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.

Floral Friday Watercolor

Santa Barbara weather can get a little gloomy this time of year. I know it's probably a little counter intuitive for sun-shiny California to get gloomy in the beginning of June - but it happens. To us locals we like to refer to the phenomena as June Gloom. And I can assure you - it's gloomy. Foggy, overcast skies hug the coast and bring with them a high level of sad faced days (at least on my end). To alleviate the depression, many locals know that the trick is to head to the Santa Ynez Valley for some wine tasting or (supppper top secret) river floating at the Santa Ynez River. In fact, a group of my pals headed that way to day for just that reason (and to celebrate my dear friend Tessa's birthday). I couldn't make it and as such, I decided to lift my spirits with a good round of afternoon exercise and a cheerful little watercolor post for everyone. 

On that note, here's to a sun shiny weekend to all of my friends! Xoxo - Jennie

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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:

Freebie Wallpaper for New Years Fun

Better late than never, but I wanted to give all of my friends a chance to download the wallpaper version of the calendar collaboration of mine and Kyle Phillips for the month of January. We are making a new yearly tradition of combining mostly Kyle's and some of my Holga camera film shots, with a fun and simple design aesthetic. We are into year two of our calendar tradition and we hope to keep the momentum going into 2013.

A small handful of friends and family received the calendars as printed pieces, but as always, we can't supply an endless amount of calendars (although we wish we could). By giving away this free desktop wallpaper we are hoping the our creative endeavor of film meets illustration/design  can be enjoyed by many more.

If you are interested in purchasing a printed calendar please email me at jennie@jennie-jacobs.com and I will be happy to custom print a new one for you for total of $15 including shipping to anywhere in the U.S.! Weeeee!

To download the free wallpaper (or this peony wallpaper) simply click on the image below to open in a new window. Then right click to save to your computer and add as your wallpaper.

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.