WHAT THE WHAT?!

Wow. Just WOW. I'm not sure if I'm even ready to write this post- it's all so surreal. But here goes...I am so excited to say that I won the Special Studio Award of being represented by Lilla Rogers Studio! (Read their post HERE) This final round of the Global Talent Search was pretty intense! We were to design two boards of a home decor line based on a trend board given to us by Margo Tantau (Art Director for Midwest CBK). I chose "Vintage Cottage" and just started brainstorming. I knew I wanted to do some animal/floral platters so I jumped right in. And actually, those are the only items that stayed in from start to finish. I have about 3 other boards worth of illustrated products that did not make the final. The whole time I just tried to stay confident and true to myself. I knew that if I was designing things out of fear of losing, my work wouldn't come across as strong. Here's what I ended up submitting:

I love where I landed with these boards. I knew that perhaps it wasn't the most commercial stuff- but I also knew that Lilla liked my quirkiness. Now I need to do a shout-out to some awesome peoples. My hubs and family for being the ultimate support crew! Emily Balsley and Candice Hartsough McDonald for encouraging me to take MATS a year ago and being super artists to bounce ideas off of! Also a shout out to the other finalists- I know Lilla's choice couldn't have been easy. And then a mega CONGRATS to Kate Mason- the grand prize winner and Clairice Gifford- my fellow studio prize winner! 

Now....how do I get that rug made?!

MATS Home Decor Week 5 + roundup

Week 5 (the final week :( ) in the Make Art That Sells Home Decor course focused on wood and textures/mark making. I started the week with markers and inks and soon realized I needed to do something totally different. I created the three 11x14 paintings over the course of a few days- building layer after layer until i had the desired effect (in person they are very textural). I've been lusting over a bunch of the abstract painters' work I follow on instagram and really wanted to do my spin on some abstract-ness coupled with a tiny still life. To make these pieces more functional I thought a plant shelf would be the perfect addition. That nesting terrarium set came towards the end of the week after many walks, some mild procrastination, and an hour or so of out-loud brainstorming. I think the idea is really fun (though perhaps a bit impractical).

We were also encouraged to put together at least one piece from each week to show a full collection.

I think i ended up creating a fun, hip (but not unapproachably cool), modern collection that I'm really proud of. I definitely made some tweaks to a few of the products from each week (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) to make it all a bit more cohesive. 

So what would I give this course on a scale of 1-5? For me it was a total 5- I feel like I was able to experiment just enough to keep growing but there was enough structure to not make me loose my mind. I loved being stretched in new ways- like allowing myself to dream of products that don't even exist. I adored the fast pace of a 5-week course but if i was working another job during the day i don't know how i'd get it all done. I am also glad I had already taken MATS A/B (mostly to be used to the pace and format). Also one of the best things about the class is the community that forms. Between the classmates (who are amazing and supportive and rockstars) to Lilla and Margo (who are such excellent mentors- totally encouraging, relatable, and engaging)- you really feel supported during the craziness. 

Now it's time to update my website, list some new products in my etsy shops, work on a few commissioned projects, and prep for the Global Talent Search (don't worry- if you don't know what that is- i'll be talking all about it for (hopefully) a few months). Cheers!

MATS Home Decor Weeks 3 + 4

whoa. how do nearly 5 weeks go by so fast?! Week 3 for the Home Decor class focused on glass and pattern. Here's where I landed:

This was the hardest week for me so far. I really enjoy how some of the pieces turned out (pink jug, smokey plate). There are times when you just know you need to go back to the paint/paper again rather than trying to force something in photoshop- and this week I just didn't have the time to start again. Ah well. Week 4 was all about hand lettering and ceramics. I was so excited for ceramics week but I was also traveling the entire time. I took my travel watercolor kit, wacom, laptop, and camera to San Fransisco and was able to work during Juniper's naps. She also had a fever for one of our days- so I got some extra work time in. First some progress shots:

For some time I've wanted to do some illustrations involving foreign words that we don't have english words for. In retrospect- these would make better spot illos or cards rather than something you eat off of or use to serve lemonade. But still- i loosened up and just had a bit more fun with the whole assignment: 

Here's a round-up of all my weeks so far:

I've definitely learned something new each week and pushed myself in new ways. The whole course has been pretty fantastic for experimenting and creating loads of new work! 

