My Book is for SALE: The Zoo's Annual Piggyback Race

The book is here, at last!

Hello, hello! It's been a pretty busy year so far, and now I get to announce that my first illustrated children's picture book is out and available to purchase, directly from me! I've been toiling away with website technicalities for weeks now, and I discovered… there's a reason I don't do web design/programing. I couldn't make it work, so I turned back to my old friend Etsy. I've added the book as my one and only listing for the time being, there are several copies available, so when the initial quantity for this listing runs out, I will re-list it ASAP. I plan to add prints from the book in the next few weeks as well — keep an eye out!

**Please note, shipping time is slow for the time being while initial orders are placed, but will speed in the next few weeks… please bare with me!

BUY THE BOOK

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In the meantime, here are some pictures from the Barnes &Noble Story Time I did this past Wednesday, March 13th.

Story Time in the fabulous Kids' section at
Barnes & Noble, Coronado Mall — ABQ, NM

There was singing, reading, and crafting galore!

On the shelf, right next to Chu's Day…
it pays to have bookseller friends!

BUY THE BOOK

My AWESOME support team,
the ABQ Tangerine Cafe Design Group
Daniel Hulsbos, Me, Lynn Platow, and Brittany Archuleta

*Extra special thanks to Lynn Platow for taking these fabulous candid photos!

iFri Afternoon (9/21)

Kind of a whirlwind week here … including fun design projects (super-cute booklets and maps!), quotes and contracts for illustration projects (not as much fun, cough-cough), and diving into the World of WordPress (not unlike some torture devices I've heard of)! AH!
I'm lucky to end each and every week with a scheduled Friday afternoon Illustration Friday session at a local coffee house with my colleagues at Tangerine Café. Although yesterday's #iFri session turned out to be more of a wordpress workshop, I'm not complaining – that stuff will come in handy!
I grabbed a new sketchbook (not moleskin, shocker!) and doodled until I filled a page, testing out some new pen & pencils samples I got last week at a CPSA meeting with Prismacolor Rep, Shelley Minnis. Most of this is stream-of-consciousness / idea generating chicken-scratch – but a solid idea did take root and I hope to keep working on it today at our regularly scheduled monthly CPSA meeting (CPSA-DC219, ABQ).

Sketching for #ifri for a change!!

So, this talking about stuff I'm doing thing, here on the blog – do you like it? Is this stuff even remotely interesting in the least? I've never really used the blog of discussion before, it's always just been a way to share sketches and extras that aren't 'portfolio' work.
After a crazy-busy summer work schedule and ignoring my blog for 3 months, I'm trying to make an effort to post here more often – especially since I discovered I have nearly 40 people subscribed to it!  (thanks folks!) Let me know what you think. ;)

New Work: Event Poster

For nine days in October, the New Mexico skies are painted as hundreds of balloons lift off from Albuquerque's Balloon Fiesta Park. The annual Balloon Fiesta, is Albuquerque's biggest public event, by far. It's always an exciting time of year for those of us that live here.

Cottonwood Printing Co. is comfortably situated out by Balloon Fiesta Park and holds a private breakfast one morning during the week, for viewing the Mass Ascension – a launch of all the participating balloons, a major feature of Balloon Fiesta since its earliest days. In honor of this event, each year Cottonwood prints a poster and gives it away to clients and local businesses to promote the event. This year I was given the opportunity to work on this poster. I'm happy to share this new work here now - finally, something I can post in actually time!

As a bonus, it looks like they're going to print the following black & white image as a coloring page give away to children attending the event.

NEW WORK: Sticker Designs

I have worked with EK success for many years, and I can tell you it's always an amazing feeling to see me designs as finished products in the stores. Just this past weekend I wandered into a local Michael's store and discovered several of the projects I worked on over the last year have finally been released, so I share with you an example of the process!

This sticker is part of a series of 5 wedding themed designs. I did not know they were going to be cut/layered paper - it's wonderful to see the new and creative ways EK is producing their products.

This is cut/layered vellum with glitter themography. EK has changed the original design I submitted (they really like stems!), and it still looks great.

This was a fun one - toy race cars and race tracks. This is layered mylar, a shiny metallic material (that's obvious difficult to photograph). It's so much more impressive in person!

Now this is what really gets me. I've done a lot of sticker designs, completed in vector art, but these three items are from my first group of designs for Jolee's, EK's sticker embellishment line - all 3D materials. For these all I submitted where detailed sketches of various themes which where interpreted by the in-house design team. Wow! It's like they've really come to life!

NEW WORK: Family Crest Design & Illustration

I get some unusally requests from time to time and they usually end up being the most fun to work on. This is a family crest I was asked to design and illustrate. My client came to me with very specific requests that I used to create this detailed, traditional looking crest with some very modern elements. My client is very happy with the results, an so am I!

Bella Sara: TREASURES

At last! Bella Sara has introduced their new card series called "Treasures" on their website - now I can share the artwork I contributed. This was my first time working on Bella Sara with Hidden City Games. I was extremely excited because this is the kind of stuff I used to sit around and dream up when I was twelve (okay, so I still do, so what?!). It was definitely an experience from beginning to end, but I'm very happy with the results - especially since this is one of my first completely digital illustration projects (with the exception of Harmony, in purple, which i finished in colored pencil)

Illustration Friday: Vacant

In real life she doesn't look this old or sad - but after a long day when she's just exhausted, her eyes to tend to gaze over in a bit if a vacant stare.

Graphite, digitally colored.

Solo Show: WILDlife

In celebration of their first year in ABQ, Tangerine Cafe will be hosting my first solo show and gallery reception.

"WILDlife is a collection of my works centering on the animal side of life. Fantastical beasts, friendly fauna, and mysterious mammals alike come together to share a unique and all together wonderous journey through a variety of landscapes and stories."

Check out our announcement.