Balloon Lift Off 9: Balloon Parade

The red balloons have got caught up in some kind of parade!

I had fun over the Thanksgiving holiday last weekend to paint this scene, inspired, of course, by the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I didn't go out into the massive crowds to see the parade myself, instead I joined the parade with the five red balloons, the girl and her dog. It was a beautiful crisp day in New York, and I'm pleased with how I captured that fall feeling.

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, Balloon Parade

Can you name the big balloon on the left?

Stay tuned for more adventures. You can now bring the adventure home with a print, poster, book bag and more from my Redbubble store, and you'd be helping out an artist. Please feel free to leave a suggestion of where you'd like to see the balloons go.

As a bonus this lovely weekend, here's another painting I did the day after Thanksgiving while sitting on my roof deck in the now empty roof garden enjoying the slanting fall sun. Have a wonderful weekend!

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, Roof Garden at 299 NYC by Traci Van Wagoner

Balloon Lift Off 7: Castle in the Clouds

Up, up, up into the wild blue yonder to the castle in the clouds. The red balloons keep flying. Hold on little girl, hold on! Keep up, puppy, the best you can.

I hope my painting and this adventure will uplift your spirits in troubling times. Keep on dreaming.

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

Balloon Lift Off: 6 Balloon Crossing

In case you've been missing the balloon adventures, here's another one for fun, Balloon Crossing. The color inspiration was Buttercup. I keep debating about how much noodling to do on these. I like the loose and energetic feel, but I also like to noodle things -- sometimes too much. That's one of the reasons I'm really loving painting on the iPad. I create most of these paintings with my finger first, and then I bring in the Apple Pencil when I want more detail. My art has loosened up a lot and I think feels more fresh.

Where do you think the balloons will take the girl and her dog next?

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

Balloon Lift Off 5: Wild

Happy Saturday! I've been on another Balloon Lift Off paint play adventure with the red balloons, the girl, and the dog. This one grew into WILD the #scbwidrawthis prompt for August. It started with a bunch of trees, some hills, the balloons, girl, the dog, then one cave popped up with a mama bear outside and her cubs inside, then more caves, more bears, and what to do bears love? Honey. So, in came a bear eating honey from a beehive, and more beehives, and bees. So, yep, wild. And I'm left wondering how the dog will get through all those bears and bees to follow his girl.

I hope you're enjoying this wild journey! If you have suggestions of where you'd like to see this balloon adventure go, feel free to comment with your ideas.

Wild, ©2017 Traci Van Wagoner

Balloon Lift Off 4: The Lighthouse

I usually post my paint play inspired by Colour Collective earlier, but I'm a bit late this week since I have a tight deadline with sketches to finish for a book for Pelican Publishing (more on that later).

I stole a few minutes (okay, more than just a few) from my sketching time to paint another adventure with the the red balloons using Cordovan as the color inspiration to post to #colour_collective on twitter. I'm trying to keep a logical storytelling sequence to this series, so I also used the teal ocean color from last week and have the girl being swept in from the ocean this time.

Did she travel across the entire sea? I shrug. Perhaps. I was going to paint her in the middle of the ocean with the dog on a boat (which you can see a peek at the dog in a boat possibility with the time-lapse video on instagram), or passing a Cordovan colored pirate ship, but this is what came out when I put finger to iPad with Procreate. I go where the wind takes me, so to speak.

The first image is what I posted for #colour_collective, and the second one is because I felt I needed to push the lighting a bit more, so I spent a bit more time with it. Which one do you like better?

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

Balloon Lift Off 3: Swept Away

The red balloons are still flying.

This week I was inspired to continue with my Balloon Lift Off series with Swept Away inspired by #colour_collective weekly color Vert Réséda as the background color, which screamed ocean to me. Once again, the color inspired the art and the balloons won't let me go, so this is what happened:

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

Will she ever land? What will she see in her travels? How will her dog keep up if she is swept out to sea? Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be more of their story unfolding here. Have an adventurous weekend everybody!

Booker T. Bear Debut

I'm very excited to share the news that Booker T. Bear is making his appearance in the world with his Booker T. Bear's Website! Yay! Go check it out, buy a book or two, and have some fun exploring Juneberry Square. Books One and Two in the Let's Go Series are available for preorder and will be available very soon.

The series of four books (so far) was written by Jen Jellyfish, M.M., illustrated by the creative team at Imagine That! Design (myself and my husband, Kurt Keller) and brought to you by The Library Store, Inc.

This fun series took up a good portion of my time in 2016. It was a fun adventure traveling the world with Booker and his friend Dahlya Dragonfly.

I'd love to hear what you think of Booker's fun adventures.

Booker T. Bear Let's Go Series Book 1

Booker T. Bear Let's Go Series Book 2

Booker T. Bear Adventures

Coming Soon!

Booker T. Bear, Let's Go Series Books 1-4
Presented by The Library Store
Written by Jen "Jellyfish"M.M.
Illustrated by Kurt Keller and Traci Van Wagoner

My partner and I have had a wonderful time this year adventuring around the world with Booker T. Bear and his dragonfly friend Dahlya, seeing new places, learning new big words, and trying fun new snacks. We illustrated four books in the series as well as the images for the website which will be live soon. The first book will be available in December. I'll post more details when I get them as to where and when you can buy these fun books. Stay tuned!