Shop my fabulous NEW Succulent Collection now available on gorgeous home decor products at KESS InHouse! Shop "Be A Succulent Survivor" here and shop "Succulent Cali Cacti" here! XO
Saturday, January 28, 2017
NEW Sparkle Like the Diamond You Are for KESS InHouse
Shop Sparkle Like the Diamond UR!
Shop Blue Diamond Stripe!
Shop Cool Sparkle Starbursts!
Shop Pink Gems!
Friday, January 20, 2017
Heart Safety Pins
I'm proud to share my NEW Heart Safety Pin pattern that is now available on a wide variety of products that will let you show your support for your fellow men & women during these trying times. As an artist, I was looking for a way to create something positive for folks, to help them hold their heads up high and to send a signal to those around them that we are in this together. As a recent transplant to North Carolina, I've found that my own safety pin has spurred conversations that have made me feel more connected in a place where politics are very divisive. And, of course, I love that my fabulous client, Kess InHouse, jumped on board with this design! So superstar! XOXO
Thursday, January 5, 2017
NEW Soaring Balloons for Mpix
I'm thrilled to share a NEW Super Jane Gallery Wrap Collage now available on Mpix! It is fully customizable and cute, cute, cute!!! Shop now! XO
Super Star Interviews: Mike Lowery
Welcome to my
monthly interview feature! I’m so excited to be interviewing all the fabulous
artists, illustrators and designers I’ve meet over the years (both personally
and virtually!) and sharing their artwork and experiences here on Bird Meets
Worm. Look for a new interview on the first Tuesday of every month. (Psst! You might have noticed that today is
actually Thursday—sorry about that!! The New Year has been off to a bumpy
start, but we are finally off and running over here at Bird Meets Worm! And BTW
Happy New Year!!)
This
month I’m so happy to be kicking off a whole new year of artist interviews with
supa-dupa-star Illustrator, Mike Lowery! I’ve been a big fan for a longtime and
the kiddo in my house has been a fan, too—Mike’s book Ribbit Rabbit and his activity calendar have been big hits! Mike Lowery is an artist living in Atlanta, Georgia with a
beautiful German lady named Katrin
and his incredibly genius daughter, Allister. Mike’s work has been seen on everything
from greetings cards to children’s books to gallery walls all over the world,
and he is a Professor of Illustration at the Savannah College of Art and Design
Atlanta. He lives in an atomic ranch house, surrounded by trees where he likes
to draw little animals in party hats and other silly stuff. You can view more of his artwork here!
 |
| Let's go on a Doodle Adventure!! Woohoo! |
A: I have lots of
favorites, but I’ll tell you about working on my newest series: “Doodle
Adventures”. When I was a kid, we didn’t have cool comics in the
library. We would sneak in stuff and pass them around at lunch and I
always thought it would be really cool if there were comics that librarians
would like too. Well, that’s all completely changed and comics are now a
big part of most school libraries.
I decided I wanted to make
a series that combined my love for comics with my love for drawing/doodle
books, and DOODLE ADVENTURES was born. When it was time to come up with
the narrator, I knew I couldn’t use just some ol’ boring human, so I drew a
really plain looking duck.
The problem was, he didn’t
have a TON of personality. SO, I kept drawing and came up with this
guy. His name is Carl the Duck:
I liked that he looked
grumpy and weird. I immediately started hearing what his voice could
sound like and got excited to draw him into the story.
From there I wrote out key
moments that I wanted to happen in the story, and then took a really big stack
of cheap paper to a coffee shop and started drawing. At this stage the
drawings were very rough, with a LOT of erasing and just figuring stuff
out. One of the days I was drawing at the coffee shop, I noticed a girl
around 7 was drawing and she kept looking up at me. I peeked over and
realized she was drawing a portrait of me drawing!
Q: I’m a BIG fan of your awesome random facts
illustration series! Dish with us about how the series began—inspiration &
all!— and how it continues.
