 Lightning strikes twice in the same spot!!! I spent the other evening writing a sweet farewell. Yes, it’s true. I must be on my way. I wrote about how much I’ve enjoyed my time here and what I hope I’m leaving you with. I chose my images and laid the little post to rest in a safe place … And then boomkapowshazam! I randomly touched my screen to do something else and out of the corner of my eye I saw this flash about something doing something! I didn’t even know what it did, but I feared for the worst and AMAZINGLY my blog post was wiped out and replaced with something I totally don’t even need! What!? Both me and my partner tried to recover it but to no avail, it was gone! Fully! I don’t even know what happened really, but alas, tis the tale of letting go, both figuratively and oh so literally.  So instead I leave you with a few parting images. They speak louder than words anyway right? I hope you can hear my heart. Btw, I’m not totally flying the coop! I’ll be teaching Mira’s Hero’s Art Journey this summer if you want to come play and you can always find me at www.mayagonzalez.com Rock on darlings! xopazmaya .......Everyone is an Artist......There is Never a Right or Wrong Way to Make Art.......Art is Always an Act of Courage.........  Maya Gonzalez is largely self-taught. She has illustrated over 20 award-winning multicultural children’s books and written 3 with, not an end in sight! Her latest book, Call Me Tree, set to come out this year with Lee&Low Books, is her most recent labor of love! Her fine art has shown internationally and appears in numerous books about the contemporary Chicano Art Movement including on the cover of Living Chicana Theory and Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Works, Culture and Education considered to be "the Bible of Chicano/a art." Ridiculously creative, she’s probably making art as you read this or thinking about making art if she’s driving a car or using the stove. And one of her ultimate passions is inspiring others to create books, because she believes that creating children's books has the potential to be one of the most radical things you can do!
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 If you’ve been reading my posts about Becoming an AuthorArtist over these last 6 months, you’ve been hearing… Play, play, quantum physics, play...play, play, play, play, play And rumor has it that some of you have played! So you may already know what I’m about to talk about! You may have learned firsthand, you may even know without knowing you know, the power of play. Play is a profound teacher. She can teach you as deep as a canyon and leave you without a word to explain the experience. So here are some words about the power of play.
And that this relentless power that wants to unleash and undo and free everything unites us
Maya Gonzalez is largely self-taught. She has illustrated over 20 award-winning multicultural children’s books and written 3 with, not an end in sight! Her latest book, Call Me Tree, set to come out this year with Lee&Low Books, is her most recent labor of love! Her fine art has shown internationally and appears in numerous books about the contemporary Chicano Art Movement including on the cover of Living Chicana Theory and Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Works, Culture and Education considered to be "the Bible of Chicano/a art." Ridiculously creative, she’s probably making art as you read this or thinking about making art if she’s driving a car or using the stove. And one of her ultimate passions is inspiring others to create books, because she believes that creating children's books has the potential to be one of the most radical things you can do!  Artwork by Maya Gonzalez Hands down the most important thing I have ever learned to keep creativity flowing is to do just that, go with the flow. Last month the computer crashed, the blog seemed lost and all I could do was my best to stay buoyant and trust. And here we are! Flowed all the way into the next month! The computer lives! And here is the post I thought had vanished deep behind the blue screen of death last month. Viva creativity! Viva the flow! I realized recently this would be the perfect space to begin a short series of guidance toward illustrating your own children’s book manuscript. The other day I was chatting with someone professionally and they said I was a “rare breed” to be both an artist and an author of children’s books. Interesting, I thought, since my first rule of art is EVERYONE IS AN ARTIST. So I’m out to spread the word! I’m no rare breed. YOU too can illustrate the tale you’ve told! You don’t have to think of yourself as an artist to do it. You already are an artist. You’re a story teller. You’ll just be adding another dimension to your telling. Authorartists! A NEW breed! Rare at first perhaps, but growing! I won’t go into all the details or the this and that’s of illustrating. No, no, no. To begin, just let your imagination run free. Take it slow. Take a nice long moment to be FREEE. Let yourself just look, look, look around to see what kinds of illustrations you like and might even feel like you could do! Look everywhere, not just at children’s books. Look at magazines and CD covers, advertisements and movie posters, fine art, even recipe books, fabric patterns, food labels! Look at everything.  