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Tag: Anne Belov

Pigments, Perspectives, and Pandas || Pssst. Can I interest You in A Vermeer?
This weekend marks the fifth year of Forgeries@Froggwell and, in my not-so-humble opinion, it’s going to be a doozy of a show. What began as sort of a visual bón mót has grown to be a much-anticipated biannual event.

From small, quiet sketches to all-out virtuoso feats of painterly brilliance, this show has something for everyone. The exhibition features more than 30 artists, with works ranging from Ernest H. Shepard’s sketches for “The House at Pooh Corner,” to Vermeer’s “Woman in a Red Hat” and a Francis Bacon self-portrait.

From “The House at Pooh Corner” by Anne Belov after E H Shepard; pencil on paper

The question of “why” always comes up when I talk about the show. One answer is that it’s a whole lot of fun, not to mention a challenge. I can’t answer for every artist in the show, but for me, it boils down to a couple of things: I think that visual artists learn by looking rather than reading about how to do something. Trying to replicate what they see visually requires lots of trial and error, decision-making, and experimentation.

Self-portrait by Bruce Morrow after Francis Bacon; oil on canvas

One might ask, where is the challenge of copying something that another artist has done, something that already exists. I say, go ahead and try it, then get back to me about how easy you thought that was. (Hint: It’s not.) You have to try to enter into another artist’s mind: How did they mix that color? What kind of brush did they use? How did they make that line? Is that color achieved by layering or mixing? What decisions did they make to achieve that mood?

Portait of Berthe Morisot by David Maclean after Edouard Manet; Oil on canvas

For centuries, artist training was a process of apprenticeships and making master copies. You trained your eye as well as your hand to translate what you saw onto the canvas. You learned color theory and how to work with specific materials in a way that transcends those materials. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

You won’t want to miss this year’s show. It celebrates the diversity of artistic expression as well as the varied influences that have inspired, instructed, and excited the participating artists. It may give you added insights as you view this year’s exhibition and think about each artist’s own original works.

Not to mention that Froggwell Garden is a much more convenient excursion than heading to The Louvre or The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This year’s show will be held at Froggwell Garden, 5508 Double Bluff Road in Freeland; Friday through Sunday; August 4, 5, and 6 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Parking is limited, so please carpool if possible.

All illustrations are courtesy of the artists participating in Forgeries@Froggwell 2017.

Anne Belov lives and works on Whidbey Island in an undisclosed location. Her paintings can be seen at The Rob Schouten Gallery in Langley and at The Fountainhead Gallery on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. You can find her peculiarly political panda satire at Your Brain on Pandas, and her books at Moonraker Books in Langley or on Amazon. Feel free to follow on Twitter where she is @pandachronicle and visit The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire on Facebook. Her latest collection of panda satire. The Panda Chronicles Book 7: Don’t Call Mee Boo Boo, has just been released

Read the other story published this week
- A Lavender Wind Wafts Over Whidbey
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Enjoy more articles in the print edition of Whidbey Life Magazine, which you can purchase at local and off-island retailers or receive in the mail via subscription.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. You may link to this story. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, please contact us.

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August 2, 2017
Pigments, Perspectives, and Pandas || Second Acts and Early Exits
BY ANNE BELOV
June 7, 2017

In my life as an artist, I have been the fortunate recipient of numerous mentors and influences. One of these talented people from whom I learned so much, passed away in May.

I met Kent Lovelace around 1981, the year I graduated with my MFA from the University of Washington. At the time, he owned Stone Press Gallery in Pioneer Square. His printmaking studio was in the back, complete with several lithography presses and the stones used to make prints. I had wandered in to see the current show, got to talking with the woman staffing the gallery, and before I knew it, I had an invitation to show her my work for possible gallery representation.

Kent Lovelace

Living in Seattle, being an artist, trying to make enough of a living, is a time-consuming endeavor, and like most friendships in your twenties and thirties, ours tended to wax and wane, depending on proximity. We were occasionally represented by the same galleries. He introduced me to a gallery owner he showed with, where I ended up showing for more than a decade.

In the mid-’90s, I did three more lithographs at his printmaking studio, which, by this time, had shed the gallery and moved to the north end of Lake Union, near Gasworks park. By then, I had moved to Whidbey Island, and again our friendship phased out for a while, still crossing paths at the occasional gallery opening. Doing these lithographs with Kent led me to further explorations in printmaking.

I can’t remember how I found out he had moved to Whidbey, or even when, but the artist community on Whidbey has its own inter-webs, so it was inevitable that our paths would cross again.

