Sketchbook fun

Sketchbook: Skaters

sketchbook drawing of a lil skate crew. this reminds me of my brother and his friends back in the day. I might color it in. As usual I love the line work as is and would be happy to leave everything as line. If you like seeing my sketchbook work you can see new creature themed sketches everyday on my instagram.

Sketchbook: Fancy Makeover

Vintage Christmas

Thinking ahead to the holiday season and working on some vintage inspired Christmas designs. I'm trying to be serious, preparing enough in advance to have some Etsy offferings ready in time for holiday shoppers. But what I'm most excited about is this bit of goofiness- old timey boy and girl with weird, incongruous rat dog. Anyone interested in having them on your holiday card? I didn't think so but, as they say, it never hurts to ask!

Tea Time doodle

I didn't have time for the last Lilla Rogers MATS Bootcamp theme "beverages" this month. I had some time to doodle yesterday and came up with this flowery tea time doodle just for fun. I love tea and prefer it dark and strong. PG Tips is my current favorite. How about you?

Ahoy! I'm now on Instagram / new nautical art

The June assignment for the super-fun Lilla Rogers Making Art That Sells Bootcamp was to create a piece of nautical wall art. I documented a bit of my hand-lettering process and will be sharing future process pics on my new Instagram. You can follow along here.

Here is my final illustration. A narwhal, the Unicorn of the Sea.

Sketchbook: Fairyland

These are my sketches for an illustration featuring fairies and animals floating around with some flowers.

Here is a snap of the painted illustration in progress. Now back to work...

Odds and Ends

My friend and talented stylist Trisha has opened her very own salon- Starship Salon. I am so excited for her.  The little guy above was my piece for a raffle benefiting Mercy for Animals, part of the grand opening party at Starship. A framed print of a wistful little creature I illustrated awhile back with hand drawn embellished background. I hope this little creature found a happy home!

Here are some bits and bobs and blobs waiting to be scanned. I'm not sure what is happening with these guys yet. Ghosts, deep sea creatures, a dog and a bat. That all totally goes together, right?  My new mantra in the studio is "don't be so literal." Hmm. perhaps I still need to catch up on sleep after Lilla Rogers class.

Snail Week

Working on snails this week. Here are some snail-doodles I did this morning. Snails jumping about in non-typical snail fashion.

Sketchbook Story: Esmerelda & the Bear-rat

Sometimes I'll make a little drawing and can't resist creating a story around it.  Excited by this drawing I had fun making up a little story stream of consciousness style. I was just doing this for fun but so enjoyed the process I thought I'd share a few pages and images here. 

Sketchbook: Yum, pie!

Sketchbook

Sometimes everything  just makes sense. I'll sit down, pick up a paint brush and a drawing just happens.

And then the drawing asks for a story. I love just following my nose drawing image after image and making up the plot as I go along. I'm going to start posting some of my one shot illustrated stories on this blog or my website as soon as I scan everybody in and find the best format for presenting these. Stay tuned.

Also I drew these illustrations on Yupo paper. This was my first time using Yupo. I like the way the watercolor glides over the smooth page.

Sketchbook: Acorn bowling

Sketch of some critters bowling with acorns and mushrooms. I'm planning to paint a version of this festive little scene. Maybe a even a story.

Swine