Holiday Cards

Every year around Thanksgiving, I start giving thought to what to do for a holiday card. It’s become a tradition that I’m told people look forward to receiving but over the years it seems that I send out fewer and fewer cards. I used to always send a card to current or prospective clients along with the ones to friends and family but with the slow demise of my illustration business that tradition has faded. The style of card reflected whatever style I was working in at the time.   For the last fourteen years, my son has been my muse for these cards but now that he’s a teenager, images of him sweetly frolicking in the snow no longer seem appropriate. Before my son, it was images of my husband and I or more fanciful images usually done in black and white.   Here is a little gallery of images of Holiday Cards past.

©Janice Fried 1985

©Janice Fried 1993

©Janice Fried 1994

©Janice Fried 1998

©Janice Fried 2006

©Janice Fried 2009

©Janice Fried 2010

For the last few years, I’ve threatened not to do one but I always end up doing something despite my threats…so check your mailbox, there may just be some “Joy in the New Year” waiting for you there.

Jim Spanfeller 1930-2014

I just learned of the passing of another one of my illustration heroes.

Jim Spanfeller was a large, gentle man with white hair, dark eyebrows and long graceful fingers who created very magical artwork. He used a technique called stippling which is created by making millions of tiny dots in pen and ink to create tones of gray . His pieces were incredibly detailed and intricate.

@Jim Spanfeller

He taught at Parsons School of Design and he was one of the main reasons I wanted to go to school there. At the time, his class was only offered at night so as a daytime student I had to get special permission to attend. In my three years at Parsons his class was the one that made it all worthwhile.

We stayed in touch for a number of years after Parsons. He helped me create my first illustration promotion piece. His influence was clear.

©Janice Fried 1979

 

Eventually our communication faded. I tried to reconnect with him over the past several years to tell him how important he had been to me but I had lost his address and couldn’t find any recent references to him until a fellow artist and Parson alumni posted the sad news today.

He was master of the dot and line. A master in black and white…A master of pen and ink.  I was lucky to have been one of his students.

I don’t think we’ll see anything like him again.

Barnyard Summer

Generally, summer is not my most productive time.

I have lots of ideas and projects but once that beautiful weather takes hold, I seem to lose interest in anything that keeps me indoors.

But, this past spring, I took part in an local event called “Sheep on Show”. Artists and townsfolk were invited to paint a plywood cutout of sheep that would be placed around town.

No one knew exactly what to make of this at first but once the sheep started popping up on people’s lawns the interest grew.

My sheep was titled: Sheep Apnea

I was also part of a group of artists who painted a life sized fiberglass Ox for the town of Hopewell, NJ. Included in the group were my mother and my niece. Each artist did an interpretation of the ox through history. After my Asian themed painted violin, I choose to do an Asian Ox. It was challenging to figure out how to create and apply the artwork to the large ox. Some of the artists chose to paint directly onto it but I chose to create mine on handmade paper and then print it out on fabric. The fabric would be able to mold easier to the body of the ox. It worked although the colors weren’t quite as bright once transferred to fabric.

So far there haven’t been any more barnyard projects but I have always liked chickens…

All images ©Janice Fried

 

Snowbound

This has been one of those winters; one of those snow upon snow upon ice upon snow winters.  The kind of winter where my son’s school already called more snow days than they build into the school schedule so they start taking away holidays like President’s Day.  The kind of winter where you don’t want to venture outside unless you have to.

I am not a winter hater and I can enjoy a good snowstorm from the inside looking out but this winter has been challenging to say the least.

I have been trying to use my indoor time productively.

Here are two recent images from the Winter of 2014:

My Snowy Valentine ©Janice Fried 2014

The Sleep of Winter ©Janice Fried 2014

The Violin

When I was in the third grade we were given the opportunity to play an instrument.

Since my beloved grandfather played the violin I decided on that.

My grandfather Frank was self-taught in everything he did.  Art and music were his passions and those passions were passed along to his children and grandchildren.

