I remember you...

 

Those who know me well know that every year on March 18th, I write a short dedication post. I think of them on other days when there are triggers that remind me of their strength and of our loss but this day is theirs. I feel cheated like a carrot dangled in front of a horse not that they were carrots or that I was a horse but that is one of the feelings that surrounds me on March 18th (and really, for most of March). I feel suffocated, sad, scared, empty, and lonely. I know that I could take the optimistic perspective and be happy that we had a few days together and I am glad that we did but on this day, the pessimist takes over until it is difficult to breathe. I have a lot of work to do this week and I will do my best to push through but the memory of them is on my mind, in my heart, and weighs on my chest.


I Remember You...
It’s March 18^th again and I'm hit with a storm full of emotions. I’m sad. I feel cheated. I wish I could turn back time but don’t want to go through that again. I didn’t have a lot of time to get to know you and yet I did know you. I talked to you. I held you. I listened to you. I even saw you before this day, but on March 18th, you looked at me for the first time. You squeezed my finger. People have asked and I have no answers. I don’t know what happened. I don’t think that I did anything wrong but I can’t help but feel that I must have because I lost you. You would be ten today. I remember you and I will light a candle for you today.


Those who have no idea what I'm talking about or who this post is dedicated to may not have known me in 2004 or heard about this since then. You can read last year's dedication post by clicking HERE.

Mourner’s Kaddish

Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di v’ra khir’utei, v’yamlikh malkhutei b’hayeikhon u-v’yomeikhon u-v’hayei d’khol beit yisrael, ba-agala u-vi-z’mon kariv v’imru amen.

Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varakh l’alam u-l’almei almaya.

Yitbarakh v’yishtabah v’yitpa’ar v’yitromam v’yitnase, v’yit-hadar v’yit-aleh v’yit-halal sh’mei d’kudsha, b’rikh hu l’ela (l’ela mi-kol) min kol birkhata v’shirata, tushb’hata v’nehemata da-amiran b’alma, v’imru amen.

Y’hei sh’lama raba min sh’maya v’hayim aleinu v’al kol yisrael, v’imru amen.

Oseh shalom bi-m’romav, hu ya-aseh shalom aleinu v’al kol yisrael, v’imru amen.

To read 2012's dedication - A Lion in the Storm, click on the image below.

 

 

 

Doodle Day 2014: March INTERACTIONS Month

We are sixteen days into INTERACTIONS month in Doodle Day and the doodles have been fantastic! I have been working on a book dummy and a hidden pictures puzzle so while I have been drawing every day, I have not completed every prompt. That's okay. I want all of the Doodle Day participants to know that if something else inspires your drawings for a day or a week or a month, go with it. The point of Doodle Day is to draw every day and the prompts and themes are there for challenge and inspiration. It is a lot of fun to check out the prompt list and doodle that day's prompt without having to stare at your page or screen and come up with something to draw.

Last week, I also created a short video in Powtoons to share what Doodle Day is all about and inspire a few more doodlers to join in. Check it out:




Here are the doodles that I have created so far this month:

PARENT AND CHILD

MEETING

LEAVING

HELPING

BUILDING UP

 

KNOCKING DOWN

RIDING ON

SURPRISED

PUSHING

PULLING

This one was just for fun...

Just playing some more...

Inspired by Pi Day on March 14th

One of my mottos in life...

 

Come back for more doodles this month and join us if you are interested.

Click on the link below to go to the group page:

Doodle Day

 

Leave a comment below if you have questions about Doodle Day or

have an idea for a great doodle theme we should use, or just want to say hello.

 

Doodle Day 2014: February Creature Month Week 4

Creature Month for Doodle Day is officially completed. For week 4, I created a combination of a Kangaroo and a Monkey - a Monkeyroo.

 

 

 

 

 

I also created some circles that I Zentangled and added watercolor to: 

 

 

and created this doodle for fun, too:



 

To see my Creatures for Doodle Day for weeks 1, 2, and 3, click on the links below:

WEEK 1

WEEK 2

WEEK 3

 

March is INTERACTIONS month in Doodle Day so come back for those summary posts, too! If you want to join Doodle Day, click on this LINK.

 

Keep Doodling!

Doodle Day 2014: February Creature Month - Week 3

I had a fabulous week of projects. I doodled Duck/Dog doing a bunch of different things, worked on a puzzle sketch that I hope will someday get into one of my favorite children's magazines, taught an art lesson about Tomie dePaola to a Kindergarten class, and painted the windows of an elementary school for Tune Out TV week and Read Across America.

If you are new to the February Challenge for Doodle Day, we are creating creatures/monsters/aliens each week. We're spending a whole week doodling each one in different poses and/or with a variety of expressions.

To see my character for Week 1 click HERE
To see my character for Week 2 click HERE

Here is my character for Week 3:

I call him Duck/Dog...

 

Duck/Dog chasing and playing chase with Duck/Cat

 

 

Totally off theme, I saw this photo of a sloth and its stuffed giraffe posted on twitter and I had to doodle it up. Here is the photo and my watercolor version.

