About

About

Winged Willow Press, established in 1998, is my small independent publishing house, under which I have published six books to date.

BOOKS AND CARDS FOR WOMYN

Through the years since my art first began to be published, many womyn have told me that when they saw my pen and ink drawings reproduced in a book, calendar, magazine, or journal, they wanted to add color to them, but didn’t.  They hesitated, I imagine, because we are all such “good girls” and do not color where we are not supposed to.

The two books in my coloring book series, The Coloring Book for Big Girls and The Second Coloring Book for Big Girls: Spirits and Goddesses, now give you permission.  In fact, they invite you on a journey, an opportunity to travel into yourself, to seek and discover the great wealth of creativity unique to each one of you.  With these books, there are no rules.  There are no limits, and most important of all—you do not have to stay inside the lines. (In 2014, I launched my coloring book app for iPad – Unwind Time: Coloring Books for Adults, Picture Books for Kids. You can color many of the pages from my printed coloring books, as well as new coloring pages exclusively available within the app, which you can download here.)

My Dreams & Shadows Illustrated Blank Journal offers even more creative freedom. Create your own beautiful artwork or capture your dreams, poems, and stories in this 200-page spiral-bound book which includes 50 pen-and-ink drawings of goddesses and empowered womyn to inspire you. Come, dance with your muse among its pages!

I fulfilled a longstanding dream when I finally brought Journey Cards: Multicultural Goddesses and Imagined Saints for Guidance, Epiphanies, and Revelations into the world in 2011. This deck of cards combines pen-and-ink drawings of goddesses that span my entire career with the paintings of my own, all-female canon of saints. Where are you in your journey? Let these cards illuminate your path! Each set includes 55 cards—19 full-color Imagined Saints cards and 36 pen-and-ink Multicultural Goddess cards—and a 132-page illustrated book with descriptions and interpretations of each Saint and Goddess, as well as suggestions for incorporating the cards into your daily rituals and life design. Wherever you are in your journey, the saints and goddesses inhabiting these cards will light your passage and empower you with grace, awareness, integrity, and strength.

NOTECARDS

With my Big Girls’ Coloring Notecards, you get artwork you can color and share! This set includes 8 cards (2 each of 4 designs) and 8 envelopes. The notecards are reproductions of 4 of my most recent original drawings in pen-and-ink and water-soluble graphite. I chose the heavy-duty cardstock to be well-suited for use with colored pencils, markers, crayons, water-soluble chalk–just unleash your passion for color and go where your imagination leads!

21st Century Renaissance Paintings by Sudie Rakusin. This set includes 8 cards (2 each of 4 designs) and 8 envelopes. These notecards are reproductions of my original, multi-media paintings on canvas. For each painting in this series, I begin with a stretched canvas, then cut and attach plywood covered in canvas to the frame to create an irregular edge. I build up the canvas with various media, including using papier maché to sculpt a flower that erupts out of the canvas or to create a shape to hold a crystal. A butterfly, feather, the stamen or pistil of a flower—you never know what is going to stand away from the surface of the painting. I maximize the interactive elements of the artwork by cutting holes in the canvas, creating pockets, and adding doors that open and close to hide some small, painted treasure. Finally, to finish off the piece, I add beads, crystals, glass, ribbons, fringe, LED or fiber optic lights, or the words of a favorite quote.

If you love the Journey Cards, you’re going to love the Chorus of Saints Notecards! The 8 notecards in this pack are chosen from the paintings I created of 19 female saints from my own imagination. Here you’ll find Sanctus Cumulus, the Latin Saint of Clouds; Sint Njozi Iliyopotea, the African Saint of Lost Dreams; and Santes Crwydrwyr, the Welsh Saint of Wandering; as well as their sister saints of snow, song, flowers, rain and tears, and winds and breezes. You can enjoy the full canon of my saints in my online art gallery.

 

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

The series Dear Calla Roo…Love, Savannah Blue came about from letters I wrote to my niece, Calla Ruth, from my Great Dane, Savannah Blue.  My sister, Amy, urged me to do something with the letters.  While I had never considered myself to be a writer before this project, I accepted the challenge of trying something new and have written and illustrated each book myself.  In December, 2007, I released the third book in the hardcover series and am working on a fourth.  The children’s books also include Savannah Blue’s Activity Book, a dual-language English and Spanish softcover book that offers children the opportunity to draw, color, and write letters, while practicing their reading skills in two languages. My children’s books are available digitally within my new app, Unwind Time, as well as from my website.

Dear Calla Roo…Love, Savannah Blue: a letter to a pen pal

Dear Calla Roo…Love, Savannah Blue: a letter about getting sick and feeling better

Dear Calla Roo…Love, Savannah Blue: a letter about my birthday

Savannah Blue’s Activity Book