Books & art tools
Books
I have written 4 books to help women organize their self-care, home, and clutter so they can raise successful families and follow their passions too. The Organize Your Joy Workbook: The Mom’s Complete Organizing Guide teaches women about organizing one’s home and how to train one’s family to maintain it. Discover Your Joy: The Self-Care Journal helps women with their self-care in simple, doable ways. Sammy teaches kids how they can help around the house in simple ways.
The Lost Mermaid
By Krystal Meldrum
Coming July 29th, 2023
If you are interested in being an artist then here are the books I recommend: Andrew Loomis is one of my favorite art teachers. He simplifies drawing, learning the figure, composition and design. His books used to be out of print, but now they are available again! If you can't buy them, go to Barnes & Noble to peruse them on the shelves or get them through Inter-library Loan through your local library. They are amazing! Figure Drawing For all it's Worth is my favorite figure drawing book, but it does have nudes on the cover and in the back of the book.
The Artist's Way is my favorite book to overcome fear, discouragement, indecision, and roadblocks on one’s artistic journey! Two tools that have helped me over so many hurdles are artist field trips and morning pages. An artist field trip involves exploring inspiring places like art museums, bookshops, or new cities on a weekly basis to seek inspiration, generate ideas, and ask thought-provoking questions, offering the liberating experience of being in charge of one's artistic journey and the opportunity to learn and grow without the constraints of grumpy travelers.
Morning Pages refers to the practice of writing three pages of stream-of-consciousness, unfiltered thoughts every morning as a form of creative and therapeutic exercise. It serves as a tool to clear the mind, overcome creative blocks, and gain insight into one's thoughts and emotions.
The Last books on the page teach everything I learned in my college illustration program to take an idea from one's imagination into a realistic or fantasy illustration. Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis is the Illustrator's Bible on design, perspective, etc. James Gurney shows in Imaginative Realism how to create Dinotopia from maquettes, photos, etc.
Digital art Tools
I have always been a paper and pencil, but I after getting the iPad Pro I loved creating sketches and especially using the perspective tools! I able to do concept sketches when we are traveling in the car! It is so much easier. I use a program called Procreate. I have never used an easier program.
I like the Ipad Pro better than a wacom tablet because you get to actually draw right on the screen!
The pen feels so good in your hand and it is pressure sensitive on the tip and the side of the tip! Watch someone on YouTube video use their Ipad Pro to see what I mean.
The keyboard feels natural and does not have any battery requirements. I love to write books too, so the keyboard allows my Ipad Pro to be my laptop as well! The keyboard is magnetic and pops off when I want to be free of it to just draw.
Procreate copies everything you paint and replays your sketches or paintings which is so fun to watch!
This is way better than getting your children a video consul because they will play with it and actually learn things! My children love it - even the non-artists like to draw on it! It's an amazing tool!
Photography Gear
When creating art I realized really fast that good potography equipement was necessary for not only creating material to work from but also be able to take good pictures of my art for prints. The items below are things that I own and have loved. They not only create great pictures but also 1080p video.