The other evening, at a Whidbey Life Magazine get-together, Harry Anderson reflected that there were many people who had moved to Whidbey for the “second act” of their lives. It made me think about Kent again. He spent decades being a printmaker, but eventually, he was ready to move beyond that into full-time painting.

You could say that Kent had gone well past the second act and was on the fourth or fifth, as he moved from printmaker, to gallery owner, back to contract printing for other artists, and then to painting and a new life on Whidbey Island.

The things I remember about Kent are these: He was always generous with praise for other artists’ work, he was kind, and he was never afraid to take his art in a completely new direction from where it had previously traveled.

I am grateful that I was one of the many satellites in his orbit, and that his paintings will survive him. I know people will miss his ongoing creative work and his personal presence. I am sad that I will never have another “Payless moment” in the produce aisles with him, to talk about art, to gossip about mutual acquaintances, and to experience the day-to-day turnings of life as the days whoosh by.

His early exit was a cruel one. I’m so sorry there are no more acts in his play.

The afterlife, according to pandas/ Anne Belov

View the other stories published this week
- ‘Off-Kilter’ One-Act Plays Showcase Talents of Three Local Playwrights
- Grimm’s True Tales
Anne Belov lives and works on Whidbey Island, in an undisclosed location. Her paintings can be seen at The Rob Schouten Gallery in Langley and at The Fountainhead Gallery on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. You can find her peculiarly political panda satire at Your Brain on Pandas, and her books at Moonraker Books in Langley or on Amazon. Feel free to follow on Twitter where she is @pandachronicle and visit The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire on Facebook. Her latest collection of panda satire is The Panda Chronicles Book 7: Don’t Call Mee Boo Boo has just been released! She has just launched a new Kickstarter project, to raise money for an art inspiring (and panda cuddling) trip to China!

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Enjoy more articles in the print edition of Whidbey Life Magazine, which you can purchase at local and off-island retailers or receive in the mail via subscription.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. You may link to this story. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, please contact us.
June 7, 2017
Pigment, Perspectives, and Pandas || Through the Looking Glass

I recently returned from what I would have to call a very improbable journey. When I first dipped my toes into the fast-moving stream of social media, it was reluctantly and with great trepidation.

(c) 2017 Anne Belov

What if everyone out there is a complete weirdo?
What if no one reads my blog?
What if they think I’m a complete weirdo???

I started my blog (The Panda Chronicles) to share my panda cartoons with a wider audience than whoever I could catch unawares in the produce aisles of Payless, waving a stack of cartoons in the air. I joined Facebook to see if people who didn’t know me would think they were funny.

I went to my first Panda Convention in 2013. Some of the people coming were familiar with my cartoons.
Would they like me?
Would I like them?

(c) 2017 Anne Belov

You can pretend to be anyone you want when you are hiding behind your computer. It’s another story when you step through the looking glass into the real world.

But here’s the thing: when you share a common interest, social media is like this amazing coffee shop, where everyone is table hopping and you can meet some fabulous people there. Okay, yeah, there are some dark corner tables way in the back, where there are some people you would rather not meet alone in a dark alley, but for the most part, the people I have met as a result of jumping into the social media pool are pretty wonderful, in person as well as online.

It’s not just the panda people either. (Attack of the Panda People sounds like a sci-fi movie, doesn’t it?) I belong to an organization for writers and illustrators of books for children: SCBWI. While I initially met many people IRL (in real life) at one of their conferences, I’ve gotten to know far more writers from this group online. Some of the folks in one of my groups have made an effort to meet in person, and the other writers in the mentorship program I took part in last year keep in touch through email, Twitter, and Facebook.

There seems to be a fluidity to these on- and offline friendships. They are no less real than the ones that happen because you sat next to someone in sixth grade, or because you had a random stranger as a roommate at college. It’s the accidental nature of the universe that brings forth surprising gifts.

Earlier this year, I did a fundraising campaign for several of my favorite causes. Those who donated got a signed cartoon, with a hand-drawn sketch in thanks. Some who donated were familiar names, but more than half of the people who contributed were people I had never interacted with. Some of them had been reading my cartoons for years and had all my books! It was gratifying, to say the least.

While my herding dog instincts make me want to gather all these folks together so I can have them with me always, I know this is not even remotely possible. But it is a remarkable thing, that almost everywhere I go, I can send out a message through cyberspace, and say, “Hey! I’m coming to your town. Want to meet for coffee?”

(c) 2017 Anne Belov

An online friend from Australia is going to visit me IRL this summer. And a group of friends I have made as a result of going to that first Panda Convention? We’re going to China later this year to visit the panda bases (aka panda ranches), where we will see herds of baby pandas!

