Downtown Studio and Jax

Jax keeping watch in the studio while I work

News to share: I now have a little studio that I work out of in down town Southern Pines on Pennsylvania Avenue and I love it! I’m happy to have visitors but for now I prefer that people call ahead or email to schedule a visit to discuss design and illustration projects.

Jax wearing the Halloween bandana I made him using one of my designed fabrics- available exclusively through the Textile District.

Around the same time I moved into my studio, my husband, Tom, and I were told about a 3 year old Weimaraner Dog who was surrendered to the Moore Humane Society. After meeting the dog with our youngest child, and spending an hour with him at the shelter, I just knew it was meant to be. I returned for a second visit with Tom and our dog, Lola, to make sure the two dogs would get along. The visit went great! A few days later the shelter called to tell us we were approved and he was ours. We renamed him Jax and now he’s part of our family. Jax seems to have a little anxiety and does not do well when we have to crate him- he rubs his nose against the crate until it bleeds. Because of that, I bring Jax to work with me every day and he sleeps in front of the door while I work. He’s my shop dog :)

Here comes Halloween

Featured in this post is my Happy Ghosts design, available exclusively at The Textile District as fabric. Click here to visit their website and get a few yards- I will get a commission for any fabrics you purchase from their site that were designed by me.

Once again another holiday has totally snuck up on me! With four kids I should probably be all over it with a Halloween Advent calendar, baking spooky cookies and sewing up Halloween costumes. My kids haven’t had a single pumpkin spiced anything yet and neither have I, although I did put some cinnamon in my coffee the other morning. That’s a start right? BUT now that I’ve realized I’ve only got 15 days until Halloween, the hourglass has flipped and I’ve got to make the most of it before we move on to the turkeys!

I’m going to write about something I haven’t shared publicly… I always feel nervous about offending family member who might read my blog- but I don’t think they read it so here’s a bit about me and Halloween and why I love it so much now as an adult.

I’m originally from New England- Connecticut to be precise, where when the seasons change, they really change! When I was really little I remember having to wear my winter jacket under my Halloween costume, talk about ruining the wicked witch look with an ugly pink jacket! Halloween was a big deal, the decorations, the build up, the parties and then trick-or-treating. I loved it.

When I was five my mom and dad divorced and eventually my mom re-married. Soon after the trick-or-treating stopped. Instead of occasionally going to Catholic mass with my Polish grandparents, we went to a new church with my step-dad, a louder church where people spoke in tongues and REALLY loved Jesus. My step-dad would let us hand out candy but we couldn’t participate. The magic stopped. Magic we were told, was evil- any tv shows with reference to magic, my magical toys (rainbow bright, the smurfs,) eventually disappeared too. I never bought into this new lifestyle though, no matter how hard I tried it just didnt make sense to me and it wasnt fun. I would look forward to weekends I could spend at my grandmother’s house, she had a stash of witchy books with spells and stories of magical things and she would encourage it- soak it up, here’s another one! Was it that she loved to see me read or she felt like I needed some magic in my life? Whatever it was, it kept my imagination flame going.

Why was Halloween taken away from me as a kid? Because of religion… I don’t want to put the blame on Christianity as a whole because the Catholic side of my family loved and has always celebrated Halloween. Some people use religion as a guide and some people become consumed by it. In my case, my step-dad was (at the time) really religious and we went to a church that had a lot of influence over him and my mom.

Halloween’s origins are Pagan. It began as the Celtic Festival of Samhain celebrated on October 31st, the transition between the summer into the cold dark winter, when it was believed the boundary between the living and the dead was at the thinnest. Eventually the next day, November 1st was designated by the Catholic church to become All Saints Day. I don’t think my step-dad knew this or would have put much thought into it, because according to the preacher, pagan was pagan and pagan was wrong. But I’ve always known better.

So when I say I love Halloween, it’s not just a simple “ooooh spooky time, so much fun” kind of “I love Halloween.” It’s a celebration of the strong-willed child that I was who always thought for herself and remained curious no matter what.

Pins Pins Pins!

