Happy Mother's Day!

I recently entered the Tigerprint Design Competition for designing a Mother's Day Card.  You could enter up to 5 designs.  I made 4  different cards and 2 of them made it to the shortlist which I was happy about.  I had fun doing this and I now have a couple of floral patterns to add to my portfolio.  I feel like these are a little generic, but once I figure out how to incorporate my illustrations and mixed media work in Photoshop and Illustrator, I think it will really add some nice dimension to my work.   I feel like I've come a long way, but I still have so much to learn!

More Faces

I just can't stop drawing faces and people!  I'm loving it! 



 Beehives,

 

Mustaches,

 

and dancing!

 

 

A Gentle Reminder....

Drawing faces

Make Art That Sells Assignment Bootcamp with Lilla Rogers is back this month.  Last month we had off while she did another class.  We received our mini assignment on Monday, faces and people.  I was very excited to see this.  I've been meaning to work on drawing people and figures.  I thought we would just look at a bunch of pictures of people and do some people watching, which of course is too straight forward for Lilla, instead she suggested we start by drawing vintage dolls!  At first this seemed a bit odd to me, but once I got started drawing them, I could easily see the value in it.  There is such a variety in dolls, from vintage pose dolls to kokeshi dolls, Bradley dolls and even homemade dolls.  This has been a wonderful way to explore drawing faces and experiment with it in my drawing.  If I were to draw instead from actual faces I don't think I would be able to open up and have as much fun.  This is a great way to play with the odd, quirky, beautiful and sometimes scary!
The first image is just lots of faces that are made up with a few that are pretty close to what the dolls faces looked like.  The second image is a fun doodle I did a few days ago of my own version of faces.

Cuckoo clock redo

I decided to redo my cuckoo clock girl that I did in MATS Assignment Bootcamp.  My original one was done as a collage but I wasn't happy with how it turned out but I still liked the girl and the idea.  My new version seems to "pop" more.  I also added a few coordinates to go with it.  I think I'd like to add some texture to her hat and maybe her collar but I haven't quite figured out how to do it correctly!



Here is the old version for comparison:

More Tea

This is my first attempt at trying to create a mixed media kind of piece in Photoshop.  I did this one while I was  working on my "Tea with Friends".  The background and roses are watercolor, the bird and tea cup are from tea bags and I scanned them in along with my sketches and this is what I came up with!  I had a lot of fun playing around with this and all of the textures.  So much to learn yet though, I know I've only scratched the surface!

Tea with Friends

A few weeks ago I went to my good friend Diane's house for tea and good conversation.  We have so many things in common and I always feel like we could spend the whole day talking and still have plenty more to talk about at the end of the day.  My friend Diane made some wonderful chai tea and served it in the cutest little aqua blue tea cups that rested on a matching plate and sitting on the edge of the plate was the sweetest little yellow bird.  The milk of course was poured from it's own matching container and then stirred with a little rose adorned tea spoon.  We talked for hours as we enjoyed our tea and sat on old wood chairs painted in a perfect lime green.  The time flew by and I was inspired by our morning together.

           "Tea With Friends"

I thought it needed some matching coordinates to go with it.

I kind of like  the teapots on white more, so I thought I would share it too!  I had a lot of fun working on this.

Jello molds

This month for Lilla Rogers Assignment Bootcamp we had to draw jello molds!  This subject took me completely by surprise.  It's something I would never have picked on my own, that's for sure!  I found this subject really hard and not very inspiring.  We had a week to work on our sketches and then last Monday we got the main assignment which was to use our sketches to make a design for bolt fabric.  I almost didn't do it, I wasn't feeling it.  The thought of skipping it this month just seemed to easy though, I knew I'd be mad at myself, but I couldn't find the joy in the subject matter.  I found that I didn't really enjoy drawing desserts.  I kept telling myself what Lilla always says, find your joy, do what makes you happy.  So I stopped listening to those little gremlins and decided to go for it, what did I  have to loose?  Even if I didn't like the results, I knew I would learn from it and grow.

