Boys and Girls Club Illustration

I wanted to share this illustration I did awhile ago. My mom is on the board of directors of my hometown Boys and Girls Club, and I was lucky enough to be chosen to illustrate for their fundraiser this year. 

My illustration was featured on the invitation, envelope, and a signed print was auctioned off at the event as well. 

They are going to have a new artist every year which I think is a great idea, and fun for the artists in the community to participate in such a great cause. 

I hope your week is going well! 

Illustration Friday - Lonely

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "lonely." The mermaid idea just came to me.  Maybe she's the last of the mermaids and wishes she could join the people on the boat :0) 


With some help from commenters, I realized that I sometimes have a tendency to include too much of the background scene which takes away from the focus of the painting. 


So here is a more tightly cropped version of the painting:

Which do you prefer? 


Also, this is my 100th post! I feel great to have made it to 100, and I am still really enjoying blogging and the community of artists I have "met" through the blog. Thanks for reading! 

Illustration Friday - Carry

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "carry."  I had a bunch of thoughts for this one,  I went with the teacups because stacked teacups always seem beautiful to me. The bird idea came to me as I was painting. 

I did two things with this digital painting that make me uncomfortable, I included a person and went with a more "naive" style than a realistic one. I also played around a bit more with my digital techniques. 

Overall I like the whimsical quality of this one, and I'm glad I went outside of my own boundaries. I just have to remember that I'm not going to get better without practicing drawing people (duh!) and I should get over it not looking "perfect." 

Thanks for visiting, I hope you're having a great week! 

The Other Kind of Painting

My boyfriend and I are moving into a new place soon, and I've been picking out paint colors for the walls. I went to school for and worked as an interior designer so I'm not a stranger to picking paint colors, but it's definitely still a fun process! 

I was inspired to do the above illustration by the prospect of painting the walls. It's been awhile since I did a digital illustration. 


I'm going to try to work mostly digitally for the next couple weeks to try to get in some practice. I'm still working on getting a more natural/less digital look.

I saw this clutch at Kate Spade yesterday and thought it was very cute and worth sharing here :0) 

Illustration Friday - Suspend

Haha I'm finally back in action for Illustration Friday! This week's topic is "suspend." I was brainstorming hanging things and ended up thinking of a yoyo. 

It was also good opportunity to practice painting a hand/skin tones. I think this is the second time ever I've attempted skin in watercolor and it was just as hard as I thought it was going to be.

 I think my lighter color is okay but the darker area looks a little too brown. Anyone have tips for getting a good skin tone? 

Have a great Thursday! 

Moving

Hey there! I did a little watercolor to explain why I haven't been around much this week (and probably won't be around till next week). 

I'm moving my various art supplies into a real art studio! Yippee. Lots of work to do still to get settled. So I'll be back soon. 

I hope your week is going well!

Illustration Friday - Shiny

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "shiny." I thought of shiny hair and blowing bubbles so I decided to incorporate both ideas. 


This was my first time really attempting to do hair since I've gotten better at painting. It wasn't as hard as I built it up in my mind.  


On the other hand, the bubbles were a lot harder to capture than I thought they would be. I did many practice ones before doing them for real and they still don't quite have that shiny feeling I wanted. I think it might be something that is easier to capture in another medium, like digital. 


At the end of the day, I'm pretty darn happy with this one. I hope you like it too! 

Illustration Friday - Hurry!

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "Hurry!" 


I thought of watching an hourglass and hoping that the time would go faster. Sometimes the things you want in life are slow in coming to you (jobs, promotions, love, etc) and you just wanna yell hurry up all ready :0) 


I hope you can see that idea in the illustration. 


Have a great one! 

Illustration Friday - Faded

This weeks Illustration Friday topic is "faded."

My first thought when I thought of faded was ombré (cause I like it so much) and because today's my birthday I decided to paint myself an ombré cake. Here are some instructions in case you'd like to actually bake one.

I'm off to enjoy the day, have a good one!

Monsieur Notebook Review

I wrote about submitting an illustration to Monsieur Notebook awhile back, and am excited to tell you I received my notebook! 

It's my first mail from outside the US! This picture is closer to the color the journal actually is. 

Cute logo stamped in the backside. 

Inside page "Nom, etc" page (Name, etc). 

I sketched out some strawberries I was eating to test the paper. I was pleasantly surprised that the paper can take a light watercolor wash. It's a beautiful, slightly textured paper so I thought it might wrinkle with the watercolor but it held up nicely (although I don't think it could handle a lot of water). 


I was using my Faber Castell pens and you could see some of the lines on the other side of the paper, but not enough to be very bothersome. 


The leather cover is very nice, the engraving is beautiful and it seems like the journal will hold up for forever (which is good cause my purse destroys things haha). The cover is so soft that I can't keep from touching it when it's nearby. 


