As my pencil danced across the page, transforming the iconic Jake from State Farm into a whimsical wizard, a spark of creativity ignited a heartwarming discourse on the muses that shape our art. You're cordially invited to a celebration of imagination where I pay homage to the wondrous creatures of William Holbrook Beard and the daring palettes of Disney's Mary Blair. Their legacies embolden my work, and I eagerly share how these artistic giants encourage us to weave magic into our own canvases. Join us on a journey through cherished inspirations and the quest to find that unique spark that fuels your creative fire.
Wrapped in the warmth of the holiday season, this episode is a gift of reflection and anticipation—tender stories of art shows past and the innocent zeal of a young entrepreneur's curiosity interweave with personal anecdotes. And as the year draws to a close, I extend a heartfelt wish for joyous festivities and tease the grand finale of our year's creative narrative. So here's to celebrating artistic legacies, cherishing the new generation of dreamers, and the promise of one last gathering under the glow of our metaphorical Christmas tree before we bid adieu to another year rich with artistry.
My Jake from State Farm as a Wizard doodle is on YouTube and my reference links:
As my pencil danced across the page, transforming the iconic Jake from State Farm into a whimsical wizard, a spark of creativity ignited a heartwarming discourse on the muses that shape our art. You're cordially invited to a celebration of imagination where I pay homage to the wondrous creatures of William Holbrook Beard and the daring palettes of Disney's Mary Blair. Their legacies embolden my work, and I eagerly share how these artistic giants encourage us to weave magic into our own canvases. Join us on a journey through cherished inspirations and the quest to find that unique spark that fuels your creative fire.
Wrapped in the warmth of the holiday season, this episode is a gift of reflection and anticipation—tender stories of art shows past and the innocent zeal of a young entrepreneur's curiosity interweave with personal anecdotes. And as the year draws to a close, I extend a heartfelt wish for joyous festivities and tease the grand finale of our year's creative narrative. So here's to celebrating artistic legacies, cherishing the new generation of dreamers, and the promise of one last gathering under the glow of our metaphorical Christmas tree before we bid adieu to another year rich with artistry.
My Jake from State Farm as a Wizard doodle is on YouTube and my reference links:
Hello, welcome back. Brutally made so happy to have you here right before the Christmas weekend. So let's see what we are going to doodle today with our one-a-draw. Looks like it is Jake from State Farm. Oh my gosh, that's a wizard. Some of these prompt man. I don't know these people, jake from State Farm. So I gotta figure out the current Jake or the previous Jake, because I know there have been two. I think I'll do the current Jake because I think he's had the most interactive, I think with the Kelsey Mom at one of the games recently or something. I think that was in the news. Sorry, jake, if I don't do justice as a wizard. So let's see, oh gosh.
Speaker 1:
So today I want to talk about, kind of like, who inspires you, either historically or currently. Different creatives, different artists. I have a couple, a few, of course. I've met some wonderful artists recently that are just huge, just motivators, inspiration. They support me and knowing them personally now is just tremendous. I love that. But as an artist and an illustrator and thinking about how I want to evolve and looking back at some work and, like man, I just connect with that. There's a couple, there's a few that I just gravitate towards and it's just so funny to try to break it down and figure out why I like their work so much. So I wanted to talk about that and trying to figure out how that happens and why that happens. Maybe just talking through the reason how that happens and why that happens would be something kind of beneficial for you to either, if you don't have anyone that helps you get inspired or maybe gives you some ideas for style and stuff. Maybe that would be a way for you to start investigating some things.
Speaker 1:
So one of the first people that I don't know what it was in particular, but it was called the Bear Dance. This was years ago, I mean decades ago I loved to this picture of the black bears dancing in a forest in a circle and they were standing upright and their arms were like out and they were holding each other's hands and there were other bears around, actually more like bears, but it was by William Holbert Beard and I just loved that picture and I always want to create animal drawings with animals doing things like humans and so anthropomorphic, I think, is what you would call that, or personification, either one of those terms. I've looked them up before trying to figure out what is the most meaningful for that kind of drawing or creation and I just feel like watching animals talk to one and interact with one another, kind of like Richard Scarish, where they're driving cars and they're having conversations and they're in a little town and I just I don't know. There's something so engaging and wonderful and magical and whimsical about that and it makes you feel, it makes me feel, I should say, just a huge connection to either what they're feeling or expressing or wearing or their kind of personality or their emotion. I just connect with it so much. I just love it and I see that all the time. I mean that type of approach to animals. It's all over the place. You know right now if you get a greeting card, a Christmas card animals wearing Christmas sweaters, for example that's huge and it's just so sweet and endearing and cute. But William Hovert Beard's work of animals really in their natural habitat but acting like humans, is just magical to me. And the tones that are used in the art and the colors, the deep richness there's a Santa, the sleigh, that is just gorgeous and I just love all of those pictures, like all of them that were created. So as an artist I really look and love all of that body of work and that's been a big inspiration on like how I want. I mean I'm not a realism artist. I don't draw a doodle, even though this is. I'm trying to make you know Jake, look like Jake. Ultimately, I think there is a little stylization to my stuff and so I just appreciate and love the realism of Williams' work and I just love it so much and it does inspire me just to take it in my own way and still have that connection to that. So that's one of the artists that I have been inspired by and I love looking at and I have that print somewhere I did I've had it for a long time of the Bear Dance and it's just one of my favorites.
