I used this week’s Illustration Friday theme to work on the areas I feel I am lacking in. I wanted to create a piece that looked like it could be a spot in an article about about thoughts or dreams, as I have almost no editorial-style art in my portfolio. I did it digitally, because I wanted to have a faster method than watercolor for potential magazine work, and my digital portfolio is a bit barren except for catbutts. I also tried to limit the color in it, both because I thought it worked for this theme, and because I tend to go freaking crazy with color which works better for kids’ work than editorial.

I’m happy with the experiment!

As I was preparing all my products for my Etsy and online shops, the photography was the most stressful part due to how mind-numbingly ignorant I am about the whole process. I bought a light tent (after going through 3 or 4 made of cardboard and tissue paper), read a bunch of forums, and finally began feverishly photographing all my items.  I was never remotely happy with the photographs of any of my flat products…especially the bookmarks. As you can see, they are washed out, full of glare, and in an odd angle. In fact, every time I looked at them I felt a bit nauseous.

Today I realized how silly I had been! With a large-format, super neat scanner sitting right there in the corner, why on earth was I messing around with white balance and tents?

So in about two minutes, I scanned all of my bookmarks, where they came out perfect with no tweaking at all. Hooray!

Old Photo

New Scan

UPDATE: Thank you for the Illustration Friday feature! I’m honored!

I’ve been working on a commission for a young kid’s room and I thought it would fit perfectly with this week’s Illustration Friday. The lion is playing a song which all the other animals are enjoying. A pretty innocent piece, for once

Inking watercolor illustrations has always been a frustrating experience for me, since I use textured paper and the pens invariably get stuck in every nook and cranny or else wobble over all the bumpy bits, making it look like I was drawing while hopped up on Pixy Stix… or worse (Jumbo Pixy Stix). One of my amazing professors at SCAD had talked to us about printing line art onto his pieces, then coloring on top of them, so I decided to see if it would work for watercolors by printing directly onto my Arches watercolor paper with my Epson R2880′s K3 inkset.

The results were perfect! Other than the fact that I printed the line art at an awful DPI, it looked just like the original and did not react to the water in any way. I don’t think this method would work with your average printer. You need one that can:

1. Handle thick, textured watercolor paper and
2. Print with archival, waterproof ink.

The Epson R2880 and the K3 inks fit the bill! Here’s the sample–

I chose some line art with large black areas as well as texture and open areas, to see how the paint interacted with each. Then I put on some color, and scrubbed certain areas to see if the ink came off. No problems! Now you can potentially ink pieces on deliciously smooth Bristol board, and transfer it to the watercolor paper without hyperventilating. And even better, you can draw it in black and color the lines digitally without having to sell your cat to buy every color and width of micron pen!  NEAT.

Try it out!

The SCAD Sidewalk Arts Festival was a week or so ago– and it has made me miss my SCAD friends terribly. I really wanted to go, but instead I took part in new Cyberwalk Arts Festival, for those poor souls like me who couldn’t attend the real thing. It involved drawing on a virtual sidewalk square with virtual chalk, and was actually pretty fun! Without being able to zoom in or out, change chalk size, or use more than 6 colors, it was quite a challenge.

I wasn’t expecting too much, as there were plenty of gorgeous entries, but I was lucky enough to win third place! Nobody notified me of this– I ended up discovering the fact on an obscure local newspaper web site. I have yet to discover what the prize is, but I’m hoping it’s something money-like .

Here’s my entry:

You can check out all the entries here. Make sure to check out Tran Ngyuyen’s piece–  she won first place and it’s pretty amazing!

I wrote a post a while ago about using Lulu to create a children’s book dummy. I was really pleased with the quality and affordability of my dummy book, so I’ve gone to Lulu for another project.

Chronicle Books is my favorite independent book publisher, and the third Monday of each month they are open for full portfolio reviews. I’ve been meaning to apply for months now, but I didn’t want to send in the usual Itoya black portfolio with letter-sized printouts. I love Itoya– just wanted a change, y’know? I decided to use Lulu.com again with the same options I chose for my dummy book. I set up this portfolio layout in InDesign, and ordered the book last week. It arrived pretty quickly!

I’m really happy with the quality of my new printed portfolio, and I’ll have no qualms about sending it in to Chronicle. I only wish I could swap out images when I have updates without ordering a whole new book!

