On my desk

Updates from my desk

Play TIme

June 2025

Whew doggie! Am I struggling lately! Struggling with direction, meaning, confidence, energy… I’ve been here before so I know this too shall pass. But, waiting for the muse and the map to get there - the hallway between the closed door and the next door - to open is rough!

I know that I just have to keep showing up. I have taken a hiatus from social media posting and only checking in on friends and those I follow once a week on my desktop. I’m reflecting on what it all means for me. I’ve pushed this creative career boulder up the hill for so long - over twenty years - that I’m exhausted. I know I still have it in me, I just need to keep plugging.

Things that I’ve done to take some pressure off and find my next steps:

Read: I’ve read three fiction books since going off social media on my phone. I’ve started reading three creative-life related books and started journaling again.
Visited museums and botanical gardens and revitalized my own garden, mostly adding native plants. I’ve sketched botanicals in the gardens and from photographs. Botanicals is something I always return to when I need inspiration.
Seen several new doctors to try to figure out some health stuff that remaiins a mystery. My energy tanks mid morning making it really challenging to work. But, I have been able to continue my contract job - thank goodness!
Played with new techniques and materials -like, markers combining them with colored pencil and ink. Thinking about trying oils again.
Knitted while listening to podcasts to help me move forward.
Taken a few new yoga classes in new venues to shake up my exercise routines.

I would love to hear what you guys do when you feel stuck. What are your goals this summer? Who do you talk to when you feel stuck? I’ve found some community being a part of Margo Tantau’s Foundary group, reminding me that I’m not alone.

Project in the works

March 2025

I’m starting early this year to work on products to sell at the holiday buying time. Some very lovely customers have been asking me for a new calendar. I haven’t done one in quite a while and it is time. My original idea, started last year, was too fussy and complicated. This kept me from getting it out in time. So, I’m back to the drawing board (ba dum dum) and have new ideas and new art.

Also, I’m reenergized about actually putting out a newsletter! Please sign up if you’d like ot be the first to know when I release the 2026 calander! Promises to be packed with funky friends of the two and four legged kind.

Family Ties

I have begun a series of studies based on journal entries and dreams I have had. The theme is a meditation on some family-of-origin relationships and history that I have begun to unpack these past few years. I longed to write a book about it all but don’t consider myself an effective writer. When I asked myself how I might process all the complicated feelings and beliefs I have, I landed on what comes naturally, painting.

I am a trained grief counselor and am well aware of the power of telling your story, your way. My truth matters. It’s something I often have to remind myself as the middle-kid, bandaid sibling who has always seen my role as the peacekeeper, the one who was responsible for bringing everyone together even if it meant I had to hide my truth and my feelings in the process. My parents are deceased and the remainder of my family have essentially abandoned me for a deranged story they have conjured about me that apparently makes them feel less shame, less embarrassment for their own perceived shortcomings and abuse. It’s one of the most complicated and painful grief experiences I have had to grapple with and I have experienced quite a bit of loss. Mental illness can destroy families and the souls of those who are fighting to preserve what is good in a family.

I hope this series will evolve slowly and thoughtfully for me. My intention is to take my time and allow the imagery and feelings to spill out in their own way and time. I want to respect this process in order to honor my parents who worked so hard to create a family based on shared memories, some roads that had no road maps and love. It will be an intensely private process and outcome but I hope the imagery that emerges will have some universal messages for people as well.

Some studies from my sketchbooks:

New Traditions

This past Christmas as I watched my three adult children and their partners take in traditional items that mean ALOT to me didn’t seem to hit them in the same way. It got me thinking, what will their traditions be? What sorts of things will they collect to refelct this season? Their partners have different traditions of course as well as religious traditions. What imagery will they want to surround themselves with (if any)?

I asked them some questions about this - even asked about the traditional red and green color palette and if that was important to them. Their answers were informative and inspiring to me.

I’ve been developing ideas for Christmas tree toppers for the 25 - 35 audience. They are shaking up our ideas of the old world order and their future trditions and imagery/color palette choices will reflect this.

Here are some of my ideas I’ve been creating with paper maches and acrylic gouache. They are prototypes but the bug will go to my son Parker and the owl to my son Simon. I made my daughter and her husband a felt Santa developed from an illustration I did as part of my 50 figures series.

Dung Beetle - to roll away the crap from the year before and clear the energy for the new year.

Owl - gazing over the family to bring greater connectedness and wisdom

Santa flying over a village to bless the communities around the world - this one is the most in process of the three paper mache tree toppers.

Felt Santa created from my illustration:

Word Daily

An ode to ignored emails…

Does anyone else get emails on a daily that they do not unsubscribe to because they think they’ll get to them at some point but actually rarely do?

For me, one of these is Word Daily. I want to have better vocabulary. I thought I would play with some lettering and spot illustrations/doodles from my sketchbooks for a bit. The lettering is not fussy, just helps me learn the word.

Gracie Brave grand finale ! Marching on to her next adventure...

Character play

September 13, 2016

Rounding down the illustrations for the Gracie Brave project and beginning to ramp up for what's next for me.

I've been thinking a lot about how I might push the quirk factor in my work. The type of children's book illustrator I long to be is someone who shows more of a sense of humor in my work. I'm putting that intention out there and will explore it in the Lilla Roger's Children's Book Illustration class which starts in October.

In preparation for this upcoming course I have been taking a few related classes on Skillshare.

I recently watched Nina Rycroft's courses. I played with some face shapes in her "Explore Character with Nine Shapes" class:

Next I would like to use some of what I gleaned from her insight and apply it to inanimate objects with character.

About Jane

Every time I start a new series of works I start with a sense of wonder, a speeding up of my pulse, a feeling like I can’t catch up to the things I want to express and the places I want the work to take me.