Sometimes it takes awhile for search engines on a site, and Google, to gain traction on anything one posts, especially during any holiday. Even though this art was created for last year's Valentine's Day, it's my best selling Valentine's Day card this year. I tea stained watercolor paper, then painted my design on top using watercolor and gouache. It was one of my favorite illustrations to create. Click on the image below to see it in my store. The card is also relation specific for a variety of family members and friends.

Took my iPhone time lapse feature out for a test run tonight while I was sketching a little visual that was in my head while sitting at the kitchen table. I created it with a pen on a white paper napkin. I should have filmed on the horizontal, and I sorely need an iPhone tripod. Holding the phone in one hand and drawing with the other was not the best situation which is quite evident here. ;-) For some reason this has posted on the horizontal even though it was filmed vertically. I'll get it together for the next one. 

Things have gone from quiet to completely crazy around here. Son shipped off to college, and husband is busy back in the studio which gives me way more time to create. I'm finally ahead on my holiday designs. I'll be heading into Christmas and New Year's designs shortly. In the meantime, I just received Design of the Day over on Greeting Card Universe for my Halloween Lab and Shepherd card. I'm having a great time designing products over on Zazzle with them. Couldn't resist posting this tasty treat available on my Zazzle store. Perfect for a Halloween party for dog lovers, but maybe just too cute to eat. Enjoy the last days of summer. Before you know it, we'll be stuffing our faces with treats like this only with holiday designs on them! Click on the picture to be sent to where the treats await.

Every now and then a wonderful new product catches my attention. This time it's these wonderful, refillable markers with gradient tones. Check out their promo vid ...
https://www.facebook.com/ChameleonPens/videos/p.646365152175070/646365152175070/?&theater

It's that time again for the Twitter Art Exhibit! I think I may have missed last year's, but I'm in it again. A brilliant brainchild of artist David Sandum, the exhibit is held in Moss, Norway, and reaches far and wide for postcard sized art donations from artists around the world. They sell for around $35, and all proceeds benefit a charity in Moss. The organizers work tirelessly logging in and hanging all the art. As you can well imagine, it's a huge undertaking. I chose to do the art on Arche's watercolor paper using watercolor and watercolor pencils. I worked differently this year, making the art larger than the postcard size, scanned the art so I can use it for other things, and then cut the art to the size needed for the exhibit. It's a wonderful event, and I feel the participation is so high because of the size of the art, the cause, and David is such a lovely person. I wish him much success with the exhibit!

My "Cupid Cats" card was picked for "Design of the Day," yesterday, on Greeting Card Universe. Already selling the minute it was uploaded, there are many relation specific versions of this card. I enjoyed creating this art starting with a tea stained background on watercolor paper then continuing on in watercolor.
Click on card for more information.

There was someone who posted recently about her steps in the creation process for art licensing. I thought it was an interesting post, because I assumed we all did it the same way. But just like cooking, the basic recipe is there, but all cooks have their own take on it. I'm a big fan of traditional art, but love to enhance it in Photoshop, so I always start out with a traditional hand drawn illustration that starts in my generally whimsical mind. Compared to art created in the time of the dinosaurs where any little change was cause for a totally new illustration, or patching the art, Photoshop opens up the possibilities to so much more, and makes the creation process so much easier, especially when it comes to client changes.

So in light of "the process," I thought I would show how I come to the final art. Below, is my original watercolor for a custom photo card I designed for Christmas. After it was scanned and cleaned ( because I can be a total art pig ), I felt like it needed more, and the style in which I drew it had a very vintage feel. Knowing that "Vintage" anything is a trend right now, I looked through my purchase of "Lil Owls" backgrounds, and found the perfect vintage floral pattern to place over the art. It was just the perfect touch the art needed.

Then the card was made into a PNG file to enable the buyer to add their own photo to the front of the card.
It went straight to my Greeting Card Universe store which made it available immediately. You can visit it there by clicking on the card below. Onto another card.... do you think kids still like to color? I think so, and had that in mind for my next Holiday card.

It's Halloween time ( already ) and thoughts of Pumpkin bears are dancing in my head, along with some candy corn and gnarly looking crows! I've just created some new products on my Tuna Baby store that your little ones may love. The great thing is that many of them are customizable. Check under the store category "What's New" and under "Halloween" for other designs. Click on the pillow below to get to the store. See you there!

Yikes! I did miss a month of posting? Did you notice? Is time really going that fast? In the last month I've finally figured out what you all probably know how to do - layer beautiful backgrounds onto my hand drawn art in PS. Took me long enough, and I was never really sure how it would work with my art, but to my complete happiness, it has added a richness I never thought possible. I personally don't see myself creating vector art anytime soon because I'm so attached to the traditional mediums where there's nothing between my hand and the paper. Every nuance is in a line to me that creates expression, which is integral to what makes my characters come alive. I don't approach my art in a mechanical way; it's totally an image I drag from my heart. I had a really fun time with this image created on ( of all things ) marker bond paper. The paper I would comp all my layouts on in the ad biz days. I used marker, colored pencils, and smeared in a little pastel. I think the mixed media combo yielded a wonderful, deep, colorful illustration. Check it out on my card store ( click on the card ). I've also created a series of relationship specific cards for Halloween of this design which will be appearing on my Greeting Card Universe store later tomorrow. Thanks for popping in!

Just like a food loving messy cook in the kitchen with food splattered everywhere, I'm an art pig with art supplies strewn across my table, especially when I'm working in different mediums. No matter what I do, I just can't keep it organized. I think it would slow down my creative process. But just like cooking, we all approach creativity differently, and that's what makes it so interesting. I've created three pieces of art tonight. If I could keep up this pace, I'd be doing pretty well. As far as my paintings go, that's a different story; those have to percolate ( as my artist friend puts it ). Or "ferment" as another artist I know says. Just glad to know that I'm not the only one that has paintings sitting on easels ( or floors ) forever!