About Us
AstrologyBabies characters and products are created by artist Marian Buchanan.
“Who in the universe is Marian Buchanan?”
Photo credit: John Kirnan
Well, I guess, for one thing, I'm someone whose mind boggles at that very question. But I'm guessing you want to know more about what else I've done that relates to the AstrologyBabies, and how I came to create them in the first place. Let me break it down in terms of a few different themes:
Art
I sometimes call myself an artist because I've always loved to create, since I was a kid. In fact, I thought at that time that what I wanted to be when I grew up was a children's book illustrator. I have indeed illustrated two published children's books, but what I really prefer is making my own creations rather than illustrating the stories of others. So that's why I've recently been focusing more on projects like the AstrologyBabies.
Astrology
I first became interested in astrology during my teen years, mainly in the process of exploring self-identity. I was also just really interested in symbology, partly from an artistic perspective relating to imagery.
My interest was then piqued a little further by an encounter with someone who accurately guessed my Sun Sign without hesitation based only on what little he could see of my attitudes and behaviours in the few hours since we'd met.
But what intrigued me even further still, was when I decided one day to amuse myself by tallying up the Sun Signs of all the people I knew, and realized there was a definite pattern of Signs that were abundant among my friends, and other Signs that were totally absent. Upon investigating further, it turned out the most frequent Sign on my list was the Ruler of my chart's House of Relationship. Hmmm... I wondered...
If you'd like to see more of my thoughts on the topic, I invite you to read my Astrology Category blog posts, including one called What's the "right" way to look at astrology?
Kids
Combining art with my interest in astrology wasn't the only thing that led to the AstrologyBabies, though. I'd already created a line of artwork that illustrated the 12 Signs of the Zodiac in terms of the different Astrological Energies. But it wasn't particularly kid-friendly.
Since my interest is also in illustrating specifically for kids and their parents (hence the idea of children's books, and another recent project: Kids and Caboodles), it makes sense that a line of Astrology Art created in a cute, kid-friendly style, would tap on my shoulder and request to be made. It seemed like something I'd enjoy creating, so here it is - ready for you to enjoy!
- Marian
