samples, samples samples!

one of the funnest (yes, that's right, I have the vocabulary of a 6 year old..) things for an illustrator is when a package arrives in the mail with your samples! I've had the pleasure of working with Peaceable Kingdom Press over the past year and these are a few of the projects I have completed for them. The colors turned out great (much cleaner than my crappy iPhone camera can show) with die cuts and the pink kitties are actually flocked! 

trying to keep it springy...

...as another foot of snow falls on top of 50 plus inches that have fallen over the last few weeks. Oh and just so you know, shoveling with 2 bickering teenagers is loads of fun!

Anyway, I did this card for Peaceable Kingdom, available as part of a nice boxed set :)

snowed in.

heyyyyyyy, so long no post! I could legitimately say that I have been snowed under. I mean if you are familiar with what has been going on with new england weather the last 2 and a half weeks, we have gotten over 50 inches of snow. NOT a typo. aaannndd, there is another predicted foot plus on the schedule over the weekend into Monday. I know a lot of people love snow and wish they had more, but TRUST ME. No one wants this much and no, it has not made me as happy as this little kiddo

Anyway, on the positive side, it's forced me to stay home and work and there's no shortage of that. I've been wrapping up some projects and starting new ones. The card above is one that I did for the nice folks at Peaceable Kingdom. I haven't gotten a sample yet, but it's die cut, so that's pretty cool!

More to share soon. If you are a north easterner, happy shoveling! grrrrrrrrrrr.

at long last… DAY 40 of 40 DAYS OF LETTERING!

This was one of those projects where maybe I should have made it more like 30 days or even 20. I'm embarrassed to say how long this thing has gone on! And by the end, I felt like the last one should be some sort of momentous grand finale of sorts, making me procrastinate all the more, which was hardly the intent of the whole thing in the first place! Instead, I've just settled for an ending… grand or not. Anyway, I'm glad I did it, but more glad that I finished it (finally….)

day 39 of 40 days of lettering and yet another competition...

I thought I was at the point where I had had enough of these competitions and I really do feel this way. I see little point in entering something where there is a very slim chance of winning, unless of course, you feel like you would be adding something cool to your portfolio. The winning part… not very likely and certainly not worth getting invested in. Soooo, with that in mind, I entered another tiger print comp, hahaha. Well, as you may know, I love Christmas and this contest having the focus on lettering, I thought I'd just do one submission. Besides, I could use it for the second to the last day of my 40 days of lettering thing. Yes, I think I'm just continuing to type on here to convince myself ;)

It was kind of an odd contest for them. They provided around 4 or 5 photographs that you were supposed to choose from and then add your lettering. I decided to take part of a lyric from White Christmas (yeah, I am a Christmas music freak, too). I tweaked the background image, making it bluer and giving it a bit more tone for the white lettering to drop out of. I kept adding more little swashes and flourishes until it looked done. I'm pretty sure they will go for a more calligraphic treatment, but it was a nice exercise, nonetheless.