Weekly Snaps

Haha I just realized that most of these are pictures of food. Really really yummy food, can you blame me? 

I did that sketch of the Golden Gate bridge on Sunday when it was the 75th anniversary on my Paper app on the iPad. You can see the full version on my twitter here. 

I'm a little behind on making a June calendar background for you, but will hopefully be back tomorrow with one! 


I hope you have a great weekend!

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!

Fresh Air Painting - St. Patricks Church

I brought my new journal to the park yesterday and did a plein air watercolor painting of St. Patricks Church in San Francisco. It was a great day for it, and there were lots of people laying in the grass enjoying the sunshine. 

I've always wanted to do more public sketches or paintings, but felt self conscious about it. A couple of blog posts* I've read lately encouraged me to give it a try. 

At first I felt weird and tried to hide my drawing when people walked by, but when I started painting I couldn't do that and I started to feel more comfortable. 

I just have to remember that people are curious and are most likely not critiquing my painting when they look over :0) 

* Art by Wiley,  Muddle on Through, and Everyday Treats have great posts about drawing/painting in public. The Everday Treats one is particularly inspiring because her son was so amazed with a women painting in the park that he came home wanting to be an artist. 

I hope your week is going well! 

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. 

Weekly Snaps

Some snaps from this week. 

I hope your long weekend plans are exciting! I don't have any big plans yet, but I'm sure there will be fun to be had. 

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? 

Worth the Dough - Birthday Wish List

My birthday is next week, so I thought I'd put together a quick wish list. 

Links:

iPhone lenses

Arches watercolor paper 

Drawing book

Bracelet 

Instax camera

Washi tape

Shoes (the neon ones are cute too!)

Earrings 

What's on your wish list right now?