Sweet Dreams, Fairy

Although, I mentioned it on Facebook last week, I forgot to post here:  Sweet Dreams, Fairy was released last week!  This is another personalized book and suite of coordinating products that I illustrated for Chronicle Books last year.  

Here's a look at it on their website, all waiting for you to personalize it:  

This time, the main character can be fully personalized, including skin tone, hair color and dress color.  These new options have also been added to the princess book that was released last year.

Sweet Dreams, Fairy is one of my favorite projects to date but then I think I say that about everything that I'm working on, when I'm working on it.  But you know, I get such a kick of out drawing fairies, so this one was seriously great fun for me.  

Here's my favorite spread from the book:

And here's the wall art, another favorite piece of mine.  I love these colors!

If you're interested in ordering, head on over to Chronicle Books to get started with the personalization process.  

Farm Animals Collection

I just finished up this cute Farm Animals collection yesterday.  I've really been working this year on beefing up my licensing portfolio and this is part of it:  

At the moment, you can find prints and sticker sets featuring these four illustrations over in my shop.  I think of the four, the cow is probably my personal favorite.  

I'm on a big animal drawing kick lately so expect more themed animal illustrations to be popping up in the future!

Oink!

I'm bouncing back and forth these days, working on my illustration portfolio and my licensing portfolio as well.  Right now, I'm working on a farm animal collection for my licensing portfolio that will also be making an appearance in my shop as nursery art prints.  Here's a look at the first finished illustration:  

Bookworm

Hey, look at what I just finished drawing:  

I challenged myself on this one to jump outside my color comfort zone, to try something a tiny bit darker in color and I'm quite happy with the result on this one.  Our little bookworm looks quite cozy, don't you think?  

If you're interested, prints can be purchased here.

Have a lovely weekend!

Daily Pattern: Weekly Update

Still trucking along on my daily patter project, although I'm not doing so well at remembering to post my patterns.  Oh well.  Here are some recent patterns I've designed:

I usually create most of my patterns in Photoshop, using bits of illustrations that I've worked on.  See that whole group in the middle?  Those coordinate with the Woodland Friends illustrations I just finished.  

But the two on the bottom?  Those are my very first patterns that were created entirely in Illustrator.  And honestly?  I'm already kind of hooked on making patterns that way.  It's quite a bit easier than Photoshop and hopefully it will come in handy at some point, knowing how to make repeats in both Photoshop and Illustrator.  

Portfolio Update: Farmer Bunny

I just finished working on some Farmer Bunny portfolio samples this afternoon, still playing around with a slight departure from my usual style--although, honestly, it's more of a return to my style of a few years ago really.  Anyway, Farmer Bunny, here he is:  

These are portfolio samples so they won't be appearing my shop.  If by chance you'd like prints of these three illustrations, you're welcome to contact me for pricing info and ordering.  

Shop Update: Woodland Friends

I just realized that is has been almost *four* months since my last shop update.  This year is really getting away from me!  I'm fixing it right now though as I just finished a Woodland Friends shop update a few minutes.  The bunny, chipmunk, raccoon, and squirrel illustrations that I worked on last week are now available as prints, stickers, bookplates and writing sets.  You can find them all here.

Hopefully, shop updates will be occurring a bit more often in the future!  

Bunny

What a great way to end the week, finishing this cute foursome of illustrations!

I'll be doing test prints over the weekend and will have these in the shop early next week as print and maybe a few other products too.  Have a good weekend!

Squirrel

Just finished up this squirrel illustration last night so the chipmunk and the raccoon have another buddy.  Funny thing about this one, when I was working on it yesterday afternoon Photoshop crashed as I was saving, so I ended up losing a couple of hours of work.  Naturally, I was pretty miffed at the time but after I redrew the lost parts, I was actually much happier with the finished piece.  So in the end, it was a good thing that I lost what I had been working on in the afternoon!  

Next up, I'm working on the 4th and final illustration in this set, the bunny.  I should have these prints available in my shop sometime next week, maybe as stickers, bookplates and stationery as well.  

Chipmunk

I just put the finishing touches on this chipmunk illustration this morning.  A squirrel and a bunny are in the makings as well and all four woodland illustrations will be available in my shop soon!

