Quarter of a Century

Two weeks ago I turned 25, yep, quarter of a century! I'm getting old, just kidding.

I had a really good birthday and got spoiled.

I woke up that morning with Daisies and balloons from Dustin, and Oliver with a big grin saying "momma!", and Thomas sang Happy birthday to me. It was perfect.

My in-laws watched the kids that night so Dustin and I could go out to dinner. Then we met up with them and had cake from Nothing-bundt-cakes, which are AMAZING!

Dustin and the boys got me a clock that I have wanted from Ikea! And I love it! I was surprised to get it!

Then my in-laws, who are AMAZING people got me a rocking chair. I have been wanting one for a while and they found this one and fixed it up (it was broken) and recovered it with cute fabric! I was so touched that they did all that work for me.

Then yesterday my brother, Michael, and his family watched the boys all day for us so Dustin and I could do something with just us two! We decided to head to Six flags and ride a bunch of roller-coasters then we had dinner. It was so nice and  fun! It was the longest I have been away from Oliver. So that was another great Birthday present.

Then last, but not least, Dustin got me an I-phone! And it's on it's way! So it should be coming sometime this week! I'm very excited! I've been holding off getting a smart phone for a while but the last little while I have been talking about wanting one so Dustin said to pick one out!

It was a great birthday and I'm excited for this next year!

Snap Shots from March

I don't blog as much as I used to because we have been pretty busy here doing day to day things.

Some things we have been up to this past month:

1. Like every one else, we have been watching Frozen and singing along with the soundtrack.

2. We have been flying kites.

3. Celebrating birthdays; I had a birthday(more on that later), my brother had a birthday, Dustin's sister had a birthday, and we celebrated our nephew, Carter's half birthday since he will be in a foreign country on his first birthday.

4. I've been getting more art jobs and photography jobs. The other day I got a package of shirts for the whole family from the Children's theater  with my artwork on it. And I've been wearing them around, shameless promotion, as one of my teachers would called it.

5. Dustin worked at Six flags for Spring Break and has more caricature gigs this coming month. Yeah we are making money as artists! ha ha

6. With our extra money from art, both Dustin and I registered to take a character design class starting next week. It's with Stephen Silver who is mostly known from designing Kim Possible and Cloudy Chance of Meatballs. It will be a 12 week class so we will be pretty busy doing that the next few months.

7. Oliver is learning new words everyday and will be walking pretty soon.

8. Thomas has been such a sweet heart and has been a big help, he helps me take care of Oliver, he helps me make bread, he helps pick up his toys, he helps clean the table. He's getting so big it makes me sad seeing my little boy growing up.

Just a little update from the Clark family.

My Manly Boys

I have some manly boys, they already have mustaches!

I had some left over photo booth props from a Relief Society activity I was in charge with and the boys decided to have some fun with them.

Behind the Scenes

I thought it would be fun to show a little bit about my process when I work on an art piece for those who might think it's interesting. I don't know about you, but I love behind the scenes and learning how things happen. I love watching special features on a movie, and my favorite part when I went to see a David Letterman show in NYC was not the actual show, but watching what went on behind the camera and between the commercials. 

I also wanted to show the process because I think a lot of people think artists just come up with everything in their heads and they can draw anything just like that, when usually it's the opposite. Yes, there are times I can draw something right out of my head but usually I have reference. I wished I had known this information at a younger age as an artist, I always wanted to draw stylized or "Disney-like" or "cartoon" but I never could make up stuff in my head so I thought I was just a realistic artist because I only could draw what I saw, little did I know I was like any other artist. 

Anyway, here is my process:

I was asked to illustrate a Peter Pan poster for a children's theater in Arizona and that it was to be a  10 foot painting and that they wanted a lot of the characters in the poster and that they didn't want the Disney version.

 First thing I do, I usually start sketching and flushing out ideas or look for reference, in this particular case I decided to look at reference, So I started pinning like crazy:

Then I started sketching, I did probably 10 thirty second to minute sketches, and asked Dustin his top three. After we discussed we picked the top three, after that, I cleaned them up a bit so they are little more readable then I send the sketches to my client and have them pick what they like, so here were the three samples I sent them:

 So a little trick us artist's do, if there is one sketch we like better than the others we usually work on that one just a little more because that usually persuades the client to pick that one because it looks just a little bit better!

After they pick a sketch I look at more reference and start cleaning up the drawing. A lot of the time artists ask people if they would model for them, but usually I just do it myself. Not the most flattering picture but it was late and I hurried and put my hair up so I could see my ears and neck:

So I take pictures for posing then I use pictures for reference to help create my characters:

For hook, I used a lot of Dustin Hoffman, and some famous baseball player that had the perfect mustache. 

Then I found this painting and fell in love with it, and it became my inspiration for Wendy:

Then I used Thomas and Oliver for John and Michael ( I like to tie my kids in my paintings sometimes). Then Shmee, I don't know how to spell his name, I mostly made him up with some inspiration. The crocodile is drawn by Dustin and I actually, so that one was a combined effort.

After I flush out the drawing I send it to my clients to get an ok before I start painting:

At this stage there is usually changes but this time they said it was perfect and to carry on. 

