Cartoon Stories: A Circus Story in 10 Acts: Act VI Bird Ballet

This video includes bits from 3 ballets:  The Firebird, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker and brings back great memories from my childhood when I was lucky enough to take classes from a Russian Prima Ballerina named Madame Maria Kedrina in the 1950s in Santa Barbara and to dance (only in the Chorus) in a number of ballets she put on at the Lobero Theater.  More on Madame Kedrina can be found in this Issuu piece done by the Santa Barbara historical society:  https://issuu.com/santabarbaramuseum/docs/noticias_30_3_fall_1984 

An Interview with the Author of Little Cloud

The children's book Little Cloud is now available in print and as an e-book on Amazon.com  First published as an e-book in 2014, and a print edition on Blurb, it has now been made available as a print edition on Amazon.  Here's more information about the book, in the form of an interview:

Interviewer:  What is the story behind the story of Little Cloud?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  I wrote and illustrated Little Cloud in 2014, at the peak of California’s driest period since record-keeping began, between late 2011 and 2014.  I was wishing for more rain so thought a story about a rain cloud might be nice.

Interviewer:  Is there a reason your other main character is a blue jay named Jack?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  Since I made the cloud feminine, I thought it would be good to make the bird male.  I have twin grandsons who were four years old at the time, the age target of my story, and by making one of the characters male I hoped to appeal to them.  Neither of the twins is named Jack, but that name seemed to fit. I was also inspired by my backyard blue jays.

Interviewer:  Can you tell the reader a little bit about your illustration process.  It looks like your illustrations were drawn using vector software, is that correct?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  Yes.  I wanted to make both a digital and a print book.  The requirements for an e-book meant getting the file size as small as possible.  I needed to create the art using vector software, instead of raster images.   A raster image is artwork created in a non digital medium, then scanned in to the computer becoming a digital file made up of pixels.  When these raster images are enlarged, the image quality diminishes significantly and the file sizes are much bigger.  Vector artwork, on the other hand, is composed of mathematical lines and curves.  Not only does vector art take up a lot less digital space, it can be scaled to any size without losing quality. 

Interviewer:  How did you come up with your book title?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  The title Little Cloud just fit the story.  After I first published the e-book in 2014, I realized it was the same title as a book by Eric Carle, one of my favorite children’s book author/illustrators.  That was certainly not intentional.

Interviewer:  What source material did you use for your illustrations?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  I am a photographer and am always looking for new ways to use the tens of thousands of photos I’ve taken over the years.  At the time I wrote Little Cloud, I was also travelling up to Seattle a couple times a year to visit my daughter’s family, including the aforementioned twins.  So the photo reference in the beginning of Little Cloud was shot in Washington State.  Where Little Cloud travels south to, is Marin County, California, where I live.

The tall mountains in my story are based on the Olympic mountains, as seen from the top of Mount Walker, in Washington State.  The tallest of the Olympic mountains is Mount Olympus at 7,965 ft.

The body of water Little Cloud and Jack fly over is Puget Sound, as seen from Seattle.

Small Mountain is based on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County.  Although the biggest mountain around where I live, its peak is 2,572 ft.  much shorter than the Olympic mountains.

The various flower drawings are based on photographs taken at the Botanical Gardens in Fort Bragg, California in 2013.

Interviewer:  What do you hope your readers take away from the book?

Lucy Autrey Wilson:  First and foremost, I hope the reader is entertained.  Secondly, I hope the message of friendship, and the benefits of helping others, resonates.  And finally, I hope there is a little more awareness of the beautiful world we live in and a desire to help combat climate change to keep it that way.

Homage to the Talents of J.L. Autrey

Somehow some of the fabulous creatures drawn by my mother Jean L. Autrey have shown up in a photo I took in the Presidio on Sunday.

Debris Photo Quilt Creatures

Working on some new creature designs made with digital photo quilts, created out of 2"x 2" square cuts composited from 16 themed photos.  The four above are a cat, giraffe, emu and a larger cat cut from a collage of street debris and steel road plate photos.

Wild and Woolly Quilted Wall Hanging

Experience the freedom of the outdoors with a Wild and Woolly (wool punched creatures on cotton fabric) quilted wall hanging indoors.  38 1/2" wide x 44 1/4" high.  Top to Bottom:  front, details and back

Family Portraits, Scribbles and Creature Drawings

Top to Bottom
Family Portraits Left to Right:  Cole, in disguise as a one-eyed alien; Wilson, with all five fingers on each hand upside down; Matt working; Amber as a water drop; and Grandma Lucy in her polka dot pajamas on top of the world
A Scribble with Feet
Creatures (on the backside of the scribble)
Wilson Taylor's Ladybug, done for his Grandpa Wilson
Water Bottles, with help from Wilson of 2 additional birds in the sky

Camping Collecting Stencil Cut-outs

What's cooler to find than a collection of original stencil cut-outs?  Well, maybe bird feathers, interesting leaves and a few beautiful rocks.  Hopefully the little Longbow campers will find all of these treasures to collect in their new treasure bags when they go camping next week!   See prior post for the treasure bags here:  http://autreyart.blogspot.com/2013/08/fun-with-fabric.html

Starry Night

New 8x10 mixed media with Encaustics and embedded rhinestones.  Pictured here are Mono Lisa, Cherry Dog and their assorted friends.