Glam Girls and Pretty Pups

Playing around with some ink and brushes this rainy weekend and these little fashion girls with adorable pups came alive on to the paper. 

Each little lady is about 2" tall. A tiny, short bristled round brush loaded with some Speedball Super 

Pigmented Acrylic ink in super black was used. 

Santa Barbara isn't used to the rain, but I am enjoying the feeling of being stuck inside with new set of brushes and some blank paper. 

I've also be playing around with more hand lettering these days and am preferring the fluidity of brush and ink to the classic style calligraphy pen nibs. I might need some time to get used to the whole set up, but the simplicity of black ink and bright white paper leaves no excuse for not practicing.

Independence Day Sweets

The Fourth of July is about getting patriotic, throwing on some red, white and blue and celebrating our amazing country. It is also a day to enjoy family, friends and delicious food at the peak of summer.

Hoping your Independence Day is filled with sweet treats and fireworks!

Santa Barbara Chardonnay

Happy Friday!
This weekend I will be running in the Santa Barbara Chardonnay 10-miler with some family and friends. This is something like my 4th year in a row running the race down by the beach. It's a gorgeous route, fairly flat and out-and-back. The course takes runners right past the Four Season's Biltmore and the lovely local gem of Butterfly Beach (both featured on the the cover of Travel + Leisure magazine this month).

Despite this being a race I have done a few times, I still get nervous. My training hasn't been spectacular this round, so I am just going to out there and have a good time, enjoy the morning and the accomplishment (and reward myself with some wine tasting at Municipal Winemakers at the end of the day).

This Daily Art Practice doodle captures my internal race day apprehension. 
Orange colored pencil and white charcoal on goldenrod paper.

Do any of you have some fun plans for the weekend?
If you are in Santa Barbara and a small business owner I recommend stopping by the Santa Barbara Business Expo on Saturday morning at the Fess Parker Double Tree. My colleague Lorrie Thomas Ross is the keynote speaker and not to be missed. I'll wave from the beach as I run by!

Summer Berries and Yellow Fashion Fun

I took care of my in-laws garden a couple of weeks ago while they escaped on a much needed beach house vacay. I have never been a green thumb, but I do relish in making my small collection of house plants thrive(ish), so I delighted in the chance to participate in the creation of food that I would surely eat at some point this summer.

The Phillips' ranch garden was blossoming with soon-to-be, edible abundance - a sure sign of spring in Santa Barbara. The asparagus spears were popping from the dirt and the strawberries were already becoming prolific. As I watered the flowering blooms I could NOT resist plucking a few of the ripe berries right off the plants and straight into my mouth. They weren't at peak season sweetness, but I couldn't resist the fun of feeling like a 5 year old in the garden.

You can watch my gardening in action with my fun Vine video. 

As a fun part of my daily art practice I drew this sweet summer girl savoring a ripe strawberry. I have been having a ton of fun playing with the colored paper in my doodles. Often I pick a color solely based on a snap decision of a feeling I want to capture. In the case of my summer berry girl, I chose a lovely sunny yellow.

Building up the lush green grass behind her and letting the yellow shine through is what keeps her garments so vibrant.

Prismacolor colored pencils on yellow paper, with some finishing touches of ink pens.

Daily Art Practice: Fruit Salad

Although my daily art practice has been wavering (especially the part where I share it with everyone) I am still drawing nearly every day. Part of this practice is because I have a nice little art station set up that I never take down. I know that some people enjoy more of a ritual with their art practice; the setting up and taking down helps begin and end the process. I am the opposite. I like the call of the colored pencils,  the wanderlust of watercolor exposed to my eye. I love the inspiration of teal paper on the tabletop. That is what pulls me in,  inspires, and motivates me to keep the art and doodles alive.

Often, once the paper and pencils call me over, I let my imagination run amok. As the weather shifts, and spring hits us full force, I am inspired by all things summer, and bright and warm; and fruity! I love the kitsch and nostalgia of drawing fruit. It reminds of another decade and is the type of thing I love to create and it always reminds me of freshness and summer. 

And as subject matter, I always have it hanging around ;)

 Cherries were done in a mix of opaque ink and colored pencil. I love the color combo of pink and red.

 My funky fresh banana in retro 80's fun. In this doodle I was inspired to let the yellow of the paper shine through as the fruit color.

A little tropicana fun with this fruity pattern. Colored pencil and a touch of pen on lime paper. It reminds of the late Lilly Pultizer's prized preppy patterns.

Nourished - A Book Design Experience

I haven't been keeping my blogging up with the rest of my life these days. It's actually quite funny because I blog often for the marketing agency I work for ( check out the blog posts I write for Web Marketing Therapy) and for clients as a ghost writer, and perhaps that has sort of dampened my enjoyment of blogging for myself. Or maybe I just kinda forgot about it - which seems like a common theme ever since I started this thing. Regardless, I am here today and sharing with you a project I worked on for quite sometime and finished back in April - book design and layout for a cookbook!