If that doesn’t qualify as being amazing, I don’t know what does!

Anne Belov lives and works on Whidbey Island, in an undisclosed location. Her paintings can be seen at The Rob Schouten Gallery in Langley (starting in May) and at The Fountainhead Gallery on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. You can find her peculiarly political panda satire at Your Brain on Pandas, and her books at Moonraker Books in Langley or on Amazon. Feel free to follow on Twitter where she is @pandachronicle and visit The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire on Facebook. Her latest collection of panda satire is The Panda Chronicles Book 7: Don’t Call Mee Boo Boo has just been released!

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Have a great story idea? Let us know at info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. You may link to this story. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

April 5, 2017
Pigment, Perspectives, and Pandas || The Best of Times

BY ANNE BELOV
February 9, 2016

Even at the best of times, an artist’s income is precarious.

I always have the feeling that the painting I just sold might be the last for a while. This is not complaining. It’s just the way it is, and I signed up for this, full-well knowing that this is the deal. Making art is not for sissies.

What is hard, especially in times of social upheaval, is when you want to contribute, but your income can barely stretch to your mortgage and groceries, let alone a generous donation to an organization you believe in. I used to do the art auction thing, until I realized it was counter-productive to actually making a living at art. Don’t get me wrong. My donations went to support organizations I like, but if everyone buys their art at auctions … well … it just doesn’t pencil out very well for the artists in most cases.

“Harvest Trio” oil on linen, (Photo courtesy of Anne Belov)

Over the years I’ve tried to come up with creative ways to contribute. The key, for me, is to think of my donation as an extra gift that comes as a thank-you gift for contributing more than the actual value of a piece. Think of the coffee cup you get for contributing $120 or more to your public radio station. So I was really excited when I read of cartoonist Sara Gliddon, who had come up with a great plan to generate donations for the ACLU. She started the ball rolling and many other comics artists took her idea and ran with it, so I did too. I tweaked the idea a little, but the gist is the same. Make a donation, send me proof, and I’ll send you a cartoon, signed and sketched upon. A (much) larger donation will get you an original cartoon that previously appeared on my blog.

It’s working out great so far, and I will be keeping the offer going for the whole month of February.

Really, I try…. (From The Panda Chronicles by Anne Belov)

I never cease to be awed at the generous spirit of most creative people I know. And I have met so many more of them in the virtual world of social media. They are generous not only with their art, but also with information about their process and knowledge. While I am grateful that I live in a community full of artists and writers, we’re mostly too busy with real life to have all that much face-to-face time, although we try to make an effort.

Maybe it reminds me of the pen pals I used to have back in the olden days. You know, you’d have to write an actual letter, put it in an envelope, put stamps on it, mail it, then wait (and wait and wait) for a reply. The internet makes it easy to have these kinds of interactions all around the world, and, you can have them in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep, wearing your pajamas! Some of these people I may never meet, and some of them I have, or will in the future. (There will probably be a post about that later this year!)

Letters from our fans (by Anne Belov)

These may feel like the worst of times right now. Societal upheaval is hard on everyone. Vulnerable people are under attack. But artists are rising to the challenge. To contribute. To make beautiful things. To make us laugh. In addition to feeling gratitude for the donations made in my honor, I am profoundly touched by the emails I’ve received. Here are some of my favorite comments:

“Huzzah!! This is an absolutely fabulous idea. I love your cartoons and have all of your books … Again, thanks for all the panda laughs in these troubling times …”

“Please do know that I appreciate your illustrations so much, more so since the election, after which I’ve had precious little to smile about.”

“Can I just say that The Panda Chronicles are always high points in my week, and they really help to keep me sane?”

So, thank you Sara Gliddon for instigating this uprising of cartoonists! We are stronger together (especially if we’re laughing.)

Anne Belov lives and works on Whidbey Island, in an undisclosed location. Her paintings can be seen at The Rob Schouten Gallery at Greenbank Farm and at The Fountainhead Gallery on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. You can find her peculiarly political panda satire at Your Brain on Pandas, and her books at Moonraker Books in Langley or on Amazon. Feel free to follow on Twitter where she is @pandachronicle and visit The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire on Facebook. No pandas (or cats) were harmed in writing this post.

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The views, opinions, and positions expressed by Whidbey Life Magazine bloggers, as well as those of the people who comment on their blog posts, are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of Whidbey Life Magazine.

