Art & Me

UK-based graphic designer Chris Thornley made this great “I love drawing” design that’s a take off of Milton Glaser’s iconic “I Love NY” logo.




The earliest I can recall myself drawing was in 1st grade. My teacher, Ms. Battoon, gave the class a “busy” project. She gave us a “ditto” (which is what copies were called back then) of a cartoonish illustration consisting of 3 astronauts floating in a ship in space. The instructions were as follows, “You are to copy, not trace, the image of the astronauts onto another sheet of paper.” Easy. I laid my ditto and white sheet side by side. As I began to draw, I began to overlap my white sheet with the ditto. I wanted to be able to draw the faces of the astronauts as close to the ditto’s was as possible. I was paying attention to detail a little too close for comfort for Ms. Battoon. She tore both sheets out of my hands and gave me a BIG, FAT ‘F’. She assumed I traced, when in fact I hadn’t. My pleas meant nothing and the ‘F’ remained. As an adult, I recall that day as if it was yesterday and realize that it was a hidden gem. As a 7 yr old, I was good enough to make my adult teacher believe my drawing had been traced. I was so young that I didn’t understand it at the time. All I know is that it made an impact on me and I was extremely upset. Had she been a little more observant, she may have nurtured my art ability from the get-go. Luckily, the incident didn’t turn me off from drawing. I only wish I had that drawing stashed away in a box, rather than decomposing or recycled sometime years back.

As an adult, my biggest achievement in the design field was having my little company, CXR Design, contracted to work for Microsoft as a graphic designer. It was fun trying to interpret post-it scribbles and creating them into clean vector images ready for publication. The best part was being published in 2 of their books! It’s probably my only proud job description so far.

Microsoft patterns & practices publications :)

I’ve only sold one fine arts piece as of today. It was a heart wrenching/exciting moment. From within, I wanted to scream and say, “NO!!! Please! Buy another piece from one of the other artists!! This is my baby.” As most of my art pieces, they each have a piece of me that becomes part of the final product. The art piece, Cristianeske, is an abstract, surrealist painting of my son (seen below).

Cristianeske

It used to hang in my bedroom before I displayed it at my first art show. My son loved it and was sad to learn that mommy had sold the piece. He drove with me on the day I delivered the 2’ x 3’ painting to its new home with its new owners. The owners were happy to have their new addition and invited us to take a look at where it would be displayed. In addition, they told my son that if he ever wanted the painting, they’d only re-sell the painting to him and no one else. We both left feeling better about leaving the painting in its new home. Now, a little piece of me and my son are making someone else happy. Maybe someday I’ll make more someones happy with original artwork. :)