I didn't want to shell out a ton of money for a nook cover....

...So I improvised and made my own. ;) I've been looking for a nook cover since I got mine, but they were either over what I really wanted to pay or I just knew they wouldn't suit my needs the way I wanted them to. Most premade items seem to turn out that way for me. :/ So while rummaging through my things and tossing stuff out I didn't use, I ran across this. Inside, it originally housed a glued in box (about two inches thick) full of art items (pencils, erasers, sharpeners, rulers, etc.) on one side and a sketch book and instruction booklet on the other. So, keeping the sketchbook/booklet side in tact, I ripped out the glued in box and tried hot gluing in some new scrapbook paper. Didn't work the first time, as the glue dried too quickly. :/ So I pulled off what I could and tried again, this time covering it with a piece of felt first so that I could push it down as I went without creating any unsightly bumps. Then just glued the scrapbook paper down over that when I got done. :) Instantly perfect and useful nook tablet to suit ME! (Also added in a pencil holder under the felt as well.) Then I put figured out where I wanted my tablet to sit, glued down the velcro pieces (stuck together), then pulled off the backing for the nook side (keeping them stuck together) and placed the nook exactly where it fit perfectly inside. :) So far it has worked great and held up perfectly fine. It's a bit bigger then my nook and thicker, but since I'm normally carrying around a sketchbook and other bits of paper and things, it suits me perfectly. My moleskin fits inside the side flaps as well, so nothing easily falls out as it would have if the pocket were open. For once, I'm glad I improvised. ;)

Jack the Kitten is now available on Amazon!

My first illustrated book is now available on Amazon! :D Woohoo! If you haven't gotten your copy yet, be sure to order one now. It will make a great christmas gift and with Amazon's Free Super Saver Shipping, it should arrive just in time. :D

I believe Amazon has the book available to other countries as well, so if you live outside the US, you should be able to get a copy, too! :D

Cupcake

Here's a cupcake I drew with my wacom tablet. Doesn't it look scrumptious? ;9

This artist paints alot of cupcakes and desserts and they look so adorable!

How do I see my self....

I don't know why, but I've been doing bunches and bunches of self portraits lately. I guess I'm just trying to figure out which one best describes me. Here's another one I did last night that I really liked. I thought it turned out really well. I wasn't looking to make another self portrait, but it sort of turned out that way. :) This is how I imagine my chic self, I suppose. Very calm and collected and somewhat sarcastic. :)

Happy Halloween!

Yay! It's Halloween! My very favorite holiday! I'm not sure why it's my favorite holiday, but it is. I guess because I can dress up and be something I can't be any other time of the year. (I'm actually a very shy person. Being someone...or something, allows me to be more open and not so shy. :D Plus, I like being scared, but only a little. Too much scary stuff really freaks me out! Lol! :) Hope you have a fun and safe Halloween!

I junked my pumpkin!

I finally, after two weeks!, came up with an idea for my pumpkin! I just entered it today and now it's in the gallery, which you can check out here. Plus, you can see what the other artists have come up with as well. They're all so good! I feel sorry for the judges, because they're going to have a hard time choosing! :) If you'd like to join in the fun and 'junk your pumpkin', too, you can visit Holli Conger's new website and participate. It's so much fun and it's a great way to celebrate the fall season without being so scary! :) Here's my pumpkin. This is the pic from Holli's webpage, so you can see how it looks. :)

Hi ya!

I did this picture a while back with pencils and colored pencils on a thicker paper. It kind of was an experimental piece, because I'd never used that sort of thick paper before. It turned out better than I expected though. Basically it wasn't any different than what I do on regular white printing paper.

Family Birthdays

I have 2 family birthdays coming up that both fall on the same day. No, it wasn't a coincidence either. :) My dad was born at the end of September, so my brother and his wife had a planned c-section on his birthday with their daughter, my neice. Therefore, they both have the same birthday. For it, I thought to post some pics of birthday drawings I have, but I don't think I have any scanned so far. I'll have to scan some and put them on here.

Quote of the week

"Tis the good reader that makes the good book." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Get a Grip...

I actually stole this idea and transformed it abit, so it's really not my own and therefore it must stay in my own private collection. :) (In case you don't recognize it, the face is from the back of the Gripz candy boxes, hence the title.) Still, I thought I'd post it just to show how much better I'm getting at my artwork, even if I did copy it. I did paint it myself, so it is my own work. I just changed it from a person eating snacks to one who's screaming because they're about to get a shot. It reminds me of going back to school and getting a checkup. :)

Bear attack

I originally posted my sketch of this pic, but then I did a larger picture on paper because I thought it was so cute. I changed a few of the details, like the trees in the background, but I think that's about it. Oh, and it's only done in colored pencils, too, just like my sketch.

Red nosed...mole?