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To read more WLM stories and blogs, click here. Have a great story idea? Let us know at info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. You may link to this story. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

February 9, 2017
Pigment, Perspectives, and Pandas || What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

BY ANNE BELOV
Dec. 14, 2016

I, like many people these days, have been somewhat out of sorts. Okay, that is an understatement. I have been stressed out, depressed, and despondent like I haven’t been since my post-college boyfriend dumped me for one of my best friends. My cupcake consumption is WAY up. It’s been that kind of month.

Can you stand one more post about…um…you know what?

Pardon me while I run around screaming (Cartoon by Anne Belov)

For the last month or so, I have been trying to make sense of what the #@** just happened, not to mention what is going to happen in the next four years. It really doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum you call home. I think we all know that this country could look very different in the months to come. Uncertainty leads to anxiety and anxiety leads to…more cake. I may survive the next four years, but it remains to be seen if my wardrobe will.

So, like any creative person will do, I make art about what’s keeping me awake till the wee hours of the night. This primarily takes the form of cartoons, but I have also felt compelled to write about what I was thinking and feeling in my introductions to my cartoons, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. There has been a lot of that going on among the cartoonists and writers that I follow.

Um…maybe hold the sprinkles. (Cartoon by Anne Belov)

There were, naturally, those who just didn’t agree with me, and well, that’s the way that is. Bye-bye! Hope you got what you wanted! But then there was one person, who agreed with my political point of view, but did not think that Bob T. Panda should be spouting off opinions all over Facebook and on my blog.

Huh?

I said, “Well, we are all suffering from too much information, and I won’t be insulted in the least if you don’t want to read this. I wish I wasn’t thinking about this stuff, but I am, and it’s going to come out in my cartoons, and I am going to write about it.”

“But, but, but,” this person said. “You are famous. You have influence over people. You are a celebrity! People pay attention to what you say, and besides, Bob is imaginary!”

And then there was a long, drawn out discussion where I and various other fans of panda satire (mostly politely, I thought), told this person why she was wrong, and if she didn’t want to read what I wrote (which, mind you, she agreed with) she didn’t have to read it. The discussion went on for a few days till we all got tired of it and took our marbles (what’s left of them) and went home.

So, that got me thinking several things. First, I’m a celebrity!?! Huzzah! And second, I’m imaginary? Huzzah! But mostly, it got me thinking about the role and responsibility of creative people, be you musician, visual artist, actor, or writer. During the final months of the campaign, I had noticed many writers, editors, and agents for children’s literature speaking out on social media. This was kind of new, as I’d always been told, keep your opinions of politics to yourself. And I generally stuck to that. But this felt different. And as more and more people that I knew and respected were speaking out, I felt I could not remain silent. The forces of evil certainly weren’t being silent.

The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when I saw Amanda Palmer’s (yes, that Amanda Palmer) Facebook post about artists who remain silent in the face of racism, sexism, and oppression. We not only have the right to speak out when we see injustice, we have a responsibility to do so.

So get ready, because pandas are getting political. Deal with it.

Dis. Will. Not. Stand!!!
Cartoon by Anne Belov

Anne Belov lives and works on Whidbey Island, in an undisclosed location. Her paintings can be seen at The Rob Schouten Gallery at Greenbank Farm and at The Fountainhead Gallery on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. You can find her peculiarly political panda satire at Your Brain on Pandas, and her books at Moonraker Books in Langley or on Amazon. Feel free to follow on Twitter where she is @pandachronicle and visit The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire on Facebook. No pandas (or cats) were harmed in writing this post.

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The views, opinions, and positions expressed by Whidbey Life Magazine bloggers, as well as those of the people who comment on their blog posts, are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of Whidbey Life Magazine.

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To read more WLM stories and blogs, click here. Have a great story idea? Let us know at info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. You may link to this story. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

December 14, 2016
Pigment, Perspectives and Pandas || A Work in Progress or How a ‘Bear of Little Brain’ Started My Career

BY ANNE BELOV
October 19, 2016

Begin at the beginning. That’s what they always tell you to do, so that’s where I’ll start: at the beginning.

My earliest memory of seeing artwork that inspired me to become an artist did not come from a museum or a gallery. I think the first artwork that I ever saw that made me say, “I want to do that!” was my copy of “Winnie the Pooh” by A. A. Milne, illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard. These are the original drawings: simple, black and white ink drawings, elegant in their simplicity, but so moving.

Winnie the Pooh, contemplating nature (drawing by Ernest H. Shepard from a collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, photo by Anne Belov, courtesy of the V & A)

Time moves forward. Art school and oil paint and Impressionism and all the other “isms” of the art world followed, but I have had a continuing and abiding love of Pooh Bear ever since then. Not only did Shepard’s drawings make me want to be an artist but when I began to think about being an illustrator of children’s stories and a cartoonist, his drawings were always front and center in my mind.

