Floyd

My latest reduction print was inspired by Jenn Ski's handsome cat, Floyd. I used one 4" x 6" "easy cut" block and Akua inks. The white areas were cut out first, and then I printed the light orange tones, followed by layers of deeper orange, green, and brown. It's a labor-intensive medium as compared to making a drawing and adding watercolor, as I usually do, but I really enjoy the process and the unique qualities of a print.

Cultivate

Eep! I have been so busy I neglected to post yesterday! I have had my nose to the grindstone editing images for my website (expected to be up and running by May 1) and preparing for an upcoming NESCBWI conference and a teaching stint. Also, last night I was invited along with three other colleagues Alexandra Endsley, Alissa Hendricks, and Laura Dorson to present work and speak to Glenna Lang's portfolio prep students at SMFA.

Even though I'm asked to present, it's always a learning experience for me. Listening to my former classmates, I gain insight to their styles and the types of work they do. I get to know Glenna's students and the markets they are interested in. Usually I get to participate in a critique of a current assignment which allows me to see student work and approaches to solving problems.

I also learned about Slow Food USA--the antithesis of fast food and factory farming. Hallelujiah!

One valuable aspect of Glenna's class is that student's have the opportunity to complete "real world" assignments. In other words, there are opportunities to get work published. Occasionally there are paid assignments, but often the work is pro bono, usually for worthy, non-profit organizations like Slow Food USA.

And so, I had this sketch above that I had done for Illustration Friday's prompt "cultivate, " but never posted. It was done from photo reference and I hoped to take it a step further. I think it works for this post, though.

Here's to cultivating healthy plants, animals, and ecosystems. Here's to cultivating informed and influential creatives.

Shameless Self Promotion

Hi Everyone! For the past several months (well maybe more) I've been working with a new invitation company, creating birth announcements, party invitations, wedding invitations, and everything in-between, called Look Love Send. It has been an exciting process and I've learned a lot, and had a great time using my art - and they are almost ready to go live! Our launch date is May 1st, but if you go to our website now and sign up for the mailing list, you'll get 20% off your first order... what a deal! Go now! What are you waiting for?! You can also read about the designers involved, and see whats coming soon. Yep, thats one of my baby collections thats on the splash page.

Here are a few sneak peeks of some of my baby stuff.

Final Projects

Another late post from yours truly. I apologize. Aside from working full time, I've been using every second of my day to finish all my portfolio pieces for class. The end of the semester is coming up fast. This should be very good news. However looking at the workload ahead of me, it feels ominous.
Tonight, I just wrapped up working on the design for a 3 CD set. The artist is my best friend, a musician who is currently living in Seattle. He's a singer/songwriter and pianist. I just sent the work off to my teacher for a critique. If you have any feedback or suggestions in the meantime, it would be much appreciated. I think that I've reached the point where I can't even judge my own work anymore. Here are my layouts. I had to shrink them down quite a bit, so the colors are looking off and the images are grainy. But I think you get the idea:

First CD

Second CD


Third CD

Can't wait to return to the living and see you all again once I graduate!!!

Betrayed with Color

As I mentioned on my blog, I found some time to play with my style a bit today.  I wanted to draw a more serious, intense image with an older subject.  I love drawing kids, don't get me wrong, but it was a lot of fun working on this illustration.  I'm not sure what this guys story is, but I may need to spend some more time exploring it.

In my sketch piece of paper I found between a recipe and note from school

I wrote up a post for this blog but accidentally sent it to found marbles my other blog instead (go check it out!). This is from an illustration Friday prompt and many moments in my house this morning.

Work in progress

I am currently working a new Spring header for my blog. Hopefully it will be finished and up before the weekend is over. I guess it's time to start thinking about my garden, and what kind of flowers I want to plant this year. Fortunately, most of the flowers around our house are perennials, so all I have to do is watch them grow.

In My Sketchbook

Above is a sketch for Illustration Friday's "duet."

I did a few other sketches after my initial sketch which you can see below (middle image). It's always difficult (maybe impossible) to reproduce the feeling of the original sketch.

Subsequent sketches always feel a bit stiff to me:

What are your thoughts on this? How do you resolve this?

In my sketchbook

Inspired by last week's Illustration Friday topic of "Stir" (or was it the week before?) I've been working on a little sketch. For the color version I'd like to incorporate the phrase lunch time into the soup.... I think this will be a good new portfolio piece.