in the studio last week

Here is a little visual diary of what I worked on in the first week of March:

Jello sketches for MATS bootcamp

edits, edits, and more edits of wedding topper photos

various cake topper orders: a clown

cowgirl

farm and owl toppers

baby shower safari set

work-in-progress baby topper

and some new products in progress…cupcake name banners

did some experimental fake baking ~super fun!

compiled my fashion mood board for the Smart Creative Style course...come take a peek at my other Pinterest boards here

all accomplished under the watchful eyes of my studio managers!

Looking forward to another productive week and wishing the same for you!

January round-up

Busy month! I spent it basically cramming Lynda.com photoshop courses while making a whopping number of cake toppers (70 orders!)...not a spare second to paint or draw anything since december 31. But that will be changing in a few days as I am enrolled in Lilla Rogers' Assignemnt Bootcamp (click on link to read all about it),  and then later in the spring I'm on board for another round of MATS. I am hoping it will be a little easier now that I am armed with a few more ps skills!

I did take another really informative e-course this month, finishing up next week, The Art of Blogging with Alisa Burke....FABULOUS!! you must check it out if you have a blog or are thinking of starting one. I could go on and on about this totally inspirational course....instead go check out her blog. I have actually been blogging since 2009, but when I started this blog about a year ago, I accidentally deleted
my original....it would have been fun (or completely embarrassing) to look back and see the progression. Anyhow, I have been slowly applying some of Alisa's tips here, you may have noticed the facelift!

Here is a sampling of a few toppers that helped to celebrate January birthdays around the globe!

And a sneak peak of things to come in February!

Looking very forward to the month of love and the launch of my wedding collection. Keep an eye on my facebook page for the official launch date.

~have a wonderful weekend~

Make Art That Sells wrap-up

It's hard to believe that 5 weeks of the MATS e-course has come to a close....2 weeks ago actually! It was an intense, emotional, motivating and exciting journey that I was so fortunate to experience. It has left my creative cup overflowing and given me a completely new approach (which I badly needed) to making art. i am not afraid to try new things, no longer am I stuck in my nice, neat little illustration box....I have broken free and it feels so good! Here is the rest of my journey, weeks 3-5.

week 3 Children's Book

Our "mini" on Monday was a 2-part assignment: 1. to draw lots of birds in our own style and then pick one to develop into a character and 2. to hand-letter the words "the language of the birds".

 I was really pressed for time this week and really never got to develop a strong bird character or do much lettering. I decided to just hold my breath for the main assignment in hopes that I could pull something together. On Wednesday we were instructed to incoorporate our bird character into a cover illustration or 2 page spread for a Russian folk tale called "The Language of the Birds". We did not have to stick to the storyline and do our piece in any medium. I decided to go with my watercolor-colored pencil style, which, in the end, was probably not the best choice as it is so time consuming. There were alot of late nights that week! I had opted to keep my Etsy shop open throughout the course and it was a quite a juggling act to balance the etsy orders with the assignments. I ended up working early mornings and late nights on the course assignments, but for this week, that was just not enough time. I came up with some ideas for the cover and quickly picked one to develop. I knew the bulk of my time would be spent rendering the finish, and really did not spend enough time on the sketching/plannning stage.

I had to make some changes on the final that were not easy to make given the meduim. I gave it my best shot with the time I had, but definitely finished feeling disappointed with the final result. i wanted to go back and re-work it, but of course there was no time. Learned some good lessons though and figured out a little more photoshop stuff in the process of scanning and uploading.

week 4 Wall Art

Lilla informed us that this week would be "more relaxed" and a nice change of pace from the intensity of week 3. I think everyone in the class was a little relieved! On monday we were assigned 2 colors based on our zodiac sign and were instructed to go on a scavenger hunt for bits and pieces of paper, scraps, fabric, buttons, anything really in our colors + neutrals that could be glued down to a substrate. This was really fun.

My colors were green & yellow. I am a total hot pink girl, so I wasn't sure how I would feel about my colors, but as i started to see all of the shades and nuances, i really fell in love with them. Here's my all my loot!

So what were we going to do with all of our "stuff"? Our assignment was to create an piece of abstract wall art that should include organic/geometric shapes, some florals, and a few words. lilla showed us tons of gorgeous wall art to inspire and get us rolling....in all honesty, I had no clue where to start. Abstract was 100% out of my comfort zone and I wasn't too sure about getting messy.  I had to start somewhere, so I "practiced" being messy by painting a bunch of my own papers to collage. This was fun, but I had a need to return to the familiar, so I went to my clay table and made alot of little clay pieces that I later painted and used on the final piece. Feeling a bit more confident, I started to collage my painted papers and some of the tissue, scrapbook papers, fabric, stamps, etc....again, although it felt strange to be so arbitrary about it, it was definitely enjoyable. I was starting to "dig" it lol! I started off with two canvases and eventually chose one to focus on due to time constraints.

Messy was fun! I needed to be somewhat organized with the composition as it just made sense to my brain. I glued on my clay pieces, fabric,and buttons and then stamped, splattered, smeared til my heart was content! It was a wonderful journey that taught me that things do not have to be perfectly rendered. By the time I had finished, I knew I had a completely new set of tools in my toolbox!

~I had found my place~

week 5 Gift

Here we were at the final week...the month seemed to pass in a total blur! We started the week by photographing out "collections". As I live in a house with 5 kids, 5 dogs & 2 cats, I have made it my mantra not to "collect" any extra stuff! I didn't really have much in the way of "collections" other than a huge box of dusty marathon/road race/triathlon medals....and clay stuff.....alot of clay stuff. I chose the clay! buttons, beads, charms, pendants.

