You won't believe this...

Check this out.



You'd think the top two images were just photographs of a camera and a pen. You'd think that, and you'd be wrong. They're both illustrations made with Adobe Illustrator. Wow. While I don't think these are particularly design-y, I do have to really admire the major Illustrator skills it takes to achieve this.

Here's the guy's website. I'm not even sure he keeps it current, but you can check out his amazingly lifelike Illustrator drawings and wonder how in the world he has the patience for it. Phew. I get tired just looking at them!

Time for a nap. Over and out.

My Stuff on Flickr

Something about summer makes me crave desserts! So instead of eating them, I decided to try illustrating them instead. Judging by how many spoonfuls of caramel sauce I sneaked from the fridge today, though, it's not working. But the cupcake turned out so cute!

Also, I finally have Flickr up and running, so if you ever want to just check out some of my stuff without clicking through my blog posts, feel free!

In Space

Here's my next space illustration. I'm coming up with so many ideas for this series, it's hard to pump them all out fast enough! I still have several unfinished illustrations in progress, so keep checking back to see the next one. Hopefully the color situation improves. I learned a few tricks this weekend that will hopefully keep the colors from going weird on me!

I could seriously change the theme of my boy's room to this. Cute, cute, cute!

For a Little Boy's Room

Sadly, the colors on these get a little messed up in the transition from my computer to the internet (Note to self, figure out how to adjust colors for the internet) Update: Googled, figured out how to fix the color problem! Much better. Yay!

But enough of that! I'm so excited about these two new illustrations! I started out with the "Believe" poster (The "Believe" part is hand lettered). I actually did a painting first, but set up an Illustrator file to help me work out some of the elements without messing around with sketching and painting.

I liked the results so much that over the past few days I've started several illustrations on the theme of outer space. They're turning out SO cute. I'm very happy with them. I've got more than these two in the works, but I'm going to hold on to them a while longer to iron out some of the design details and finishing work.

The inspiration for these really started when I was pregnant with my son. I was kind of sad about the lack of cute decor for little boys' rooms. I searched and searched for things to decorate his room and would draw a blank most of the time. I ended up doing a bunch of mini Jenn Ski animal posters, but over the past few months I've been thinking of a ton of other themes that would be so cute in a baby boy's room. This is just the beginning of what I hope will be a really fun project.

I want to do some hand lettering on these posters, for now the Giddyup font is just a placeholder. Or I might just do away with the lettering altogether.



SO happy about the way these are turning out! Stay tuned, I'll be posting more of these in the coming days and weeks.

I'm BA-AAACK!

PHEW. June has been a seriously insanely busy month for me. I have a feeling that the whole summer is going to be more of the same.

I have been dabbling with a few things, though. Nothing new, I just revisited my hand piece. I actually had another plan for the grey background. I got it all painted and then started putting together something totally different, but it just wasn't turning out the way I wanted. Someday I'll be able to just compose in my mind--or even in my sketchbook-- and the things I whip up will be exactly as I envisioned. But for now, this is it. One thing I struggle with, I think, is to be able to be satisfied with what I've done and what progress I've made, rather than expecting perfection of myself right off. There's a learning curve to everything.



Anyway, about this, it's kind of funny to me that it turned out even better than the green one I did. I generally avoid the grey/yellow color combo. I think it's kind of run its course. It was SUPER trendy two or three years ago. I was seeing it all over in stores and on design blogs, and I have to admit, I liked the pop of the yellow with the grey. I'm kind of getting over it now, though, and I think a lot of others are too. But somehow this one worked for me...Maybe because the yellow isn't a crazy neon, it's gold.

I have TWO MORE hands cut out, but I think I'm going to try and do something a little different with them. I do like to find a design that works for me and try to mass produce it, with little tweaks each time, but I think at this point in my life I ought to try stretching my muscles a little more. That means not going crazy on just one design.

That's all my blabbing for the moment, mostly because I want to go sneak a spoonful of caramel from my fridge now.

Buried

Posting on this blog has been woefully neglected the past few weeks. It seems like problems have just been piling up around here--a big health scare in my husband's family, the plumbing in our apartment taking a vacation, and the weird lapse of some of my Mac software, which I've spent hours upon hours trying to straighten out. It's at the repair place as we speak-- Needless to say, this month has been a doozy.

As if all that weren't bad enough, I have caught The Mother of All Colds. In JUNE. So I've been spending my days on the couch cuddled up with my baby, popping vitamins, watching Netflix, rubbing Mentholatum under my nose, and wishing that I wasn't nursing so I could at least take some NyQuil.

Obviously not much of my time is going into creative pursuits, but I hope by next week, when my husband's relative is out of the hospital, my body beats this darn cold, and I have my Mac back, I'll be back up to 100%.

My workaholic self does not enjoy lounging. I'm forcing myself to relax for a bit because I know I need it, but I'll be back soon!

Carpe Diem

I'll just say it's been a crazy weekend and leave it at that. Somehow amidst the chaos I managed to finish another painting, though! I think this one is my favorite yet. I love drawing banners and hand lettering. I think I'll do more in that vein in the future. This just feels more "me" than some of the things I've done before.





I fear that between my lack of photography skills and the internet displays, the colors on this piece are a little diluted. They are more vibrant in real life.



This is acrylic paint on paper. The quote says "Seize the small moment / Soon it dies / And it will never come again in this identical disguise."

I LOVE that quote. It's one of my all time favorites. Enjoy!

Tattoo, part 2.

*Disclaimer*
I am not a photographer. I wish I were. But I'm not. Therefore, I rely on Photoshop to compensate for my sad, sad photography skills. Today my Photoshop is broken. I have to take my computer to the computer fixers, who are 2 hours away in the big city. So who knows when we'll actually get down there. Also it's raining outside and our apartment is... well, the lighting for photography is not so nice. So, that is the excuse for my bad photos. I am sorry. So sorry.

*end of disclaimer*


SO. If I were one to get a tattoo (and I promise I'm NOT, but if I WERE), it would probably look something like this:

I had tons of fun with it.

I meant to add color digitally.

Then things happened. A crazy busy week. Photoshop going AWOL for no good reason! (I think it hates me.)

Then I realized it would be more fun to just paint it.

And behold:



This is the first version. Vignette. Meh. As my old printmaking teacher would say, it needs the edges activated.



I LOVED the colors though. So antique-y and pretty.

Here's the next version:



The glue is still drying and it's still stuck to my clipboard so it won't go all wrinkly on me, but I'm pretty happy with it.



Fun, right? Well, I had fun. I did change the original illustration a little. I lost the top and bottom banners. Made the middle bigger. Small changes like that. Oh, yeah, and a complete change of the wording, but who's keeping track?



I'm still going through an addiction-to-brights phase. But the colors came out much better than they did in this.

And, hey, why does an addiction to bright colors need to be a phase? I like brights. They're fun and happy! So what if they're not sophisticated? I'll use them in my work whenever I want to! So there.

That's my tattoo drawing/painting. Over and out.