So, upon reading Margaret Chodos-Irvine’s series of blog posts about visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and making an appointment to examine drawings in their collection that are not on display, I was intrigued. She wrote a three-part series about her visit to the museum on her blog, Books Around the Table, which she shares with several other kid-lit writers. When she posted a photograph of one of Shepard’s Pooh Bear drawings, my brain went into hyper-drive.

I. Must. Do. That…

…I said to myself. And on a recent trip to London, I screwed up my courage and called the print and drawing study room and asked if I could have an appointment. (What if they say NO!!!???) But of course they didn’t say no. They said, “When would you like to come in?” and I said “tomorrow.” And so I did. I went to the V & A (as it’s referred to in London) and headed to my meeting with Winnie the Pooh.

“Be sure to be on time to meet the group that will be using the study room. We don’t wait if you’re late.” They have you wait at a specific place, check your name on a list and give you a special name badge to wear and then they lead you up to the study room, which is a labyrinthian maze of stairs and corridors and doors and elevators until finally you reach the study room and sign in with your badge number and there, on the table they have set aside just for you…

An entire box of actual drawings by Ernest Shepard himself. The. Real. Thing.

Rough sketch of Pooh (drawing by Ernest H. Shepard from a collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, photo by Anne Belov, courtesy of the V & A)

Now, I have long loved pencil drawings for themselves and not just as a means to another end, like a finished, polished oil painting. So, to see these drawings with no frame or glass between me and the drawings was nothing short of a religious experience. (They are matted with wide eight-ply archival museum board mats, so you don’t actually touch the paper, but still!!!!)

The finished ink drawings in the books are very clean and sure of themselves. The pencil drawings I saw here were raw and rough, with erasure marks as he changed his mind about the position of a head or leg or number of honey jars that Pooh was counting. In some cases there were multiple drawings of the same subject as he tried to capture the exact pose or composition of each drawing.

Pooh meets Tigger w/ Shepard notes on drawing (drawing by Ernest H. Shepard from a collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, photo by Anne Belov, courtesy of the V & A)

When we see finished artwork, we rarely see the struggle that went into making it look the way it does. The more polished and effortless something looks, the more likelihood the artist struggled and fumed (and possibly said some very bad words) and started over multiple times before achieving that effortless grace we see in a gallery or picture book.

This is worth remembering as we look at art and dismiss it as looking “too easy.” And those of us who try to make art that looks as if it descended whole and glorious from on high need to remember this, too. The struggle and the eraser is what makes it great. Thanks, you silly old bear, for the reminder.

Anne Belov paints, writes and illustrates in her house that might be in the Hundred Acre Wood on Whidbey Island. Her paintings can be found at The Rob Schouten Gallery at Greenbank Farm and at The Fountainhead Gallery on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. She is Mistress of Pandas at her blog, The Panda Chronicles, and is working on her graphic novel, a detective story with art and pandas, which she hopes will be finished someday.

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CLICK HERE to read more WLM stories and blogs. Have a great story idea? Let us know at info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

October 19, 2016
Pigment, Perspectives and Pandas || Busy, Busy, Busy

BY ANNE BELOV
June 15, 2016

You hear it everywhere you go: I’m so busy; I’m too busy; my children have a packed schedule; Lunch? Let me look at my calendar… I think I have a Tuesday next August. Does that work for you?

I thought, when I moved to Whidbey Island 27 years ago, my life would become calm and serene and, more importantly, far less busy. At first that seemed to be the case, since I only knew a couple of people and had little disposable cash to go to many things. WICA did not yet exist and The Clyde Theater only showed two movies a week.

Street Work; Anne Belov; Oil on Linen (c) the artist

While in college and graduate school, I always had part- or full-time jobs, so I learned to juggle class work with making a living and even (occasionally) having a little fun. This learned ability to multi-task allowed me to keep a roof over my head and continue to make paintings when I left school.

When I finally hit the tipping point of being able to make a living with only my artwork, the juggling didn’t stop. If you think making a living in art consists solely of staring at the lovely landscape till inspiration strikes, and then you create a masterpiece that instantly sells—well, I’ve got news for you. There’s the paperwork and record-keeping and making sure you have supplies. And then there’s framing and scheduling and transporting the work. Oh yeah, and then there is doing the work itself.

Eventually, in order to have money coming in more regularly, I added printmaking with a small company that sold etchings around the US and in Canada. This worked great for a while, until it didn’t.

