New Website, New Blog too!

First of all here's the NEW address to my BLOG.
http://www.crystaldriedger.com/blog/

I'm proud to announce that I have a new website up and running! I'm using a site called squarespace which allows me to have faster download speeds, quicker uploading and quirky, little things that iweb never allowed me to do before (like having rollovers!) and best of all, a built in blog. Have a sneak peak! Take a look at the new site and let me know what you think!

Doctors & Derrieres 5

2010 marks the fifth year of Doctors & Derrieres. It's an annual fund raising event where a group of medical students pose nude for Edmonton artists. Art pieces in diverse mediums celebrating the human body are then donated by each artist to be auctioned off at the main event. I'll get back to you soon with more details on venue and date. The above two pieces are what I may donate or work from to paint another original piece to donate instead.

Working at home (with an infant)

I received a comment a few months back about how to balance being a new mom and being a stay-at-home illustrator.

I have a few rules to live by now that I'm working as a mother with a 7 month old around:

1. A rested mom is a happy & productive mom
2. Proper time management is essential.
3. Allow people to help you out.
   
4. My son is more important than any project, job or paycheck and always will be.

Explanations:
1) Sleep - the most commonly discussed topic at a new mom's group meeting (how to find more and how to get our babies to do longer stretches of it)...
There's no way to be creative when you're exhausted and there's certainly not much room to be a good and happy mother (and wife) when you're running on empty. I make time to cook good, nutritious meals, I get go to bed early so I can handle the night wakings and every once in a while (including today) I take a nap.

*Night wakings can be very frequent and arduous - something that can quickly deteriorate your mental health. Postpartum Depression is serious and lack of sleep can contribute to getting it. I keep myself in check by watching my state of happiness. When I wake up and can't give my son (or husband) a smile in the morning I make sure to nap that day to catch up, deadline or none.

2) Proper Time Management - I have always been self-disciplined and that's something that everyone who works from home needs to be. It gets a lot harder when your little one arrives and you realize that suddenly all of your work needs to happen according to their schedule (yikes, right?). Now that my son is older he is happier for longer periods of time playing beside me on the floor, I'm finding that I can catch up on my emails/phone calls in the mornings before his nap. During his nap (if I'm not napping too), I can work on a painting or prep one. I often find it easier to keep up with cleaning the house while wearing my son in a sling or my ergo carrier just before or after his naps. Same goes with preparing the evening meal (a ring sling is good for this to keep little hands away from dangerous things). It helps to have a favorite toy stashed in the office to use during important phone calls. My son also has an early bedtime (7 - 7:30pm) which allows for a good hour and a half of work.

3) My mother-in-law loves her grandson and lives within a half hour drive of my house. I was able to use her help quite a few Thursdays this fall to watch over my son while I painted and while I taught at MacEwan University. I'm so very lucky that she works part time. It's hard for any mother to let someone else take care of your baby (in many cases this includes the baby's father) but if help is out there it's wonderful to take it (as long as you trust them of course). There's pressure out there to be everything all at once - the working mom, the perfect-always-there mom, the wife, the cook, the homemaker, the dog walker, the host-with-the-most... but if becoming a mother has taught me anything important it's that I no longer have to be all of those things at once.

4) My son is the most important thing and always will be.
This means that I will never again take on more work than I can handle (this means for me about 10 hours per week), I will not answer a client's phone call or email if my son is crying, I will lower my expectations on the type of work I can get done while my son is a preschooler and have rearranged my priorities (taking on a smaller amount of art shows and client work for example). And, when I see that it's 10pm and I'm still writing on my silly blog, knowing that my son will most likely wake up a couple of times tonight crying then be up for the day at 5:30am tomorrow I call it a day.

Good Luck to all new moms!

We Eat Together

This holiday season I decided not to draw one bit and instead focused on another passion of mine: cooking. One of the best things I got this year for Christmas was a beautiful cookbook called "We Eat Together", a collection of recipes and stories about the food that's grown near my home city of Edmonton. It was co-written by my friend Gabe Wong who has an inspiring passion for food (and incidentally wishes he could raise chickens on the balcony of his apartment). He also happens to be an amazing illustrator & designer. Here's a photo of the "pulled pork tourtiére with leeks and goat cheese" that I made last night from his cookbook. Doesn't the sound of that recipe just make your mouth water?

McMullen Musings

Merry Christmas Everyone!

There's only a few days left until our art show at the McMullen Gallery closes down. I had a wonderful time teaching patients art at the free workshops they offered on three Thursdays in December. Here's the sample I did for the last class (it was a wooden plaque painted with acrylics - a take home gift for the patients/students of the workshop).

What a beautiful space for our show.

I shall miss the egg chairs...

and the elegant artwork by Davey Thompson & Amanda Woodward...

First Trip to the Museum

I've been enjoying my maternity leave these days. Getting Christmas shopping done and visiting with friends (mostly other friends with baby's too). Dexter & I visited the museum (his first trip there) and found a cookie-cutter tag that I illustrated and a kids adventure map at the beginning of the Wild Alberta Gallery. Finally making the time to photograph such things!

For anyone interested, I'm teaching a workshop at the McMullen Gallery where our show, Growing up, is: it's this Thursday from 2-4pm. It's been a wonderful experience teaching at the Gallery.

