Hey Annie! Whatcha Working On?

Welcome to our new series--Hey! Whatcha Working On?--where we check in with various 3 Fishies about their in-progress projects. 

Annie: States of Love

"I initially got started on this series after I had done lots of I Love You California bears, and thought: I’m going to paint Oregon because it’s our bordering state. It did well, and I decided in a moment of madness that I would to do all the states. I did ten pretty rapidly, then got a little sick of the project so I put it aside. But you can’t quit in the middle, because there’s always going to be people who want their favorite places.

Colorado was really broadly requested, and it’s finally done. My heart sank a little when I saw the state flower of Maine, because it’s the White Pine Cone and I thought: That’s going to be hard. Which it was (!), but I still really like how it looks and the colors that I picked.

When I did Vermont, I had already just done three in a row where it was a pretty pink little flower, so I did maple leaves instead, which was perfect. And I love Massachusetts, actually. I did the leaves more graphic-y, a bit screenprinty-looking, but I think it’s great.

How many states have I done? Let’s see: I have my map here… 19!

My aim is to finish 50, keep the originals, then eventually do a show with all of them (plus DC). I was on a schedule of about two a week, but I’m already falling behind. Sometimes I get discouraged looking at that fecking map, and how long it’s going to take to get there. But I should be done by next summer." 

Check out the full series here!