Three New Stickers

I added three new stickers to my shop this week. Click here to buy, share, gawk, critique, you know the drill. My #NPSLover stickers are listed first with my I ♥ Public Lands sticker right below them.

Up first is the painting I did last summer of the Milky Way over Sand Dune Arch at Arches National Park. I painted this during the weekend I spent at Draper’s Art in the Barn. It was a 2-day art exhibition (my first ever!), and I found it impossible to just sit or stand while people milled about, so I brought supplies to paint and ended up doing 3 small paintings.

Sand Dune Arch was a favorite spot of my kids when they were younger and didn’t much care about the awe of the park. Hike for just a few minutes in between these giant fins of sandstone and there’s an arch in there; it’s super short. It’s a wonderful spot to let little ones play in the fine sand and, depending on when you get there, you could rest in the shade. This spot can be super popular in the summer months when it’s hot. We’ve been to Arches multiple times, but only in April and May; which I HIGHLY recommend. Spring Break is a wonderful time to visit Moab.

You can click on the image to purchase a sticker too.

Next up is a painting I did of Corona Arch, just outside of Moab. It’s one of my favorite places ever and I did this painting for a client a while back to be printed on neck gaiters some day. For this sticker, I went with a new-to-me website, Jukebox Print, for these stickers and I LOVE how they turned out.

This is one of my favorite paintings and I had SUCH a fun time painting it. It was one of those times where I felt like I was in a groove and paper and paint just cooperated and coordinated.

Last up is Sundial Peak in Big Cottonwood Canyon and part of the Wasatch National Forest. I had to do some research to find out if this peak was on National Park Service land or BLM Land. I’m still not 100% sure, because I also see it tagged in the Twin Peaks Wilderness. This spot is close to where we live and it’s a hike I hope to do this summer. If I can plan it right (depending on snow melt and weather, we’ve had a TON of snow this winter), I want to do a backpacking trip there. It’s a tough trail with a lot of elevation gain, but it’s supposed to be worth it… barring the mosquito situation.

I painted this one just last month to help pull me out of a funk I was in. Finishing it, and subsequently making a few changes in Photoshop, really helped pull me out of my Winter Blues and the funk that I was in. I will have this available as a giclée print in a couple of sizes in the coming months.

I actually made a mistake when ordering this one as stickers. I didn’t pay attention to the wording on a sale and I ended up ordering 2x2 inch stickers. These are a lot smaller than I usually order, so I may just make these freebies to anyone who places an order.

I will order this in a 3x3 inch sticker at some point.

I want to paint some places that are gorgeous and not in Utah next. I have a few spots on my list like South Falls in Oregon, and I have a photo that I took of a beach in Half Moon Bay, California that I may paint. Any suggestions??

Children's Book Illustration - Hot Topics Hot Serials

In 2006 and 2007, I was only a couple years out of college and trying to dip my toe into the world of children’s book illustration. I was hired by a small company called Hot Topics Hot Serials. They aren’t around anymore, but they were a serial publication that published stories for elementary and middle school kids in newspapers in schools.

I was hired to illustrate two stories that were both historical fiction and they were really a blast to create.

The first book, The Secret Life, was about two sisters growing up in the early 1900s on the east coast when women were actively protesting and lobbying for their right to vote in the United States. They went about their lives, scraping along, trying to help out their single mom when they noticed she was acting differently; hiding something. They learned that she was a suffragette and marching in parades and joining protests. The two sisters get caught up in a riot and it’s an eye-opening experience for them.

I loved researching the different types of clothing girls and women wore back then; even the differences between what working women wore versus wealthier women. Reading through different accounts of the events that led up to the passing of the 19th amendment was fascinating.

The second book, All in Good Time was about a New York City middle schooler who struggled with taking history class seriously. One day his history teacher gave him a subway token and it transported him back to Manhattan in the 1930s. He met a girl his same age who lived almost entirely on her own and had to make ends meet in a time when there was corruption and not much in place to protect kids from danger.

For this book, I actually flew to New York for a day to take some photos in the spots where parts of the story took place. I went to Times Square, the Brooklyn Bridge, Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty, Chelsea Piers, and I got some good photos of older apartment buildings in the city for painting inspiration. It was fun looking up what a subway car looked like, what Times Square looked like, and what an Automat was (Google it!).

In January of 2008, I got a random email from a reporter for the Saginaw News in Michigan. They were going to be printing “The Secret Life” in the local newspaper there and she wanted to ask me a few questions about my experience illustrating the story. It was really, really cool to know that my illustrations were going to be printed in a real newspaper! I wish I’d known someone who was local who could pick up some copies for me.

About six months after I finished the second book I got a letter in the mail from a woman named Maureen who’d seen the story All in Good Time published in her local newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune. One chapter was in each day’s paper for the length of the story. Most of the illustrations were black and white, but a few were printed in color along with a couple of teasers on the front page. She saw Alexandra Tebow listed as the illustrator and reached out to my grandpa to see if we were related. Turned out Maureen’s husband is my grandpa’s first cousin. My grandpa passed along my mailing address and she was kind enough to collect the newspapers, cut them out, and mail them to me.

Pretty cool, right?!

After Maureen reached out to me, I scoured the Star Tribune’s website for online versions of the chapters and printed them out too.

It’s funny to me how different I would make these if I was to illustrate them all over again, haha! I have no way of knowing if these stories and my illustrations have been printed in other newspapers since then. I wish Hot Topics Hot Serials was still around too, they were really fun to work with. I truly had a wonderful time illustrating these stories and if I’m ever able to illustrate historical fiction again, I’ll jump at the chance.

Follow me on TikTok!

As a middle-aged lady, AKA: member of the Oregon Trail Generation, I avoided TikTok as much as I avoided Twitter… which was a lot. But this spring a friend convinced me that TikTok could be a potentially awesome funnel for my business, so I begrudgingly downloaded it. I’m still learning how to upload videos at different lengths and how to find music that fits, all while trying to figure out how to create interesting content. But I’m starting to feel more and more comfortable with it.

My new Canvas Lamp has TOTALLY helped with this. You can read about it here.

One thing I do know, TikTok is a HUGE time suck. I will flip through a few videos and suddenly two hours have passed. I’ll go all day without looking at TikTok and see 50+ notifications that my sister or my husband has shared videos with me. #enablers

I plan to keep the content art-related as much as possible. I did post a video last week of me making peach jam, so there will be randoms non-art here and there. Although some may argue that making jam IS an art.

I have gone back and forth many times on whether to share about my taekwondo training and black belt journey. But since my black belt test is in two weeks, I feel like if I was going to document that journey, I should have started six months ago. Oh well. If I ever decide to get a 2nd Dan in taekwondo, maybe I will document THAT journey. Practicing martial arts is a whole other world when you don’t start as a kid.

Any requests on art content?? Any techniques you’d like to see?? I do a lot of landscape watercolor and wet-on-wet painting. I am considering diving back into oil painting, so maybe I’ll take some videos there too.