Angels, Angels, Everywhere

Earlier this year I had a project to make a set of angel cards.   For a while, I was seeing angels, angels, everywhere! There were four types...they all had the same basic design, but different details...dresses, hair, colors.  It was fun to have a project with angels, but it also took a lot of work to plan and make each one unique, yet still part of a set.  There were also special colors and themes to use as well. Here's an example of how one turned out:

Once I sketched and inked them, I used Photoshop to color them in. Getting the color schemes right took a little time.  Here is an example of the inked version before and then the color version after of my favorite one.  I think I had some angels looking over my shoulder during this project to help me finish!!

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Happy Birthday!

It's my sister's birthday today, yay!  So I decided to make this a birthday-themed post.  My sister is one of the few people who can actually get me to draw when I'm feeling not-so-inspired, so her encouragement means a lot to me.  I try to draw her a picture on her birthday, so I included one I just finished today, with a baking theme because she took a baking class recently.  I also posted last years picture I made as well (which I still need to color!)

Also, she found another picture I did for a friend who loved mini ponies (edited a bit with some stickers she put on for a scrapbook).  So happy birthday whenever your birthday may be!!!
And of course happy birthday to my awesome sister, Jackie! :)

Last Hurrah for 2011

A little late but better than never!  I went to see the Nutcracker this past December at the Warner Theater, a show put on by the Washington Ballet.  It was a cozy, smaller venue, which was nice because you could really see the dancers and costumes.  I wanted to do some pictures inspired by the show...a scene where the Christmas tree grows larger and larger when Clara shrinks down to the size of the Nutcracker and Mouse King and a battle ensues...or the dance of the Sugar Plum fairy.  At least I got one done in time for the holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving!

First of all, I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, full of family, friends, and of course, good food!

I wanted to share a few placecards I designed for a friend's Thanksgiving meal.  I think she had just wanted calligraphy names so that people would know where to sit, but they looked so plain that I had to add a little more! 

I tried to think of the things that reminded me of Thanksgiving...the most obvious were a big turkey and a cornucopia filled with all sorts of autumn foods.  But as I only had a couple of hours to accomplish my placecard task, I had to scale back my big dreams of putting those drawings on each card.  Also, I realized later they barely even fit!  So, I decided to just do two cards with the bigger drawings, as I had some extras.




I then wanted to do smaller drawings for the front of each card.  I had done the calligraphy in four colors of pen, so I wanted to do four kinds of pictures to put on the cards.  It was harder than I thought to think of designs that were Thanksgiving and had detail, but that could be drawn super tiny! So here is what I came up with: acorns and oak leaves, apples and cider, pumpkins, and of course pumpkin pie!  They're done in ink and of course, my favorite Copic brand watercolor markers, because they blend so nicely!


 












 Now that I was inspired to get into the holiday spirit of Thanksgiving with my drawings, I hope that will carry over to Christmas, as I'd love to do some Christmas designs this year.  I guess I better start thinking early...or maybe it's already late, as there are so many Christmas decorations up this time of year!?! 

Scarecrow Sketch

Here is a drawing I made a while ago, but I want to ink and color it in time for Halloween!   I was hoping it would be part of a Halloween series of drawings.  I have a vampire and a phantom in mind too...just not enough time to get them all done for this season!!  Ah well, maybe next year!?!

(Series)ously

Is it just me or do people like things in series?  There's tv, movie, and book series...artwork, too.  I am definitely a fan of series, whether its keeping a good thing going or acting as a way to provide more detail in a story.  That's why I'd like to do more series of drawings, especially ones that you piece together, almost like a mini-comic...a short story in a series of drawings. 












I've got a couple of ideas...Japanese Fairy Tales, Halloween-inspired characters, nature spirits...  That's the type of thing I'll be working on for the next couple of months I think.  Maybe then I'll get inspired to start an actual comic! The pictures I posted here I did while in Japan inspired by autumn.  I was thinking they would be a post card series.  I wanted each picture to stand on its own, but build upon each other.  That way, if you sent the cards to the same person, they would discover the larger picture upon receiving the second card! 

Happy Fall (& a new blog!)

With the changing seasons, I felt like it was a perfect time to make some changes to Ume, too!  I want to be able to make more frequent updates, so I decided a blog was the best way to do that.  I hope it will be a place that I can share ideas I'm working on, post some sketches, or just update more drawings and artwork besides just the completed designs on my website portfolio.

In the spirit of the season, here is picture I made around last time this year at the request of my sister that reminds me of Fall. :)