Daily Pattern: Weekly Update

This week, I managed to get back in the swing of daily pattern creation, mostly using bits and pieces from illustrations that I've been working on.  Here's a look at a few of the patterns I designed:  

Garden Fairies: Looking Back

When I recently when on a crazy back-up-every-piece-of-art-you've-ever-made-spree, I spent a lot of time browsing through art I've made over the last few years.  From the really awful stuff that I'd be embarrassed to show to anyone right up to the most recent stuff, it was a bit of a trip down memory lane.  

And I realized the funniest thing, which is that the work that I love the most isn't usually the work that sells the best in my Etsy shop.  And the work that sells the best in my Etsy shop isn't necessarily the same work that piques the interest of art directors, publishers etc.  It's a strange conundrum, really.  

For example, this little set of four Garden Fairy illustrations:  

I drew these almost exactly three years ago and for me they were a bit turning point in finally, FINALLY, finding my own style as an artist.  I've lately found myself, more and more, working back towards this style but perhaps in a more sophisticated way.  

Anyway, I loved these fairies when I first illustrated and still love them very much today.  But when it comes to my Etsy shop, these prints have never been big sellers for me although I've found a bit of success selling them as stationery or stickers, etc.  

On the flip side of that, I've gotten more freelance illustration work stemming from these four illustrations than from any other illustrations I've created so far.  Crazy, right?  

So really, I'm just writing this to remind myself to just make art that I love, first and foremost.  If it doesn't sell in my shop, who cares?  Maybe it will find some other way out into the world.  If not, who cares?  Stop second guessing and stop trying to figure out exactly what customers and potential clients want to see.  As long as I'm still loving the work that I'm doing, then I'm happy.  The rest of it will just follow from there, it always does.

Farmer Bunny

After a few weeks of sporadic stumbling and erasing and redrawing, I've finally  managed to nail down this Farmer Bunny character that I've been tinkering around with.  And just in time for spring too!  

I'm continuing to challenge myself to not rely on line art and to create my illustrations with bold shapes and am quite happy with the results.  

On the Drawing Board

I haven't exactly been on my game this week but I did manage to squeeze out a bit of art.  Here the single pattern I worked on for the 365 Pattern project:  

I have a tendency to be really hard on myself if I don't produce what I feel like is *enough* art each week.  When making art is how you make your living, it's easy to set crazy expectations for yourself; at least it is for me.  

And this week was a week where I struggled quite a bit.  But after the struggle, I popped up some sketches for a new collection of illustrations.  I'm sure my licensing agent who hasn't heard a peep from me in 2 months is pretty happy to hear that.  And for those of you who frequent my shop, you'll be happy to hear that these will be available as prints too as soon as they are finished:  

Have a good weekend and  a Happy Easter!

Cats and Dogs

More cute kid illustrations, this time with cats and dogs:

Personally, I'm a more of a dog person than a cat person.  I don't know, I love kittens and maybe even love the idea of a cat, but then there's all the cat hair and the whole litter box thing and it's just all down hill from here.  Nope, I'm definitely a dog person!  But even so, I still kinda love drawing cats.  

Daily Pattern: Weekly Update

Spring is still holding out on us.  We're actually expecting a bit of snow on Sunday/Monday which is just disappointing.  

I'm honestly a bit down in the dumps about it and would really love a nice, warm, sunshine-y day to arrive soon.  But in the meantime, I'm keeping myself amused by drawing lots of spring-inspired patterns and illustrations.  

Here's a sampling of patterns from the last few days:  

Click on the patterns to view a larger version

Hello Spring?

I'm all ready for spring but I guess winter isn't quite ready to give up yet.  It's been windy and chilly all day, so I drew myself some more spring flowers to cheer up with:  

I'm still having a lot of fun playing around with this flat, graphic sort of style, so expect to see a bit more of it too!

Draw This Draw That: Spring Flowers

Happy Tuesday!  I just launched a new Draw This Draw That workshop, which you can find here.  In this one, you'll learn how to draw seven spring flowers.  

Even though our weather has been decided up springlike for the last few days, the sight of the first daffodils and crocuses and hellebore blooming gives me a bit of hope that spring isn't too far off.  So of course, I thought that Spring Flowers would be an appropriate how-to-draw topic this time.  

Here's a glance at the seven doodle flowers you'll be learning:  

Happy Doodling!