Once Upon a Time - A Tribute to Children's Storybook Art

I had a piece up at the Ayden Gallery in Vancouver, BC (Canada) for a charity last night. Darn, wish I'd remembered to blog about it earlier because I believe the auction was last night! Here's a photo (taken by Lindsay Chetek):

This is a jpg of the illustration I donated (I used it as a self promotional piece last year):


Here's the info:

Please Mum is proud to support the Abetavu Children's Home in Kampala, Uganda and is hosting a Charity Art Show to raise funds for this worthy cause. For more information about the Abetavu Children's Home please visit www.pleasemum.com/abetavu

Once Upon a Time Charity Art Show
A Tribute to Children's Storybook Art
• Artwork Silent Auction
• Button Making by Donation
• All Proceeds donated to the Abetavu Children's Fund in Uganda
• Music by DJ Sage
• Free Admission
• 7-11pm

The Show

The show is up and running and looks beautiful! I'm so grateful that I was able to hang out with Davey & Amanda once a month for well over a year, discussing growing up stories and producing artwork together. What a treat!

Gala Cancelled

Sad news, folks! The opening reception for our art show, Growing Up (at the McMullen Gallery, UofA hospital) has been postponed. Officials are worried about H1N1 and therefore are putting any social gatherings at the hospital on hold. The Show IS STILL ON and it will be open during the original reception hours which were November 5th from 7-9pm (but without all the wonderful bottles of wine we bought and yummy food to snack on).

In order to feel better about the reception, I drew a picture for a friend of mine with a baby around the same age as my son. The baby is pictured in a ring sling, one of my favorite modes of transporting a baby.

On a side note, does anyone trick-or-treat anymore? My house only saw seven little ones (and we live in a city, in a home in a residential neighbourhood)... don't tell me H1N1 has scared off the kids as well as the art show viewers!

Finished!

Saving Starfish, originally uploaded by crystal driedger.

I can't believe it! I'm finished all the paintings for the growing up show. Now all I have to do is survive the gala opening and all the jitters that accompany it.

Varnished and Wired

Here's the poster for our show and the following two images are the other two artists images for their posters! They look so lovely hanging up together...







Lastly, a gathering of my paintings (all but "Saving the Starfish" because it's not finished yet). I managed to varnish and wire them up, ready to hang! Only 8 days until we hang the show (it officially opens to the public on Halloween - I wonder if there will be any costumed visitors at the McMullen Gallery that weekend?). Guess I'd better get painting and stop all of this silly blogging.

Saving the Starfish (last painting, growing up show)

Saving the Starfish painting is coming along (one nap at a time). Take a look at the new whiteboard/bulletin board that has a list of what I need to get done each week and a master checklist of everything that needs to get done by the end of October. I love having the board around because having everything laid out seems to motivate me.

Last Painting for Show!

Horrah! Three cheers... I've started my last painting for the Growing Up Show (a painting featuring my father). It's been very tricky trying to run my business with a newborn. Sometimes I have to work around my infant's schedule and needs - this includes things like painting with a sleeping Dexter in his Lovey Duds sling this afternoon for an hour and a half. Gosh is he getting heavy!

I have 19 days until everything is due to be hung. There are labels to edit, CV & bio to write/rewrite, almost all paintings need to be varnished and have wires attached to the back... oh and artwork to price out. I'm getting exhausted because I also rewrote the project for my illustration class and I think it's going to be very interesting (I'll post what it is once the students get their project).

Storytime with Mom

Second last painting to complete for the growing up show! Only 33 days until the show opens... and 34 days until I start part time teaching at Grant MacEwan College again. I'm reworking my assignment sheets for the "kids" (although sometimes they are older than me). Trying to give them the most exciting project. Something to really get into and enjoy. Did any of you have an extraordinary project when you went to college (if you are a fellow illustrator reading this blog)?

cooking up sketches

Lots of things to do in the studio these days. I'm cooking up better plans for my students this November (yup, I've decided to go back to work once a week on thursdays during November). The dragon sketch is for an acrylics wash techniques sample.

Growing up show is about one month away (yikes!) and I still have two paintings to do. The top sketch is my very oldest memory. I'll let you know more about it when I don't have a fussy baby on my lap... ;)

Becoming Mother - Growing Up Show (FINISHED)

Becoming Mother Finished, originally uploaded by crystal driedger.

The birth of my first child was the most life changing event I've ever gone through in my life. Labour is hard work, and if you let it, it's so beautiful it could make you cry just to think back upon it. When my water broke late at night this May, I took a deep breath and allowed the process to overtake me. 16 hours passed swiftly and before I knew it my exhausted body was completely naked for all the world to see and my son was being placed in my arms. He was covered in all manner of things that would normally make me pale, but all I wanted to do was kiss him, stare at him and hold him. He became, in that moment, the very perfect definition of love.

Growing Up Show is coming soon...

The pressure is building! There's labels to write, paintings to finish (and some to start) and a slideshow to build. Here's some of what I'm working on or finished and have not yet shown you!

Becoming Mother Painting in the works (Dexter in his chair behind me):

Becoming Mother

Here's a sneak peak at what I'm working on right now. It's a small painting that captures my husband and I moments after the birth of our son. It's a part of the Growing Up show this November. I feel that there have not been many things in my life that have cemented the feeling of being "all grown up" than having a baby. Labor was a beautiful, life changing event that still completely empowers and rejuvenates me when I stop to recall it.

A wee little card

I'm braving a road trip with our little bundle this weekend to attend a wedding in Saskatchewan, (that's in west-central Canada for you international visitors). It's going to be a 5 hour drive and that's something I have not yet attempted with my baby (who actually does not fall asleep easily during car rides)... wish me luck!

Here's the card I've made for the newly wed couple. Hope they like it.

See you at the Alter (Growing Up Show)

Shortly before walking down the aisle I was able to read a love note that my husband had scribbled together that morning. It hit me in a sweet, romantic way, how the little details would fall into place and there was nothing to worry about. My husband is da' bomb! hee hee

(Painting for the Growing up Show this November at the McMullen Gallery)