Summer Vacation!

Hope everyone is having a great summer! Last week I headed down to the beach here in North Carolina for a short little summer vacation. Unfortunately it rained harder than I’ve ever seen it rain. It was one of those rains where you think it can’t possibly rain any harder but then it does….all day. Just as we checked into the hotel it started let up. The sun popped out for about an hour and half so the kids and I grabbed our boogie boards and headed down to the ocean. Right about the time we decided to to get out of the water the rain came back. And so it went the following day. Two hours of sun at the beach in the morning (with the darkest storm cloud I’ve ever seen on the horizon) followed by a torrential down pour. Since we don’t live too far we decided enough was enough, jumped in the car and headed back home. All in all everyone had a pretty great time. I think maybe we’ll head down another time before the summer is done and see if we can’t get a little better weather.

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The Blue Sky Folder

Deep in the archives of my computer there is a small beacon of light that shines brightly through the darkness. It’s called the Blue Sky Folder. Inside is a collection of sketches, experiments, new styles, new techniques, story concepts and a bunch of projects in various stages of completion. This folder is basically a resting place for all the ideas that rattle around inside my head long enough for me to get them down on paper or into various stages of digital completion. Like many other artists I’m always restless to try new things and this is my outlet. 

This is a Blue Sky piece I began almost 3 years ago. I wasn’t quite sure where I was headed with it at the time so I put it in hold to work on other things. I had totally forgotten about it until I was leafing through the the folder recently and it caught my eye. One of the main reasons I had put this one on hold was that the techniques I’d used to create it were very time consuming and a bit unrefined. Looking at the piece again I realized that the solution was sitting right in front of me. I didn’t have my Cintiq tablet when I started so any digital freehand drawing was pretty much out of the question? As I popped the file up on my screen I realized that was no longer an obstacle. It only took me a few hours to finish the piece and I’m psyched because now I finally have a great way to save time and paint right on the computer.

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Johnny Appleseed Childrens Book Illustration.

This one was from a recent series of books I worked on last year. I’ve tried this look before once or twice using traditional art and a scanner but it was always a tedious process to get the lines bold enough. The Cintiq has helped make creating bold pencil lines very easy. My next goal is to start working on a more natural watercolor look.

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Sketch of the Day

This was a sketch for a book about a little boy trying to conquer his fear of monsters. If you have a young child or have had young children you can probably relate to the middle of the night search for monsters on the bed. My kids are older now but I remember very clearly the fears my kids had and some of the fears I had as a kid. It seems like most kids go through this at one point or another. My advice for parents is simple, comfort your kids they’ll grow out of it before you know it.

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Just finished up these Ocean themed critters! My fave is the whale. 

They’re available now in the Etsy Store!

get them now at:
Etsy    or     TpT

I’ve been seeing these little penguins in sweaters all over the web lately. The story behind these guys is that there was a massive oil spill in New Zealand effecting all kinds wild life including penguins. In an effort to save the birds they were being fitted with sweaters to keep them warm and from preening their oil soaked feathers. They looked so cute that the knitting sweaters for penguins request took off like a rocket ship but then came the controversy…because on the web there is always controversy. Did the penguins really need the sweaters or was it just one of those internet phenomenons? There are quite a few different takes… Some say they still need them, some say it stresses the penguins to be in sweaters, others say they need them to help a charity but not for real penguins (the charity is putting them on stuffed penguins and selling them to help raise money). The latest info I’ve read is that the penguin sweater knit-a-thon is still on. Tomorrow it might change. The internet is a funny place full of information that isn’t always as accurate as we’d hope.

Anyhow the story got me thinking and I know there’s a picture book in there somewhere. So I thought what if there was one little clever penguin who decided instead of asking for a sweater he wanted something else. Maybe while the volunteers were looking to opposite way that little guy jumped on a computer and asked for something else. I imagine as a stressed out little penguin a vacation to someplace warm and sunny might be just the ticket. And what if the message he sent out went viral. Donations started flooding in from all over the world, suddenly planeloads full of penguins in sweaters show up to beach side resorts everywhere and settle in for fun in the sun. How much fun would that be?

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This is my My Pecha Kucha Presentation in Taos, November, 2012. Hope you feel inspired! :)

Jenny Kostecki-Shaw – Pecha Kucha Night Taos Volume 8 from pechakuchataos on Vimeo.

These are a few videos from my travels in India and Nepal:

Mata Prasad is spinning clay cups without any electricity!

Do you recognize this game? Two girls at Sunshine School are playing “Jacks” with rocks…

My Indian “sister” Didi is dressing me in a saree…

AND, I thought I’d read you a journal entry from India…riding on a rickshaw. onarickshaw

These postcard treasures began arriving recently for Tulsi (my daughter) from her dear friend Daya (who spends most of her time in India). We love these pictures and Daya’s messages so much, and I thought you would enjoy them, too! Have you received any postcards from another country? If you’d like to share, send a scan to me at [email protected] and I’ll post them on this page…it can be a virtual “postcards-from-around-the-world” gallery!

Click here to see a video of our dear friend Amanda who is a professional Odissi dancer in India!