Post-Holiday Cards

Last weekend a fantastic friend of mine came to me with an idea. She and her husband had their hands full buying a new house over the holidays and weren't able to send out Christmas cards. Now that they are in and settled (and have an exciting permanent address!) she wanted to create a card that could function as a belated holiday wish as well as a notification of their new address.

They also have an awesome cat.

This is what I came up with for the illustration on the front of the card. The whole process took about 3 days and now we are excitedly awaiting the results from the printer.

I've been knee-deep in a few very serious projects, so having a quick fun diversion was a nice change of pace. Can't wait to see how they look printed!

Merry Christmas!!

Here I am, 10 hours before my flight to Michigan - packing, doing laundry and wrapping my last presents when I realize "I'M OUT OF GIFT TAGS!!!" Usually, this wouldn't be a big deal, but 90% of the boxes I am currently packaging up are the same size/shape and easily mix-up-able.

So I quick made up a sheet of tags (based off my Christmas cards this year) and figured I would throw them up on the blog if anyone else was in the same predicament.

Click here to download my 2012 Christmas Gift Tags!

I hope everyone has a warm and wonderful holiday!

Finish your present wrapping with free gift tags!

Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone has a restful holiday filled with many delicious cookies, much eggnog and the warmth of loved ones!

I am preparing to head to Michigan for a few days, but still have a long list of things to accomplish before I leave. One of these things is the dreaded wrapping of presents.
I still sadly possess the wrapping skills of an 8 year old and I tend to leave the wrapping of presents until the day (or a few hours) before I give them out. This combination generally results in some fairly laughable packages. This year, I decided to snazzify my wrapped gifts with some custom gift tags, in attempts to make up for the saggy corners and uneven tape that will undoubtedly be featured in all of my presents.

I added them to my site as well, so that anyone can download the tags and print them off. Simply download the .pdf (its pretty large) and print on any thick paper you like. I tried my Hahnemuhle Bamboo paper as it has a nice warm glow, but any cardstock will do just fine. Just cut around the dashes (or keep them if you like the way it looks) and voila! A set of custom illustrated gift tags.

The watercolor animal illustrations are also featured on my 2012 calendar from my Etsy shop :)

Happy Holidays everyone!!

From the Sea!

I've been on a sealife kick for a bit now. I suppose living down the block from the bay and being an avid aquarium fan will do that.

With the opening of my Etsy store, I've been trying to create more physical paintings that I might be able to offer for sale.

The painting on the left (Tentacles) sold recently, so I was hoping to make a few prints of it. Unfortunately, my love affair with gloss gel seems to have made this task rather difficult. The glossy brush strokes scan *terribly*. They look like little white hairs all over the image, and ruin the feeling of the painting. While it looks nice in real life, I may need to abandon the gloss texture I've come to adore if I want to reliably scan any new work.

The painting on the right (Octopus) is a work-in-progress shot, which will NOT have the thick coat of gloss gel. I had a professor at MSU who abhorred the use of gloss medium, and I may need to channel her hatred for it if I want to leave it out!

In other news, I am still working on The Sketchbook Project sketchbook. It is still in pieces scattered by my desk, easel and work table. The due date is quickly approaching, so I am going to need to spend some serious time finishing it relatively soon. I'd like to create a time-lapse video of the project too, but that will probably fall by the wayside as the holidays approach.

And speaking of the holidays, I printed my Christmas cards with moo.com again this year!

I love, love, love their paper stock. The outside has such a soft velvety sheen to it --- perfect for Christmas cards! I've got them up on Etsy in packs of 10 (with matching envelopes of course!).

With so many things to work on, I have been running around a bit crazy. In the words of my favorite Companion, "Eyes on the prey, not the horizon".

...and yes, Skyrim is amazing :)