vacation!

Math boy and I are off to vacation for a few days. Math boy is leaving behind the math books and I am leaving behind my laptop (GASP!). There are a few things I need to wrap up before I leave, so I won't be able to participate in Illustration Friday this week. Although I have some great ideas for this week's topic and its already in my sketch book.

Thank you all to those who commented on the Mixed-Up Alphabet book! Such nice, kind words to encourage me to keep going. Cluck cluck! See you when I get back!

The Mixed-Up Alphabet!

The samples are here! The samples are here! The Mixed-Up Alphabet, written by Steve Metzger and illustrated by yours truly. Published by Scholastic, out October 2007.

Some interior shots:
The alphabet as a happy family:

One of my favorite scenes:It was alot of fun to work on, coming up with different "personalities" for each alphabet. Adding little details such as lightning bolt "zaps" on the Z, plaid on the P, and making C into a cowboy. It wasn't long ago that I had these guys as sketches up on my wall. Now they are in color and in a book. I feel like a proud mama.

My kind of chickens

I'm so happy that so many artists are selling prints of their work. Now my drab walls now get a fresh make over with these short order chicken art prints by Stumpytown. Now these are my kind of chickens! Aren't they hilarious? I got these prints a while back and it took a long time to get frames for them- I finally found these that were perfect from Pottery Barn.

Illustration Friday-Poem

For all your pains and aches,
There is only one thing you need,
Get your Miraculous Snake Oil,
Its the best cure-all, Guaranteed!

And only for Illustration Friday customers:

Stock up and save!
Here's a good deal,
Accept no imitations,
Only this oil is real!

Samples!

Last friday, I got two big boxes of samples for the Cranium Ultimate Book of Fantastic Fun & Games. I took part in designing this book and also did the illustrations (besides the Cranium characters, done by Gary Baseman.) I worked with awesome people over at LB Kids and Cranium. They gave me so much freedom to do what I wanted, now thats one great design job!

A different style than my typical way of illustrating, but I wanted the style to have linework and work well with the look of the Cranium characters:

This book should be available in the fall. Yay!

tea

After I did these greeting cards out of fabric, I got a bit obsessed over doing more fabric collages. Here's a little bit more experimentation. This little tea guy is about 4 x 4 inches. (nothing too big so I don't feel like I am wasting fabric.)

Here is the sketch I did, its cool to see how it got translated.
And its so easy in Illustrator to break up the shapes, print it out and voila- you have a pattern!

Illustration Friday-Discovery

Eureka! For the past few IF postings I 've been discovering a new style and a new way of working. I feel very free. I worked straight on the computer with this one too. The topic "Discovery" immediately made me think of a bunny pirate discovering a treasure box full of carrots...well, the carrots never quite made it there.

However, I fell in love with the characters and eventually gave them names. Then I thought it would be cute if they had a discovery club of sorts and so here is the logo I made up.

Thanks for everyone's support and comments with my new style. Its very encouraging and I am so excited about it!

I heart Bunny Cards

I love the blog world because look at what I got from Kathy at Wellerwishes:
My photograph doesn't really do these cards justice. Her soft, fine drawings are so delicate and wonderful. I got them a while back and didn't get a chance to post these. They are so lovely, thank you Kathy!

Little Red Riding Hood

Another mock cover I am doing. Although I wished there was some consistency with this, it was fun to do more experimenting and playing with my style. For this I worked straight on the computer, it turned out to be more vintage-like than I intended.

Illustration Friday-Geeky

"This is the closest I'll ever get to the real thing...heh heh..." *Sob*

Thinking blogger Award

Awww shucks, guess what? I am honored to receive a Thinking blogger award from David Sones (Pickledog)! Its even more wonderful because ever since I found the Pickledog blog I've been a fan of his since...not only do I love his style, I love his color sense...so he definitely makes me think. So, thank you so much, David and Pickledog!

Now I am suppose to pass it on to five other bloggers with the honor. Thats a tough one...so many great blogs, too little time. Here's a few that picks my brain:

-Keri Smith/Wish Jar Journal
What? You haven't been to her blog yet? It is one of the very first blogs I've discovered and still reading after years and years. Her philosophy on life and creativity constantly amazes me.

-Danny Gregory/Everyday Matters
Danny's philosophy on creativity also resonates with me quite well. In fact, I got tons of great advice/inspiration when I was deciding whether or not to plunge into the world of freelancing.

-Sally Shim/Shim and Sons
Sally makes everything sophisticated, modern, and beautiful. I can't help but secretly wish I had her sense of elegant taste. Her photography of everyday life is especially a joy to see, which reminds me its the small things in life that matter. Plus, her sons are adorable!

Tokyo Bunnie
-A blog about artists/happening/products.....I LOVE all the posts....it looks like I have similar taste as Tokyo Bunnie.

M.Patrizio
Hello, cutesville! All things cute brings me squealing and she's got it.

Illustration Friday-Twist

This week's IF topic "twist" made me think of the very over priced $3 pretzel I had at the Bronx Zoo this past weekend. But I was starving.


This looks a bit different than my usual work because I wanted to play more and not think about if this could be a portfolio piece for me-which freezes me up.

Some thoughts when I made this piece:

1. -more texture!
2. -A more conscious decision about changing my usual color palette. Looked at colourlovers.com for inspiration
3. -love the look of organic line work and wanted to incorporate that in my work
4. -Should I draw people or animals? How about just some blobs instead?

I do hope I get back to posting on IF more frequently....I've been missing it weeks at a time. Thanks for visiting! :-)

Its never enough

More chicken goodness! If you can believe it, this chicken toy set is about 1 inch in height. I found these at the Japanese grocery store, from one of those mystery toy boxes:

There are 1o sets you can get, but you dont know which one is inside the box. I've been wanting this chicken set (#7) for a while now, and I finally got it the other week! I was jumping up and down like a child, but I was so excited!

I need these things as an illustrator for inspiration, right? Right?