New Work: Sticker Sunday - "School Senior"

Still in September, continuing along the school theme… here is an interesting sticker project I worked on a while back. It's a more "designy" illustration style and you can see I put a lot less detail in this sketch - it was more about concepts than beautiful rendering. This is one of the ones that changed the coloring after I had approval and the final art was delivered:The client gave the instructions for a fun graphic style with icons that included words. I also did "freshman", "sophomore", and "junior" - and each one had a dominant color theme. They didn't make many changes to those, but they obviously decided they didn't like the color way I'd chosen for this and changed it at some point. This is part of the production process and really doesn't bother me - they are still really fun stickers!

I had no idea what material they would be producting these stickers in when I completed the designs. Turns out they did layered mylar! Super fun and fancy! I happen to have some samples and snapped a few pics - they really don't do them justice, but you can get an idea of the layering and dimension, as well as the glossy metallic sheen.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Gallery Award

Last night I attended the opening reception for my local Colored Pencil Society of America Chapter's group show at the Wooden Cow Gallery here in Albuquerque.
We had a great turn out. It was a fun evening of admiring our group's lovely work - such variety! There were several awards presented, including "The Cow's Choice" and three "Awards of Excellence" awarded by the Gallery owners. As a board member of our local chapter, I was not eligible for these awards. But there was also voting for a "People's Choice Award" at the opening reception - and my piece, AquaLuna was the winner! Excellent!

You can see pictures of all the award winners over at the CPSA NM Group Blog

RANDOM INSPIRATION: Dueling Palettes

So, the very funny and talented Jarrett J. Krosoczka tweeted a random image this morning - in his tweet, he included the title: Dueling Palettes. I fully expected to see a charming drawing of two palettes dueling… but I did not. The image was actually from his drawing table this morning, two colorful paint palettes.
So I thought, heeeey… I should DO that drawing I saw in my head. It's been a long time since a fully completeed image popped into my head, and even longer since I did a fun little drawing in my sketchbook, so I decided to go with it… I even managed to take some process photos (not the best, apologies - hey, I need a new digital camera! What can I say… it's on the list.)

CONCEPT SKETCH:Rough, silly, fun.

WATERCOLOR UNDERPAINTING: Again, rough. And we all know how the lovely thick moleskin pages take watercolor.

COLORED PENCIL w/some INK: Oops! I jumped into the inking before I took the colored pencil picture - so the girl palette is partially inked. Anyway, colored penil is where I through in the details and shading, mostly covering up the watercolor. But I did like some of the speckling that happened, so I tried to let it show through a little in the background.

FINAL: I don't usually ink on top of my colored pencil work, but since this was a pretty silly little drawing, I decided, what the hell. Hope you like it!


Those of you in the know may have noticed that my dueling palettes are actually RGB and CMYK - and for the rest, now you know!

NEW WORK: School Sticker Designs

Hello, my blog. Nice to see you… it's been a while. A looong while.
Anyway. I'm back. I'm planning to draw more, post, more and overall share more. I've been away FAR too long. I've missed you!

In honor of September and all the kiddies going back to school, I've decided to post one of my school-themed sticker designs. On the left is the original sketch - that was my part of the job. On the right is the actual product that was released. I had nothing to do with the selection of materials or colors. In a way, it's very freeing and like getting a little present when I walk into the shops and see my designs in living, layered, color. :)
You can also see, they've changed a few little things - the font on the chalkboard, the title on the textbook, the wording on the ruler. Nowadays I deliver vector text with the drawings, but they'll still change things up from time to time. Always a surprise!

Illustration Friday: SLITHER

Sleepy Snakes. This is a sketch I did last year, it was meant to be the follow-up piece to my Sleepy Bears (that will be traveling to the CPSA International Exhibition in a few weeks). I really liked how it was developing, but I think I got hung up on that fact that snakes doesn't have eyelids - so while they're sleeping underground, they won't LOOK like they're sleeping. Anyway, this is my rough of the layout. I got as far as the final sketch, but haven't been able to get past the eyelid issue. Thoughts? Should I keep going?

I am SO bad at keeping up with my blog. This is a desperate attempt to post anything, as opposed to something good, since I've been so… distracted lately.
Of course, distracted is an understatement. Crazy big events going on here, for me. Work, travel, packing, travel, work, work, and more travel. Then… moving? ;) More on that soon.

Update Masterworks: It's Official!

I received the 1st Place award for miniature art in the colored pencil category from Masterworks. All three of my pieces were accepted into the show for New Mexico artists. I'm relatively new to miniature art, but it's right up my ally because I love detail. I'm so honored to have received this award - and to top it off, I SOLD one of the pieces (see the little red dot in photo below). I look forward to entering in other categories next year as well (possibly graphite/pen & ink).

Masterworks Update

I got the call yesterday, all three of my colored pencil miniature submissions have been accepted. Yay! While I was not officially notified of having been awarded anything, I was told that I MUST attend the reception on Friday evening.
Meanwhile, I heard through the grapevine that I've been awarded first in the colored pencil category. :)