Again I started out in Illustrator, but I didn't like where it was going, it was feeling too flat and way too digital, I then went to paper and started doing it in watercolor, but quickly I realized I didn't like where that one was going and went back to Illustrator.  I'm slowly figuring out Illustrator and Photoshop but it still is such a hurdle for me when it comes to developing my ideas.

On Monday Lilla posted some color palettes for us to try in our work, muddy pinks, purples, neutrals, acid yellows, to push ourselves and go beyond our comfort zone.  My current colors weren't working well for me so I gave hers a shot and I feel it is what made all the difference in my piece and actually made me feel excited about it.





I'm very happy with the results and how it looks.  A dark grey background is very different for me and I NEVER use purple, that was a hard color for me to work with but I ended up using it on the main character!

Here it is as a repeat:




I'm working on some coordinates to go with it, which is super fun to do.  I'm really enjoying learning Illustrator and Photoshop, it's getting a little bit easier, but I have so much to learn yet.  I want to figure out how to incorporate my mixed media work, but my skill level hasn't allowed that yet.  I have to remind myself to be patient, it will happen.  

MATS Bootcamp

Last year I took Lilla Rogers "Make Art That Sells A and B"  online courses.  This was the best online course I've ever taken.  It was such an intense and inspirational course.  The course was loaded with information on making and licensing your artwork, wonderful videos with her artists and herself.  Each week we got a mini assignment on Monday, the main assignment on Wednesday with the final due on Sunday.  This was what really made this class rock!  I've never worked so hard on my art ever.  Tons of sketching, researching, pushing my limits and brainstorming in a short amount of time.   Lilla is an amazing teacher.  After watching her videos and reviews I would walk away feeling more inspired and confident.  She really knows how to get the most out of her artists.  The Facebook community that came from this has been such an inspiration and also a wonderful source of information and support. 

I was pretty sad when it came to an end, but then came Lilla's  MATS Assignment Bootcamp, yeah!!!  It started at the beginning of February.   Bootcamp is for 6 months with an assignment a month, (a much easier pace).  We get our mini assignment the first week, main assignment the next week and then it is due in 2 weeks.  We get a week off in between.  It doesn't have all the class content like the other course or reviews, but she does include color trends and other inspirations.  When the assignments are finished we upload them to her online gallery for everyone to see.

After taking MATS A and B I decided I really needed to learn Photoshop and Illustrator, so I've been watching lots of tutorials on Lynda.com.   It's pretty overwhelming the amount there is to learn and how long it is taking to figure things out.  I'm finding Illustrator easier for me than Photoshop.  It can be so frustrating because I know what I want to do in the programs but I don't know how to do it.  Sometimes I just want to throw in the towel but then I realize how bad I want to learn them and I keep going.

The first assignment for Bootcamp was to design a cell phone cover for the gift market using our cuckoo clock sketches from the week before.  I was so thankful to have 2 weeks, because I really needed it!

I initially tried to do it in Illustrator but my sketch looked so generic that I gave it up and went to what I know, collage.

I liked this piece,  but I couldn't get it to look right on the case and the colors weren't quite right and wasn't feeling how I wanted it to look.  The birds and hearts are supposed to be more pink.  Here they look red even after some color tweaking.

I then decided to give it a go in Photoshop.  I'm not sure why since I barely knew what a layer was when I started, let alone try to color a piece of artwork in it!   I surprised myself with what I was able to do, but it didn't turn out quite like I wanted it to.  Once I learn more I would like to revisit it and try again.  I like it, but I didn't get the pop of the colors that I wanted.  It's soo close though!

 

I was going to submit this one, even though it wasn't quite how I wanted it.  I had spent so many hours on it but felt like I was at a road block with my level of skill.

I had a lot of fun with the cuckoo clock theme and playing around in the programs so I decided to use some of my simpler sketches and create a design.  So Saturday evening I worked away in Illustrator and came up with a design that I liked even better and ended up submitting it the next day.  I'm a lot happier with this one, it feels cleaner, the lines are fresh and the colors are playful.  This was how I wanted my little girl to look, but my skills aren't at that level yet to where I can do it. 

 

 

And now with a week off,  I'm going to use it to watch more tutorials!