Eight years ago I started drawing cartoons, and, shortly after that, decided to dip my toes in the waters of children’s illustrating and writing. Boy, do I know how to find (non) lucrative, time-intensive pursuits or what?

Pandamorphosis by Anne Belov

What works for me is having several creative irons in the fire all the time. While scheduling all these different aspects of my creative life can be challenging, it’s not impossible and—truth to tell—I kind of like it. I must have a short attention span or something, because working at different activities throughout the day keeps me mentally engaged.

When all I did was paint, I would sometimes find myself doing stupid things late in the day because my attention had wandered off somewhere. Breaking up my day into one to three hour segments allows me to keep all the balls in the air, only occasionally dropping one on my head. I keep a calendar (mostly…Oh, yeah, I need to go write this week’s schedule in the calendar!) with notes about what I’m working on in each of those varied projects. And, oh, let’s not forget gardening, yoga, and hanging out with friends.

Add blogging and website maintenance and keeping up with fans of my panda cartoons to the mix and you have a very busy life.

There is a vast online community of writers in every genre you can think of, and I’m lucky to have connected with the KidLit writing community, mostly through SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators). Unlike the Seattle folks who can get together regularly in person, since I prefer not to “go to America” as we islanders call it, I’m more active online. This has led to creeping internet obsession, and I finally had to take myself in hand to cut down the amount of time I was hanging out online.

There’s an App for that…

Fortunately there is a Facebook group for that. Yes, I belong to a Facebook group, whose goal is to stay off the internet until we have completed at least one hour of creative work each day. Started by Bay Area children’s writer Deborah Underwood, this group keeps us accountable so that our day’s productive potential does not get consumed by watching panda videos or trading witty dialog for photos of pandas, or…well, you get the picture.

Because, in this group, we are all swimming in the KidLit pool, we have interests and challenges in common. It is an accountability group, for sure. But it has also become a support group, as we navigate the turbulent waters of children’s publishing.

It was a liberating revelation to realize that I don’t want to get rid of “busy,” since I finally realized that it’s what drives me ever forward. The best I can do is to keep “busy” under some amount of control. And isn’t that the best we all, in this busy world, can hope for?

Doesn’t everyone feel like this some days?

Anne Belov is a painter, printmaker, cartoonist and writer living on Whidbey Island. You can find her paintings at The Rob Schouten Gallery at Greenbank Farm and The Fountainhead Gallery on Queen Anne in Seattle. Her pandas hang out at Panda Chronicles. You can find the six-book Panda Chronicles collection at Moonraker Books in Langley or at the Whidbey Writer’s Network booths at the Bayview, Coupeville, and Oak Harbor farmer’s markets. She is working on a graphic novel starring pandas. Don’t miss seeing her work, along with a baker’s dozen of other painters, printmakers and sculptors at this year’s Froggwell Biennale, Friday through Sunday, August 5-7.

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CLICK HERE to read more WLM stories and blogs. Have a great story idea? Let us know at info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

June 15, 2016
Pigment, Perspectives and Pandas || Sitting on Top of the World

BY ANNE BELOV
April 13, 2016

When I first got out of graduate school and headed off into what passes for the real world, I had many ideas about what success would look like. I remember thinking, having a color postcard from a real gallery…that’s what success is. But as the shows and the years passed and the piles of color postcards started piling up, I realized that a color postcard with your art and a gallery name on it is just one small step in a really long journey.

My journey starts way back when (just you never mind how way back it started) and on the other side of the country. I loved to draw and I loved to read. I took a variety of art classes from many places, all through grade school and into high school. I majored in painting in college, moved across the country, and went on to get an MFA in painting.

But I soon learned that success would not, did not come instantly to me, not by any stretch of the imagination. My first gallery shows did not result in any sales. But I kept going, working in restaurants, retail, and at a coffee roaster, painting all the while, and dreaming of the day when I could do nothing but paint. It took me eight years after completing graduate school before I could quit my “day job” but I finally did and 28 years later, I haven’t had another one.

Breaking Fast: Reading Terminal Market (c) Anne Belov Oil on Linen

Here’s the interesting, or maybe frustrating thing about working and making your living from creative pursuits. There are no guarantees. Not a one. By 2007 I was showing at five galleries all around Western Washington and Oregon and making a decent living. I thought life (and my income) would keep getting better and I could look forward to, if not retirement, (because artists don’t retire,) at least a comfortable old age that did not involve living in a dumpster.

They say the gods laugh when humans make plans.

The economic collapse of 2008 did not last one year. For me, it has lasted seven years. I went from being represented by five galleries to being represented by one, with the expected hit to my income.

