Sketching and doodling

Spent part of my weekend doodling faces while watching Howl's Moving Castle (One of my all time favorite movies that is absolutely brilliant in it's illustration). Great way to spend a weekend, even if I do suck at drawing faces.  ;) 

Happy belated New Year!

Happy belated new year!  Sorry everything has been so quiet around here the last month or so.  I had so much to do over the Christmas / New year holidays that I just basically went offline for the end of November until this past Monday.  I have barely even had time to create anything during that time either.  :/  I snagged these from one of my other social media feeds so I apologize if anything is a reshare.  And some may not make a whole lot of sense, but more then anything it will give you an idea of what I've been up to really and what may be something I'll share more about in the future.  ;)


One thing I will talk about is a new project I've decided to start this year.  All of last year I kept seeing people post their Project Life or Documented Life pages.  You may remember me mentioning them even.  If you haven't already heard about these, I'll explain them briefly.  Both are mostly just different ways of keeping track of your life and what is going on in it.  Project Life is more like a pre-designed scrapbook with slotted pages for adorable scrapbook page inserts/pictures where as the Documented Life Project is about keeping a sort of planner that combines your artistic talents, whatever they may be.  I've been wanting to do something similar that's a bit more personal.  I started doing a daily post it note project which I still have going on, but it's not quite fulfilling the cravings I have for something to do daily.  So I took one of the K&C Co. Smash books I got for Christmas and have transformed it into a sort of art journal smashbook diary.  If you've seen these around already, you know that they contain tons of awesome pages that let you smash in whatever you want, however you want.  Sadly mine is the older kind with the spiral bound core, although the new ones look to be a 3 ring binder, so that you can easily add, delete, or rearrange pages.  You can honestly even make something like this yourself if you wanted, but I like the pages used in the books so I decided to use it instead this round.  However, as I am documenting my life every day in this book, this one will only get me to March 1st, so I will be able to decide to do something different by then.

The fun thing about this project is that it is letting me be creative everyday while also looking at my life in review and appreciating it while documenting the parts I want to remember.  So far it's been a great daily project.  I started altering the pages the week after Christmas and got pretty far, since I wasn't sure how much time I would have once I started back to work and on other projects, but so far I don't think it would take much to create a daily page from scratch.  I keep my pages pretty simple, hiding anything I don't care for and putting things where and how I like.  Usually I'm just adding space to write on, since some of the pages are filled with large photos or designs, but I have added in some small decorative things where I want to break out the page and just add in some cuteness.

While most of the pages are going to end up as fairly personal, it's probably not likely I will share many of the finished ones.  However I do hope to share some of them before I start journaling on them.  (I simply hand journal on them so far in my scribbly hand writing, sometimes in one big space or some times I will break it up and write sideaways or something.  Either way that's about all I do so far on the pages I have already gotten ready.)

 I will try to post some more pictures and tips/tutorials/etc. on this project later for anyone wishing to do something similar.  

I hope you all had a great holiday and enjoy the silly things I've been up to.  Hopefully I will have more to share with you all again soon!  

A house, some sketches and other doodles

 The title really says it all.  Some practice in my latest style of a cute little house, some sketches of random things to try to get all this rustiness out, and some random doodles for more practice. 

I've had a hard time with this style, trying to recreate the look I want, but the more I play with it, the easier it has seemed to get.

 

WIP

Just a little WIP of something I started in another different style. Guess we'll see how it turns out.

From around the studio

 

These are just some random photos and items from around my studio.  Some I've shared in various places already so you may have already seen them, but thought I would round them up and share them here as well.

Busy Busy BUSY :S

Sorry I've been MIA for the past few weeks.  Work and life in general
     has just been crazy lately.  And it doesn't look like that will be about
     to change anytime soon, especially since we made the kickstarter
     goal for the third, Jack the Kitten is Very Sleepy book.  So much
     to do!  Anyhoo, I thought I'd stop in here for a bit and share some
     older things with you guys, since I haven't created anything much
     in weeks.

Mixed Media - Quote

"It's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." -Marilyn Monroe.

Mixed media sticker sheets

You may remember seeing one of these the other day, but I've since created a few others to go with it. These are actually sticker sheets that I've painted on and doodled up a bit. I'm thinking I may offer these for sale in my etsy shop. I thought it might be cool to see how other people use them in their art and scrapbook pieces.

More mixed media

Life isn't about finding yourself.

Life is about creating yourself.

Photos from my studio

Just some things I've been working on in my studio.

Snapshots

Just some snapshot peeks at what I've been doodling and enjoying lately when I get one of those rare moments of free time.

Sketches and doodles

Just some sketches and doodles.  Also drawn on photo paper with sharpie pens and markers.

Mixed Media pages

Still busy working on some projects, but in my moments away from those and my computer, I've rediscovered paint and have been playing around with some mixed media stuffs. I've been enjoying it immensely and I love that its allowed me to be more free in my creativity. Here's just a few of my pages so far I thought I'd share with you all.  They're still a bit of a WIP.

Sketchbook pages - February 2014

Just a quick peek at a few of my sketchbook pages.  (Sorry for the terrible lighting.  Haven't had time to photograph anything properly.  :/ )