Annie Patterson Art and Illustration

Baby Mallard Painting

 I painted this baby mallard today. A small watercolor on Arches 140# paper. 

Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out! is released

 





I have mentioned this book many times over the past few years- it has taken a while but Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out!  is finally released this month! Written by April Sayre, and illustrated by me. This book was published some years ago with different illustrations, so this is a new version. I fell in love with sea turtles while illustrating this book, and hope to see them in person some day.
 Many species of sea turtles are endangered, including the loggerhead which this book is about. Recent cold weather in the south east has caused cold stunning of many turtles- help is needed to care for them- you can learn more and donate money to help here. 

 Please let your local bookstores and libraries know you'd like to see this book in their collections!

Cupcake, anyone?

Made special for you by the blue cupcake fairy!

Gratitude:

Baby falling asleep in my arms while we dance, watching our shadows on the wall.

Turkey dinner spent with my dear family.

Our sweet doggie sprawled out at my feet as I type this.

This 4 day weekend!

Soft snow piling up on the front porch, making things look soft and storybook-like.

Reading books together.

letter fairy

Little green fairy is delivering a letter! I am so enjoying painting these little bug fairies! She started as a doodle the other day and now I cant seem to get her out of my mind. 

Gratitude List 2

'Library Fairy is grateful for her garden of books' 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO watercolor

I think that trying to post my gratitude list every day might be too much- I already missed the second day. As I was falling asleep last night trying to put the babies to sleep, I was thinking 'I've still got to post my list...' And I can see that happening alot- so I will instead try to keep the lists written down somewhere and then try to post them as often as I can. Here's today's list.

1. People who read my blog and leave me the most encouraging, warm hearted comments

2. My own garden of books

3. Hot cups of coffee in the morning, with honey and milk

4. Teachers who encouraged me in art throughout my school years, especially my 6th grade teacher who liked how I drew pictures next to my spelling test words, and two art teachers when I was a teenager that were especially encouraging.

5. My dream last night that my grandmother was standing in her kitchen, frosting the cupcakes I made in real life a couple days ago that we couldn't frost because I had no powdered sugar. It was fun to see her frosting colorful cupcakes, even if in a dream.

Gratitude

I am going to start a new experiment. I heard about the concept of a gratitude diary, and how listing just a few things a day that you are grateful for, or happy about, can really offset negative thinking and actually change the way our minds work. Maybe I can do this on the blog every day. I will try. I dont like to post without an image so that means I will have to try and make some sort of little artwork too.

This is a good thing! So, my first gratitude list!

1. Being the first person that my daughter looks for when she wakes up in the morning

2. My son's smile when he sees me walk in the door 

3. Being able to still call my dear 94 year old grandmother and hear her laugh

4. My kind husband
5. My mom always being just a phone call or email away

6. My dad living just down the street

I've been loving light lavender colors lately. Just had to incorporate that into this painting.

bookmarks!

I have been busy the last few days, making bookmarks in my spare time (?) for an order that I just finished this afternoon. I love, love, love playing with these soft, colorful fibers- and matching them to my artwork is so much fun! As I was working today, I thought, 'I'm standing in the middle of a blog post.'...so I took some photos and here we are!

goose in watercolor

I've been working on this goose study this weekend. The actual size is about 6 x 8 inches. Still working on it, just wanted to show it so far! I found the perfect feather out in the grass long after they had flown south. I love finding feathers!

greater white fronted geese and fall time tundra

Ahhh it felt good to get this done! I started at 10 pm last night after children were sleeping. I can see myself painting more in this style - it is relatively fast and i didn't get bogged down with details- which fits my free time challenged life style right now. I want to do at least 2 more to go with it of a snowy owl- and a snow bunting.

Check out my SIGG

Ever since I stopped drinking out of plastic containers, I've wanted a SIGG bottle but couldn't decide on which one I wanted. So I decided to try their design your own option! Fun! I like how it turned out- I used a watercolor sketch from my moleskine book. I think I'll make one for my laptop next.

littles

I made these little ACEO cards last night, for a local craft fair that happened today. I haven't ever made them before- it was fun to work fast and small (2.5" x 3.5") and feel like I had created something. 

a picture, and a list

Recent good things:

1. Marisa's e- course

2. early bed times for children and time to play with art

3. watching two foxes (fox?) chase each other at mach speed back and forth across the tundra

4. painting the colored wall in my bedroom back to a neutral shade of sea glass blue, from a bright spring green that limited my decor choices

5. Ian's yummy warm snuggles

6. Isabelle practicing 'ballet' 

7. a new macbook pro coming in the mail

8. paying off a credit card

9. frozen ground - no more mud or wet soggy tundra puddles

10. coffee in the morning

11. talking to a friend who makes me laugh

Book release getting closer

Oh what a treat to see the Spring 2010 Charlesbridge Publishing catalog- with my turtle right there in the middle of the cover! It seems forever ago that I finished the art for Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out!. I'm so excited for the release in February 2010.  They also list Whale Snow on their top 20 books list! This was the first picture book I illustrated, it came out in 2004.

Another exciting thing for me- my co worker just taught me the basics of how to use my sewing machine! I am SEW excited to have this skill. There is so muchfabric out there that I love, and want to be able to use! I'll start with some basic curtains and pillow cases. Will post if anything turns out!

cobalt blue is my desert island color. cobalt blue and a light yellow. I could (and do) spend hours mixing different shades of those colors.