When Life Hands You Lemons…paint it! (c) Anne Belov Egg Tempera on panel

But here is another thing about creative people. We are problem solvers and infinitely curious. While I did make many attempts to find more representation for my paintings, so many artists were in the same boat, looking for new galleries as their galleries closed or jettisoned many of their artists. My search did not go well. I only found a new Seattle gallery to represent me this last fall.

I decided to take this as an opportunity to experiment and expand my horizons. About eight months before the economy went to hell in a hand basket, I became obsessed with pandas.

What do pandas have do do with painting?
Why are you drawing silly cartoons about pandas?
Aren’t you supposed to be a serious painter?

I didn’t have an answer to those questions, I only knew I felt compelled to make these drawings, which became cartoons, which became stories about…you guessed it …pandas. Cartoons on scraps of paper evolved into better drawings of pandas in a sketch book, and those became cartoons posted on a blog, which eventually got collected into a self published book. Stories got longer. One book became six.

You might think these cartoons have nothing to do with my painting, but in that you would be mistaken. The more that I immersed myself in panda narrative, the more the tools that I acquired in building my skills as a painter – composition, value, ways to show movement, facial expressions – came into play in my cartoons and illustrations.

Even when I am “playing” it is hard for me not to become serious about a pursuit. I joined SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) in the fall of 2009 and began to learn what I could from them about literature for children and the business of publishing. I knew somehow pandas would be involved. Last year I applied to and was accepted in a mentorship program organized by the Nevada chapter of SCBWI, to work on a graphic novel about a panda detective and a missing Impressionist painting. (See? I didn’t sleep through ALL my art history classes!) The program lasts six months, and during that time my story grew from a rough outline to what will become a middle grade graphic novel, with the help of my brilliant mentor.

And now, my mentor is my literary agent. Is that cool, or what?

But here’s what I’ve learned in my years of supporting myself as an artist. This is not the top accomplishment, but just a step along the way. It’s an ongoing process and there will be downs as well as ups. This partnership will work for, well, as long as it works, and as long as I keep working as hard as I can in this new – for me – medium. Right now, I am once again, sitting on top of the world.

But as we all should know by now, it ain’t over till the panda sings.

What, you were expecting the Metropolitan Opera? (c) Anne Belov

Anne Belov paints, writes, and draws pandas from her home on Whidbey Island. Her paintings can be found at The Rob Schouten Gallery at Greenbank Farm on Whidbey Island, and at The Fountainhead Gallery in Seattle. She is the ringleader of The Froggwell Biennale which takes place this year on August 5th, 6th, and 7th at Froggwell Garden. You can find her books at Moonraker Books in Langley as well as at her website, Your Brain On Pandas. Her graphic novel The Pandyland Mysteries: The Case of the Picturesque Panda will be available sooner or later. She is represented in all things literary by Gordon Warnock at Fuse Literary.

April 13, 2016
Pigment, Perspectives and Pandas || Living with Nature

BY ANNE BELOV
February 10, 2016

Getting outside to garden for at least one hour a day is essential for those of us who spend our working lives seated at an easel or in front of a computer screen. And when I say gardening, what I really mean is bludgeoning nature into submission.

(In the kindest and most loving way possible, of course.)

I live on a five-acre parcel that is mostly wooded, except for the driveway and right around the house. Here in the left hand side of Washington State, we are blessed with an abundance of rainfall—at least most years and at least so far. This means that nature never gives you a break. Spend one winter out sick, or on vacation to a warmer climate, and you are likely to come home to find your entire house engulfed in blackberry vines (not to mention the little critters that use this cover as a clever way to storm the walls of your castle.)

There are three classifications of “garden” on my property:
1) Indulged chaos
2) Benign neglect, and
3) Run for your life.

The indulged chaos areas are the ones closest to the house. Purchased trees and shrubs and a few perennials are included in this area, and it’s the area that most people would refer to as “a garden.” Keeping it at least vaguely garden-like is my aim, although it’s not always achievable.

The Benign Neglect areas are those along the driveway or a little bit further from the house, but still visible from said house. Sometimes I refer to this area as the De-Militarized Zone, and 85% of my garden work is focused here.

Sunset in the not quite Benign Neglect area…

The truth is, you can rarely get rid of blackberries unless you’re willing to hire large machines or use chemical warfare. The best you can hope for is keeping them contained, like ill-humored cats that will whack you on the nose with their claws out, if you’re slow in the morning to fill up their food bowl. With a limited amount of time available, not to mention limited funds for the afore-mentioned large machinery, I prefer to do hand-to-hand combat.