Speaker 1:
Another artist that is no longer with us but I absolutely love and I know lots of artists and our directors loved her as Mary Blair. I think I spoke about wanting to be a Disney artist when I was growing up. I just was taken by the illustrations and the fact that it would take years to draw a cartoon and understand animation but to see her texture and artwork and color combinations, the shapes, the simplicity, but the connection that you would have to her work was just and still is. It just means so much to me and I just it very nostalgic because I grew up in the 70s and her stuff was in the 60s and 70s and it's just that old school love. I just connect with it so, so deeply and I love my daughter's got me her book or it's a book written recently, illustrated by Brittany Lee, who is a Disney artist and is able to really replicate a very similar feel. She did a lot of paper art, which was outstanding, but you still get that enduring, timeless yet modern feel of Mary's color combinations and shapes and just the simplicity and the love of it. I love that book. It's beautiful to hear and read her story through it and have that deeper connection with someone that I've just admired for so long. I want to be as brave as her with her colors. I love one part of the book talks about how she was combining colors that nobody did before and it was just so refreshing and that is so cool. To stick to your gun Nope, this is what I want to see and making it work.
Speaker 1:
I've been through color theory for college and for in design and in home decor and actually when I was in school I was in modeling and so I remember learning you were spring, you were summer, you were fall, winter and all of those things. Just color has always been part of something that I've been interested in and some sort of shape or form in any career I've had or part of my life, and I love being able to look at a color and see the colors in it. I know that's so strange to say, but I feel like I have an intuitive way. Okay, I see this red and I can see there's a blue undertone and I can see that this is a cool red, whereas I can see another red and I can see the yellows and the warmth of it and that's a warm red. I am able to just feel that and see that in color and I love that. And it's just fascinating to me to see Mary's work and see how she combined things that weren't expected and it's still worth. It's a fresh view on color combinations and illustration to this day. And then how incredible to have that career and that ability and that opportunity to create like that. Lily's over my shoulder saying hi. So another artist that I have loved for decades, even before my daughters were born, and she is still with us and I have never got to meet her in person but I just love Mary Engelbride.
Speaker 1:
I have loved Mary Engelbride in her snarkiness and her stance on everything from the sweet and lovely little children's designs and funny puns and sayings to her Mary Engeldark series, to the things that she stands for culturally and just her voice. And I have friends, I know people who have met her and got to spend time with her and I'm super jealous but I love all that she's done. I remember being in Dallas in the 90s and there was the I think it's the gallery at the mall that had that Mary Engelbride store and it was like, oh my gosh, there's no store like that anymore. But I know it's a look all her own, just sweet, whimsical. I love how she draws with the marker and the pencils and she shades and she's just colorful and darling and I just love Mary and Glebright.
Speaker 1:
I just always have, and I think I always will, and I am so inspired by everything that she does and love everything. I love everything that she does. So she's a current artist that I love and that style is just so her. I can see it and just, I still have all my home companion magazines when she had the magazine out from the first issue to the last. I just I loved everything that she did. I love her black and white checker borders. It also reminds me of, like McKinsey Child, which I'm going to still attribute to Mary Glebright because that's who I saw do it first and with the cherries, and just the, the fried egg flowers, and just I love her so much, so, so much so.
Speaker 1:
I'm looking at a quilt, a little lap throw that my daughters gave me for Christmas years ago and it has the phrase you know, life is a chair of bullies, and it's got the little girl with the chair and all the bulls stacked on it, which was kind of like one of her first cards. That's like one of the first things that she did, because she misheard that little saying and thought she should illustrate it. And I just, I don't know, I love her so, so much so. She still inspires me and I know I have written her and she has signed things and written them back to me and to thank her I made her little earrings and just really appreciate her, her tone and her, her art, and still she has cool stuff out in the world and I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1:
I love being inspired by her and then, like I said, there's just so many new artists that are out and that I've had the opportunity to meet and I'm inspired by the things that they're doing and trying and creating and I would love to know people that you're following and why they're following, you're following them and why you're inspired by them Artists from the past and you know why you love their work and what it is. You know it's. I love learning about new artists. There's just so much out there to discover and to be introduced to and to look at in a new way. I think that was one of the reasons why I am super excited about like attending museums and galleries and seeing work, because I didn't grow up with that around me and I didn't have the opportunity. That wasn't something our family did and it didn't get to go to anything like that.