A: One morning I wasn’t on
a trip, hadn’t had anything new to eat, hadn’t met any strange folks all
day….and couldn’t NOT think of what to draw. I sat staring at the blank
page in my journal and for the first time in a really long time I absolutely
did not know what to draw. Then I remembered some weird fact that I had
read…I don’t remember the very first one, but it might be something about how
it’s illegal to carry ice cream in your pocket in Kentucky.
I’ve always loved those
kind of weird nuggets of info, so I decided to draw it out. And now I’ve
been doing it for about two years.
 |
| Huh! I didn't know that! But I'm SO glad I do now!!! Perfect party convo opener! |
A: THE ABSOLUTE MOST
IMPORTANT THING AN ARTIST CAN DO: Is to keep a sketchbook.
Whew. There, I said it.
It’s a place where you
figure out your “style” or what tools you like to use when you’re drawing and
all kinds of stuff. It’s also a great way of keeping track of your day,
like a journal or (the most feared word by young dudes) DIARY. I keep one
every single day, and try to spend at least 30 minutes to an hour in it.
And drawing in your
sketchbook doesn’t always have to be some intense scene, like sitting down next
to a creek with your watercolors. It can be really anything as long as your
drawing. For me, I really use it to remember things about my day a lot.
Since I was very little, I
traveled a lot with my parents and my grandparents. Traveling became a
big part of my life and then later I married an amazing woman from Germany who
had this really great family that we now go back and visit a few times a
year…so travel isn’t just fun for me, it’s also necessary.
So, it just makes sense
that some of my drawings started to be about the trips that I was on, new
sights I was seeing, new foods, etc. I love having these as a way to look
back and remember trips, but I also get a lot of inspiration on these trips for
new art and projects, and I’ll bring those ideas home and turn them into
something that (hopefully) other people would want to look at.
 |
| Join Mike on his travels aboard! Ni hao!! |
Q:
What is a
typical workday like for you? Set the scene (workspace, materials, accessories)
and describe your responsibilities (teaching, art making, business stuff) and
creative juju (rituals, inspiration, process).
A: When we are in town
(which for us is Atlanta), I mostly work out of the home studio that I share
with my wife, Katrin, who is also a children’s book illustrator. Some
days we will work in our studio called Paper Ghost, which is also a little
gallery we share with a few friends who are also illustrators.
We are out of town a lot,
and in that case I’ll get up really early and go down to the lobby of our hotel
and find a quiet spot where I can start drawing, usually with a cup of the free
lobby coffee in hand. I always try to draw before getting caught up on
emails and other stuff.
 |
| Sounds like some hilarious trouble!! |
A: Honestly, I didn’t know
anything when I first started. I mean I knew BASIC stuff, like the
difference between an apple and an onion, but when it came to business stuff, I
knew very little. I went to school for ART, which means that my
instruction covered a lot of topics from watercolor to dark room photography,
but very little was about the business side of making art and when it was, it
was primarily about being an artist that exhibits in galleries. Most of
my formal instruction was about technique, and then later in Graduate School,
it was about how to critique or explain your work. Which meant that
really early on, I actually learned what illustration is while I was already
doing illustration. I thought I was doing Graphic Design with a lot of
drawings in it, and realized that what I was actually doing was
ILLUSTRATION.
I read as much as I could
on the topic, and I took every single job that resembled illustration, even if
it wasn’t a good fit for me. I sent my work to anyone who MIGHT hire
someone to do a drawing for them: magazines, ad agencies, local shops,
publishers, clothing companies…anything I could find. And then I just
waited to hear back from ANYONE. Slowly work started coming in, and I
learned the business job by job.
I get a lot of folks
(usually students) emailing asking for advice about the world of
illustration. This is really hard, because I’m not sure what to talk
about. Are they wondering what pens I use, or are they wondering what
sort of portfolio case to buy when visiting art directors? It would be
like asking a mechanic: How do you fix a car.
So, here’s what I’ll say:
1) Forget
about what your “style” is and what it’s going to be. Just draw a LOT. Draw stuff you don’t feel comfortable
drawing and don’t just keep drawing it the same way. If you have a way
that you like to draw EYES or people or whatever, stop doing it and try it a
million different ways until you finally find the MOST perfect and comfortable
way for you. You won’t know it until you’ve tried what DOESN’T work.