Click to buy

Click to buy

Click to buy

New pins are here! Hank the Goat and a Lucky Potion pin. There were some issues in the manufacturing process with Hank so I don't have many Hanks in stock- more coming towards the end of September. Earlier this month I released my first pins, the bee, the unicorn and my Smug Llama. I'm experimenting with both Etsy and Shopify as selling platforms to see which one works out better for me and my products, I worry that it might be confusing to my audience if I'm on both, but maybe not- time will tell I guess. Next week I am planning to release two more pins. One of these will be glow in the dark! Just in time for Halloween. 

My Trade Show Experience and What's Next

It's been a few months since I attended the May 2018 Blueprint Surface Design and Print Trade Show in New York City. The purpose of the tradeshow was to hopefully sell or license my artwork to companies who would then manufacture and sell my art on their own products. I thought this was the path for me and so I dedicated an entire year to prepare, invested thousands of dollars, my time and my talent. What came of this experience was not what I expected, the result put me on a completely different path. 

I've been sitting on my trade show experience since the day I returned not sure if I should share it with the world or not. I spent almost 4 weeks post show feeling completely crushed by the way the show changed my perspective on an industry I thought I wanted to be a part of. Since it was my first show and I was "inexperienced" some people recommended I keep quiet, be polite, not step on any toes incase I wanted to try again or maybe just shake it off and focus on something else. But that's not me, if I choose not to be forthcoming about my experience I'd be misleading those who look up to me or anyone who stumbles across all of the cheerful Instagram posting I did leading up to the event. (I'll probably delete those posts sooner or later, at least the ones promoting my attendance at the 2018 Blueprint show.)

I've been struggling to find the appropriate words to put in this post. I've been stopping and going with this post for weeks now. The experience was just so strange, so not what I thought it would be. So disappointing. But was it just me? If i really say what's on my mind, how will that compare with the experiences of others? Why does it matter? It matters because leading up to this show everything was all about buying, studying and following trend forecasts, prioritizing Instagram posts (and getting social media perfect to avoid being unfollowed because who wants to buy art from an artist without a social media following), taking Make Art that Sells courses and Make it in Design courses to stay relevant. Spending money to make money. Don't be like everyone else, but be like everyone else was the message. 

I think I have a good sense of intuition.
Sometimes I feel it and hope like hell it's wrong. 

My husband and I drove to NYC from North Carolina. It was a 12 hour drive. On the way up we listened to a Joe Rogan Podcast where he was interviewing Steven Tyler from Aerosmith. Steven Tyler was telling Joe how how predatory the music industry is. He explained how much the managers and record companies make but how little of that money actually makes it to the artist, the musician. I spent some time pondering what I had heard and couldn't forget it. I knew this was also relevant to the same industry I was driving into. How much money had I spent preparing for this show? And did I have any guarentee that I would make any of it back? 

Hotel Hell

We arrived in the afternoon. Hotel Pennsylvania. Normally I spend a lot of time checking hotel reviews but in a pinch to save money I canceled the 4 star reservation I had previously made and asked my husband to book us something cheaper. $260 or so was the going rate for Hotel Pennsylvania and the website photos looked average, kind of like a holiday inn would look. Plus the location was cool. I could elaborate here, but I'm just going to say, we checked in to hotel hell at 3:00 and finally escaped it at 1:00 am. It was probably the dirtiest and scariest hotel experience I've ever had. If you want to know more, I encourage you to read the Yelp Reviews. Rats and bedbugs! 

The show: I think bullet statements are the easiest way, otherwise I'd have to write a book. 

• The music selection was super strange downer music consisting of either industrial techno, bad eighties, or The Fray on repeat all weekend.

• Advertised refreshments meant my husband having to tell the event coordinator they were out of water. A case or two of bottled water would then be fetched from the convenience store only to run out again within the hour. No snacks. Bummer.

• Rooftop party? Serve yourself and enjoy warm slices of sunbathing cheese.

• Three days of people walking by my table and maybe five people actually sat down to talk, most of these were students who wanted to know more about getting ready for a trade show.

• A big art buyer walking by my table stuck his hand in my face and briskly walked away when I introduced myself. He came back the next day and took a card. One of his people later contacted me for a portfolio review. These people think they are gods I guess.

• The event coordinator who hails from the U.K. decided he wanted to have an unprovoked conversation with me about Donald Trump, the U.S. President and then questioned my political affiliation after his rant by saying "I hope you aren't a republican". What! Regardless of my political affiliation, I served in the U.S. Air Force and my husband is still active duty Army, I had an odd feeling that he already knew that about us.

