Moving to Weebly...

Hello everyone, to try and integrate my blog more seamlessly into my website at christinaforshay.com, I'm moving everything here over to: http://www.christinaforshay.com/blog.html

See you there!

~c

Happy Leap Year!

Here's an old one...a really old one! Like, from college "old".

Quick iPad Sketch

Did this last night to wind down a bit. I thought I would spend a relaxing day in the house with my kids yesterday, which actually, as usual, turned out to be a bad idea. I always have this perfect vision in my head of folding my Downey-soft basket of laundry, the curtains swaying gently in the breeze while my children play quietly on the floor. Well, that never happens. Instead, the laundry never gets done and my kids are trying to do flips off the coffee table. The day ends up being way more stressful than a trip to Disneyland on it's most crowded day in the middle of summer. So after the little ones fell asleep, I treated myself to some trash tv and sketched away!

Google SketchUp is the Bees Knees!

So I got this really fun assignment from a really great client, but the perspective was boggling me for some reason (SOMEtimes I tend to over think and create a bigger issue for myself).  Anyhooo, I remembered Google has a 3D modeling program called SketchUp which is perfect for this perspective problem I was having. I created a very simple 3D model of the basic components and...voila! Instant access to a skyward view from the bottom of a well!

Here's a video of me maneuvering around my little model to get *just* the right angle.

So I guess it's been a "short" while since I posted here...okay, more like 4 months or so.  But lately, I think the universe has been speaking to me about my blogging situation (or lack thereof). Over the past few days, I noticed a spike in visitors to my blog. I don't know why or how that happened, but it's always exciting to know that people are interested in my illustrations.  Then, last night a Facebook "friend" posted about Seth Godin and the importance of blogging every day. Another friend of mine, the awesomely talented illustrator Kelly Light, posted a little something on Facebook this morning about the importance of blogging. So, with all that said, my new goal is to post a little something EVERY day! It sounds like a lot, but my old goal of blogging once a month got me nowhere. My theory is that upping the expectations of myself will yield more results. I guess we'll see!

Anyways, since I last posted here, I've been super duper busy. Illustration work, house work, mom work...wow! Here's a little something I finished up in December right before our trip to Disney World.  It's a pop-up book about the Three Billy Goats Gruff, published by Top That Publishing. I can't wait to see it in person! I'm just including a little snippet of the background though since I don't know exactly how much I can post at this point.  Until next time...I mean, tomorrow,  right?

Steady Stream

As I typed the title of this blog post, I was thinking about the large number of illustration projects I have going on at the moment. But now in hindsight, the title looks like this should be a post about visiting your Urologist. Well, lucky for you, this post will be about the former, not the latter.

I currently have five projects I'm working on, thanks to my lovely, hardworking and brilliant agents over at Bright.  I am very excited about all of them and my fingers are literally itching every day to get drawing and painting.

I feel so lucky to be able to steadily what I love...and make some money at it!

So, I've got four educational workbooks I'm doing, and soon I'll be starting a fun pop-up book for Top That! Publishing which will be a comical take on the old story of Billy Goats Gruff.  Will be super fun to work on!

Here's a little snippet from one of the early reader projects I recently finished about bats:

Los Angeles Summer Conference was...awesome!

Hi all,

Sticking my nose in this here blog to do a quick update. This past weekend, I attended the SCBWI's 40th Annual Summer Conference her in Los Angeles and had an absolute blast. I don't have much time for a long post detailing ALL of the great stuff I learned and was inspired by, but here are a few of the key things that happened and impacted me:

1. I got to hang out with ADULTS...you know, people that aren't one year old. Or four years old. And those adults were awesome!!! It was a like a weekend of "Author/Illustrator Housewives" mixed with "The (Kidlit) View" and "Dancing with the (Children's Publishing) Stars" all rolled into one! Here are just a FEW of the people I had fun giggling/dancing/talking shop with. Go check out their amazing art:

-Erin O'shea

-Kim Dwinell

-Jennifer Gray Olson

-Jessica Lanan

-Julia Collard

-Angela Matteson

-Kelly Light

-Casey Girard

-Diandra Mae

There are way more people that I should add to the list and there's a ton of people I really wanted to hang out with more, but never got a chance to. Sometimes, since there was a MILLION people there, a wave across a sea of people was all it could be.

2. Laurie Halse Anderson's breakout session flipped a switch in my brain when she said (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Not taking the time to fulfill your dreams is teaching your children--especially your daughters--how NOT to fulfill their dreams." I never thought of it that way. She is awesome and I wish I could have a direct line to call her when I'm feeling sorry for myself or feeling "mom guilt" for time spent following my dreams. I'm seriously going to somehow hang that quote above my computer and maybe on the ceiling above my bed so I see it every morning when I wake up. I'm serious.

3. Oh, and there was this. Yes, I won an award! I was one of four picked for the "Mentorship Award". It was awesome and I'm, like, "whoa" and I'm ecstatic and even today, five days later, I'm still trying to sort through all the wonderful information and ideas that have been floating through my mind since meeting with our undeniably awesome mentors. Yes that was a total run on sentence, I know. But that's how it sounds and feels in my brain.

The big take away from the weekend is: Spending time on myself, my dreams and my craft will pay off in SO many ways not only for myself, but for my children. It is so important for all of us to nurture our God-given talents and to not stuff them away for a later date. This idea was a running theme throughout the weekend and it came up and punched me in the face quite a few times.

My main goal for next year? I need to work on not being such a chicken!!! There's no reason that I shouldn't just go up to that big art director waiting behind me in the Starbucks line (i.e. Laurent Linn) and say, "Hi! I'm Christina Forshay! An Illustrator!"

Maybe I should join Toastmasters or somethin'.

Okay, I'm rambling. Time to go!