He made his living as a painter/decorator painting murals, doing wood graining or marbleizing on walls in office buildings or in private homes. He supported four children on painting.  He painted for a living and he painted because he loved it.  He’d paint old wine bottles or furniture he’d find on the street and make them into beautiful art objects.

He painted constantly and when he wasn’t painting, he was playing his violin.

He loved to tell stories about how when he first came to this country he used to wait by the stage door at Carnegie Hall for Jascha Heifetz and offer to carry his violin for him.  My grandfather was also a wonderful storyteller.

I continued to play the violin through high school in various orchestras and for school plays. It was only when I decided to make art my focus did I give it up.

Last spring I learned that the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra did a fundraiser each concert season where they asked artists to paint an actual violin that would be auctioned off to support various education programs that the orchestra sponsored.

I applied and was accepted as one of the artists for the 2013-2014 season.

In late July I received an unvarnished violin .  We were told we could pick a composer or a program or a particular piece of music to illustrate on the violin.  I had a few months to complete it.

I chose to interpret the orchestra’s winter program of Gustav Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde” (Song of the Earth) and a piece by a contemporary Chinese composer, Tan Dun whose “Earth Sonata”  would be premiered. Both of these pieces were based on poetry by the 8th c. Chinese poet Li Bai.

I wanted to work in my usual style of watercolor, colored pencil and collage but I wasn’t sure how any of it would translate on wood.  I used a small paddle from a paddleball toy as a test board.

I decided to paint the front of the violin in a Chinese style and the back and sides in a Vienna 1900 style a la Gustav Klimt.

I created the tuning pegs out of bamboo to imitate a Chinese stringed instrument.

I loved working on this project and working on wood was a revelation for me.

My grandfather died twenty years ago and I miss him.  He used to love to laugh at his own jokes and say “That was a good one!”

But I’m not joking when I say I loved painting this violin.

That was a good one.

Photos by Fred Stucker © 2013

Artwork © Janice Fried 2013

Illustrator Janice Fried :: In Her Own Words

janicefried:

Thank you, Alternative Pick!

Originally posted on altpick connects:

Illustrator and fine artist, Janice Fried never knew a time when she wasn’t drawing or doing some kind of artwork.  “My mother is also an artist so I grew up learning to find beauty in all kinds of things like an old piece of lacy rust or a smooth stone or a piece of birch bark.”, says Fried.  As a child, Janice loved to create her own children’s books and so being an illustrator, matching words with pictures was the most natural thing for her to do.  Janice picks three of her favorite images and tells us in her own words why.

Albani

Janice Fried: This piece is one of a series of mixed media pieces I did for myself based on the first volume (A-Ames) of an old Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia.  I would find a word or a name on the page and illustrate it.  To date, I…

View original 165 more words

Old School

Ever since I was a child I loved anything that belonged to another time other than the one I lived in.

I loved old movies from the silent era to Film Noir.  I loved big band music and scratchy recordings meant to be played on a Victrola.  I loved padded shoulder jackets from the 1940’s, spats, and fedoras.  My parents used to call me a “throwback”.   These days, I’m just Old School.

As an artist, my love of old things extended to using old photographs as inspiration. Images of wasp-waisted women in big ornate hats, mustached men in vests with pocket watch chains, peddlers and immigrants, daguerreotypes in gold frames or tiny tintypes with a blush of hand coloring.  Formal portraits or early snapshots of day to day life fascinated me.  I’d try to imagine their lives.

I would stare at these photographs endlessly as if by staring at them I could somehow transport myself back in time to New York City circa 1908 even for just a few moments. Of course, the world would only be sepia colored.

Eventually, I began using these photographs to draw from by putting my own twist to the images.

Needless to say, the drawings were and still are done on paper using pencils, pen and ink and paint.

As much as I enjoy poking around online, I struggle with the idea of actually creating artwork using the computer.

I recently read that Thomas Nast, the great political illustrator from the late 19^th century couldn’t keep up with the latest technology of his time, which was photo engraving.  He was an old school wood engraver. It somehow made me feel better knowing that even then it was difficult for an illustrator to change with the times but there was a lesson in there too.