• The final hour... the first two days were slow but the last day was like being in a strange time warp. It was rainy and hardly anyone walked through. The two biggest shows of the year were happening just down the road- SURTEX and The National Stationary Show. No one seemed to know we were just up the road having our own show. I wonder how much of the money we paid for the show went into marketing? About 30 minutes before the end of show several of us exhibitors decided enough was enough, especially those of us who had planes to catch or long drives. Apparently this was not allowed. The biggest source of entertainment that day was watching the coordinators dash from table to table telling people not to tear down yet. What were we supposed to be waiting for? More crickets?

• The finale: You have to use parking garages in NYC. Since we were in such a hurry to get the heck out of there after the show we didn't realize until we got home that the parking garage attendant smashed the front end of my 4runner so on top of the bad experience, that had to get fixed too.

I could probably add a few more things to that list but I'm just going to leave it at that, BluePrint Tradeshows won't be getting another one of my hard earned U.S. pennies again. The signs were there but they came a little too late, I was already there and I couldn't turn around so I had to experience it. I feel like everything happens for a reason and I kept hoping something would come of it, but what I was hoping for was an art buyer or a licensing deal. The Joe Rogan/ Steven Tyler podcast kept playing itself back in my head. Was that really what I wanted? 

I make art because it makes me happy, it entertains and satisfies me. Creating is like breathing, it's like magic. I didnt sell any of my work at the trade show and it's ok because what I know now is that it wasn't meant to be, here on this different path, I don't think I'd be happy if something I created was now exclusive to someone other than me. 

So what's next? 

I'll certainly be worrying less about the wider world of art, agents and contracts and focusing more on putting my talent to work where it feels right. I've decided where I want to be is here in Southern Pines. Local is just enough for me. My studio is downtown and in the fall I'll have a day each week when I am open to the public. I've started creating my own line of products! I'm currently selling the first of my cute little lapel pins, now available in my online store. 

Up on the roof with Tom, he kept me smiling despite everything else.

This was the room door at Hotel Pennsylvania room. Welcoming!

NYC is so friendly. Parking garage smashed our 4Runner.

A few "Odd" things about me

My family has always told me I was odd-- the “odd ball” they called me. I’ve spent some time examining this and it makes me laugh because on the spectrum of normal to strange, I think I fall a lot closer to normal, maybe even a little boring. I’m quiet, reserved, cautious and very particular about certain things. I’m VERY different from the rest of my family and even my closest friends. But odd, well I don’t know. I say I’m a creative and with that comes intricacies to my day to day. To name a few... 

Fat Filled Coffee: I start my day with a cup of coffee filled with fat. It’s not so much the caffeine that I need but the experience. My husband and I brew freshly ground coffee in a French Press to make what is known as Bullet Proof Coffee (BPC) with an added shot of expresso. I’m 5’4” and usually weigh no more than 115lbs but I start almost every day with a delicious cup of high fat coffee every morning and I never add sweeteners. I know I'm not alone in this, look it up, it's a real thing, it's a staple to the Ketogenic way of eating. Consuming lots of (good) fat is apparently a great way to stay skinny. Weird huh? 

I LOVE Harry Potter: As of writing this, I’m working my way through the Harry Potter series (all 7 books) on Audible for the 5th time in 2 years. Secrets out… Maybe I’ve got a Harry Potter problem? I just really love listening to the stories! J.K. Rowling is a phenomenal writer and Jim Dale narrates the series with perfection. It's like listening to a good album- never gets old! Anyone else with me on this one? 

Stay out of my seat: In my house, I have certain spots where I sit and no one else can sit there. If we’re sitting down to dinner and someone is in my seat I get really antsy. My husband thinks it’s hilarious, especially if the person who’s sitting in my seat is someone new who’s visiting and in an attempt to be polite I don’t ask them to move.

There’s more to add I’m sure, but really, in my opinion, none of these things are that odd, it’s just me and the things I do. I’m a creative, I feel like that gives me a pass to be a little particular.
You- reading this… what’s your thing? I’m sure you’ve got something odd about you too! 

