Octoberpus: A Month of Octopuses

It's been ages since I've posted. No need to go into details, but there have been family crises and obstacles and to put not-too-fine-a-point on it, things have sucked. So I decided to pull myself out of the cave and the pity party and do something completely weird and creative. I invented "Octoberpus." I've always loved cephalopods and I challenged myself to draw or paint one each day and post it on Facebook. The experiment worked. The creative juices flowed thanks to these little suckers. They were done on the fly, in hotels, in doctor's waiting rooms, at night before bed, in between finishing the art for my next "peek-a book." Some are scanned and others are just taken with my iPhone. I hope you enjoy them- they are all the product of my strange imagination and various techniques that I play with as sketches- whether in ink or paint- these are not "finished illustrations."

On October 26 and 27 my plate was too full, so I posted two octopuses from the recent past.

I drew this Rugged Beauty for a line of jewelry I'm making.

This one was a quick cartoon with an octopus riding a bicycle- my statement on how being on a device keeps you from seeing the world around you.

There you have it! Thirty-one days of octopuses. I hope you found some you liked... and I imagine this will be spawning future projects for me. I already have a picture book concept going. 

I highly recommend doing something like this- whether you are sketching something or writing something every day for a month just to sharpen your imagination. 

Happy creating!

Love,

Nina

In The Winter That Felt Like Spring

Yesterday I took a very long walk on the beach. On my way down the road I noticed that the skunk cabbage had come up. This has always been a harbinger of Spring. I took a photo to document that on February 11, 2015, Spring had arrived on Lummi Island. This disturbed me on so many levels. I have always felt a deep connection to nature, it grounds me and inspires me. This year the snows in the Northeast and the complete lack of snow here in the Northwest seem to be like yin and yang pulling apart. A de-polarization if you will. 

As I walked on the beach a poem, or a song, came to me... so I stopped and pulled out my iPhone and opened the "Notes" app and tapped in the lines in my head. Then I kept walking and as other lines came to me I stopped and disconnected from my search for depth, meaning and treasure to tap in the other lines with my index finger. (I just can't type with my thumbs.) When I returned to my studio, the poem/song came to life in my journal, and then I edited it on my computer. I do want to put it to music, but there is also a part of me that wishes this could be a picture book. I think this is a subject that we all need to discuss. 

Here is what I wrote. I hope it moves you.

Love, 

Nina

IN THE WINTER THAT FELT LIKE SPRING

In the winter that felt like spring

The snows didn’t come

The birds never left

The salmon didn’t run

The rains never stopped

The rivers flooded the land

We wondered what was next

In this godforsaken plan.

In the winter that felt like spring

The trees bloomed too soon

The bees didn’t come

No fruit hung in June

The moss grew like a carpet

The weeds didn’t die

Land slid around us

Pollen filled the sky.

In the winter that felt like spring

Followed by a summer full of drought

There was record-setting heat

And algae-blooms, no doubt.

Many crops were ruined

Rivers ran too low

Electricity prices climbed

Solar power needs to grow.

In the winter that felt like spring

Would anyone heed the warning

These signs are all pointing

To certain global warming.

The tides are rising higher

The forest is on fire

Science is no liar

The situation is dire

Better set things straight

Before it is too late

Or there will be no songs to sing

In the winter that felt like spring.

©Nina Laden 2015

Tiny Little Resolutions: Painting My Way Into the New Year

I run hot and cold on the idea of New Year's resolutions. After almost 53 years on this planet I pretty much know what I should or shouldn't be doing, but I have to admit that last year took a bit of a toll and some things slid. I decided that I would paint my resolutions instead of just writing them down.

These are all painted on tiny (2" x 3 1/2") pieces of cardboard. They are the exact same size as a business card, in fact they came between business cards that I had printed for me about 25 years ago. Back in the day of real offset printing, when you printed on glossy card stock, any printer worth his salt (this was Brad Moon of Printing Dispatch) would put cardboard between every printed piece to prevent the ink from bleeding on to the card on top. I saved the stack of cardboard, and over the years I've done little paintings on the pieces.

In doing these seven "tiny little resolutions" I did not do any sketches or drawings. I randomly chose background colors, painted the words for the resolution, and then picked up my paint brush, squeezed out blobs of Holbein Acryla gouache and just painted whatever came to mind. These were not only exercises in resolving to do better in the next year, they were also exercises in not over-thinking the imagery. These are done in the spirit of fun and folk art, a style I adore because it gets the message across without being fussy or too darn finished.

I hope you enjoy my "Tiny Little Resolutions" and take some of them to heart.

Love,
Nina

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