2) Keep a sketchbook every single day.
3) Make work that people can use. Meaning: look at
magazines, books, all kinds of stuff and see what they actually use. Lots
of folks want to draw floating characters with no backgrounds. Not a lot
of companies need that.
4) Send
your work to these folks!
Q: Describe your most perfect day.
A: Get up.
Coffee. Draw for a little. Daughter wakes up. Breakfast with
wife and daughter. Toast. Boiled egg. Butter. Get out of the
house. Sit and draw in sketchbook. Read a little. Maybe a
graphic novel. Ramen for dinner with friends. Watch an 80s movie
with the family. Maybe Gremlins? A few more hours of drawing.
Read a little more. Bed.
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Super Star Interviews: Paul Richmond
Welcome to my
monthly interview feature! I’m so excited to be interviewing all the fabulous
artists, illustrators and designers I’ve meet over the years (both personally
and virtually!) and sharing their artwork and experiences here on Bird Meets
Worm. Look for a new interview on the first Tuesday of every month.
This
month I am super excited to be catching up with my fabulous artist friend, Paul
Richmond! We first met as art students in the Illustration program at CCAD back
in the day and now Paul is an internationally recognized visual
artist and activist whose career has included exhibitions in galleries
throughout the United States as well as publication in numerous art journals
and anthologies. (Seriously, can you say “super star”?!) His work is collected
by individuals around the globe. Influenced by his own struggles and
experiences, he seeks to challenge social constructs that exist around
sexuality and gender through his work. In his role as the Associate Art
Director for Dreamspinner Press and their young adult imprint, Harmony Ink
Press, he has created over three hundred novel cover illustrations. He is a
co-founder of the You Will Rise Project,
an organization that empowers those who have experienced bullying to speak out
creatively through the language, visual, and performing arts. He greatly
inspires me and I’m sure you will be, too, after you discover his powerful
artwork. You can view more of his artwork here!
 |
| Truth, humor & a whole lot of heart makes Pauly's work so powerful! |
Q:
You have been long been recognized for your work as a visual artist and social
activist, addressing issues of sexual identity & gender roles in your
artwork and the politics surrounding them. In the wake of the recent election,
what issues do you plan to tackle in your own work? And what advice would you
give to other artists looking to use their work as a vehicle for social change?
A: Oh man, the election! My
advice is to paint nonstop for the next four years because we're all going to
need to be high on paint fumes to get through this! I had some great influences
early in my training who used painting to address socio-political issues. I
absorbed that and to this day, my favorite thing about being an artist is
communicating ideas. Like you, my background is in illustration and I'm a
natural storyteller. This election came at an interesting time for me because
my husband and I relocated a few months ago from Ohio to California.
Everything’s new and interesting and occasionally a bit scary - we didn’t know
anyone here and I had never been to this part of California until the day we
arrived to move in to our new place. On election day, any last tangible thread
of “comfort zone” I may have been clinging to got swept out from under me.
Suddenly, not only did I feel like I was in a new state, it didn’t even feel
like the same country. I've been doing a series for the past few years
called War Paint - expressive figurative pieces that investigated the
construction of identity. Models coated themselves with paint; the colors and
marks of which were meant to be suggestive of their psychological states.
Building on that idea, my next phase will be to play more with context and
environment; showing figures in spaces. They might be exploring new territory,
floating aimlessly, clinging desperately to something that feels safe —
basically all the things I’ve been experiencing myself. A lot of us woke up the
day after the election in a country that didn’t feel like home any more, and I
want to dissect all of that in my next body of work. I don’t like to give
advice because what works for me might not work for someone else. But I will
say that I’ve never found moping for an extended period of time to be very
effective. When something terrible happens, I have to do something. And usually
that “something” is start painting.
 |
| Gorgeous! Simply stunning! |
Q:
You are a co-founder of the You Will Rise
Project, an organization empowering youth to use the arts as a means of
speaking out against bullying. Tell us a bit about how & why you took on
this powerful project and how can folks interested in speaking out against
bullying can get involved?
