Cricut cartridges, finally

So, I haven't posted any art in quite awhile. This is because I went from a job where I was allowed to show what I was doing, to one where the art isn't released until months after I've done it. I started in January, and now I can finally show the first couple cartridges I designed! (Well, as of a couple weeks ago. Life is crazy.)

First, we have the Holly and Ivy cartridge for Christmas!

You can see some of the images bigger here:

http://us.cricut.com/Shopping/detail--Holly-and-Ivy-Cartridge-0-12739.aspx

Oh, and also buy the cartridge. If you want.

Also, 3d Floral Home Decor! The very first cartridge I designed. I hadn't ever done anything with paper flowers before. Never. I just figured it out as I went, and some of them turned out really cool!

Here are a couple projects the design team made with my flowers:

I've been watching the internet and had fun seeing other projects that bloggers have made with my flowers. Unfortunately, you can't buy this cartridge (yet?) because it was released exclusively on HSN.  Because its really cool. Right?

Cake Topper

I really am alive and well and doing art! Really! Its just, I can't really show you most of the art I've done lately, at least not for a few more months. But there is sonething I made recently that I can show you--my wedding cake topper! As of now I can only show you the digital version, but I cut this out of paper using a Cricut Explore and - voila! - awesome personalized wedding cake topper.

I can't take all the credit for this, because although there are tweaks and stylization, these are heavily based on photos by the amazing Kate Jeppson. Check out her website: http://katejeppson.com/

EDIT:

Here's how it looked on the cake. Again, photo by the talented Kate Jeppson.

Humanities banners

Before leaving for Thanksgiving break, I have 8 of 36 banners done! This is for the second half of a humanities class, the first half of which I did not draw but I'm still supposed to try and imitate the style that was used. What I'm finding hardest about that is that there were no shadows (cast shadows or otherwise) in that other splash package, and I feel like my drawings look flat and incomplete without shadows. Ah well.

Industrial Revolution banner

For the Survey of World History part 2 course.

Ship

I have been posting art weekly, but mostly on facebook.

So. Here is the cover of the project I've been working on lately at work. I finally got this ship put together, and I'm pretty happy about that. Still have to finish the dock and the water and put some people in it and such, but this is it so far, complete with illustrator screen and everything:

Let Them Eat Cake

When drawing Marie Antoinette, its all about the hair.

World History Splash

I was inspired by the book Dick Whittington and his Cat, and tried to kinda get the look of Linocuts even though I was working digitally. I'm mostly pleased with the result.

Knight Banner

No art for a couple weeks... then, a whole bunch in a couple days! When it rains, it pours. (Especially in the Philippines ;-)

This is a banner I put together as an example of the style I'd like to use for a course I'm making the splash for. I wanted it to look like a picture book I remember my mom reading to me when I was little, "Dick Whittington and His Cat," which had awesome linocut (?) illustrations by Marcia Brown--it got a Caldecott Honor, I believe.

Do Not Offend The Gods

I was going to work on this longer and then I was like, You know what? I'm sick of looking at this. So I'm going to be done with it. So there.

So this week, I'm posting my art early. Does this make up for it being late before?

This illustrates a scene from Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief.


I was walking up steps into a small room with marble walls. There were no windows, but moonlight came from somewhere to fall on the white hair and dress of a woman waiting there for me. She was wearing the ancient peplos that fell in pleated folds to her feet, like one of the women carved in stone beside old altars. As I entered the room, she nodded as if she'd been expecting me for some time, as if I were late. I had a feeling I should recognise her, but I didn't.
"Who brings you here?" she asked.
"I bring myself."
"Do you come to offer or to take/"
"To take," I whispered, my mouth dry.
"Take what you seek if you find it then, but be cautious. Do not offend the gods." She turned to the tall three-legged table beside her. It held an open scroll and she lifted a stylus and wrote, adding my name at the bottom of a long list and placing a small mark beside it.
When I woke a moment later, Pol had dinner ready.

.....

I had been dreaming again of the lady in the chamber; her hair was held away from her face by a string of dark red stones set in gold. She used a swan feather pen to put a second mark by my name, and she seemed concerned for my sake...






Yeah, I know I did a little column thingy instead of a three-legged table. I thought it looked cooler.

I also didn't have any photo reference for this... at all. So yeah.

