Year in Review 2018

Merry Christmas everyone! For all who wanted my Christmas card this year, here it is! We like to keep things simple with a year in review. And of course, I had to illustrate our awesome pets. Seriously, these two are the greatest non-humans you could ever ask for. We had no idea these two would become best friends! At least I keep saying they are. And yes, I plan on creating a story for the two of them. This card started as a sketch for a story, but then I remembered that it is almost Christmas and should probably have a card to hand out. Anyway, have happy Christmases and Merry New Year's ;) 

The Day the Milk Went Missing

After many, many months of drafts and drawings, we finally completed out book project! Meredith Neill did such a wonderful job writing this story about our niece and nephew. It was such an honor to be there for the first time the kids, my sister and brother-in-law heard the story. Who knew this project would have been so rewarding!? I am definitely going to continue this pattern of drawing for several hours a week. This project has really helped me discover the possibilities of using an iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and Procreate for drawing.

One year anniversary

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of a very perfect day. 

We were so excited to be married that we both wore our rings for weeks before the wedding. Dakota and I proudly wear the wedding bands of his parents. Not only does it symbolize our marriage, but a reminder of the strong marriage that came for before us. 

My engagement ring is made from both of the rings that our fathers gave our mothers. The setting from his mom, and the band from my mom. It is perfect in every way. 

❤️

Wine Label - Finished

Spent my entire weekend on this. I made a lot of progress and have enough done to send it to the printer for a test print. I created the label with Adobe Illustrator. The idea is for the label to match the wine cap. Very exciting! 

Wine Label - Matching Colors

The label design that I am coming up with is so close to being finished. I still have plenty of hours left before sending it of to get test printed. Once we get the test print and it looks good after any changes.... then I can create the rest of the labels! For now, here is what I’m getting done today. I’m matching the wine shrink caps that go on top of the cork to the different wines. Once those are selected, I match the color of the caps to the Pantone colors that best match so that it will go nicely with the wine label.

My thought behind this is simple. I want customers to be able to quickly identify the wine the had before. The labels are the same design but easily recognized by the different colors. I can’t wait to see them on the bottles!!

Robin’s Painting

Here is a painting I created for Dakota’s cousin as a gift for her mother. There are 4 siblings with their great grandfather. It was a challenge piecing images together to make this family portrait. And yes, I enjoy watching Netflix as I paint :) 

My favorite books

It’s been to many years since I’ve had these books in my hands. I finally unpacked them from storage from my parent’s attic. This is not quite all of them.   Yes they are children’s books, but to me, they are beautiful. I love the illustrations, the little details and how the pictures interact with the type.  As I study these, yes study, I get more and more excited about working toward my goal of illustrating a children’s book with the hopes of one day being published.  

At least half of my books came from books signings I’ve attended throughout school and a few after.  I’ve met the top pop-up books artists, my favorite illustrators like Chris Van Allsburg and even Julie Andrews (I Know!!!). Hearing all of them read their books and answer questions afterwards has always been inspiring.  I’ve never met a children’s book author or illustrator that didn’t love what they had accomplished. And to me, that is important in any dream/goal that you have in mind.  

 

My mother's doll house

My parents started building this dollhouse from scratch when I was really little. Literally from a sheet of plywood. We recently set it up again after many years. My mom had it turned around so you could only see the outside of the house. We had gotten some dollhouse furniture at an auction years ago that we hadn’t looked at yet and we found lots of treasures. There is a small fortune in this house but it’s been almost a 30 year project.
My parents cut all the shingles, all of the working windows and moldings, and sand paper bricks on the outside. My mom has knitted sweaters with string and tooth picks, and if you look at the one photo with the sewing room, she created the half dress too. You can even see the pins she made from really sewing pins.
They say they aren’t artists but they just do different art than I do. Someday, I will create a children’s book from this and it will be epic.
 I asked my mom about this tonight and she said she can remember snow white was always playing in the back ground on the tv when they were building it. And to this day, when she hears that movie, all she can smell is saw dust and hot glue. 

Paint-Your-Pet

I’m hosting a Paint Your Pet event soon so I am working out how I’ll do it. Everyone who signs up will need to send me a photo of their pets. Then, before the event, I’ll need to draw everyone’s pet on a canvas. I can’t teach this one step by step, but I can give advice, like starting with the background so that later, they don’t need to paint around their pet. Here is what I’ve done with my dog, Remmy.

Procreate - Not just a word to Giggle at

When I first heard of the app I won’t lie, I just giggled at the name of it.  That put aside, so far I’m really enjoying this drawing app. I’m also new to drawing on an iPad. Mind. Blown.   I have not created much with it yet. My experience so far has been trying all of the brushes and movements with the Apple Pencil. I’ve gotten lost for hours with this. The smoothness of writing on glass gives a whole new experience with hand lettering.  Although I miss the aroma of markers and ink, practicing on the iPad is very convinient. I can save my materials for hand made items and not waste them on practicing new shapes, letters and doodles.

The things I’m most excited about with this app so far are-

1. The vvariety of brushes and how you can alter your brush so it’s just how you want it to be.

2. That you can organize your projects in the gallery. For example, I have one project labeled “Instagram” and I have been placing everything I’ve made for Instagram in it. 

3. I can easily switch and alter layers.

4. I can zoom in and rotate the canvas!

Although this is probably the most expensive app I’ve ever bought, I think it with be insanely useful and I’m very excited to be able to create with Procreate.

Couple Tattoo

Sometimes I get on a kick of wanted to get a tattoo. I have ideas, all I think I could live with. But that’s usually as far as it goes. I think this is something I would like to play around with some more. My husband is an obsessed fisherman, and I do the whole art thing. So I think this is a super sweet way of getting a tattoo together without putting our names on it. 

Etsy- A slow beginning

I created an Etsy a few years ago and never really did much with it. It's always been on the back of my mind but it seemed like so much work (and it still does). I've participated in a few craft shows now and have prints leftover. And all of the sudden, it's not seeming like so much work. I already have my prints scanned in, and the product made, it is just a matter of posting them. Now that I realized what I needed to do, I am more confident about my Etsy shop. I have sold a few things to mostly friends and family, but from what I have read thats what you need to do. Most of them have rated my shop and it's looking much better.  Now I am at the point again where I need to create more paintings and put up more product options. Someday I hope to get to the point where all of these little things I do to earn money through art will add up to enough to work at home to dedicate more time to it.

Check out my shop here and see how I have organized my prints. I bought some stock photos to edit my prints into so my shop looks more professional. Please follow and share!