A: I have such empathy for
young people who are bullied because I was once in their shoes. I hated the
social aspects of school because I was so uncomfortable in my own skin, making
me a perfect target. As a gay boy who didn’t know he was gay (despite my closet
full of assorted diva compilations on cassette tape), and growing up in a
pretty conservative part of the Midwest, I stuck out like a sore thumb. A
super-tall-for-my-age, awkward sore thumb with bad skin. Thankfully I had
already established an identity as an artist thanks to an amazing teacher named
Linda Regula who became my painting mentor when I was four. Creating art was
not only something I could take pride in thanks to her thoughtful guidance, but
it was also an outlet for coping with the harassment I experienced on a daily
basis. Linda and I have remained good friends through the years. I was chatting
with her one day about all the tragic cases of teen suicide we kept seeing in
the news, many of which were connected to incidents of bullying. I told her
that I felt her classes were one of the reasons I never became one of those
statistics, and in that conversation, we dreamed up the idea for You Will Rise
as a way to empower others who are being bullied to find their creative voices
and speak out. We publish artwork from young people all around the world on our website and lead workshops and
organize community exhibitions and art installations all focused on this
important theme. It’s been such a powerful, eye-opening, gut-wrenching project
to work on, and we’ve received some incredible feedback from participants about
the positive changes it has helped them create in their lives. Above all, it
just reinforces for me the importance of art in our schools, communities, and
in our society as a whole. If you’d like to hear more about the story of Linda
and me, a filmmaker named Doug Swift created a wonderful short film last year
about us called The Mentor and the Artist. I’m so proud of the way he wove
together our stories. You can watch it here.
 |
| Oopsie!!! (wink, wink!) |
Q: One of my absolutely
favorite series you created is your Cheesecake
Boys series, inspired by 1950s pin-up girls! Dish with us about how this
series came about from inspiration to sketches to finished artwork.
A: I have always been a super-fan of the pinup girls
from the 40’s and 50’s — all those accident-prone ladies constantly
experiencing wardrobe malfunctions wherever they went. They were so hilariously
innocent and naughty at the same time. I always wondered why there were no male
equivalents. Men in pinup art from that era, the beefcakes, were always just
muscle bound dudes posing on a mountain or in the gym. They were always in
control of the situation, which said a lot to me about expectations of gender
roles and sexuality. So of course I wanted to turn the tables! :) My Cheesecake
Boys series is totally an exercise in campy, cheesy fun. They are dudes who
can’t seem to keep their clothes on and always get caught at just the right
moment making that classic “oopsie” face. I like to have models pose for
photo references and then I sketch them out and start painting - very similar
to how some of the pinup greats like Elvgren and Frahm worked back then. And
I’ve had the chance to work with some fun models for the series too, like Jack
Mackenroth, Perez Hilton, Mike Ruiz, Davey Wavey, and more. Currently, I am
offering a free Cheesecake Boy coloring page every Friday on my website. People
are all about adult coloring books now, and I thought this would be a fun way
to play up the “adult” part! It has been SO fun to see all the different
colored versions of the Cheesecake Boys floating around social media. Anyone who wants to join in the fun is welcome to check it out here!
Q:
During your career you’ve had your artwork stolen and sold illegally time and
time again, especially by individuals overseas. Give us the scoop on how you’ve
met this challenge and what advice you would give to fellow artists about how
to protect their intellectual property.
A: It’s a difficult challenge
that so many artists face, and there’s not really an easy solution. My
experience with it happened when someone sent me a link to some ebay listings
and said they looked like my work. Indeed they were mine - some of them were sitting
right next to me in my studio! Even worse, they were being attributed to
someone else. What I learned is that because international copyright laws are
pretty much nonexistent, sellers in other countries - especially in China - are
really fronts for these pretty large-scale “fake art factories.” They grab
images from artists’ websites, list them as originals on ebay, and then when
someone makes a purchase, an assembly line of talented and tragically underpaid
artists will re-create it. I learned all about it and even got a free sample
(of my own work!) by conducting an unofficial “investigation.” If you want to hear all about that, I shared the story in a YouTube video here.