Flow, the Wild Horse

©2018 Jacqueline Hurd

When I talk to people about my job as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator, I always get asked “where do you get your ideas from”. That’s a complicated question with a lot of answers that can go in several directions so I never know exactly how to answer it but i’ve been thinking about it and here’s a short version of my answer. 

Creativity seems to be the simple answer but it's not that simple. Creativity comes from within and flows through each individual differently. For some it’s music, for others it’s gardening and for me it’s the art I make digitally and on paper. If you ask any master of their craft, they’ll tell you in these words or others, creativity cannot flow without being fostered. Creativity often starts out as a wild horse in serious need of training. When I was a kid, I had a strong desire to draw but most of the time all that will come out were eyeballs. By the time I was in high school, I was really good at drawing eyeballs! Beyond eyeballs I was lost and that feeling of not being able to take it further was very frustrating. 

I went to college and got my degree in Illustration thinking it would help me get things flowing but even with a degree in hand I still felt blocked. Feeling blocked was agonizing. Then something happened that completely changed everything for me. 

I came across an online course website called CreativeBug that has daily art challenges. There’s a free trial and then a low monthly subscription fee. I signed up for one of their Daily Drawing Challenges and every day for 30 days was given a prompt. One day it was lamps, another it was fish and so on. I would draw a page full of fish, paint them, color them in, bring them into the computer and vectorize them- I tried new things whenever I could with each prompt. At the end of each day I would upload them to Instagram as encouraged by the class. By the end of the 30 days I felt inspired and found it much easier to draw new things. 

Around the same time I found an Instagram challenge called The 100 Day project. By now I had discovered pattern making and that was a skill I wanted to improve so using the next 30 day challenge for inspiration, I decided I would use my drawings to make a pattern a day for 100 days. What a commitment! But I did it. I learned so much.

While working my way through the 100 Day project I had lots of questions about pattern making so I signed up for Skillshare. I took the Skillshare classes by surface pattern designers Elizabeth Olwen and Bonnie Christine . I found both of their classes to be extremely helpful and inspiring. While on Skillshare I found a few classes on Linocuts and dove head first into it after buying and reading Andrea Lauren’s beautiful book, Block Print. 

At this point I was drawing something new every day, turning it into patterns and practicing linocuts. Without knowing it, I had put myself into my own training plan and formed an unbreakable habit of practicing every day. In less than a year the wild horse that was my creativity became a beautiful well behaved horse that now does exactly what I need it to do- flow.

Bee Garden

I created this bee a few months ago to use in a pattern and I loved it so much that I turned it into a placement illustration. 

Bees seem to have become a reoccurring theme in the artwork I produce and for a good reason, we need them to pollinate the gardens where our food grows. The more I learn about these fuzzy yellow insects, the more fascinated I become with them. And equal to my fascination is my concern for their well being.

As an artist, the easiest way for me to raise honey bee awareness is to draw or paint them and make my artwork available on products. When someone wears or displays my bee art I hope it will spark a conversation about how important these little creatures are and how much danger they are currently in. 

There are a few very simple things anyone can do to help bees. If you have a yard, fill it with bee friendly plants. Bees love wildflowers such as cosmos or echinaceas (also known as cone flowers). If you prefer leafy foliage with fewer flowers you can plant hostas, just watch out for the deer and bunnies, they also enjoy hostas! 

Another way to help bees is to pay close attention to the use chemicals commonly used in gardens. It may seem harmless to spray your rose bush with that bottle of beetle banishing spray you picked up from the garden store, but a quick glimpse at the long list of ingredients will almost immediately tell you otherwise. We can't immediately change the practices of big agriculture, but we can at least start with our own gardens. Chemicals used in most pesticides, herbicides and fungicides can transfer to the nectar that the bees drink and as a result poison them. Neem Oil is an all natural alternative that won't harm bees. You can also use it to make your own bug spray! Planting a barrier of fragrant plants such as rosemary and lavender will also help with pest control.

If you're interested in learning more from someone who knows way more than me, I recommend picking up a copy of The Bee Friendly Garden by Gretchen LeBuhn, available on Amazon.com. A good website to checkout is The Honey Bee Conservatory, a website that not only educates but also enables you to sponsor a hive or receive a sponsored hive. Pretty neat.

