Bookmarks


THIS PAGE IS CURRENTLY A WORK IN PROGRESS STARTED 6/20/09

I so love painting bookmarks because they make great gifts and they are a functional piece of art. I laminate most of them and add a tassle before giving them away as a gift . . . if I don't laminate them, people are afraid to use them for bookmarks lest they wreck them, and what good is a bookmark if you cannot use it to save a spot in your favorite book?

All the bookmarks below are done on watercolor paper using watercolor pencils. I'd like to try some bookmarks in the future using other media.

My subject matter relates to the person receiving the bookmark, so before painting one, I ask the receiver what they would like on the bookmark. Other times, when it is a surprise gift, I have to guess at what the person would like on it. I titled the bookmarks below by the receiver's name, and noted what the subject matter means to them.

If you are visually impaired, or don't own a magnifying glass, click on any of the bookmarks to see a larger image of each one, or to read the small writing on some of them.

Sarah Liz Lori John Sarah: Sarah is my wonderful pseudo-stepdaughter. This is a picture of her tattoo with one of her favorite phrases.

Liz: Liz is a long time special neighbor. She asked for an Irish theme for her bookmark, so this is what I came up with.
In Fond Memory of Liz: Liz passed away on December 7, 2009, at the age of 81, a few months after I gave her this bookmark. I miss you, Liz.

Lori: Lori loes to quilt. I wasn't happy about this bookmark, as I screwed it up half way through, and the subject matter isn't all that familiar to me, so I just finished it up with basically crap.

John: John is my boyfriend and pseudo-fiance. We share stuffed animal "kids," so this is a painting of our stuffies: Walter, Johnson, Grady and Tegu.
Helen David Sheryl Susana Helen: Helen is my dear friend and an excellent writer. This bookmark portrays how I visualized her character Hawk in her book Skinwalker Moon.

David: David is also my dear friend and and an excellent writer. He is wrote a book with a Rottweiler as one of his characters, so he asked me to draw a Rottweiler with an eyepatch. Since David writes horror stories, this is what I came up with.

Sheryl: Sheryl is my wonderful "boss," although I think of her as a friend more than a boss. I wanted to make her a bookmark, she said draw something peaceful, so this is what I came up with

Susana: Susana is my dear and crazy Filipino friend and co-worker, and anyone who knows her can attest that she loves shoes, the higher the heels, the better! She even keeps a rack of them below her desk at work!
Shannon Therese For Whom? Me Shannon: An ex-coworker but still a friend. I asked her what she wanted on a bookmark, she said something to do with oceans or lakes. I'm more familiar with lakes than with oceans, so this is what I came up with.

Therese: Another ex-coworker. Therese plays the viola, and she is currently in law school getting her degree, so I tried to combine the two in this bookmark.

For Whom?: This bookmark wasn't really intended for anyone, I started out drawing a Hindu Shiva diety with 3 faces, but I screwed it up, so I sort of made it into a Jekyll & Hyde sort of painting.

Me: This is one of my earlier bookmarks (painted 1999 or thereabouts). It depicts Rabindranath Tagore who was and still is my main influence for learning Bengali. The phrase on the bookmark is his epitaph which reads: When I am no longer on this earth, my tree, let the ever-renewed leaves of thy spring murmer to the wayfarer "The poet did love while he lived."
John Me back of Me John John: As John loves to travel, I wanted to paint him a relevant bookmark.

Me: I painted this around 1999 also, and it is one of my favorites. For a long time, I have been fascinated with Mt. Everest and the climbers who challenge the mountain to reach its peak. Why my fascination with Everest, I'm not certain, except perhaps it is because Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to reach the top, on May 29, 1953, less than two months before I was born . . . yet a fact I only learned AFTER I became fascinated with Mt. Everest. Also, I'm afraid of heights to some degree, and I have no desire to climb . . .I am a short person, so I need to use a step-ladder from time to time, and even climbing on one of those is a bit challenging for me. Maybe that is why I am fascinated with mountain climbers, as I can experience their thrill without actually having to do the climbing.

back of Me: I don't usually make a back to my bookmarks, but for the Everest one, I included an excerpt from the book Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, a survivor of the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster.

John: John has been my pseudo-fiance since Valentine's Day 2004. We joke that we will marry in the year 2050, so this is a depiction of our wedding day. The Bengali script reads John and Peggy 2050.
Randy W.: Randy is Susana's new hubby. He was kind enough to buy John and I tickets for Nikko's play (Nikko is Susana's son), so I returned the favor by making him a bookmark. Randy does a lot of business in China, so thus the Chinese horoscope symbols. Susana was born in the Year of the Rat, Randy in the Year of the Ox.
John:: I had so much fun making the bookmark for Randy, that I decided to make one similar for John. I was born in the Year of the Snake, and John was born in the Year of the Ox.
Gabe: Gabe went through chemotherapy this past year, and he, John, my son Beau and I had all recently played the Nintendo DS Game Zelda: Phantom Hour Glass, so I made this bookmark for him depicting a scene from the video game. I think I'm the only one of us 4 who didn't finish the game . . . I dreaded going back through the hour glass temple one last time.
John: I painted this for John to use as a line guide for proofreading, rather than a bookmark. The picture is based from a photograph of him during his travels in India. The Bengali phrase translated means: The traveler in India finds peace
Alma Jennifer Jennifer-back Beau Alma: Alma is John's mom . . . thus she is my pseudo mother-in-law. I like her very much. She loves flowers and birds, thus my theme for her bookmark. She also loves to read, and I felt honored that as soon as she received my bookmark she tucked it into her favorite book, the Bible, to share with her friends and Pastor Kevin at church.

