Subject: March N.E.V.A. Newsletter
Date: March 23, 2006 7:57:46 PM EST
To: wickedneva@comcast.net
Happy Spring!!!
Daddy's Girl
The exhibition of the original illustrations from my first picture book "Daddy's Girl", at the Children's Museum in Portsmouth went really well. I got to read "Daddy's Girl" to a very captive audience at the Museum a few days before the end of the show. Some pictures from that event will be on my website soon, so check it out. As most of you know, "Daddy's Girl" will be out in major bookstores on May 1st. If you'd like me to do a reading at a local bookstore, please just let me know and I will contact the bookstore of your choice. If you'd like to learn more about "Daddy's Girl", you can visit the publisher's website (Bookworm Books).
www.bookwormbooks.biz
Teaching
This last semester of teaching at Kimball Jenkins in Concord, NH was a lot of fun, and I had a lot of very enthusiastic and talented students to hang out with. I'm working on creating a "Teaching" section of my website, and will hopefully be able to include images of their artwork. Another semester at Kimball Jenkins begins for me on Thursday, April 17. This spring I'll be teaching four classes. Cartooning I, Cartooning II, and Intro to Painting are for ages 8-12, and Introduction to Illustration are for adults. The Cartooning II class picks up where Cartooning I left off, and we'll be focusing on creating our own comic books, not just cartoon strips. Since the Cartooning I class is on Friday from 4-5:30pm, and the Introduction to Illustration class for adults is on Friday from 6-8pm, I'm encouraging adults who have children ages 8-12 to sign them up for the Cartooning I class. Parents can then take the Illustration class while their Cartooning kids enjoy a family-friendly movie in the room next door. Everyone's happy and no one has to drive back and forth. If you'd like to learn more about those classes, and others that are offered at the Kimball Jenkins School of Art, please visit their website.
www.kimballjenkins.com
Freelance Work
I've been told that I should start promoting the fact that I do a lot of graphic design work, so here goes. These past few months have been pretty busy with a few different graphic design projects. Kimball Jenkin's has hired me to do their class brochure (which should be in the Concord Monitor very soon so keep an eye out for it!), as well as designing an invitation and poster for their annual Fundraising Auction, held in May. In addition, my good friend and local engineer, Claude Valenze of FX Control Systems has had me do the design of his logo for a new freelance venture. That included doing the letterhead and business card design, which was an interesting challenge because his was the second logo I've ever designed, if I counted my own. In addition, I've had the opportunity to design a few flyers and posters at the Currier Museum of Art through my job as PR Coordinator. Graphic Design is something I grudgingly jumped into after college, but have since come to enjoy. I've had experience designing ads for magazines and newspapers, designing posters, brochures, flyers, CDs, etc. So if you or anyone you know is ever looking for a good design, refer them to me and I will give a fair price.
Career Day!
So one of the perks of teaching at Kimball Jenkin's is that they now call me with some interesting offers that come in from around the state. Tomorrow I will be taking part in Career Day at the Merrimack Valley Middle School, where I'm sure I will keep these 6th graders riveted about my life as a freelance artist! I'm interested to see how they'll reacte to me, and my chosen profession. Tune in next month to see if all goes well!
Drawing Disney Workshop
Another exciting thing I'll be taking part in soon is a Drawing Disney Workshop with 18 students from Bow High School. This will take place at Kimball Jenkins and I will be teaching them basic concepts of drawing, using Disney characters as inspiration! Considering I drew my inspiration from Disney characters when I was their age, I thought this would be a lot of fun.
Press
Being a PR Coordinator for the past two years at the Currier Museum of Art has definitely taught me a lot about self-promotion, and that if you don't do it for yourself, you can expect anyone else to do it for you. Having said that, look for a nice big color article on me and my teaching at Kimball Jenkins in the Concord Monitor next Thursday, March 30th!
Charity
Some of you may remember me mentioning that I donated an original work of art to my cousin's Chicago based non-profit organization, Rock for Kids, this past month for their Art Auction Fundraiser. Well this year they raised more than any other year, totaling $72,000 ($18,000 more than the year before) and my piece was sold to a local gallery owner! So I'm thrilled for my cousin, and now I can say that my work is in a gallery in Chicago!
If you're interested in learning more about this charity organization, visit their website.
www.rockforkids.org
READ!
This month's recommendation is a children's book that I stumbled upon pretty much by accident a while ago, and it's now one of my favorite books! It's called "The Story of the Little Mole Who went in Search of Whodunit", by Werner Hozwarth & Wolf Erlburch. In the story, Little Mole comes out of his hole in the morning only to have an unpleasant and unwelcome gift PLOP on his head. Whodunit?! He goes off in search of whodunit and questions a pigeon, a horse, a hare, a goat, a cow, and a pig, who all deny the accusation. They all show Little Mole how they do it, to prove their innocence. Little Mole tracks down the culprit in the end and gets his revenge by leaving a little PLOP of his own. The author is from Germany and the illustrator is a design and illustration professor at the University of Dusseldorf, and he has a very cool, interesting style that I think is very European.
Cheers
As always, if you know of anyone in need of artistic talent, please feel free to give them my information. Thanks for reading this far, and stay tuned for more N.E.V.A. news next month.
Neva Austrew
N.E.V.A. or New Expressions of Visual Art