Holiday card. I was going to do a whole play off the song The Twelve Days of Christmas, sketched it out and even began to paint it. But at the last minute changed my mind and wanted to do something different. This is my first postcard for the group. Can't wait to see what the next round brings!

[ Posted by Beth at 11:02PM ] [ ]

Happy Holidays! Well the snowman in the backyard has finally melted, and the year is almost over, but a new year is ahead... filled with great things and lots more snow (I hope). Stay warm, stay merry and may all your Christmas dreams come true!

[ Posted by Beth at 2:00PM ] [ ]

Acrylic & Ink on Masonite

"Imagine goldfish, floating up out of the water, flying through the air like butterfly. What a magical sight."

I love working with lots of layers of painting. Rubbing & scratching and playing with the surface and the colors. It is so much fun. Nothing satisfies me more than creating.

[ Posted by Beth at 10:09AM ] [ ]

For a short while, I steered away from doing things that might be considered too cutesy. I'm not sure why I felt this way. Who was I out to impress? Did I worry about having a reputation for creating fluff? No, not really. It was more of a personal issue, wanting to supress that cutesy, girlie side that was inside of me for whatever reason. Maybe in order to feel more grown up?

Lately I am learning to love it. To embrace it. If I feel like drawing cutesy bears or filling my journal with hearts & unicorns & dragons then I will. Doing so makes me feel how I did when I was a third grader and would scribble these same sort of things over my Math, Science & Social Studies (but never English) homework.

It is that innocence that attracts me. The innocence of youth, when your world was your imagination and your imagination was filled with rainbows and fluffy white clouds, thus your own world was filled with the same (at least that is how it was for me, in my head).

Now, as a grown up, I draw more than just rainbows. But it is still nice to add a sweet little touch of something I remember from childhood. It is that something that gets me back to my roots to remember where I came from. This helps me to better understand where I am going next. It also makes me happy knowing that by creating such work, I may bring out a feeling of childhood, a feeling of being free, in someone else.

[ Posted By Beth at 2:02PM ] [ ]

acrylic & ink on masonite

detail view (feet)

I'm having a wee bit of a break down. Not sure if I like this painting or not. You see last night I wanted to paint right over it, to break out the gesso and cover it all up. Felt as if I were a failure and could never paint anything good again.

Today I like certain elements of it. I'm fairly happy with my color choices and the textures and the outside linework of the border & the leaves, branches and feet. However the linework inside of the bird bothers me. Or maybe it is the shade of blue. Or maybe the shape of bird.

I'm at odds with it and not sure what to do. Maybe just redo the bird part? Maybe just start over? Or maybe just move on? Time to hang up my painting smock and retire the brushes. All finished & dried up before I even reach thirty.

Or maybe I should stop wallowing and take this as a challenge. To pick up my brush and fix it or learn to accept it as is. To climb out of this pit that I created for myself and push myself forward.

Why do the answers come so easily some days, and yet seem so unclear on others?

[ Posted By Beth at 2:02PM ] [ ]

It is December first! (Yes Angela, it is finally december. Not yesterday, not the day before, but today). This means that sunberst.com is officially 1 year old!

It was a very late November day back in 2004 that I decided to push up my sleeves and launch a website for myself. now one year later, I am so happy that I made that decision. It has been a wonderful journey, one in which I met so many interesting people and learned so much about myself. I've received numerous calls and letters from people telling me that I have inspired them in some way, but do you know what the funny thing is? It is YOU guys that inspire me. So thank you for all your positive words and constructive feedback and opinions.

And I almost made it to 100 journal entries this year. This is post #96... and counting.

[ Posted By Beth at 8:51PM ] [ ]