Jennifer: Jennifer is the manager of the apartment building I live in, a really cool gal. She recently remarried, and her and hubby had a honeymoon in Alaska, so I painted what I thougnt the Northern Lights over Alaska might look like, with a Bengali phrase below.

Jennifer-back: The back of Jennifer's bookmark translates the Bengali script that is on the front . . . I'm not sure I got the translation exactly right . . . it is a difficult language to translate from English, but I did my best.

Beau: I gave this bookmark to my son Beau for his 29th birthday (which was Oct 1, 2009), and he said to me, "I was going to ask you to make me a bookmark for xmas, as the last one you made me is falling apart." I chose penguins because Beau, John and I went to the movie "March of the Penguins" and we all enjoyed it.
Carol Randy Me Gretchen Carol: Carol is my sister and a great fiddle player.Most recently she placed third in the senior division at the Minnesota State Fair fiddle contest.

Randy: Randy is my ex-hubby and father of our kids. When we first met, I had painted a picture of a graveyard with the names of our recently deceased pets on the tombstones. I never liked that painting much, so I eventually threw it away, then I found out that Randy had really liked the painting. So recently I painted a pet graveyard bookmark for him, with names of a few of our more recently deceased pets.

Me: Another earlier bookmark, painted in 1998. I had forgotten about this one. In January 2010, I pulled from my bookshelf The Heath Anthology of American Literature, a text book I used in 1998 at Hamline for an American Lit class. I was looking for one of my favorite stories in the book, and this bookmark was tucked within the pages of that story . .. the story "Benito Cereno" by Herman Melville.

Gretchen: Gretchen is a co-worker of mine. She loves to knit, so thus the theme of this bookmark. She and I also share an interest in bookmaking as an art form . . . thanks for the bone folder, Gretchen!


Don David Diane Heather Don: Don is a special friend from my high school days . . . we were engaged to be married, then Vietnam happened. We recently got back in touch as friends, so I asked if he'd like one of my bookmarks. He likes wolves, so this is my attempt at a wolf. Painting animals is a struggle for me!

David: Back to my writer friend again. I had made this bookmark for him back in 2001 and totally had forgotten about it, so he took a picture of it, and sent it to me via email. It is supposed to represent a writer's frustration. "Marty's Toy" is the name of one of his stories . . . an excellent story. And Spyder is the name of just one of his many fascinating book characters.

Diane: I only met Diane once, in person, but I communicated with her many times over the phone for work, calling her from St. Paul to the New York Merrill office, and I was always so happy when she answered the phone, as she always had the right answers for me, regarding work stuff. She has since retired from Merrill, but we still keep in touch, and I'm so glad that we do. She is a very special person! She loves gardens, flowers, butterflies, birds, so thus what I decided to paint on her bookmark. The quote on the bookmark, well for now, I will just say: in fond memory of Tom .

Heather: Heather is my wonderful daughter-in-law, and the mother of my two grandchildren, Luke and Alyson. This bookmark is a portrait of her taking care of her children . . . what a wonderful mother she is! And also a wonderful daughter-in-law and wife to my son, Ryan! Credits: Poem on bookmark by Ann Taylor


Chris Andy Me Beth Chris: Chris is my co-worker and a HUGE Green Bay Packers fan. He helped me move into my new house, and I promised him I'd make him a bookmark in return for the favor. I finished this in January 2011, and how timely, right before they went on to win the Super Bowl!

Andy: Andy is my long-time very special pseudo Valentine! We used to be co-workers, and one year (2001?) on Valentine's Day, neither of us had a special love interest in our lives, so we made each other a Valentine, and we have been carrying on the tradition ever since. So for Valentine's Day 2011, I painted him a bookmark of his two cats, Mel and Kit.

Me: I was recently digging in a box looking for something else, and I found this bookmark I made 10 years previously in 2001. I don't recall why I painted it. Perhaps I read the quote that is on the bottom of the bookmark and it inspired me to to paint a car traveling to the moon.

Beth: Beth is my very nice and beautiful California cousin. We had lost touch with each other for quite a spell until recently when we reconnected through Facebook. I asked her what she wanted on her bookmark, and she said she'd like it in memory of her dad who loved books.


Stefanie Stefanie 2 Louis Stefanie: Stef is Beau's wonderful girlfriend. She is the editor of Plymouth Patch, which is the city of Plymouth's online newspaper, so that is where the theme came from for this bookmark, and the rats? Well, just because I like rats. I was debating whether or not to laminate this one then decided to go ahead, big mistake! The laminator was at the end of the roll, wrinkled up and totally destroyed the bookmark. Thankfully I had taken a picture of it first. So, I started over and tried to make a duplicate of the first one. It is similar but a bit different, as I can never duplicate the same piece of art. I would make a lousy cartoon strip artist! I included here both the first and second bookmark, and I did not risk laminating the second one!

Louis: Louis has been my favorite co-worker for some 11 years and counting . . . he is my go-to-guy for every question I have, and I couldn't do my job well without his advice. His beloved dog Maggie, who he shared his life with for 9 years, passed away late in January of 2012, so I wanted to paint a bookmark for him of Maggie. I only met Maggie once in person, so I didn't have much to go on except a photo Louis pasted on Facebook, so I hope I captured some of Maggie's likeness in my painting.


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