Monday, October 27, 2014

Love many things.
--Vincent van Gogh
I am often reminded of how lucky I am that I get to pursue my passion and get paid for it.  And I know I am lucky to have found this passion early in my life. Malcolm Gladwell said that you can't be considered an expert at something until you've practiced it for 10,000 hours. I started early but I'm no expert (yet).
It's a double edged sword sometimes. There's never enough time. I was asked yesterday to take on another art student, and I'd love to. I'd love to teach  teenagers, like I did as a high school teacher; I'd love to teach more adults, as I have in workshops and classes. And I love working with the elderly. Oh and I love to paint and play with paper on my own too. I recently realized that with teaching, delivering goods to shops, marketing, ordering supplies, filling out my budget, travel, and doing shows, (oh and I am also a mom) that I am actually only creating about 10 hours a week. What??? And all the other stuff is taking up about 40 hours. That seems way out of alignment. So I have vowed to work more. On the good stuff.
Here's what I finished today.




Friday, October 10, 2014

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree



Before you are able to draw, you have to learn to see, and you learn to see by drawing.
                --Mick Maslen


My oldest son turned 10 in May. Double numbers -- very significant! He is the son who asks for nothing, and is happy with whatever he gets, so he wouldn't give us a clue about what he might want for his birthday. Meanwhile, for months he had been bringing home these really fun faces he had been doodling at school. Not the usual copied cartoons that you see so often in this age, through teenagers (isn't this a good drawing? me: you mean the thing you traced?). These faces and bodies are completely original. I read that fourth grade is the year that if a child is interested in something they will either stay with it for good, or leave it for other pastimes. I really want to encourage him, but not be pushy as I could easily send him in the other direction. I knew I had to handle him delicately -- I have been encouraging him in my art classes for years, and even tried to get him interested in classes taught by others. So anyway, I had been saving his little scraps of faces for something, I didn't know quite what. Close to his birthday, I picked out my favorite 5 faces, pasted them on coordinating blue paper, and found funny quotes to go with them. Took them to my printer, had "illustrated by Raine Haddad" printed on the back, and boxed up a set for his birthday. Home run. He loved them, especially the credit to him on the back, AND when I told him he gets all the proceeds. I did several farmers' markets this summer, and after the first market selling his cards, I brought home $20 to him; the next market, $35; and the next $50. He was ecstatic, and people have been very eager to buy the cards when they find out he made them and gets the money for them. And he subtly learned the lesson that artists aren't all the starving kind.

Here are the cards:







Wednesday, October 1, 2014

I like to employ a form of repetition, in which the same elements recur but in different and unexpected ways.
--Graham Nelson
My kids love to hear stories about my childhood, and I think it's really important for them to hear not only of my adventures, but also of my mistakes and lessons I learned along the way. It gives them something to think about.
They've recently started at a new school, and on Thursdays it's ice cream day. Just like when I was in elementary school, when Friday was ice cream day. Bring your 10 cents and pick out your favorite flavor from a white portable freezer (it's now 75 cents).  Brown Mule, Nutty Buddy, Bomb Pop -- which one to choose? So I'm back to desserts in my paintings, not cakes with occasional bits of paper, but popsicles with lots of paper. I'm calling the series "Nostalgia". Are there any 40 somethings out there? Check it out: