Turkey...

My turkey!
He made it threw thanksgiving… Just posting late.
I like to paint things relating to holidays. During holidays.
Goodness, I feel like I’m in third grade.

In one of my old sketch books I found this hen with cakes and a shake on top . I absolutely remember drawing this. A few years back I went threw this weekly phase where all I drew were animals with random objects on their backs or heads. Things like, a bat and a paint can, an otter and a lamp, a panda and a watering can. You get the picture. I wish I had the time to do a series based on this. maybe someday.

Word Picture

When my cousin, Ashley, Came to visit, she asked me to do a piece just for her. I was happy to.
So, I asked her to look threw my old sketch books in order to get an idea of what she wanted.
I was surprised with what she chooses. In an old sketch book, I had filled the back pages with band names and songs I was listening to at the time. Just for memories sake.
I thought nothing of it. I don’t use any reference to texts. She decided she liked writing the best.
So I did this piece of all text, in black marker pens.
In order to keep it personal. All the words written describe her and her life,
(we came up with those together)
I’m happy with how it turned out, I do think its cute.
I mailed it to her in Florida (her home) and She put it in that little black frame. Aww.

Birthday Invitations- Turtle with gifts

A Freelance job I did recently, for a fan of turtles.

I purposely put the turtle in the lower right corner of the cards instead of centering him. I suppose this gives it that “ modern off center look”. ! .
They’re going to be used Birthday Party invitations.
Its important to me to be able come up with an image that both kids and their parents will like.
I decided to go with more muted colors since they seem to print
better on off-white-
which I knew I would be using for the cards.
Anyway I do hope I get time to work on my website.

This is the completed project
A pack of about 30 cards altogether ready to be sent out.

“Halloween Song” or a Halloween wedding painting

About a month ago my friend Liz asked that I do a painting. Liz was the maid of honor in an upcoming wedding. She commissioned the artwork, to give as a present. I finished this painting several weeks ago but have been waiting until after Halloween to post it. Believe it or not this is the first original painting I have ever sold. I have sold prints and cards, but never an original.

Illustration Process

Above is the original sketch
Below A Digital Color study

Studio picture

In the painting, a skeleton couple is playing a song on Halloween night.
The swirl hill in the background is homage to The Nightmare before Christmas. Liz did ask that I put something in the painting in relation to the movie. Although the groom skeleton is in a tux, I didn’t want to paint the bride in a wedding dress. So, I went with a peach and orange dress with stitches. A scarf and bow I added as a lucky “something blue”. (From the traditional wedding rhyme). A black rose bouquet was the last detail to the finished painting. Liz had the original art framed to give as a wedding gift.

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Congratulations and best wishes to Amanda and Matt.

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In Illustration News

On Saturday, the 10th I went to the SCBWI Fall Philly 2009 conference. It was very insightful. I showed my work to two artist representatives, who gave me some good advice. My next step is to start submitting to publishing houses and children’s magazines.

Five Animals, Giving Gifts

A few new illustrations.
These were all painted on watercolor paper, but I printed them on off-white card stock. These make up a greeting card series I’ve been working on, the theme is “Giving Gifts”. I love sitting down to paint a little character now and then. I choose to do a large turtle, boar, mule, lama and kangaroo. I didn’t make the kangaroo carrying flowers in a kangaroo tummy pouch . That wouldn’t go with the series, also it would not be fair to the other animals. !

Somewhat Example.

Animal play cards

Freelance work for Client.
Design for children’s play cards.
Done in Gouache acrylic.

These are Child information cards. ( I say they are business cards for kids ) Apparently this is a recent but popular trend for young mothers.

Llamas for a friend

This is a card I did for a friend.
I painted these llamas on white watercolor paper.

Below is an old acrylic painting I did a few years ago.

Somewhat similar.

Summer Trip

A few weeks ago I went across country to Seattle and Vancouver Canada.
I did end up falling on a mountain and broke my right ring finger (ouch it’s still so painful, 3 weeks later) other then that it was an awesome time. Here are a few pictures from my trip.

I got to see snow on my summer vacation.

A bunch of totem poles.

Really nice Canadian graffiti

Speckled Baby!

Cat Tummies!

A New Cat Inspired concept. Tee Hee. Hope the purple cat holds an “oh what did I just do” expression. The other two cats contently clean their paws.

The top version I painted First. Both were painted with gouache acrylic. However, with the bottom image I used more of a water color technique . (this I have been experimenting with lately) The colors are subtle but my outlines really pop out. That’s what I like.

This Second version I’m going to use in a greeting card portfolio I’ve been working on. I think this is a simpler version. These cats have no markings for a reason. I don’t want to distract from the tummies…They’re most important.

Mermaid

I’m slowly working on creating a new website. Above is the last piece I did wile at school. My version of a Mermaid has a seaweed tail rather than a fin.

Painted on a small wood panel. The edges I speckled with paint. Wish I could have got a better picture.

Dead Garden

The bottom image I painted a wile back,
The top i painted recently, it is the skull flowers as a bouquet with a red bow.

Everyone Ive showed these to says they would be great for Halloween.

Peter Rabbit, Images with text

I realized, I never wrote about my Paintings of Peter Rabbit. Here are my layout designs of the images paired with text. They were lay ed out in my portfolio like this. I decided on a simple layout style with text on one side and the image on the other.Then I did spot illustrations for the text pages. (I'm not really sure why, but I originally wanted them to be black and white.) I placed them either under or above the text. Finally I painted the borders for the text pages.

Heart, Rings and Swans

A wedding card, inspired by my cousins recent marriage.

Dinosaur Painting

This is from Last week. I'm making time to build a greeting card portfolio. I'll be sending out my work to several companies. The Papyrus company wants up to 20 strong pieces! That's so many more then i imagined. I loved painting the patterns on these dinosaurs. The T-rex makes me : ) but My favorite is the stegosaurus, I just like stegosaurusess s. I have another drawing of him in a fez. !

The Rum Tum Tugger Poem

The Rum Tum Tugger This is the poem online. I found it in the book, OLD POSSUM'S BOOK OF PRACTICAL CATS. The illustrations were done by Edward Gorey. My grams gave me this book some time ago.

Rum Tum Tugger

I screen printed this the last month i was in school. The cat is the Rum Tum Tugger from T.S. Eliot's cat poems. The Poem itself is to the right. I want to illustrate more of the poems soon. Ill probably be painting those instead, since i feel i am a better painter then i am screen printer. These poems are too funny, The cats names are the best part.

This was my first illustration job out side school. Above is the front art work for a invitation card for a 1 yr old's birthday. The only request was "cute animals" oh man. so purple monkey, elephant and alligator have a party. yaaay. More to come in a bit!

Missing Racer

"The Race" Piece I did last fall will be in my portfolio for sure. It will be a double page spread. My Portfolio book advisers allowed me to split the picture so "no ones head gets chopped off".

Anyway, I went back and was looking at my original sketches for the race and found the missing racer! I had a bison originally in the race.

He was cut in the final art : ( Most likely for a "less is more" reason or that the giraffe a little more attention. I remember it being hard to cut out this cute little guy. well, big, little guy. One day ill use him for something. Hes still a winner.

Post card Promotion

This image is from the peter rabbit book. Its the cover image.
The back holds my name and info and a ladybug on the move.

This is a template for one of the buttons i am making for Portfolio day. They have different color backgrounds, pink, white, green and i think that was all. I also Made penguin buttons and "sheep in bandana" buttons. The buttons are 1in, so they are tiny but that makes them cute. yay.

Hey

ok, Internet and Kaitlyn are on the level.