Pazinktum Publishing™

Because my pets have meant so much to me during this time of rarely going out, I decided to write and illustrate a little picture book about them. Making them into characters of a story has been such a fun and interesting process. To start off with, I’ve written an e-book as an introduction. It is available on Amazon. It is titled “Celeste and Yvette”.

I plan to continue with them as story characters and see where it takes me. My next goal is to produce a longer e-book and a print book. I’ve got a lot of ideas for these two! 🙂

In the meantime, I hope you’ll check out my little e-book introducing these fun characters.
Get it on Amazon if you would like: Celeste and Yvette e-book Version
🙂 Thank you for any support! It means a lot.
CelesteandYvette.com

Everyone knows the “I ❤ New York” symbol. It’s iconic and influential. Much like the designer who made it.

Milton Glaser passed away the other day on June 26. He was 91. In fact, it was his 91st birthday. How many people die on their own birthday? Wow. Not many that I’ve ever heard of. It seems fitting and special…unique…again, much like Milton Glaser himself. He did so much that informed our world, and I’m sure his work will continue to do so long into the future.

He is the only Graphic Designer to ever be given the National Medal of Arts. He was awarded this in 2009. I first learned about Milton Glaser when I was in art school. One of our projects was to design a chess set that in some way related to a famous artist. Since I was studying “Commercial Art”, later to be known as “Graphic Design”,  I decided to pick someone who was related to the field. I chose Mr. Glaser and began to research him. My chess set was in primary colors, organic shapes and was a travel set – since his work was international. My teacher liked it. 🙂

Later in my career, I was fortunate to hear Milton Glaser speak a couple of times. His way of looking at design and living as a creative person was so inspiring. His famous Bob Dylan poster inspired me to do a little art piece as a tribute to him. While the colors in the Dylan poster are forming the hair, my colors with this are forming my bunny’s energetic ambience…her “aura” if you will.

I encourage everyone to research and learn more about Milton Glaser’s work and imprint on culture. I think you’ll be surprised how many things you are aware of that are part of his long life’s work.

This is a little drawing I found among some other things recently. It’s a “blind contour” drawing of a little English Cocker Spaniel named Ringo that I had in the 1980’s into the 90’s. I love running across old sketches.

This style of drawing is where you look at your subject, but you don’t look down at your hand and the page while you are drawing. You can check your placement from time to time, but the goal is to freely draw the subject. It’s a fun way to draw, and I find it very relaxing. It produces some neat shapes and interesting results. 🙂

Sometime in the 1970’s I sent off in the mail for info from one of those “Draw Spunky” or “Can You Draw Me” advertisements you would see in the back of magazines. Sometimes these little ads would be on matchbook covers too. This brochure came in the mail. I didn’t take this course, which was a home correspondence style study, but I kept the brochure and ran across it recently.

The school was in Minneapolis, MN and it was open until 2018. Even though people have joked about the “Draw Me” ads over the years, Charles Schulz, the creator of the famous “Peanuts” comics, studied and taught there. Despite the unusual sales pitch, it was a bonafide school that created some pretty famous illustrators and cartoonists. The instructors had careers in addition to working with the school and were professionals in the field. I thought this was interesting, and I noted how there was only one woman in the group of instructors/advisors. Advertising and design, or “commercial art” as it was called then, was a male dominated profession at one time. This woman, Barbara Schwinn, was a very popular illustrator in the 1950’s. She did a lot of work for women’s magazines depicting glamorous fashion and romance style figures. If you are interested in design and illustration history, she’s a good one to research.

Happy Birthday my sweet little friend! I got her when she looked like this:

We had a little party today. I made her a special cake. Her birthday falls when the violets are blooming. She loves them. They were a wonderful ingredient. If you want the recipe for this bunny cake, leave me a comment and I’ll share!

Below are some photos and two videos. She had one party guest (besides me) ! 😉