My first homemade gift...kind of

This is my very first homemade gift that I'm giving away to someone outside of my family. I'm not exactly 100% finished with it, since I need to seal the back of the picture, but other than that, I think it's ready to go. It's for a friend whose daughter just had a baby. As you can tell from the picture, his name is Alexander. However, his nickname is going to be Zander. His grandmother wasn't sure though that everyone would understand how they got that name from the other, so I did my own little take on how they could tell. And of course, I decided to put my 'wanna-be-children's-illustrator' twist on it and make it a picture that also says "From A to Z", too. :) So, Here's the final outcome:

Do you see the Apple and Zebra to go along with the theme as well? :) I can't wait to give it to them. I've been working on it for a long while now, just to get it right. It's even got a 3-d like quality, too, because I made the eyelashes stick out by cutting a bunch of little slits on a piece of paper and pulling them out. I really enjoyed making this piece. I really hope the couple likes it. :) Oh, it's made by cut paper by the way. :)

Shoo fly, or I'll eat you!

Hey! It's nice to be back on here! I've been so sick and so busy and just so exhausted that I haven't had time to post anything recently. But, the good news is that I was still creating art, so I have some new things to post! :D Here's one I did using my scrapbooking method. Or a cut and paste technique, if you will. :) Can you tell what his tongue is? It's from a party favor. It's the part that curls up and when you blow on it, it inflates and uncurls. That's why it's so shiny. :) That thing was hard to glue down though, since it kept wanting to roll back up! (If you ever use one in your art, be sure to let it stretch and flatten for a day or so to keep it from rolling back on you.)

Also, while I've been away being sick and staying busy, I found some really good, adult water colors. Now, when I say adult, I mean that they're regular watercolors, compared to the Crayola children ones I've been using lately. I just got them last night, so I tried them out before I went to bed, and here's the best that I have come up with so far.

Here's my little ol' doggy.

And here's my little ol' kitty.

I know, I'm already breaking my rule of not posting more than one picture per each post, but since I've been away sick, I figured I'd make up for lost time. :) Hope everyone else is keeping up with their resolutions better than I am. :)

On the 12th day of Christmas...

Today makes it twelve days until Christmas, and I said I was going to try and make a post each day to do with Christmas. So, to stay in tune with the song (On the twelfth day of Christmas....Twelve drummers drumming), I've decided to post this picture of some crazy creatures I made out of leftover scrap paper that I couldn't bring myself to throw away. :) It looks sort of like they would be drummers, since their hands are so oddly shaped.

"On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....Twelve Drummers Drumming!"

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! :) Gobble, Gobble!

I'm on a roll!

I'm on a blogging roll today. I guess since I've gone weeks without posting, that I figured I would post while I get the chance. :) I thought this one would make a good bookmark. :) I love how she looks retro, yet new age at the same time. I can just see her as a character in a good book.

Something Simple

I did a bunch of new pieces of the weekend, and basically kept it simple. Here's one I really liked. I thought it was simple, yet cute. Kind of like something on a greeting card. :) Hope you enjoy. It reminds me of spring, too, so it's kind of a brighter picture than the Halloween ones that were out there last week. :)

Being creative...

Okay, when I first started my "Scrapbooking" style, I came up with this little man. A robot, aka Mr. Roboto for now. I made one for each of my neice and nephews (3 all together), but obviously the fact that they're made of mere paper meant that they didn't last for long at all. Still, this one was the first one I made like this and I kept it for myself. Thought I would share it with you. :) Notice my fetish and love for books?! ;)

Chicka chickas

I love this picture, even though it's not my best work. It really doesn't even make sense, but I think it's so cute. It's 3 birds, not penguins, in a tree. I applied the "scrapbooking" technique to this, since I cut out the limb, leaves, and birds and painted them before glueing them down over my painting of the tree. Right now, I have this picture framed and hanging in my room. There's just something about it that I love. :)

Under the sea...

Well, I guess this post is appropriate, seeing as how it's been pouring down rain here today. (I'm not complaining though. We definately needed the rain.) As with most of my pics, I did this one over the weekend. I originally drew a really cute sketch of this, but seeing as how my sketches never match my final work, this one doesn't look anything like it. However, I do have a work in progress piece I started first that looks very similart to my sketch. I used the "Scrapbooking" method on it, while this is a painting I did in acrylic.

Is it just me or do drawings of octopuses look much cuter than the real thing? :)

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