If you’re interested in making your own portfolio book at Lulu, for reference I chose the paperback perfect-bound option in an 8.5″ square. I think the glue of perfect-binding looks a lot nicer than the stapled books. (And it costs the same.) You have to have at least 32 pages for perfect binding, but I found that using mostly one image per spread (16-20 illustrations) made the book flow nicely and not appear cluttered.

P.S. My printer arrived as scheduled and is AMAZING! I’ve been testing it out and will write more about it soon. Hooray!

I love October, and especially Halloween! I don’t know if it’s because of my heathen childhood or just the huge piles of candy and pumpkin seeds, but the whole month has always been my favorite.

I decided to get into the spirit by popping out a Halloween illustration featuring some mutant kitties. I couldn’t decide on the color scheme, so I kept a couple variations.

They are available as Halloween prints: Purple Version or Orange Version!

I find that creating digital illustrations is a good way to work through artistic blocks… with the paint bucket and a tablet I get instant gratification and I don’t have to deal with setting up a workspace or wonder how to successfully paint tiny bits and all those other traditional worries. Very relaxing.

In other news… I’ve made a rather large purchase (for me) of a professional printer of my very own. It should be arriving on October 6th, and I am super excited! I decided on an Epson R2880 for various reasons. I’ll write more about why once it arrives! (Soonsoonsoonsoonsoon!)

I’ve been working on some new notecard designs which I thought I’d post– some new fruit bats and adorable snails. I like to take a break from painting to work digitally sometimes, as I feel I can focus more on the lines and characters without having the watercolors overtake things. I’m also working on painting The Deer and the Snail. Hooray!

Where have I been? MOVING. It was hectic and awful, but it’s now all over and I am safely in Miami, Florida.

My blog updates have been woefully lacking, not just from the move but also because all the work I have been doing has been your basic logos and things– nothing too exciting! I do have a few sketches to show now, however. Heck, I’ll even show some of the less glamorous stuff I’ve been doing.

I’m working on a painting for a woman in Canada, for a baby’s room. It’s based on a Filipino folktale called “The Deer and the Snail.” It’s pretty much the Rabbit and the Tortoise… but with, you know, a deer and the snail. Snails are freaking awesome, so this will be a lot of fun.

Next up is another foray into international illustration. WTS Productions in Britain needed an update to their poster for “Father Christmas and the Magic Fir Cone.” A girl and the forest creatures discover a magical fir cone, but a nasty black cat and Baba Yaga want to steal it for themselves. Oh no!! I believe the story is based on a Russian folktale.

Like I said, I’ve also been doing a lot of pretty simple, quick jobs for people. This is the kind of bread and butter work I’ve been doing to practice various skills and just keep making money as I seek out the big jobs.

Mascot Design of girls with lollipops. This is my attempt at, um, “sassy.”

Green Goddess Logo, which is still in progress as the client is out-of-state.

Golden Beet Yoga Logo Design

Tattoo design – Client wanted a Meeple (from Carcassonne) riding a catfish in the style of those Koi tattoos you see all over the place. This was ridiculous and fun, and a good way to brush up on my Photoshop skills.

This was a really small painting for a client who wanted to “look toward the future” after some life issues. She wanted absolutely nothing weird in it, so it might not resemble my usual work.

I normally don’t ever buy art, because I don’t have a permanent home right now and buying original art is often a big investment. I couldn’t resist though, when I saw that Susie Ghahremani of www.boygirlparty.com was offering mini original art commissions! I’ve always admired her and her artwork for its consistency, simplicity, and the way she has branded herself in such a professional and successful way. Seeing all the new products she comes up with is so inspiring and keeps me motivated as well!

She posted about her new DRAWsome project via twitter, where she would be offering 3×5″ pen and ink commissions through her Etsy shop. The first batch sold out immediately, but I snagged one from the second batch. I wanted her to draw my pet cat “Kitten,” (yeah, original I know) because she is back with my Mom in Michigan and I miss her like a maggot misses dog poo. So I sent her a few pictures of the glory that is Kitten, and received this totally awesome work of mini art literally within the week!

Photo and art © Susie Ghahremani, her photo looks better than mine would have

She captured Kitten’s essense wonderfully… from her tufted ears to her rather manly frame, and her constantly-staring eyeballs. The best part is the portrayal of how Kittens tail got chopped off… YES! (Kitten disappeared on a 2 week hiatus, and returned with half her tail rotting off. It was literally held on by a miniscule bit of dead skin, so my mom– wait for it– cut off the rotting part with scissors. Susie did not know how the tail came to be removed, which makes the fact that she threw scissors in there even more awesome.)

Anyway, I’m delighted