I met cookbook author Luna Paige Smith last fall through a fellow designer's referral. I found Luna's passion, compassion and creativity in both her recipes and cookbook ideas to be inspiring.

 Nourished - The Art of Eating and Living Well; is a collection of all natural, gluten-free recipes, insights and information for a fresh, feel-good life. Some may call me biased, but every single one of the recipes I have tried in her book is truly delicious (and healthy!).

Nourished was a labor of love and a melding of minds between each of us working on the book. The beautiful photography by Spencer Weiner really brought the book to life. It is self-published, was printed through an on-demand publishing company called CreateSpace and is available for purchase on Amazon.com.

Below are some of my favorite elements of the book.

Back and Front Cover 

The title page showcases the collage look we incorporated into the book and helps to introduce the reader to the illustrations hidden amongst the pages.

Inner recipe page - highlights the simple layout and use of the gorgeous photos by Spencer Weiner.

This is an example of one of the inner chapter pages - it helped to break up the book into specific categories.

Some recipes did not have photos and that was ok, because simple custom illustrations were created by me and peppered the book in fun little nooks and crannies.

Illustrations were simple gestured line drawings in a soft grey.

Yum.

One of the most special things about this book is that Luna Paige Smith is donating a portion of the proceeds of every cookbook to select organizations devoted to providing hunger relief and sustainable living skills to those in need around the world. You can read more about Luna and her cookbook at her site Nourished By Life. I hope you buy a book and get cookin!

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.

Monster Mash

Last weekend I took the time to play with my watercolors a bit. A joy of mine that I can never seem to actually do these days. I like to blame it on my lack of workshop space because the  taking-out or packing up of paints and supplies really makes the act of creating not as fun. And as such, I get workshop envy. My friend and artist Lalove Benedict has the perfect little work space in which she can spread her painterly goods from tables to wall to easel in one swoop and never has to clean it up (except, of course, when we came to visit and slept in said workroom).

Despite the hassle of cleaning, I took my paints out and played. And, in the end it was well worth it:
 I had fun creating some silly little monster friends, a theme of which I was developing for a custom painting for friends' baby (post to come). Below is the end result:

Big Things

Here's to big things in 2012! Cheers!

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!

Spook

Pretty Peony Pattern in a Perfect Palette

Alliteration is fun. Try it out sometime. Highly recommended.

What else is highly recommended you ask?....... Pretty flowers. Lots of them.

Especially peonies. Swoon worthy, feathery peonies, in rich tones.

Highly.

Recommended.

This pattern was created in Illustrator by manipulating a photo of peony, a little copy and pasting and some abstracted leaf shapes. Fun. Easy. Pretty.

Another recommendation? Click on the image to open in a new window, right click  and save as your computer wallpaper.

You're welcome. ;)

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:

Baby Cakes

My friend and co-worker/boss lady, Lorrie Thomas Ross is expecting her first baby very soon. Her little girl will be arriving at the end of the month and my friends and I at the agency are so excited for her to be here. In honor of Lorrie and her sweet baby we put together a lovely baby shower. Of course I volunteered to make the invites and I wanted to share with everyone the end results:

 A jungle theme was agreed upon and from that I let my drawing run wild.... wink wink. A hand drawn illustration was scanned and colored digitally in Photoshop. Each invite was printed by me on scalloped edge cardstock and sent to the recipients in a pale purple envelope (sorry for the terrible photo quality).

My original plan called for a hand lettered invite, but the changes in the details of the shower made it too complicated. Instead I went for a combination of a script font and a more hand lettered one to create a laid back delicateness (is that a thing?).

As a gift to Mamma, Daddy and Baby I printed an isolated image of the invite illustration on the same scallop edged cardstock and floated it in a frame over textured yellow paper. It was a special way to memorialize the baby shower and this exciting time  parents experience before the baby arrives.

For an added fun project, and gift for Baby Ross, my friends Nicki and David and I all made some customized onesies! Using fabric paint markers and puffy paint we made some cute little onesies for the newborn to sport in stylish fashion during her first days out in this bright new world. I only managed to get one shot of them before we wrapped them up:

If you are interested in a custom invitation set for your next event I would love to help you out. You can email me at jennie@jennie-jacobs.com for more info.

Lily's Busy Day

Back in May I was approached by a professor of computer science from University California Santa Barbara about helping to create a children's book for a new iPad app he was developing with the help of the computer science students at UCSB. I agreed and am excited to share with you some of the illustrations I developed for my interactive book.

Lily's Busy Day is essentially an interactive "paper-doll dress up" book for small children. The premise is that Lily needs different clothing items and accessories to complete her favorite activities. Each of the components will be able to be dragged and placed on to Lily's form.

  

The app called Bookaroo is a fun and toddler friendly childrens book read and book creator. To learn more about the Bookaroo app by GreenPangolin please visit the website here.

 The app is still in the works and should be releasing soon (fingers crossed). I will be sure to let you know when it is up and running and available for purchase.