Speaker 1:
I remember going to art shows at Bob Evans farm. We had a field trip to Gallipolis and we had it was an art show and I remember going to each one of the booths and I was just like I think my mouth was hanging open. I just couldn't believe all the art and like there were these carved eggs and there were miniature scenes inside the eggs and I can remember I think it was 12, 12 or 13 years old and I'm talking to the artists and asking about them and just on and on and on and I walk away and go to another booth and was talking to whoever and some of the classmates that was with me. They were behind me and they're laughing and I didn't know anything and didn't think any of it and they're like Tracy, those girls after you were mocking you at that booth and they were just going, you know, pretending on and on how interested you were and I'm like I don't care, but I still remember thinking is that odd that I was so interested at this age about how they made those and asking them questions and wanting to know maybe it is at 12 years old, like you're not supposed to care or, you know, want to understand how something is made. You're supposed to just like and walk away and I don't feel that. I was weird about that.
Speaker 1:
And I was painting faces a couple of weeks ago at an event and there was this young girl and she came walking through and I had seen her when I was setting up so I figured she was with like a parent or someone at the booths and so it was busy. I had kids, I was painting faces like the whole day. And so she walked through a couple of times and I saw her and I made eye contact. I'm like hey. And so eventually I had like a little bit of downtime and she walked through again and she sat down and I said would you like your face painted, you know, cause it was free? And she said yes, and I said I saw you walk through earlier. I said are you here with a vendor? Are you here with like a parent? And she goes I am a vendor. And I said what? And she said yeah, I made bracelets and my mom is a vendor and I'm a vendor too and I'm selling my bracelets here today. And I said really, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:
And she was like 11 years old and I said what would you like me to paint on your face? And she goes you pick, I like it all. And so I started to paint our reindeer or no gingerbread man on her face, cause she didn't care. And I'm like, okay, we'll do this. So we're talking about her bracelets and she's asking you about my art and then what I do for a living and how I make art and drawing and just asking all of these like questions that weren't just surface questions about color and how I, what do I do with my art and how I use my art for communication and just all of this stuff. And I was really impressed by just how interested she was and it reminded me of that situation where I was at this art show and asking these questions and then I was told by kids my own age that that was strange and I just told her. I said I hope you continue to show great interest in your art and that you pursue what you love, keep making things and putting it out in the world.
Speaker 1:
She was so excited to have someone like encourage her and it just warmed my heart so much to think that she's going to walk away feeling like that was a great conversation to have with another supportive adult and that she'll continue to pursue what she loves. And I hope that she never forgets that conversation because I mean, I was being totally honest and I love that her parent was there with her and supporting her. And she came back a few hours later and she was like I sold 12 bracelets so far. She was so excited. I was so excited for her and I just I loved that. I just loved that whole interaction and I just was so excited for her. And so, violet, if you're listening which I don't think you will be I just am so proud of you and loved meeting you and I hope that it was a great day. And because I was painting after four and the event ended at four so I didn't get to see her because I was still busy with kids until after the event was over.
Speaker 1:
But just to be that positive light and to inspire others, to have that chance to build them up and give them some guidance on what they can do to make things like work in a creative way, that's so important. So you know, you may not get to meet your art idols out there. You may. You may be inspired by a historical figure. It could be the way that they painted something, the way that they had arranged something on a canvas. It could be their color combinations Estée McLeod she does an amazing prompt every week with color coloray combo.
Speaker 1:
It's based on a piece of art existing out in the world and she explains the artist and shares that. So if you're going to do any prompts, I would definitely follow Estée and do those to inspire. Whatever you're drawing, you could just use your color combinations. There are a lot of fun that you can learn about. So many great artists you know, 52 weeks in a year, 52-year-old artists that you're going to learn about. So on Instagram and Facebook, to follow those prompts by Estée, I'll put a link in the show notes so you'll see how to follow along those challenges. They're great and, like I said, color combinations maybe you would have never used before, like Mary, and it'll inspire you to make something.
Speaker 1:
So my poor little Jake's in black and white. I don't have a little red shirt on and his khakis, but he's definitely withered this old robe and hat. So I hope that you have a magical and wonderful Christmas and that you have a safe holiday day. And I have one more podcast for this year coming out, coming up soon, next week. So maybe back talking about what those gifts were under the tree Any creative ones, we will see. But be inspired, inspire others, support other streams, because they are all brutally made and we all need one another to lift each other up. So take care, have a merry Christmas, happy Kwanzaa, and I will see you before the year ends. Talk to you soon. Bye.