Alithia’s Art Angels 2nd Annual Summer Kids’ Art Contest is underway! All art created by kids K-12 is eligible for fun prizes, including art supplies. Check out last summer’s entries in the YOUR ART section of alithiasartangels.com!
The contest ends Aug 31, 2023.
Send one image, along with the name of the artist and grade just completed, to:
hello@alithiasartangels.com
Or, send via smail mail to:
PO Box 2017, Dilley TX 78017
The Backstory
Alithia’s Art Angels celebrates the life and art of Uvalde victim Alithia Haven Ramirez and the art of all children.
Alithia’s mom, Jess Hernandez, founded Alithia’s Art Angels with one goal in mind: to support, nurture, and encourage young artists, just as she did for her daughter Alithia Ramirez. The summer art contest is designed to showcase children’s artistic creations and shower them with love and appreciation.
For Little Activists
This summer we originally put out a call for End Gun Violence poster designs. The response was underwhelming, so we opened up the contest to ALL art, which includes End Gun Violence posters. If your kids started making posters, or still want to, that is terrific!
Follow Along :o)
All submissions will be posted on the Alithia’s Art Angels website and social media. Follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
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The “End Gun Violence” poster above was created by Alithia Ramirez’s mother, Jess Hernandez.
This past year, Jess Hernandez has become a very special person in my life. I value our friendship greatly, but I wish our paths had never crossed. We only met because Jess’s daughter Alithia Haven was murdered at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24 last year, along with 18 of her classmates and two of her teachers.
Immediately after the shooting I created a social media campaign in response, illustrating each of the victims. Scroll back in my Instagram to see.
Alithia’s dad, Ryan Ramirez, commented on my post about Alithia. The following day, I was listening to Anderson Cooper report on the tragedy. He interviewed Ryan, who described Alithia as an artist.
I drew Alithia again, as an artist this time. The inspiration for a picture book biography about Alithia popped into my head shortly after. I Zoomed with Ryan and Jess, who agreed to allow me to write and illustrate a picture book about their beautiful little artist. They told me all about Alithia, all about her exuberant spirit, her enormous heart, and her talent and drive to become a professional artist.
Many of Alithia’s drawings and paintings—all provided by Jess via email—are incorporated into my illustrations. (Click here to see a whole bunch of Alithia’s original art.) From the start of our email friendship, Jess has been open about what she has endured since the tragedy. For example, as you can probably imagine, Jess has a difficult time being around schools. She is triggered by elementary schools, but she has two small children and cannot avoid them. On top of this, she is terrified for the safety of her children when they are at school. Just think about that, about the daily stress this mother has to endure because of the trauma she suffered as a result of Alithia’s murder.
Jess has graciously agreed to allow me to share some of her own words:
Everyday has been a struggle for me. I’m always tired where I just can’t get out of bed, I cry everyday because just having flashbacks from May 24th and it just hurts me to know that my reality is every parent’s nightmare. I still can’t believe that this is my life now and that I lost Alithia because of gun violence. I always had my children close and made sure they are safe and I couldn’t save Alithia. People that say they want to be my support but they aren’t because when I bring up anything about my daughter and why she isn’t here they just ignore me, and that’s not support. This is my reality and people need to know there is no forgetting about it because it will always be with me.
Jess has often stated that she is broken and will never be the same—and she is one of a huge and growing group of family members left behind in America because of gun violence. I will never understand why Americans have not come together en masse to demand a common-sense solution to the VERY OBVIOUS problem of gun violence within their borders. The US is only as safe as the state with the weakest gun laws.
End Gun Violence
Jess has been creating art to help herself move through her grief, including this powerful “End Gun Violence” poster. Soon, Alithia’s Art Angels will host an End Gun Violence poster contest for all kids 18 and under. Gift certificates for art supplies will be awarded. Follow Alithia’s Art Angels on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter so you won’t miss the announcement!
On Tuesday, May 24, a gunman killed nineteen students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
The stories coming out of Uvalde are heartbreaking, sickening.
Single issue voters have recently proved their power. They play the long game, and get sh*t done. If I lived in Texas, I would make it my mission to vote certain people out of office. From now on, gun violence is my single issue.
CELEBRATE THEIR LIVES
I don’t live in Texas; in fact, I presently live about as far away from the US as possible (in Forest City, Malaysia). I’ve been wondering for days what I can do to help, and have come up with nothing but this: I will celebrate Uvalde’s victims through art. I draw kids for a living, and so I will draw the victims of America’s latest mass elementary school shooting, to celebrate their lives.
One of my favorite images from Babies Around the World.
A Family Affair
Written by Puck and published by duopress in 2017, Babies Around the World is special to me.
When kicking off the process of illustrating this charming book, I made some style samples. The publisher liked them all and told me to choose, so I called Graham into my studio and asked him to look over my shoulder. “Which one?” I asked. He pointed, and the rest is history. Since that day, I’ve illustrated several books in this fun, splashy style. But that’s not the only way that Graham helped!
My son also contributed a handful of architectural drawings, which I incorporated into the art for Babies Around the World. This was not our only collaboration, but alas, it’s our most recent. The little bugger grew up and into other interests. Color me gobsmacked. I used to say, “Hey kiddo, draw the Petronas Towers for me.” Ten minutes later, a freshly inked masterpiece would appear. IMHO the young man is a remarkable artist. He’s following his own path now though, studying law. (Again. Gobsmacked.)
I treasure every building my baby ever drew, including those featured in Babies Around the World. (He drew the lamp posts in the London illustration, above.) How incredible that Reader’s Digest included Babies Around the World in their auspicious list? And coming in at number four? Talk about gobsmacked!
Click here to peruse Reader’s Digest’s complete list, written by Molly Pennington, PhD. It’s a wonderful resource for anyone curating a home library for little ones.
To read more about how the art for Babies Around the World was made and see some of Graham’s drawings, click here.
And click here to order your copy of Babies Around the World. Make sure to read the reviews, they are great!
Yes, it’s true. My husband Fred and I were lounging on the couch watching clips from our favorite US late-night shows one night, and John Oliver got to wondering about the Pringles guy; specifically, what his body looks like.
Joe Biden had just been announced as the winner of the 2020 presidential election, and Jon was feeling good. Earlier in the show he dedicated 30 entire seconds to the marvels of the octopus. It was glorious.
So as we sat there enjoying all of this, my mind got to wondering about the Pringles guy, and somehow put it together with the octopus footage we’d just seen. I sat down to draw an octopus but then thought, Oh wait, I drew one of those for duopress’s 2015 book “Hello, Ocean Friends!”. I found the art, pasted a Pringle head from the internet over the octopus’s body, and voila: the Pringlepus was born.
It was miraculously easy. Five minutes after tweeting the thing to Mr. Oliver, I was alseep.
I woke to frantic e-mails from my agent, Mela. “Where are you? John Oliver wants to use this image! Is that okay?”
Is that okay? Oh, yes. How fun!!
Thanks so much, John Oliver. Not only for using my art in your clip, but also for your wisdom and clarity. Fred and I are huge fans. Love the show.
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