NEW BOOK! Moving Words About a Flower

Excited to share that MOVING WORDS ABOUT A FLOWER (my 6th illustrated book!) is NOW available in shops and retailers.

Review from School Library Journal

Growing in the crack of a sidewalk, a little dandelion sets seeds sailing to a new meadow home. Following the seeds’ journey from the concrete jungle to a lush summer field, readers will learn all about the little plant’s life cycle and versatile habits. The clever integration of text, color, and imagery has the words dancing across the pages in the style of shape or concrete poetry. When a rainbow appears, the multi-hued words arc across the scene. As the dandelion seeds lie dormant through the winter, stolid lines of chunky text evoke the oppressive weight of heavily falling snow. Deer nibbling the tasty flower petals leave the letters looking decidedly worse for wear. Readers will enjoy following the frolicking text, excited to see where it goes at the next turn of the page, culminating in the familiar pleasure of blowing on a dandelion puff. The city scenes depict a diverse and vibrant urban community, creating a pleasurable contrast to the green, animal-filled meadow. Back matter includes additional information about a dandelion’s life cycle, enhancing the book’s potential for integration into lessons of plants, life cycles, and seasons.

VERDICT Perfect for spring, this lively celebration of the humble dandelion adds flair to all collections.

birds - sneak peek!

Here is one of my large bird prints that will be available at my West Elm pop-up shop on april 17th! (It's also available in a blue color way.) Getting prepared and very excited!

100 days of art making...

Ive been hard at work - trying to keep up - with #the100DayProject. I hope i can make it to 100. Only 91 more days to go! Ive been expiring collages. My idea was to do 1 8"x8" collage (digital or analog) per day. And while I started putting pressure on myself to make amazing pieces, now I am just trying to have some fun.

Read about the project (started by Elle Luna) here + take a peek @ all my artworks to date on my Instagram page here.

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ready, set, grow! (should be my motto!)

Just finished this spring-like piece yesterday for an upcoming kids how-to/art publication which I will have a little mention/blurb in. The author of the book is the fabulously talented Stephanie Corfee. (Visit her site here. This will be her 5th book. Check out her amazing watercolor art, and I love what she sells at DENY designs.)

I was honored and flattered to be asked to participate in the project. Stephanie and I met though an online art course and it turns out we actually live fairly close to one another - which is not typical in these types of international e-courses. (The collaboration and the idea of interacting with artists from all over the globe are 2 reasons why I am becoming addicted to these online courses.)

I'm very excited to share this piece, as its the first (in a while) that I've done that is 95% traditional media. It is acrylic and gouache paint and collage on board. Only a final few minor touches were completed digitally.

I was nervous this piece would turn out differently from my existing work, but it seems to blend in nicely. (At least I think so!) I've actually begun to turn this piece into a collection. Stay tuned on that one... 

river. sea. ocean.

Just you and me. River. Sea. Ocean.

I just finished working on this large piece of art which was composed together from numerous monoprints. Wouldn't it be lovely to purchase from West Elm or Serena and Lily or One Kings Lane or Ballard? I also personally love GreenBox. A gal can dream, right? Where is your favorite place to get wall art? I'm also thinking now I need to do 2 smaller complementary pieces using the lighter aqua teal blues...

Deep Seal Diving Whales. Artwork available for licensing. © Barb Chotiner 2014

And here is a smaller nautical print I was working on. (But part of the same series.) I thought it might be nice to see them side by side in reverse...

River, Sea, Ocean. Artwork available for licensing. © Barb Chotiner 2014

The above pieces were inspired by one of my favorite songs by the artist Badly Drawn Boy...

Us, you and me
River sea ocean
Moving on so far away and dreaming
Quality sea, makes it to the ocean
Far away far away
Let her go, go far away

- Badly Drawn Boy

delicious florals!

Another week of joy & fun! I am loving this Making Art that Sells class. I am leaving my comfort zone of vectors + Illustrator and having fun in the process. Here are my plate designs for the latest assignment. (Plate designs for my dream clients: Anthropologie, West Elm and Crate & Barrel.)

The assignment was to be inspired by "odd pods" and seeds. I started with some monoprinting (see post below) and did then a bunch of little pencile and ink drawings and then had a blast playing with them all digitally.

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