by abby on June 6, 2011 | Comment
Summer is just around the corner. Can’t you smell the sunscreen already? I can hardly believe we’ve reached June. May was an actual blur for me. I had some event planned every weekend, so now that June is here I’m actually taking a moment and looking around. Thankfully, my creative juices are still flowing. This last week, I focused my energy on creating new cards to post to my Etsy shop. I created several cards to celebrate the big guys of our lives. Yep, that’s right our men—our Dads, Fathers, Papas, Pas, of the world. With all those names, it just seemed right to create a card that uses them all!
I know my Father is an avid baseball fan and growing up one of the family activities was “throwing the ball around”. (Oh and, yes, I can throw a ball, just like the guys! Ask my friend Dan.) This memory inspired me to sketch the essentials of baseball. To add a little more color, I changed my sketch lines to blue and added a subtle hint of the playing field with a light green background.
The last two cards I created have a dash of tongue and cheek. Mustaches are quite popular in recent years. Perhaps I was seeing more of them since I had been living in Brooklyn? Whatever the reason, men this year are sporting all sorts of styles of facial hair. The interesting part of the mustache-wearing crowd is the fact that from the neck down most of them haven’t given up on their youth. Converse sneakers and slightly unkempt ties can be seen on our fearless mustache men. These two cards were created to honor this special type of man.
Mark the date: Sunday June 19th is Father’s Day. Don’t forget to send your Dad a note of appreciation and love.
by abby on May 24, 2011 | Comment
It feels great to be back home in the studio after spending a wonderful weekend with family for a birthday celebration. My grandmother turned 95 on Sunday! We celebrated the whole weekend. Mostly, just by sitting together and talking and talking. She’s a true inspiration for anyone, but especially for an artist. She continues to draw and watercolor almost daily. And she’s only still getting better! My grandmother has a wonderful sense of composition and I can only admire the delicate layering of color washes within her paintings. For anyone who has tried watercolor you know it isn’t an easy medium to master. My grandmother I can say has achieved this status. The walls of her apartment showcase decades of her own artwork, each one bringing back memories for me of Summer vacations of canoeing down the river and feeding the horses out back behind her apartment. She is a beautiful, talented lady and I feel so honored to call her Nana.
Back in the studio, it’s a busy few days as I’m finishing up the first round of a logo designs for a client who runs an editorial service company. I don’t want to ruin the surprise by sharing the more finalized logos, but I will share with you the state of my drawing table.
I think the more vested into a project I become, the messier my drawing table becomes. As you can tell I tend to have large brainstorming-sketch phases for my projects. I find it very freeing to be able to jot down any idea that pops into my head. You never know from where the right design will be inspired. For this reason too, I use tracing paper to quickly edit ideas and bring together two thoughts into one. It took several sketch days to pull together enough concepts to bring to the computer, but I believe it’s absolutely worth all that creative energy up front. For me my hand connects faster and more articulately to my brain than my mouse. Once on the computer there are still many rounds of revisions, but I have a design concept and direction and that’s the most important part. I hope to share with you more on this project as it progresses.
I’m off on another road trip for Memorial Day. I’ll be visiting friends and my old haunts in New York City. Enjoy the kick off to the summer season this weekend. I wish you a very happy barbeque!