Catching Up

I know--I haven't posted art for two weeks. SORRY. Actually, as far as anything anyone has said to me I'm the only one who has noticed I'm behind on my goal. BUT. I still feel bad for falling behind.

I actually tried to post something the other day, but for some reason blogger didn't like the image. It showed up fine on my computer, but when it was uploaded to blogger it only showed up as a black rectangle--I have no ide why. Lets see if blogger will cooperate today. I'll post two things, one for each week that I didn't post something.

This is my design for an ambigram stained glass window. Its a reflective ambigram, which means that it reads differently when you flip it--so, as a stained glass window, you read a different word when you're inside than you do when you're outside. Cool, no? Combining the design limitations of an ambigram with those of a window is no walk in the park, though. Despite that, I think I've got a readable design. Right? Please comment and let me know whether you can read it. :-)

These are a few banners from the course I recently finished a splash for, British Literary History. I actually edited a couple of these banners since saving this image (namely, the ones for Great Expectations and Heart of Darkness) but I'm too lazy now to put in the new versions. Also I don't have access to the files on this computer. 

  

In case your screen is small or whatever, these illustrations are for:

Northanger Abbey, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Ode on a Grecian Urn, the Lady of Shalott, Great Expectations

Heart of Darkness, The Dead, the Journey of the Magi

Now, I'm caught up! I have a few more pictures I've been working on I plan on posting soon.

This week--ambigrams!

So I totally forgot to post a piece of art last week--sorry! I know, I'm probably the only one who noticed. Ah, well.

These last couple weeks I've been working on digitizing my ambigrams! I'll be printing and selling them at the Provo Farmers Market and on etsy. Here is one as a teaser... ok, two, because I missed last week. Come to the market to see more! When I get them listed on etsy I'll let everyone know :-)

This week--Season Series done, ambigrams to come

So last time I posted my raccoons picture I said that I wasn't entirely satisfied with it and would return to it later. So, for this week I finished the raccoon piece and then combined all four seasons designs.

 

And I found my sketchbooks from just before, during, and just after the mission. I went through them and marked all of the ambigrams or little comics I drew that I want to fix and share, so those will probably be my piece for next week, or maybe the next couple weeks. 

Can you tell what the ambigram on the top says both rightside-up and upside-down? 

Two more banners

...making a total of three.

New splash--British Literary History

I put this together to try and nail down the style I want to use for my next splash package. This is essentially the same process I used for the Latin 43 splash, but I'm using dark outlines instead of white and I created brushstrokes that will give the lines a slightly more flow-y feel, I hope.

This is an illustration for James Joyce's "The Dead"

This week--paisleys!

I decided to try something really different this week. The Illustrator CS6 pattern tool is apparently really cool, so I decided to try it out (not that I really know what it was in the previous versions, so I can't really compare... so.) I decided to try making a paisley pattern, because I really like paisleys. Turns out to be harder than it looks... unsurprisingly, haha. What do you think?

Edit:

This is the first one I made.

This week--red rocks!

This week I combined two things I'm not very good at--landscape/environments, and photoshop. So its no wonder that I'm not yet satisfied with it. It still looks really... photoshoppy. Ugh.

The reason I'm stopping know is that my hand hurts, and I really need to give it a break. So. I think maybe my art for next week will be edits on pieces I've done in the past few weeks (including this one) rather than an entirely new piece... but we'll see.

This is based on a photo from a trip my family took to Southern Utah. I didn't go on the trip, but I still liked the picture.

ELANG322 Spalsh

We're doing silhouettes with a sort of retro-ish color scheme. Forward Momentum! :D

Greek Sphinx

My favorite of all the things I drew today.

More art.

So I've just been posting all kinds of things here in the past week or so. Probably because it's finals season, and I've been finishing off some projects. But alot of the stuff I've been posting have been personal things.... so I dunno. I've just had a really productive streak I guess.


I'm being done with this one because my hand hurts. I have a tendency to squeeze a tablet pen, but not a regular pen or pencil or paintbrush. This makes painting things in photoshop problematic. This was started as an oil painting, then brought into photoshop to finish the details. I still want to finish the oil painting, but for now, here is the finished-in-photoshop version:

Quail in Fall

Deer in Spring, Foxes in Winter.... Quail in Fall.

I struggled with this one a bit more than the others. The patterns on the quail were hard to simplify, and I had to give in and use a mesh rather than have everything a flat shape. I may revisit this again after I haven't seen it for awhile to see what fresh eyes can do.