There is always a choice.  You can stubbornly choose to live in the past or you can find a way to live and make a living in the present.  Of course it’s just not that black and white.

I am trying but somehow I keep hoping hats will make a comeback.

Thief of Hearts

This world leaves me spinning sometimes.

I decided to put my name into a Google image search recently and was stunned to see how many pieces of mine were being used without my permission on numerous blogs and websites.  Most of them gave me a copyright credit but some of them did not.  Somewhere in my head I knew this could happen once you put anything online be it a website or a blog or in a publication but seeing it for real was disturbing.

I can forgive the ones who gave me credit for creating a piece of art that happened to fit nicely with their poem or article but it would have been nice to have been asked first.

But then there were the magazines that should have known better. One of these magazines is a major publication that has been around for a very long time and one that I always included in my promotion campaigns.

The fact that the only way I could get my work published by them was by having them steal it is particularly upsetting.  Yes, I was credited but I was neither asked nor compensated.

For the last few years I have struggled and wrestled with, mourned over and tried to maintain a career as an illustrator.   I have questioned my talent as well as my ability to compete against younger artists born in the digital age.

I have attempted to keep a positive approach with this blog but something about seeing my work used all over the world for free in other people’s blogs makes me question the way the world works now.

Yes, it’s crucial to have some kind of online presence these days if you want to be seen or heard or read but that also leaves you open to thieves. Just because it’s visible to anyone with a computer doesn’t give people the right to use it without asking.  People don’t see it as stealing but it is.

Many people feel everything online should be available for anyone to use for free.  As an artist, I don’t agree.  It devalues what we do and removes any controls from our creations.

People like to say, but it’s great exposure!  But as my songwriter husband and creative ally, likes to say, “You could die of exposure”.

Copyright laws were meant to protect the creative.  There is also common decency.

Artists need an audience and a way to make a living. We are thrilled when you like our work but please ask first before you just take it.  We might just say okay.

“Love Thief”  © Janice Fried

Aubrey

One morning when I was about 15 or 16 years old, I woke up to find a curious book with a black and white cover propped up on my yellow bench in my room. It was a gift from a dear friend of my parents who shared the same birthday as me and was always very fond of my artwork.

The book was a collection of work by the artist Aubrey Beardsley whose name would occasionally came up when people looked at my drawings. “Very Beardsleyesque” people would say.

Later some art directors would say the same thing. Sometimes it was said disparagingly and sometimes admiringly. Sometimes it was the reason I was called and sometimes it was the reason I didn’t get the job.

My sketchbooks are filled with black and white line drawings although not all of them “Beardsleyesque”. The style was my own but Aubrey was probably hovering somewhere nearby.

Illustration Promotion from another time and place…

May Luck Be with You.

The last couple of months of 2012 were full of drama.

Hurricane Sandy stormed in and swept away some people’s lives and gave purpose to others.  We lost power and heat for a week and considered ourselves extremely lucky losing not much more than the food in our refrigerator.

Luck.

Shortly after the hurricane, there was a huge lottery of almost $300 million dollars.  The odds were 1 in 175,223,510.00 to win the jackpot.

I ask myself what would I do with that kind of money?  What dreams could I make come true?

My dream was always to be a successful working illustrator. Something money couldn’t buy. A successful career is a blending of so many factors: timing, persistence, talent and yes, luck.  $300 million in the bank wouldn’t hurt either….

Despite the odds, I took a chance on doing the thing I most wanted to do with my life and I even won a few golden tickets over the years but the jackpot would have been a lifetime’s worth of illustration jobs.

A number of years ago I was chosen to do a deck of affirmation cards for Hay House publishers. They found my work in the Alternative Pick Directory.  For me it was like winning the lottery.

Over the next few years, I did a total of three decks of cards for them; 175 pieces of artwork that brought new life to my illustration portfolio.

So here’s to 2013.  Will it be win, lose or draw?

I choose Draw.

From “Healing Cards” by Carolyn Myss and Peter Occhiogrosso Hay House Publishers