Sadly, ebay is very lax about enforcing their
policies. Most of these sellers have thousands of listings, which generate a
lot of revenue, so they are in no hurry to shut them down. Even when you make a
big fuss about it like I did, usually the most that will happen is that they
pull the individual listings but allow the seller to maintain their store. So
they just re-list them a few days later with slightly different names. Legal
action is way too costly and time consuming for an independent artist like
myself, so the most I could do was use it as an opportunity to raise awareness
about the issue and have a few chuckles along the way. To this day, you can
find knock-offs on my stuff on ebay from a variety of different sellers. Some
artists put large watermarks on all the images of their work that get posted
online. I considered it, but a lot of my art sales are through the web. I
personally don’t like the idea of obstructing the view of the piece even though
I certainly understand why other artists do it. For me, the benefits of online
exposure FAR outweigh the negatives, and someone who is going to buy a cheap
knockoff is probably not going to be interested in collecting my original work
anyway. At least that’s what I tell myself so I don’t obsess over it
constantly!
 |
| Aren't we the cutest?! Love me some Pauly! |
Q: Tell
us all about your MOST favorite illustration/painting/series/or book cover
project: one from your past and one from your present.
A: The
one from my past that I’ll pick is The Dollypop Guild because it involves you,
Jane! I was invited to participate in a group show called DollyPOP honoring one
of my heroes, Dolly Parton, at the World of Wonder Gallery in LA. I’ve admired
Dolly since I was a kid and saw The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Incidentally that movie also made me want to grow up and be a whore, but to my
credit, I thought it just meant wearing fancy clothes and singing a lot.
Anyway, my contribution to the show was a Dolly-ized take on The Wizard of Oz,
complete with a little boy in his mom’s red heels embarking on the yellow brick
road to Dollywood, with Dolly herself as Glinda descending in a big pink
sparkly bubble. Pretty much my childhood dream come true! You were so kind to
invite me to stay with you when I came out to LA for the opening, and even surprised
me with tickets to the musical 9 to 5
which was debuting there at the time. That was such a fun trip! And I still love
and admire Dolly to this day!
 |
| Sweet, heart-felt & fabulous! Could it be anything else when Dolly's involved?! |
More recently, a project
that was one of my favs was a set of commissions from James Franco. I painted
two large pieces that were incorporated into the set of a film he was making
last year called The Long Home. One of our college friends, Kristen Adams, was
doing production design and made it all happen. I delivered them to him on the
set and my friend Aaron and I even got to be extras in a scene they were
filming that night with James, Josh Hutcherson, and Courtney Love. Quite an
experience! And I can’t wait to see the finished movie, which comes out
sometime in 2017.
 |
| I know I already said it, but seriously, can you say SUPER STAR?! |
Q:
Describe your most perfect Sunday.
A: I think my perfect Sunday
is the opposite of most people’s. I have a really hard time sitting still. I'm
always the happiest when I’m concocting some kind of crazy scheme. The details
aren’t important - it could be an adventure with my husband, some kind of kooky
video collaboration with friends for my YouTube channel, dreaming up a new art
project, etc. I usually have twenty things in the works at all times, which is
how I’ve always been and I’m sure always will be. There’s so much I want to see
and do! Even on a day when I could sleep in, I usually get up really early and
don’t stop until I crash at night. My friends always joke that they have to
take me in small doses because they are tired when they leave and their faces
hurt from laughing — which I take as the highest compliment! :)
It’s
always a pleasure, Pauly! Thank you SO much for giving Bird Meets Worm a boost
with your talent, positive energy and fabulous sense of humor! XO
Saturday, December 3, 2016
"Sparkle Like the Diamond You Are" at Kess InHouse
Ooo!! Shop my NEW design "Sparkle Like the Diamond You Are" now on fabulous Kess InHouse products! (And just in time for the holidays, too! Woot, woot!) XO
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