The Story Behind The Art-Featuring ME!

Hello and welcome to the debut of The Story Behind the Art, the new monthly feature on my blog.

In a nutshell, The Story Behind the Art will take you on a little journey into the STORY behind a particular piece of art created by one of my talented friends from around the globe.

Click to read more about what inspired me to start this monthly feature here.

This is something that I have wanted to do for quite some time now and I am so excited that it is finally happening.

So let’s get started, shall we?

Paula Joerling-The Story Behind the 2016 “All Mom’s Plan-It Plus” Calendar for Lang.

I have been creating calendar art for The Lang Companies since 2007 and it is something that I truly enjoy and feel fortunate to be able to do. Different titles are geared to different audiences and I have to take that into consideration when creating the art.

Back in 2014 Lang asked if I could add a new “mom themed” calendar to my line up. (2014 is not a typo, that’s when you have to start on the images for a 2016 calendar. No wonder I never know what year it is.)

Not being a mom, I was apprehensive at first until I decided to look at it from the perspective of a child, I was, after-all one of those. I approached the calendar reflecting on some of my favorite memories and it was a real joy to travel back in time and create art based on my childhood.

I selected two of my favorites to share with you. The cover is a “bonus image”

COVER

The COVER image needs to convey the message that it’s a calendar for busy MOM’s with school age kids. I went with an image that all mom’s, and kids for that matter, can relate to. “The brown bag lunch and being late for the bus”, probably regular occurrences all over the world. 

Side note: My sister and I usually had a bologna with mustard on white bread sandwich and had to save our brown bags and use them the whole week……utter humiliation!

BIRD on the VACUUM

The Bird on the Vacuum is, hands down, my favorite image in the calendar and one of my most favorite memories of my mom.

We had an old Eureka Vibra Beat vacuum and the canister was kind of teardrop shaped. When my mom vacuumed the living room she would sit me on the canister and take me for a ride around the room. I must have been 3 or 4 but remember it clearly. I kept that vacuum until it conked out when I was in my 30’s. Needless to say, I was sorry to see it go.

The ad for the actual vacuum. The vibrating attachment always scared me.

The living room where it all happened. Sorry for the bad photo, it is from an ancient slide.

Please note the round sofa and napping sister.

The KIDDIE POOL

The Kiddie Pool is something that I think we all can relate to. I can remember splashing around in those 5 inches of water like it was an Olympic sized pool. Covered in baby oil and iodine, my mom would fill the pool from a garden hose (that we also drank from, those were the days) while we did the backstroke, demonstrated feats of water ballet and poured buckets of water over our heads. Back then few people had air-conditioning so this really was an awesome thing on a hot summers day.

Side Note: I received (well gave) my first kiss in a Kiddie Pool. I don’t even remember the poor fellas name….I am sure it was memorable for him.

The "kiss"

When we moved, we upgraded to a new, larger pool. It was rectangular, pretty fancy......

I enjoyed creating the narrative for these images and it was a lot of fun sharing my “Story” with you. Hopefully you enjoyed it as well.

Thanks for joining me on my journey and I hope you will stop back next month when my friend Robin Davis will be sharing her STORY BEHIND the ART.

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