I guess this is a sketch of a mole? I don't really know what this animal is, but I think he's adorable. :) If you notice, the butterfly seems to think his nose is one of the cherries that are in the background. I'm hoping to do a bigger piece of this, like my bear picture, but I haven't done so yet. I'll try to let you know if I do and post the outcome. :)

Still life

I love this picture. It's sort of a copy of a still life I saw on the front of my notebook. The picture didn't have any color and it was alot different then my picture, but I think I'll keep this in my own collection because I love it! I've not really ever done too many still lifes before. This wasn't a still life either, since it was based on someone elses' art, but I guess it would be considered a still life anyway. :) I used acrylic paint to make it. I used bright colors because they seem to make my art just jump off the page. I've been trying to use more bright colors to do that, but sometimes it's hard to only use bright colors. :)

The magic dragon

This picture reminds me the cartoon Dragon Tales. It just feels so magical! I feel like I can step into this picture and there would be a road waiting for us to walk down! I like dragons myself, although I highly doubt I would ever want to meet a real one. :) I think this would make a really cute picture book, too. I just need to think of a story to go with it......

Quote of the week

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." ~Francis Bacon

SCBWI

All right, here's another SCBWI newsletter with my work in it. I've only got one pic in this one, but it's one of my favorites. :) I love halloween, so one of my pics for the fall issue was a cemetary with ghosts and a haunted house. It's at the end of the issue, so you'll have to scroll down to find it. Here's the link for you to enjoy it. :)

http://www.scbwi-midsouth.org/FALL2007borderlines.pdf

Silhouette

I absolutely love the look of these two. One is a silhouette of one bird on a blue background and the other is a silhouette of two birds on an orange background. I thought this style would make a good theme for someone's room.

Inspirations

I have had many inspirations for my art. I can only think of 3 famous artists who have made me the artist I am today. One is Thomas Kinkade. I love his work. The only problem, I could never do art like that. But his work has inspired me to be more creative and to try to paint things realistically. The second artist who has inspired me is Mary Engelbreit. My mother bought a calendar of hers a couple of years ago and I have been entranced by her work ever since. It was her work that actually pushed me into art. Before I merely twiddled my thumbs with it, but when I realized that I could use markers and colored pencils instead of paints, it launched my love for art. If I hadn't worked with those mediums first, I don't think paints would have been so easy for me. I learned to mix and create colors with colored pencils first and then I realized how to do that with paint.

Third, the artist who has inspired me for many years, is Bob Ross. I absolutely love watching his shows on the educational channel. He is the funniest artist I have ever seen and I wish that I could have met him. With his artist views of "Happy accidents" and "furry friends" he has played a huge role in the shaping and progression of my art. Recently I studied his work from one of his workbooks that I have and I loved how it came out. I've tried to imitate his work before, just for practice, but have never been able to do so. I always imagined that if I ever did anything close to his work, then I was a true artist. And now, at last, I have created something similar to his. Because it is based on his work, it is not necessarily my own ideas, but I did indeed paint this myself. Of course, if you love Bob Ross' work as much as I do, I'm sure you'll be able to tell the difference. I plan to give this painting to my mother as soon as I can frame it.

The Circus

A friend of mine recently had a birthday party for her son with a circus theme. I was asked to come up with the cover for the invitations. I quickly did this picture, even though I didn't go with it. Still, I really was quite satisfied with the way it turned out. The tent is made of tissue paper.

What I do

I was just thinking, I haven't explained much about my work. If you look at my cabin picture, you might notice it's a little bit of a 3-d like picture. Well, what I do is what I prefer to call "Scrapbooking". I cut out a picture (such as the trees and cabin and snowbanks) from fairly thick paper (so it doesn't curl too much) and paint it to look like whatever I want. I hardly ever make pieces from my sketches, which I think both helps and hinders me. It helps me stay creative, but it hurts me when I'm not in a particularly creative mood, yet I still want to create something. Plus, I hardly ever can create the picture I want from my sketches. They never seem to come out anything alike.
I also will paint the background, since paint creates a nice, clean background picture (unlike my former medium of markers and colored pencils). Then, once everything is dry, I use just regular school glue (usually Elmers) and glue down everything where I think it looks best. Usually by now I have a picture in my head of what I plan to create.
Once I have everything glued down, I usually sign the picture and that's about it, unless I feel that I can do more with it later, at which point I will save it and finish it at another time. However, I've come to find that the paper still curls once the paint is dry, so I will usually press my work between some thick books, or find a way to make the picture stay flat again. So far, this hasn't been too much of a problem. I hope it never will be.
The reason I refer to this as my "Scrapbooking" technique, is because it reminds me of how people create scrapbook pages. (That and the fact that I also used scrapbook sheets as some of the backgrounds for my work.) There are raised pictures on quite a few of my new works and they have things glued to them, rather than painted or drawn directly on them. Plus, I have found that I like the mixed media look and have put other things on my work as well, such as buttons and string. It's all quite exciting finding out that there is more than one world of art out there. Now I know that I can create so many more things and actually achieve the look and style that I crave. The winter cabin picture below is a great example of that. I love that picture because it is 3-d ish and looks exactly how I would imagine my art to look like. It has that 'cartoonish' feel to it. I just love that! :)
If you have any questions or suggestions about what I do, feel free to leave me a comment. I enjoy the feedback and help! :) And if you haven't tried any new art techniques, I definately think it's something you should do. Even if you're not good at another medium, it helps you learn some techniques you can use in the one you like and you'd be surprised at some of the things you can create. On top of all that, it's just plain fun! :D