Today is my first official day at work for 2012. Both kids are in school and I’m sitting in the library’s teen section, where it’s typically quiet all day. The seniors stay out of here and the children’s library (with the occasional screaming toddler)–is tucked away downstairs.

But I need a little help getting motivated again. And it’s not just because they moved my favorite table away from the window. I’ve been hanging out in my jammies for two weeks! It’s tough to get moving again when you’ve gotten used to being stuffed in rainbow flannel.

Maybe you need motivation, too. Well, you’re in luck. I roamed the stacks when I first got here and found the lovely “Artist to Artist”, a collection of children’s illustrators talking to children about their art. And here are some get-up-and-go gems I found inside:

“When people look at my work, they often say, ‘Your picture is so good. I can’t even draw a straight line.’ I think everyone can learn to draw. The important thing is to keep trying, keep drawing.” ~ Alice Provensen

“If I have an unusual gift, it’s not that I draw particularly better than other people—I’ve never fooled myself about that. Rather it’s that I remember things other people don’t recall: the sounds and feelings and images—the emotional quality—of particular moments in childhood. Happily an essential part of myself—my dreaming life—still lives in the light of childhood.” ~ Maurice Sendak

“The most important thing in the whole of life is to love what you do. If you want to be an artist, don’t draw from movies and television. That’s something someone else has already imagined. Draw from your life. Draw all the time. Expect to be different from other kids, because if you are an artist, you are different. Sometimes it’s hard to be different. Sometimes it hurts when people don’t understand you or laugh at you for not being cool enough, but stay the course. Believe in yourself. Believe in the paintings and drawings that come out of your mind and your hand.” ~ Rosemary Wells

“Your ability to see and respond sensitively to the beauty of the world around you will, in turn, be transformed into the ability to create art that other people will find to be beautiful. As long as you have this visual sensitivity, you will discover that the actual techniques you need for drawing good pictures are very easy to find. They are within you.” ~ Mitsumasa Anno

“Making pictures is how I express my truest feelings, my truest self.” ~Eric Carle

“In our earliest years there’s no how? to our plunge into art. The doing gives the answer. There is no one way. Your work is original and there is no end to the adventure…HURRAH!” ~Ashley Bryan

So get moving, friends. Keep doing what you’re doing. There’s joy for you and joy for the children who read and view your work. Joy to the world!