The mini was to take pictures of our stuff and scan bits and pieces into the computer. Then we were to use these bits in the design of a "hyper-lush" pouch for the gift market. "Hyper-lush" is a trending style that involves lots of photo-realistic florals, icons, etc. 

The project could be done by hand (drawing the icons and collaging them), but really called for many hours in photoshop (at least many hours for me!) to produce a really nice result. I decided that this was not something I could really tackle in the time alotted, given my limited ps skills, and chose to go in a different direction. I did use one of my charms as inspiration for the piece, can you guess which one?

 I had such an enjoyable experience with the wall art assignemnt and chose to go back to that mixed media style to make a holiday card. I used lots of different materials and really enjoyed the process.

Here is the finished piece, now hanging in my daughter's room, as she is the kitty lover in our house!

To sum up the last month in one word.....Amazing! Lilla provided us with so so much information, expertise, inspiration, and kindness. She created a supportive environment in which we could experiment and grow without judgement. The facebook forum provided a place for comraderie, sharing, and wonderful feedback. My classmates were a group of incredibly talented artists always ready to offer help, support, a shoulder to lean on, and cyber hugs. I am looking so forward to the part B next spring, and over the next 6 months I will be delighting in exploring the new tools in my toolbox! Thankyou Lilla Rogers and the entire MATS team!

Coming up for air !! MATS roundup - weeks 1&2

Wow! Its been a whirl-wind 2 weeks and the adrenaline and excitement is still building. Today marks the start of week 3, the childrens book market, and definitely the place where I feel most at home, but this class is really about being outside your comfort zone. One major challenge I have had is my lack of experience with Photoshop. I have been tinkering around with it for a while, but my skills are really minimal....next class on my list is definitely a Photoshop 101!

 The turn-around on assignements is very quick. We get a mini assignment on monday and the main project on wednesday with a dead line of sunday. This is crazy fast when you throw life, work, kids, commitments into the mix, and I find that I am working all day saturday and sunday and submitting my work at the very last second....but I am doing it! I seem to go through a huge range of emotions throughout the week...overwhelmed, indesicion, inspired, joy, frustration, second-guessing myself, confidence, not confident, exhaustion, elation. Sunday night after I have submitted my pieces if feel a little like I have been run over by a bus, or maybe its more feeling like I have gone through labor and delivery, but Monday morning I am up early and ready for more! The calliber of work from my classmates is really top notch and I am inspired beyond words and learning so much from our little MATS community.

Week 1 Bolt Fabric

The mini assignemnt was to draw lots of vintage pyrex and berries. Off to Pinterest I went for some inspiration. Drew lots and lots in prep for the main assignement which was to create a design for vintage fabric.

From here we were instructed to choose some icons and build a theme around them for our fabric. I went with a recipe for nana's berry tart as my focus and created some icons to go with it. Lots of sketching, cutting, rearranging to get the composition.

I chose a color pallet and did the finish with copics and prismacolor pencils, adding some white and black linework in.

More time would have been ideal to tweak some things, but off to the scanner it went. I had some issues with the color getting dulled out in the final presentation, but this was due to lack of experience in photoshop. I use it all the time to edit photos of my clay work and dont usually have a problem, but a scanned image is different....so working to resolve that in my future submissions.

Week 2 Home Decor

Week 2's mini was to draw bromeliads (tropical plants related to the pineapple family)....at first, this one didn't grab me. I decided to go right to color, seeing these plants were bright and tropical, and did a page of plants with inktense pencils. This was just free and fun, something that I had not felt in a long time when approaching a project. I wanted to do more, but there were dishes and laundry and clay orders....

Lilla sent the big assigment a day or so later, which was to create a set of 2-4 plates (similar to what you would find at Crate&Barrel or Anthropologie). I moped feeling uninspired and unmotivated. After all my bag is creating cute, fuzzy animals and critters, all confetti and cupcakes....right? But i loooked at my plant sketches and remembered that I had fun doing them, so I had a little pep-talk with myself and finally dug in. 

This week was a challenge for alot of us, as reflected in many of the facebook comments. Everyone seemed to go through some awkward stages with their pieces, but in the end, came up with some gorgeous work. I guess without growing pains there is no growth.

I found a pallet that I really liked, bright and tropical like the plants and got inspired to make it work. I designed my plates for kids, in a fun, doodly style with some turtles and a variety of flowers and plants. 

I used watercolor and white gelly roll.

One of my goals with this class is to come out of it with a little bit looser style, that can adapt to different mediums. I am a nit-picker, detail freek, and in the past, would use colored pencils exclusively to meticulously cover every square inch of the paper. I am a work-in-progress, slowly coming out of the colored pencil-coma....and I like it!

design for large plate

small plate

The complete set....colors a little brighter than the first week's finish. I wish I had more time to play around with the placement and design of the presentation, but I was down to minutes before the deadline. I hope to learn a bit more in photoshop this week and apply it to week 3's finished assignment.....which is to create a bird character, starting with a couple pages of bird sketches. Pencil and scketchbook in hand as I head off to my daughter's field hockey game!

10/22/2013  Lilla's review

During the review of our home dec pieces today, Lilla gave us some great feedback on creating a background that would enhance the tone of our plates, and suggested that we go back and rework them if possible.  She also advised that the plates should not "tell a story"....save that for week 3, children's book! I omitted the 2nd plate as it clearly is narrative (hopefully will go back and create a new plate to compliment my main one, but not this week!), and just focused on the larger plate. Watched alot of tutorials and picked up some skills in photoshop, and was able to create a new backgound for my plate. Feeling a little better about it now.