Let's be honest. It isn't as if there is any way, shape or form in which I have time for another blog. But the fact is, an illustration blog is a necessity for me at this point. My husband an I are still in the process of setting up a shop for my work, where I will (in an undetermined but rapidly closing period of time) be able to sell prints and (time permitting) possibly even do some commissions again. When that time comes, I will need a site with which to compliment my shop.

In that interest, this will be the space in which I will contain my ideas, sketches, works in progress, changes in policy, new offerings, and the multitude of wonderful things that inspire me. It will serve as a virtual inspiration board, a bulletin board, and a sounding board. I will try to stick to categories, but it will be fairly freeform because...well, because that's how I think. I am not a categorical thinker.

So, well, ahem...to begin with, here is what has been going on in my studio most recently.
As many of you know, I have for more than a year now been doing illustrations for the Pioneer Woman's wonderful blog. It has also been just over a year since we brought our beautiful daughter home from China - a year of surgeries, speech therapy and paperwork, as well as a year of joy, laughter, and the greatest tide of happiness that has ever washed through our lives. Because time with my daughter is of the utmost importance to me, I had to suspend my portraiture and work on commission indefinitely. I would someday like to resume that work, but time will tell.

What I have been working on in my own (limited) studio time is the continuation and adaptation of a series of watercolors I started a few years ago, but which did not at the time have a name or anything more than the most vague and nebulous of concepts. It became a series more of its own force of will than of any real intention on my part. The series has taken on a life of its own, and I am drawing inspiration from that fact alone. I'm still not sure where it's going, or exactly what it is becoming...but I imagine that will all become clear in the fullness of time!

In following posts I will bring together the images (many of which have been posted on my other sites) that comprise this series thus far, describe my progress on the newest illustrations, and post some of the images, artists, designers etc which have come together over the years and decades to inspire this work.

I am tentatively calling it "Les Voyageuses", because...well, you tell me if you can understand why!