 

 

 

Come back next week to see what I come up with for Week 4. : )

 

Doodle Day 2014: February Creature Month - Week 2

The Doodle Day drawing community is working on Creatures/Monsters/Aliens this month and we are spending an entire week on each character.

 

Here is my Creature for Week 2:

This is a combination of a Ram/Dog/Duck. I tried wings here.

I changed up the colors and curved his back here. I also changed the feet and gave him arms.

Tried a different body color again and took out the swirl of hair. I also made his eyes bigger. I gave him some action and prop to see how he would react.

Since it is really cold down here in Atlanta, I asked my character to knit a sweater.

Love is in the air for Valentine's Day so he painted a card.

 

 

Come back to see my character for week 3...

 

If you are interested in joining Doodle Day - click HERE to go to the Facebook Group page.

Doodle Day 2014 - February Creature Month

Doodle Day has been full of busy doodlers everyday since May 1st last year! Last month was Backgrounds and Scenes and this month our focus is on Creatures/Aliens/Monsters. I have asked each doodler to create a character at the beginning of each of the four weeks in February and then spend the rest of that week playing with that character. I'll update this post as I complete each week.

Here is my Creature for Week 1:

I started with a loose watercolor to figure out what shapes I wanted to combine to create my character. This is a combination of a duck and a pig with a bit of dog body. I played with uneven shaped eyes to see what it would look like.

I gave him a giant radish since he wouldn't eat a regular old carrot.



Then I spent a couple of days working on facial expressions to help me figure out who he is. I also added a blue ring to his eyes.

I spent the rest of the work playing with action and posing my character.

 

During the week, I also painted some abstract pieces with watercolor:

 

 

 Come back to see my Character for Week 2...

 

If you are interested in joining Doodle Day - click HERE to go to the Facebook Group page.



New Doodle Day Theme for January 2014

Welcome to 2014!

How Doodle Day started...
What began on May 1st as a one month drawing challenge has snowballed is such a wonderful way that I never imagined when it started...

Doodle Day began after my daughter (only 5 yrs old) made a suggestion on April 31st. After seeing me create a daily doodle everyday for 6 months, she said, "Mom,... I want to doodle with you and we can draw the same things. Let's call it Doodle Day May and you can blog and invite our friends to draw with us." What you should know is that Erin has her own pink sketchbook that she used most days at preschool during quiet time. When the other kids were napping, my little girl would take her pouch of colored pencils and markers from her cubby and draw whatever was on her mind.

I did as Erin suggested and blogged about my daughter and I doodling together and invited our friends to doodle with us. To my surprise, when I checked my blog the next morning, there were 60 people from across the globe who had expressed interest in joining our challenge. You can see that original post HERE. Doodle Day May was born and a Facebook Group was created so that doodlers could freely post their creations and give feedback to others. Click HERE for my summary blog posted at the end of May with my month of doodles.

May ended but...
Doodle Day was soo much fun that many people in the group wanted to continue into June, then July. Click HERE for my summary blog posted at the end of July. While those summer months didn't have themes, I posted a prompt everyday so that those who stare at a blank page and felt anxiety about what to doodle had a little push of inspiration. Prompts are never required to be used - just there if wanted and/or needed. For 2 weeks in August, we did a Character Challenge because I wanted to work on specific age groups others expressed a similar desire so I posted many blogs about distinguishing characteristics in each age group that I gathered from various textbooks, drawing guides, and blogs. See the summary post for the end of the Character Challenge HERE.

Our happy doodlers continued to doodle through September and into October and as a group, we gave November the them of Animals. We doodled a different (mostly uncommon) animal everyday. Click HERE to see the summary of Animal Month.

For December, our group of dedicated doodlers (which had now grown to almost 200 people in the Facebook group and at least a hundred others who email me directly) decided to do an Ocean/Sea Life theme and to make it even more challenging - throw in the A-Z aspect. December 1 began with the letter A and so on until we ran out of letters. The last few days of December were "free" doodles with no prompts. Personally, I finished the month with a cartoon everyday and you can see my entire month of doodles HERE.

Now...we welcome the new year with a new theme. Many of us focus on characters and the object in the central focus of our illustrations (and doodles) and forget about the background. Often, a blend of neutral or sky  or a wash is enough to ground our characters but there are also times when the scene needs to be set at a specific location. For those of us who illustrate (or want to illustrate) picture books for children, we need to be able to take our characters to the zoo, the playground, to school, to the store, to every room in a home, outside and inside, and to every other place from the top of a mountain to the bottom of the ocean so a collection of a month full of settings has become our January 2014 theme.

If you are interested in joining Doodle Day, check out the Facebook Group HERE. Once in the group, you can access the files with the daily doodle prompts and you can share your doodles.

If you want to order Doodle Day swag, check out our Café Press store HERE. The prices are set so that I do not make a profit on these items. I have no intention of making money off of anyone's interest in participating in Doodle Day.

If you want to learn more about me as an author and illustrator, click HERE to go to my website. You can also find me on Twitter @AlisonHertz, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

Hope to see you in Doodle Day!