Art with Family

Peregrine © Maud Guilfoyle, charcoal, 11 x 11 "

When my mother entered a nursing home, I bought blank journals and sketchbooks in pairs and would visit with art supplies and set us up to draw each other. We filled a couple of moleskine journals and a couple of dozen loose sheets of paper. If you have an elder artist friend or relative supply them with art materials and books of art they loved when active to keep the art spirit alive.

Bobbie Golden watercolor by Peregrine Higgins

Bobbie Golden by Peregrine Higgins, 1999, watercolor, © Art by Two 

I see that there is a show at the Art Center of Northern New Jersey of art of Bobbie Golden over 30 years. My mother, Peregrine, has drawn and painted Bobbie for 25 of those 30 years. I just finished writing a memoir about growing up with my mother, artist Peregrine Higgins. The image of this painting is included in this e book. Bobbie has the greatest collection of hats for modeling in costume.

Artwork Using Archival and Acid Free Materials

The Tooth Fairy by Peregrine Higgins, pen and ink, 9 x 7 inches, © Art By Two

Always use acid free papers and the best quality materials you can afford for your artwork. 

While selecting art for Art by Two I found ink drawings or paintings done in watercolor or oil by my mother that she had done decades ago that were fine and drawings done in the last ten years that might have faded, especially if exposed to light, or done on newsprint. She loved the effect of drawing with a fine micron pigma pen on newsprint. I would get stonehenge paper or other acid free fine drawing paper, stick it in her portfolio before she went figure drawing in hopes that she would use it. She did sometimes but kept going back to newsprint. These drawings can be preserved with some care, but it is best to work with high quality materials from the beginning. If you do have work that is on material that is not long lasting, at least document it as soon as possible. 

The drawing above is Peregrine's self portrait as the tooth fairy, and a portrait of me at the age of five.

Artists self-publishing e books- proofing and editing

Portrait of An Artist © Maud Guilfoyle, ball point pen and pencil, 6.5 x 6 inches

If you self-publish, you get to wear all the 'hats' including proofing, editing, design, formatting and marketing. In the beginning it is important to just get your thoughts down in an outline and first couple of drafts. Don't worry about punctuation, grammar and spelling at this point. By the third draft start spell checking and checking the grammar and punctuation. Read your work aloud to yourself to see if it flows. Proof it again then ask a friend to proofread it for you. Find someone who will work with you on this and who will read it more than once. If you can afford it, this would be a good time to hire a writer to read it and proof it. This can be valuable to help clarify your thoughts and eliminate wordiness. Then if time permits, take a break from it for at least two weeks and come back to it with fresh eyes. Remember to keep spell-checking as you revise. In your last proofing, mix it up, read it from the end to the beginning, section by section. Then you are ready to send it off to be formatted, or, directly to the retailers (kindle, ibooks, nook, etc) if you are formatting yourself.

Nicholas © Maud Guilfoyle

 Nicholas, talking about twitter and Facebook.