I'm not the best painter, I feel like drawing is what I'm pretty good at and that painting has always been my weakness, so a lot of the time I get reference for my painting as well. I try to find an awesome painting that inspires me. So The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe painting I used for color reference along with the 2nd painting, that also inspired my flowers. Then I used a Norman Rockwell painting because he is awesome at painting faces, so I was looking at these 3 paintings the whole time I was painting along with my other references:

Then after many hours of painting and watching movies, all that work turns into this:

Then I send it to my clients. I love when I do more than my client's expectations, I usually try to do more than what they ask because I want them to be happy and have them love my work so much they will use me again.  

This client has been one of my favorite clients I have worked with, I feel like we have a good relationship, they always have fun projects for me and they usually let me do whatever I want to do. This is my 4th painting I have done for them and I hope to do more!

Dallas Arboretum

This past Friday, Dustin's mom and sister and I met up with Trixie, my other sister-in-law at the Dallas Arboretum to check out some of the flowers. It turned out a little colder than we anticipated but it was still fun, we just didn't hang out as long as we had hoped. 

I always love going to the Arboretum, it's always pretty anytime of the year.

And Thomas always likes to hang out with his cousins. I love watching these two play together!

It was really pretty but none of the trees had blossomed yet, so I'm hoping we can go again to see that, I bet it's gorgeous.

Crazy Hair

This boy is finally getting some hair! But it's growing in a crazy way!

Niece's Reunion

Last weekend we had a Niece's Reunion at my in-laws house. It was so fun! I married into a great family with some amazing women, I didn't realize until I was writing this blog that I was the only "in-law" in the group this year because they made me feel like I have always been in their family, again, I married into an awesome family.

We did a lot of fun things and here are some pictures of a few of them. I was a slacker and didn't take that many pictures so I got most of these from aunt Laurie!

Saturday was my favorite, probably because it involved a lot of art. Lisa, my mother-in-law, asked if I was willing to teach an art class that day, at first I was a little nervous but I had so much fun! And everyone did so great!

After painting we hoped in a train and went to downtown Dallas and went to an art museum, there was some awesome art in there, I want to go back sometime with Dustin.

And here are the three pictures I took while I was down there, I wished I had taken more.

Then we went to out to dinner and did some line dancing:

We also had a baby shower for Kali, that was so fun, and my SIL Emily, did such a great job hosting it. 

It was a fun weekend and I hope I can go again next year!

Snap Shots of February

I feel like I have been neglecting this blog here, and I don't like it, so hopefully I will be better in the near future.
We have been pretty busy here in Texas with just everyday stuff. So here is a little update on everybody in the Clark clan:

Dustin: Is busy teaching and with his new calling with the young men in the church. He still continues to do art on the side, and it planning to do caricatures back in San Antonio's Sea World during spring break. Also the caricature company that works with Sea World is now coming to Six Flags near us and they were interested in having Dustin becoming a manager there but we weren't too interested in doing that but he's meeting with some people tomorrow night about it, but he's more interested just working there in the summers and draw instead of managing, but we will see what will happen.

Thomas: Thomas likes being in primary, the other week we just had stake conference and we left before the closing song and prayer because Oliver was done and needed a nap and Thomas cried for a good half hour and asked to go back to church. He has a lot of friends from church and he seems to be everyone's favorite, and least all the kids make me feel like that way. He's so sweet most of the time, but it's usually when it's just me at home, but he always tells me thank you and please and asks if I'm ok and makes sure Oliver is ok, but he is also going through the terrible three's, so far three has been harder than two. He loves daddy and always asks when is he coming home.

Oliver: Is my mover, he is always moving, and always doing something. He isn't walking yet but I'm not rushing it, that's for sure, he's already keeping me busy. He likes to give me kisses and is starting to say thank you. He loves going outside and doing whatever Thomas is doing. He likes to draw and read. I feel like he's picking up a lot of words everyday and will be an early talker. He likes to wrestle and he's pretty good at it. And still is a big mother's boy.

As for me, I'm just trying to keep up with this motherhood thing, sometimes I feel like I'm doing great while other times I feel like I'm lacking in everything. I've been in a crafting mood and drawing mood so I have been doing that when I have free time which isn't much, but I hope to post some of that later.  Right now I'm a sunbeam teaching and I'm liking it for the most part, my partner is a brand new convert so I've been doing all the lessons and it's been interesting having her help because she doesn't know a lot because she just joined so sometimes her comments are not right and come from her Baptist background so that's been fun and interesting and trying to correct her without making her feel bad. But some exciting news, some of my clients from last year have commissioned me to do a Peter Pan painting! Which I'm very excited about since I have been wanting to do a Peter Pan painting for a while! So I'm going to be busy doing that next week! And the painting is going to be HUGE like 10 feet or something, I can't remember the exact dimensions but it's big, so my painting has be really clean for it to look good but I'm excited for the challenge, and how awesome to have a 10 feet painting up on display!

Anyway there's a little update!

Our Little Reader

Oliver loves to "read". He loves to pull our books off the shelf and look through all of them. Many times when I go looking for Oliver because I haven't seen him awhile he will be sitting on Thomas' bed with a book on his lap. 

I hope he will always be my little reader!

Are We in Texas?

We have had some crazy weather here in Texas. It's been really cold and this morning when I looked out of the window it was snowing! The kids were excited and we were hoping for no school for Dustin but he still had to go to work. So while he was at work we decided to go and play in it!