Final consensus: I really love this sketch book and will probably buy another one when I am done with this one. Thanks Monsieur Notebook!* 




*Monsieur Notebook sent me a free notebook for submitting my design, but did not ask me to write a review. I just wanted to share my honest thoughts about how great the product is. 

Illustration Friday - Sight

This weeks Illustration Friday topic is "Sight." After thinking of many different things I somehow ended up on a bit of a tangent with this magnifying glass. 

It helps Louise's eye sight when she reads old love letters. This one is from Carl, confessing his love for her. I had fun coming up with a story and writing the letter. I started out knowing that I wanted the "I love you" to be in the magnified area. 

I'm posting a bit late in the day because I got lost in the painting, forgot to eat lunch till 2pm (normally I barely make it to noon), and spent way way too much time on the stamp part of the painting. 

I typically spend too much time on minute details that aren't very important to the picture over all and I need to work on that. 

But the beauty of digital work is that I can zoom in and give you a close up look at the stamp: 

What do you think? Do you spend too much time on the details like me? 

Rose Ceremony

The season premiere of the newest Bachelorette was on tv last night, and I drew this on the Paper app while watching. If you don't watch the show, at the end of each episode they hand out roses to their choices, hence the rose drawing. 

I'm still experimenting with coloring with Paper. The color palette is very limited and the ability to layer paint is different with each tool. I colored the pencil sketch with the marker and then used watercolor and pencil on top of that in case you are using the app and wanted to know. 

The Bachelor and Bachelorette are the only reality tv shows that I still watch and really love.  I'm always hopeful that they will find true love, but I think most people enjoy the show for the awkwardness and drama haha. 

My favorite picks for Emily so far are Ryan (who does something with sports and children) and Charlie (who was in an accident prior to the show). Did you watch last night?

Merry Monday - The Best

"Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." - Henry Van Dyke

This was a pretty quick painting, but I really like how it came out! 

I love this quote, because sometimes I feel like if I'm not the "best" at doing something, it's not worth doing. That's a horrible way to think about things because there will always be people who are better than you at something, but that doesn't mean that your "voice" doesn't deserve to be heard. 

I encourage you to share your passion or craft with other people even if it's not what you think of as "the best" because they will probably love it :0) 

Have a great Monday! 

Illustration Friday - Jump

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "jump." After thinking about it for awhile this image came to mind. I think Goldie wants a nice summer beverage :0)  


I hope you like it! 

Illustration Friday - Heights

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "heights." I had a ton of random ideas in my head but didn't feel like most of them really communicated what I think of when I think of heights. 


At the last minute this morning this idea popped into my head of that second before you drop on a roller coaster. I am not a big fan of heights or roller coasters, so I tried to make the drop look extra terrifying (that's a bird flying below haha) to convey how I feel about the subject. 


I started sketching on my Wacom, thinking that I would do a rough sketch and then paint over it but I liked the look of it and kept going with the sketch. I added the paper background (it has schematics on it!) in to give it some more interest/texture. 


I hope you like it :0)

Illustration Friday - Puzzled

It's my first digital Illustration Friday! I had a hard time thinking of a concept for "puzzled" until I tried to park my car the other day, and had to decipher three different parking signs before figuring out it was safe to park there overnight. 

This is still a work in progress. I ran out of time and had to throw a background in there, but I think it would look nice to put in something less abstract. What do you think? 

Merry Monday

"When life hands you lemons ... make some sorbet!"

Here's this week's illustrated quote for you, although I don't know if it's an actual quote, I made up the sorbet part. 


Another "when life hands you lemons" ending I like is "make a gin and tonic." 


What's your favorite ending to "when life hands you lemons"? 

Illustration Friday - Vocal

This weeks Illustration Friday topic is Vocal. All I could think about is how my cat Lucy is very vocal when she wants something :0) 


I painted the cat, bowl, and the shadows and realized I might lose some of the fur texture when I painted in the background, so instead I scanned the image in and added the background in Photoshop. I think it looks kind of neat. I might go back and paint the background on the original, we'll see. 

Merry Tuesday

The day got away from me yesterday and I didn't get a chance to post my "Merry Monday" quote.  So here it is a day late. This quote is by Mother Teresa and I think it's a lovely one. 


I hope someone has kind words for you today :0)

Illustration Friday - Return

This is my entry for this weeks Illustration Friday topic "Return." I had a hard time with this topic, there's just too many options! I ended up thinking of the phrase "return to your roots," and this is what came to mind.

Now that I'm done with it I'm thinking I should have added some grass on the ground. I think there's too much brown. What do you think?

Next week my goal is to have my illustration done before Thursday!