If Bewitched Had a Sister

If Elizabeth Montgomery's Bewitched character Samantha had a naughty sister, or maybe in this case, a granddaughter, I imagine she would look something like the witchy chick below. I haven't given her a name yet, but if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them. 

Born from a doodle on the phone, I couldn't help but give this witchy lady a nice wash of color to bring her to life. It also helps to have Halloween on the brain with it quickly approaching.

An Ode to Santa Barbara Fall - Princess Illustration

There is something about the transition into fall here in Santa Barbara that gets me excited and drawing again (usually fall related illustrations and richly colored patterns and watercolor experiments).

I can't really say its the sudden changes in weather or the massive landscapes of changing leaves that do it, because (quite frankly) that doesn't happen here. Don't get me wrong, we do experience a fall - of sorts - but it is a slow and gradual shift in more than one way. The first sign is the shortening of days and the odd change in light as shadows appear and disappear in strange ways, followed by what I have deemed as "spider season".  Then the pumpkins begin appearing at my local Trader Joe's. The fog slowly starts to creep back in the Santa Barbara morning air. My apartment turns into a freezing cave of despair and the fuzzy slippers come out of hiding.

Fall in Santa Barbara is mild and it's beautiful - so I drew a mild and pretty Fall Princess that represents the seasons subtleties in color.

Happy Holidays!

That Time of Year

It's that time of year. The holidays have crept up yet again, announcing their arrival with signs of seasonal twinkling lights, red and green decorations and fluffy trees strapped to the rooftops of cars. Typically, I am a sucker for holiday festiveness, and while I don't celebrate the colder season with hideous knitted sweaters of dancing polar bears, I do find pleasure in a few things.  

1. The creation of our new holiday tradition; Calendars. Last year we started this gift giving trend showcasing a collection of film images captured with our Holgas. This year we plan to do the same! It's in the works and will be a surprise, but friends and fam should be on the lookout for one very soon. 

2. Sugar Cookies in full decorated happiness. It happens every year; 200,000,000 sugar cookies are baked by my sister Joanne and myself. We probably eat a majority of them, but the ritual is the same: We start the cookie baking process, I get bored. Joanne has to bake a million on her own. Cookies cool off. I have visions of grandeur and create 10 frosting colors, with two types of royal icing (one for borders, one for flooding). We pipe and smear and sprinkle with edible glittering bits. Then we get tired. It gets late. Our backs hurt from huddling over our sugary prison. About 2 dozen cookies get the short end of the stick and get smeared and squirted on in haste. The end. 

I blame the obsession on Martha Stewart and her cookie baking empire:

3. Holiday doodles. In an unstoppable fashion I tend to create super fun Christmasy doodles every 

year. Sometimes they are in watercolor, sometimes in Photoshop. And this usually isn't just limited to the winter holiday season. Some may call it a problem, but I think it's less of a problem then, say, decorating my house in a plethora of creepy Santa faces or hideous Jesus chatskis. Although I would put this up just for the fun of it. 

Watercolor Women

Slightly forlorn and a bit mysterious, this series of Watercolor Women illustrations was a fun process. Just like my Fall watercolor illustrations, the process begun with painted watercolor that I scanned. From there the watercolor backgrounds were transformed digitally in Photoshop adding texture and layered up for a richer color. The women have a slight Picasso-esque feel, but it wasn't intentional; the first illustration (the green girl) was the gateway for the other two, I just ran with the style. I had fun playing with interesting orientations and flowing hair. Overall, it was a fun project done solely for the pleasure of trying something new. I would love to know your thoughts!

Fall is Here!

My closest friends and family know that I am a summer weather girl to the core. I love running around in summer dresses, flip flops and keeping my curly hair in a dry, un-frizzy state. But what they also know is my pure, unadulterated love of Halloween. And actually, anyone who has ever read my blog can witness that love with my digital illustrations, custom Halloween cards, my ode to candy corn, and my Halloween paper collages just to name a few.

 As the weather changes, and Kyle and I get ready for our first road trip up to Oregon, I couldn't help but play with some digital illustrations in the name of fall and the Halloween spirit. These illustrations started with actual watercolor scans and I played with them in Photoshop before pulling them into Illustrator for the vectored white drawings. I hope to pursue some more of these in my free time. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in what I am doing for work that I forget my passion for art and creation.

 Close up detail:

Close up detail:

City Scene

I've been known to procrastinate/kill time on the job. This usually doesn't bother my boss as long as I answer the phone when necessary. Today this included making a doodle, taking a picture of it with my iPhone, tweaking and cropping with my Photoshop app, and proceeding to color it in using my Sketchbook app. Funzies!!


The photo of the doodle:
Playing around with some color using Autodesk's Sketchbook app:

Us.

Happy Birthday Rich!

Happy Birthday Rich!

Metaphoria

Metaphorical self portrait for a class assignment. Usually I'm not one to create a completely digital watercolor, but I thought I would try something new and refresh my somewhat stale Photoshop skills. My metaphor isn't very clever, but my vision wasn't focused on that so much as the pretty colors.......meep.....