gretchen raisch-baskin
I grew up on a farm in the plains of Iowa in the 1960's. A time when macrame, tie-dye and
beading was even popular in rural Iowa. I admit it - all my life I've been doodling, painting and
doing other artsy-craftsy dabbling. This obsession with playing in paint and making stuff began
when I put my first Crayola to paper and began embellishing church hymnals or decorating otherwise
white walls in our farm home. (NOT recommended!) When I was eight I got a Spirograph for Christmas.
It was ones of the best gifts I ever got! That Spirograph and making Shrinky-Dinks entertained me
for hours during the long, cold winter months.
When I was 11 or 12 I fell in love with fairies, angels and unicorns. I collected coloring books, note cards, stickers ... anything I could my little hands on. It wasn't long until I started filling sketchbooks with my own drawings. By the time I finished high school, I knew I had to take this obsession farther. I attended Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa with the intention of teaching art. After a year, I discovered that teaching didn't involve enough art making for my compulsively creative nature. So, I opted for a fine art degree in drawing, painting, and printmaking. Upon completion of that degree, I began my own hand made block - printed clothing business in the late 1980's. It was a blast! It's been a fantastic ride ever since. My only difficulty has been deciding what to paint. I have so many ideas and I can't paint fast enough to bring them to life. I paint what I love. My inspirations are the enchanted forests where nature spirits wander, beautiful flowers that pay homage to our Earth Mother, and the luminous moon and stars above. Magic is in the tiniest things.
When I'm not painting I like hiking, meditation, watching movies and reading books. I had wonderful stays in Madison, Wisconsin, and Eugene, Oregon before I ended up here in Desert Hills, Arizona. Here, in the heart of the Sonoran Desert, my husband, Greg and I, enjoy the sounds of quail in the morning and coyote at night.
Gretchen has created images for greeting cards, coloring books, bookmarks, websites and tee shirts. Her artwork is distributed worldwide from her studio in Desert Hills. Recently, she finished a children's story book entitled, "Save Now, Buy Later" by author Dalida Lim. She's currently creating 50 paintings for a beautiful, colorful, visionary, Wisdom Card set by author Tori Hartman.
Visit Gretchen and see her magical artwork.gretchen talks about coloring
Did you color coloring pages as a child? If so, tell us about the memories you have of this activity.
Gretchen: Yes I did ... I remember the excitement of the getting a new box of crayons and the smell of the wax and freshly printed coloring pages. It was a big day when I got the box of 125 colors as a gift along with a new coloring book. Oh joy!
What skills do coloring sheets offer children? And how do these skills help artists?
Gretchen: The skills that children fine tune when they color are: 1) the use of color how to shade and layer to create new color combinations as well as putting colors together in a pleasing way. 2) the technical skills of staying inside lines and learning how to handle drawing tools. All of these skills can help create future artists and designers. They are very important for artists to have in their "tool box".
What other artistic skills are required to become an artist?
Gretchen: Working with color, using color for expressing ideas and emotions, learning to draw and paint what's in your mind or what is in front of you.
How can parents help children to develop those through the medium of coloring pictures?
Gretchen: Using color for expression and deleloping pleasing color combinations can be developed through coloring. Rather than focusing on realistic colors, what color would you like the sky to be for example? What colors are in a sunset? Maybe even going outside and observing the colors in a sunset to create your next sky.
Can coloring pages, that have a predetermined image, foster the creativity needed to draw original pictures? If so, how?
Gretchen: I beleive that they can. As a child I often used my coloring books as a stepping off point for creating my own original drawings. Start by coloring a Unicorn page for example. Then create you own Unicorn doing what you want it to do.