Well, it’s more like lopper-to-vine combat, if you want to know the truth.

The Benign Neglect area: a garden in miniature.

Every year, I make a pledge to spend my hour a day in the area that seems to need it most, making a new assessment every time I walk out the door. This means projects are left started, but only occasionally finished, all over the property, and I’ve learned to be at peace with that.

But garden triage sometimes leads me into Area Three, aka Run for your Life!!!!! These are the areas that have been nominated Most Likely to Need Napalm in the plant world Award Competitions. These are the 20-foot deep, 40-foot wide, well-over-my-head bastions of blackberries. I stand before them with my garden loppers, rake and wheelbarrow and think, “what the hell was I thinking?”

I get this same feeling when I stand before the three-foot by four-foot canvas, on which I’ve started an incredibly complex drawing for a painting.

What was I thinking?

But I start slowly, with some trepidation, working slowly and methodically. One line—one short piece of blackberry vine severed and tossed on the wheel barrow. One brush stroke—another three feet of blackberry removed, until the painting is finally done, weeks or months later. Until the spot where blackberries and nettles partied till sunrise is an empty stretch of dirt.

What was I thinking?

Anne Belov is a painter, printmaker and purveyor of panda satire. Her paintings can be found at The Rob Schouten Gallery at Greenbank Farm on Whidbey Island and at The Fountainhead Gallery in Seattle. Her panda-focused humorous cartoons can be found on her blog: The Panda Chronicles, and her books can be found at Moonraker Books in Langley, as well as on Amazon. At least one hour a day, you can find her standing in front of a large encampment of blackberries, waving a rake and using bad language.

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WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

February 10, 2016
Pigment, Perspectives and Pandas || The Season of Light(s)

BY ANNE BELOV
December 9, 2015

For some reason, people like to call this time of year the season of light. Really, it is the season of dark, as far as I’m concerned. This time of year, I question my judgment, for making the decision to move, and then stay in the Pacific Northwest. These short days lead to endless introspection. They lead to turning on as many lights as possible. Maybe it’s actually the season of lights, come to think of it.

Where You’ll Find Me / Oil on Linen / private collection/ © Anne Belov

There is no end to the possibilities that I present myself with, and then argue with myself, over which direction is the right way to go. It’s a good thing I like to spend time by myself. For a creative person, that alone time is essential. It’s hard to find the voices inside my head when there is too much going on around me. As a painter and a writer, I spend a lot of time shuffling around in my head. It’s where the work happens.

“What if I did this?”

“What if I did that?”

What do I do when the dark, the rain, the cold (well, okay, it hasn’t been that cold yet this winter) get to be too much? Sometimes I go to Italy! Not actually, since it’s pretty cold there too, and I have way too much work to do here. (Not to mention a limited budget.) I mean that I fire up the lights in the studio, and work on a painting from one of my several Italian adventures.

Assisi Sun and Shadow / Oil on Linen / © Anne Belov

There is something magical about being in a well-lighted room, looking out over the cold and misty woods that surround my house. And when I look at the painting on my easel I remember the warm, sunny afternoons sitting in the piazza in Cortona, sketching and thinking about dinner.

Other times, when the dark and cold are too much, my mind turns to pandas. Really, if watching a video of panda toddlers going down a slide doesn’t cheer you up, I don’t know what will. The pandas entered my life when the economy was turning to crap, and I see no reason to let them go now that it is improving a bit.

Pandas in the season of lights © Anne Belov

If drawing cartoons of pandas, and creating stories for them wasn’t enough to brighten my world, the responses of the people who have found them would certainly do the trick. (They like them, they really like them!)

There are far worse things in the world than a little dark and rain. If you watch even a little bit of the news, you know what they are. We all need something to get us through the long wet nights of the Northwest winters. I have paintings and pandas. What brings light back into your world?

The only thing more cheery than pandas is coloring pictures of pandas.

Anne Belov is a painter, printmaker, and illustrator. Her wordless picture book Pandamorphosis is a celebration of magic and pandas. She has recently published her 6th collection of the Panda Chronicles cartoons: We R Endangered, as well as a Panda Chronicles coloring book. All are available at Moonraker Books in Langley. You can see her paintings at The Rob Schouten Gallery at the Greenbank Farm and at The Fountainhead Gallery in Seattle. There is still no MacArthur Fellowship awarded in Panda Satire. Read her weekly cartoons at YourBrainonPandas.com.

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CLICK HERE to read more WLM stories and blogs. Have a great story idea? Let us know at info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

December 9, 2015