Click to download your copy to color! Look for things that look fun and easy to do, like cut paper, collage, photography and simple drawing and painting. Be a kid again. Remember what it’s like to feel that you can do anything in the world. Pretend and play. Download my Everyone is an Artist handout to color. Mess around drawing figures and funny faces. Get a new pencil or some charcoal and scribble and smear. Don’t be precise. In fact, be imprecise--please! I LOVE images that feel raw and immediate and I love children’s books with art a kid could figure out and imitate. Gather a nice cache of images to start. I’ve included some of the images at the bottom of this post that I’ve gathered lately. You will begin to see what you like. Don’t try to figure out how it’s done just yet. Know that you are an artist and soon you will be making more and more art. Next month we’ll take it a step further. Did you know relaxation and a sense of play allow the flow to flow more flowingly? So to recap, your job this next month is to:
Come be part of a new breed of authorartists! This month I’ll also be joining Mira in her Hero’s Art Journey interactive e-course, a great place to gather lots of images from art history, journey through your blocks and fears about creativity, learn gobs of techniques and begin to make art in community! And of course, play! And, here's some imagery that I've been drawn to lately: (click images to view the gallery) Maya Gonzalez is largely self-taught. She has illustrated over 20 award-winning multicultural children’s books and written 3 with, not an end in sight! Her latest book, Call Me Tree, set to come out next year with Lee&Low Books, is her most recent labor of love! Her fine art has shown internationally and appears in numerous books about the contemporary Chicano Art Movement including on the cover of Living Chicana Theory and Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Works, Culture and Education considered to be "the Bible of Chicano/a art." Ridiculously creative, she’s probably making art as you read this or thinking about making art if she’s driving a car or using the stove. And one of her ultimate passions is inspiring others to create books, because she believes that creating children's books has the potential to be one of the most radical things you can do! Perhaps you've been there. Written or created something wonderful on your computer and then your computer crashes and your work is lost either completely or for a long moment. That was my experience this week with my blog post. All set to post and then the "blue screen of death" appeared and the post, along with several other business files, now hibernates in computer space or perhaps gone forever...I'll find out on Monday. It's times like these when we are really stretched to surrender and let go into the creative flow because there's really no other choice. Always something to learn in these moments. Is it a powerful redirect, or is it something to test your resolve, or is it simply a practice in embracing the unknown as I talked about last month. Whatever the lesson, it is a powerful reminder to go with the creative flow of life and art. But since my post isn't happening as planned, I thought I'd offer a video from my online class that just started, Painting and Photo Collage, as a substitute. My original post was going to explore how anyone can illustrate their own work and begin to look at different techniques to make this happen, so in a way this video is a nice supplement. In this video I discuss the visual understory and symbolism that lends depth and meaning to the book I illustrated, Nana's Big Surprise, by Amada Irma Perez. I also begin to look at how the artwork was constructed. Enjoy the video and here's to going with the flow! Maya Gonzalez is largely self-taught. She has illustrated over 20 award-winning multicultural children’s books and written 3 with, not an end in sight! Her latest book, Call Me Tree, set to come out next year with Lee&Low Books, is her most recent labor of love! Her fine art has shown internationally and appears in numerous books about the contemporary Chicano Art Movement including on the cover of Living Chicana Theory and Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Works, Culture and Education considered to be "the Bible of Chicano/a art." Ridiculously creative, she’s probably making art as you read this or thinking about making art if she’s driving a car or using the stove. And one of her ultimate passions is inspiring others to create books, because she believes that creating children's books has the potential to be one of the most radical things you can do! |
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