Artistic Tuesdays – Illustrator Becky Tyree

Welcome to this week’s beautiful edition of Artistic Tuesday! My guest today is my own illustrator (and mother) Becky Tyree. A lover of lighthouses, Christmas, and crazy deep and detailed art, Becky is a seamstress, an artist, a teacher, and much much more! Let’s see what she has to say about her art!

               Showing her sass!

• How did you get started in illustrations?

I studied art with a mail order art class. I really enjoyed the lessons and found mixed media enthralling.

I remember that class, she was studying that when I was about 6 or 7. My bedroom wall got a gorgeous mural of a swan on a lake. When we moved I begged until she painted it on a canvas for me!

Her older pictures are signed ‘Teeto’ (a family nickname) but her new artwork and illustrations are signed with her full name, “Becky Tyree.”

• Has art been a lifelong passion of yours?

I really only began art sometime in my early twenties. My husband encouraged me a lot when I was learning.

• How do you want people to feel when they see what you’ve created? I want them to make a connection with the work. If they don’t, it is not for them.

• What media do you prefer to draw/create in, and why?

I love pencil work, mixed media (for me that would be pencil, ink, and then watercolor, acrylic, or even colored pencil), and wet on wet oil.

Karl the Koi

• What is your creative space/working environment like?

Our residence is an old Church building. My art studio is on one side of the ‘stage’ and the other side is my sewing room. The auditorium is undergoing it’s transformation into our family room and my art gallery. We hope it will be finished this year, but…..you never know.

They have been working a little every day on the great room. With the original plain colored glass windows (they are not pictures, just gorgeous glass) mostly intact, the walls getting painted, and a few pews and chairs being fixed up and painted, the space will be a bright and beautiful place to display her artwork!

• What is something new that you’ve either learned or noticed recently?

I am always picking up anything to help me with my artwork. Recently, my granddaughter has been teaching me how to listen to what she says and translate it into a picture.

LITTLE MONSTER!!

She has been watching videos and scanning Pinterest etc. for new ideas on how to make the perfect illustrations. She invariably decides she likes her way better because she can’t figure out why people are making things so hard on themselves! I’m sure they would think the same about her methods..I hear artists are slightly tempermental about their works. Of course, the Monkey has been giving her direct instructions for Little Monster as to the color composition, items and their placements, and so on.

• Tell us about your two all-time favorite pictures: Please include 1 thing that you have drawn or created, and 1 someone else did.

Okay, Here I will first include my favorite picture…..Thomas Kincaid’s paintings that include lighthouses!

This is Thomas Kinkade’s “Courage” lighthouse. To see more fabulous works and get the stories behind them, check out the official site at: http://thomaskinkade.com/art-genre/lighthouses/

My favorite from my work….The wet on wet oil painting I did of a stream drifting though autumn tree’s and fields.

She has a collection of lighthouses. Not just one or two here and there…the woman has a collection of over 100, maybe over 200 at this point, that includes miniatures, nick-knacks, paintings, blankets, coasters, table cloths, etc etc etc.

 

• What illustration related projects would you love to be able to do in the future?

I am looking forward to drawing more dragons and fairy’s. I have the start of a wall mural going up to my daughters writing loft featuring one of her dragons. The mural is going to spread up both sides of the stairs right off the mentioned family room.

The dragon in question – pictured below – is Lavinia. Some of you have read the books and/or the short stories I post on here occasionally and are thinking “who is that?” Well, Lavinia hasn’t been in the books just yet. You see, she is a very special ‘keeper’ dragon, the Guardian of the Garden. Lavinia is posted to protect and observe a portal between Realta and Earth. This portal just so happens to reside inside the walls going up the stairs to my writer’s loft. And yes, we pat her nose and tell her hello or goodbye and goodnight every time.

• What inspires you?

Writers who are able to describe in such a way that I can see their story. It really encourages me to draw. God’s grace to have given me such a wonderful gift, and my loving family of writers. I am not a good writer, but I figure, hey, they aren’t the best illustrators either, but together we make a great team.

Go Team! She’s right you know, there’s a reason I’m not drawing my own stuff! Stick figures come out with weird bumps when I try to draw.

 

• Who is your favorite artist/illustrator? Why?

Norman Rockwall With a simple picture he could tell a whole story. People connected to his work, and his work was realistic while at the same time interesting to us all.

• Finally, tell us where to go to find you/who you illustrate for if you don’t have your own pages yet:

So far I have kept my drawings in our family. I am finishing up the drawings for my granddaughter on her first Little Monster book; – Little Monster is set to go on preorder September 20^th and release on October 1^st. I did a teaser post with the illustrations recently. If you want to check that out, I’ve linked it for you HERE.

Then I will be working with Elizabeth S. Tyree and an animal wildlife preserve in Kansas to complete both a color book about the animals at the park there and a series of stories about animals in the park and their cousins in the wild. Ask Elizabeth Tyree about those details. – I have spoken a little about Leonard the Lemur and more details will be coming shortly. If you would like to know more about the park we’ve talked into being Leonard’s home, check out www.tanganyikawildlife.org

After that, and probably some during, I will complete a set of pictures for the Stone Dragon Saga’s updates, as I have agreed to draw those this year. For myself I will be painting four wet on wet nature scenes and fifteen different floral studies to place on our family room/gallery walls. For Dr. W. Jay Tyree, I will be drawing updates for his children’s books at the beginning of next year. After that ….who knows…someone else want some drawings????

The rose from Dr. Tyree’s original version of Monsoon McKreel…which didn’t even have an eel in it!

I will be setting up an illustrator’s profile for her sometime soon, once we have a site we agree on to host it.

Thank you for sharing with us today Becky! We look forward to seeing your work in the books, and updates on your gallery walls!

Remember, if you are an artist and would like to be interviewed for the blog just let me know! Have a great day everyone!