To support my artwork and to provoke honey bee conversations, this piece is available for purchase on different products in my Society6 shop. It's also available in different arrangements and standalone as a bee sticker among other things in my RedBubble shop. 

If you've got a bee project of your own, I'd love to hear about it! Leave a note in the comments.

Hens in the Garden

Every year when it warms up my husband and I get excited about having a garden. We plant a little bit of EVERYTHING which is always way too much, get excited when things start to grow and then loose interest as the weeds and bugs take over. This year we decided to approach things differently. We bought already started plants and only what we knew we'd eat- lettuce, broccoli and herbs. Everything was doing great and then after getting the back yard fence installed, we decided to let our 6 hens out of their coop. Within minutes, possibly even seconds, they ate every single head of lettuce in the garden. They didn't touch anything else, just the lettuce. Apparently, hens really like lettuce.

We now have an additional fence around the garden to protect our recovering lettuce, but from this experience I was inspired to create this collection of designs called "Hens in the Garden" each design is now available for purchase on Spoonflower as fabric, gift-wrap or wallpaper. Since I'm a seller on Spoonflower but not a sewer, I'm hoping someone will buy a few yards and make something adorable so I can see these designs come to life! I think these chickens would look great on aprons or teatowels!

Buy a few yards from this collection, sew it into something awesome and tag me on Instagram!

100 Days of Pollinators

Every year on April 3rd the 100 Day Project begins. The 100 Day Project is an international art project that anyone can participate in. It's truly an amazing adventure for all involved either by making art or following along. I've found that the 100 day project is an opportunity to grow as an artist and establish a solid routine. 

I had no idea when I challenged myself to 100 days of pattern making a few years ago that it would be the beginning of what I can now call a career. Now I make patterns on almost a daily basis. 100 days of pattern led to hundreds of days of patterns and I couldn't be happier.

So fast forward to now and I've decided to jump on board with this year's challenge. I'm doing it a little differently this year. I've teamed up with Jill O'Connor who is the other half of Jack and Jillo. I'm one half, she's the other half. We make a great team. Anyway, we'll be working through this challenge together with each of us committing to create 50 pieces of art which will be displayed in our shared Instagram feed, @jack_and_jillo. We chose a theme that will help bring awareness to something we are both passionate about: Pollinators and their favorite flowers. Without pollinating insects our food can't grow and currently one of our most important pollinators, the honey bees, are having a rough time. 

Throughout the duration of this challenge I hope to learn more about bees, the flowers they love and what we can do to help bees survive and thrive. I look forward to sharing what I learn with the world through the art that Jill and I create and my hope is that through our art we can make an impact. 

Join the fun by following us on Instagram, you are also welcome to join in. We'll be using the hashtag #100daysofpollinatorsandflowers

My simple fix to creative block

Occasionally creative block gets the best of me and spins me into a day, sometimes a string of days of creative despair. Creative block is pretty terrible when it hits and it's a great feeling when it finally floats away. But where does it come from in the first place and why does it have to bother me when I have things to do? After all, art is how I earn my living. 

I can't completely answer my question but this line I stumbled across from Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon makes a lot of sense, "Nothing is more paralyzing than the idea of limitless possibilities."

Some of my favorite go-to supplies. Tombow brush pens, Draft-Matic Mechanical Pencil, Pigma Micron Pen, Pentel Mechanical Pencil, General's oval eraser. 

Too many possibilities... when I look at the days when I encounter creative block, I find it's on the days when my desk is the messiest, covered with paint tubes, markers, colored pencils, fancy new paper or whatever else I've decided to try to bring into my workflow that day. So this line makes a lot of sense, at least for me, and may be my biggest hang up when it comes to making art. There are so many options available. Too many options. It's an overload to my creative flow. I keep trying and wanting to bring in different mediums but I always default back to a pencil, a black pen and a Canson Mix Media sketchbook. Once I have eliminated everything else I feel free again. What works for me is so simple and effective that it almost seems too good to be true and I guess that's why I keep trying to change it up. When I have too many options I'm stuck. When I limit my tools I feel less overwhelmed and the quality of art I produce is what I'm the happiest with. 

So if you find yourself stuck, my advice is to clear your workspace and take away everything but the basics. Once things start flowing you can always add things back in as space opens up for them.