High Seas

I decided to do, and finished-ish, this Illustration Friday piece about two hours ago. I'm feeling pretty adrift myself today, so this picture started as a mouse in peril. It wasn't until I finished coloring in the Hokusai-inspired waves that I sat back and went, "Oh." I'd started with one story and ended up with another entirely.

Safe travels, little mousie, regardless of your home port or your destination.

Owls

Cultivate

From a song my maternal grandmother used to sing to me. I can actually vaguely remember either her or my mother explaining to me what the word "cultivate" meant.

I'm a little prairie flower,
Growing wilder every hour.
Nobody cares to cultivate me,
'Cause I'm as wild as wild can be.

Under the Tuscan Sun

I'm so close to finishing my dummy book. But I'll post about that later. Right now, I'm cleaning up my picture folders - I'm trying to keep up with that on this computer - and I came across this watercolor sketch.

It's tucked in an edge of the mirror on top of my chest-of-drawers at home, but I had my brother scan it and e-mail it to me last month to use as a sample for a job I applied to. (Thanks, Ross!) I'm looking forward to warmer days, and in that spirit, this just felt like something I wanted to share. :)

American Gothic

I hope I'm not alone in the following: on occasion, for whatever reason, I'll look through a full or almost full sketchbook and think, "You know what? You're pretty marvelous. You should really do something about this." And I promise to share my brilliance with the world, and go to sleep happy. And then I inevitably oversleep, or have to run six errands before lunch, or I look through the same sketchbook again by the light of day and think, "Ugh.", and the brilliance-sharing gets put off for another day.

Anyway, one such session prompted me to scan a few of my favorites from the latest almost-finished sketchbook, and I'm glad I have them on hand to share after Children's Illustration's latest link on the resurgence of Edward Gorey (did he ever go missing, really?).*

See? I'm timely, and have been for years. And if the New York Times doesn't prove it, check out my new Tumblr, in which I one up the trend of mocking hipsters by secretly wanting to fit in with them. (Ho-ho!)



*I have a feeling this post is fairly insufferable, so let me add that I love Gorey for the media he used, for the subject matter, for working small, and for the Masterpiece Theater Mystery! intro. Though maybe watching too much public television as a kid is what makes me write posts like the one above today...

Love on Wheels

Starting a new project, yay, which also inspired me to get down an idea I had for some super twee wedding stationary...

It could still use some work (and some other pieces), but I had fun drawing roller skates. :)

Happy Valentine's!

A) I have yet to finish the Nutella, but I've been hired as a part-time (*very* part-time) tutor. Yay?

B) I also applied for another illustration job, the kind that only comes along every two months or so. If I could pick between winning the lottery and getting this job, I'd choose this job.

C) Every different position I apply for, I see an area where my portfolio is lacking. So I've been doing lots of 20-minute projects - finishing some, still working on others. In that vein, here are some Valentine's Day postcards. Click on them for a LARGE version. Please use, share, print, etc.!