IF - homage (to little princesses)

Here's my entry for this week's Illustration Friday challenge, illustrating the word "homage". This is an homage to all the little girls who dress up like princesses and parade around the house with their magic wands. It's such a fun stage for little girls..they quickly out grow it and are on to other things, like soccer and boys. So, this is for that moment of time when imaginations run wild and the world is a playground for pink tutus.

paper tales

I just finished this fun project for the lovely Michelle White of San Diego. She's opening a retail store and needed some marketing materials for it. So, I designed this postcard, some business cards and a blog banner for her.

The store is going to be a blend of all kinds of fun things...mostly paper crafting materials
(decorative papers, stamps, supplies to make cards and scrapbook pages) and also cool vintage finds. I thought a birdcage would be a good symbol for such a store and Michelle agreed with me, so off I went from there and this is the final product. The store will also use the design on bags and things like that as well.

If you live in San Diego, you'll have to go check it out...after it opens on May 1, of course!

A Muse window - let it rain!

It was time to change the window display at the A Muse retail store after Easter, so we decided to celebrate what Seattle is probably best known for - rain! So, I created a large version of our Seattle girl stamp and painted her coat, hat and boots that fabulous yellow slicker color. I couldn't resist painting her hair auburn...because my daughter has auburn hair! It also looks good against the yellow! Then, I made "rain" out of A Muse notecards and hung them with fishing line. Each row is actually a chain of raindrops, tied together with the fishing line. It turned out pretty cool! What I really love about it - when someone comes in or out the door to the shop, the rain flutters in the wind!

IF - pet peeves

For IF this week...Cat is peeved that Dog has tracked in mud on her newly washed floor. He's headed for the Doghouse!

dunkin donuts contest

I entered this in a contest over at Dunkin Donuts for a Mother's Day gift card. There's one for Father's as well, but I don't think I'll have enough time to do both, so I chose to do the Mother's. I have an idea for the other one, but not the time!

I don't expect to win, but it would be cool if I did because the prize is 500.00 donated to the charity of your choice. How cool is that! I'd pick Autism Speaks, because they are doing such great things to raise awareness of autism and to raise money for much needed research.

Stacked cups

I just shipped out a custom greeting card order to an executive at Starbucks with this image on the front. He sends these cards to his employees (or partners as Starbucks likes to call them) for their anniversary with the company. The inside of the card reads "Building Together. Happy Anniversary!" It's a collage piece with some acrylic paint added to highlight and shade the decorative papers.

IF - heavy

"Whiskers was heavy and didn't like being picked up too much, but Chloe didn't care, she carried him around whenever she got the chance."

My entry for this week's Illustration Friday with the theme of "heavy". The little girl and cat are based on a photo of my daughter when she was about 4, carrying our old cat around. That poor cat was drug all over the place - she put up with though, maybe she liked it more than she let on! The text in the background is a page from Alice in Wonderland where Alice is having a conversation with the Cheshire Cat. I wanted a subtle background that had to do with cats, but was also related to children, so I thought it was a fun choice.

new banner

I thought it was time for a new banner and since I had so much fun making these fruit and veggie kids, I decided that I would use them in the banner. I had some issues with JPEG compression (urgh!), but it doesn't look too bad, I guess. I don't know why this happens sometimes but not others. It's very annoying and everything I tried to do to fix it didn't work. It seems to happen most when it's a large file that I shrink down and save as a jpeg. I flatten the image first, then resize it and save. Anyone with techy skills got a solution? Please help....

IF - garden

I had a lot of fun doing this week's Illustration Friday theme of "garden". First of all, what could be cuter than kids in fruit and vegetable costumes, not much! Second of all, I love Japanese illustration, when they draw little faces on inanimate objects like food. It justs cracks me up! That's where I got my inspiration for this piece. And, of course, I had to think about what these kids would be doing up on stage. I didn't think they would just be standing there looking cute, that's not what kids do. They act up, or act funny, or pout or laugh. My personal favorite is the apple. She's like "Hey, don't push me!"
Which one is your favorite? (click on it for a larger view)

fortune (cookie)

heee hee. We had Chinese take-out last night and this was my fortune inside my cookie. After all my recent marketing efforts (see previous post) I'm taking this as a SIGN! I love it when stuff like this happens!

marketing

In my "free" time, over the last week or so, I've been making these cards to send out as marketing pieces to potential clients in the children's illustration market. Yes, I'm going for it! The 1st 12 packets went out today! Whoooo hoo! Wish me luck!

I want to give a special thanks to the super talented children's illustrator Amanda Shepherd for her valueable advice and encouragement, as I start down this path. It's a highly competitive field and I may fall flat on my face, but she gave me the boost I needed to try.

So, ready or not, here I come, children's publishing world. Tag, you're IT!

IF - leap

Of course, I did an illo about Leap year, when I saw the theme for this week over at Illustration Friday. It was, after all, Feb 29 when the theme was posted. I always have felt sorry for people that have birthdays on that day, so I hope you all had a GREAT one this year.

I'm really working hard at developing my children's illustration style and I think I'm getting close to the way I want to create images for those publications. It's painterly with some collage elements and colors that are fun, but not too bright. I'd love to hear your comments, especially those of you who work in the children's market.

Well, it's back to tax prep. Ugh! I'd rather be illustrating!