MATS Home Decor Weeks 1 + 2

When I heard about the newest Make Art That Sells course about designing a home decor collection- i had to sign up. I'm two weeks in and I'm trilled that I did! It's making my brain work in different ways- rather than just creating the illustrations- i get to think about specific products that could be made with my art on it! Week one focused on metal with birds- here's what I came up with:

This one came together so fluidly- birds+triangles+bird sounds+a few flowers all with a fairly limited color palette. Week 2 was fabric with flowers week. I knew I wanted to push myself and show MORE! I started here:

I was feeling happy about this one- light and airy, very neutral. But then I got a push from Lilla to consider varying the density of my patterns. I realized I had illustrated a lot of stem-y botanicals and didn't have much counterpoint to the airy/neutral side. So we went to this:

Getting better...I like how the lettering in the dark grey tea towel relates to week one. But I was still hating on my table lamps and rick rack. So here is where I landed next:

Since there are quite a few different bits and pieces in this- my goal was that you could pick any 3 and they would relate in some way. I love how the hanging lamp turned out- very neutral but dense. Probably the most fun thing was thinking about trims and pom poms and MEGA pom poms! But this version was a bit too busy- like there were one or two too many elements. So i tweaked and nudged till i got this:

and now i'll step fully away. (at least for a few hours) ;)

Thinking about versatility

Before all these Make Art That Sells courses I'd never really thought about the overall versatility of my artwork. What Lilla preaches is "Icons, icons, icons!"- so that individual bits of art can be reused on a variety of products and in many different ways. Learning this and seeing that even my hand-painted work is basically layers of icons ready to be dismantled and rearranged is pretty thrilling. I wanted to show the last two bootcamp assignments and how I've altered them to be used in more than one way.

First is the patterned sea life plate. Here is what I submitted for bootcamp, followed by a new landing illo for my website and a repeat pattern that will be up on Spoonflower soon.

Then we have an editorial assignment about digital nomads for June's bootcamp, followed by a Facebook header, and a pattern for my Spoonflower shop (i'm still waiting on samples for these patterns before they will be available for sale).

So there you have it- trying out being as versatile as possible while still being myself. (also- if you can't tell- i think i'm kinda obsessed with these muted colors with pops of dark coral and mustard) 

Poster Contest (guess what...I won!!)

April's Make Art That Sells Bootcamp assignment was to design a poster for their live Global Art Gathering happening this summer in Brighton, England. It was a slow start for me- I spent a few days just in my brain- letting it all stew. The thought process went something like this:

-ICONS! 

-maybe i should make a simple grid of icons 

-what could i do to make this more fun?

-tattoos? tattoo man? 

-wait?! is the "tattoed man" over-done? (check in with fellow illustrator, hubs, googles)

-tattoo LADY would be bad ass. 

-tattoo lady in swimsuit (not striped) with tats that nod at the event (mer-lilla, MATS house, folk-craft influences, Brighton landmark), trends (owl, pineapple), traditional tattoos (bird, lettering), and communicate event messages through hand-lettering. 

I then created a few roughs and even re-did most of the hand lettered tattoos a few times. Once I started going I knew I had a potentially really great idea and so I needed to make sure the execution was equally excellent. I chose to keep with the fonts that they gave us for the event (though we didn't have to- and were encouraged to explore hand lettering). I felt like it kept the whole poster on-brand and allowed both the info and the illo to stand out. They didn't get mushed together. The whole design took 2.5 days to make. I had a few other projects for the month that I needed to get done (and I work well when I just throw myself at a singular illustration for a few days). 

Once the bootcamp gallery was uploaded I knew that there could be a number of winners. So much talent and a variety of styles- so many of which would have made great posters! (I highly recommend checking them all out!)

When I got the email about winning I freaked out for 5 minutes and then continued to freak for the rest of the day. (who am i kidding?! I'm still freaking out!) I get to skype with the lovely Lilla Rogers for an hour AND have my poster all over Brighton! You can read their post about it here. 

MATS B - Round-up

Welp- here are all the Make Art That Sells part B assignments. Kinda fun to have them all together and realize just how much work I created in five weeks. I was also working on a few commissioned pieces during that time- but I think my favorite non-MATS piece i did was my llama pattern!

MATS B Week 5 - Party Paper

It was a bittersweet end to a fantastic course. This last week I went on vacation starting Wednesday so I had to have all my painted bits done really early in the week. I then brought my laptop and tablet to Arizona where I worked on my piece with palm trees, cacti, and love birds in the background. Not too shabby. I knew most people would be focusing on birds and flowers with the Bavarian/Ukrainian Folk theme- so I went with fish. Folky fish. A "Folk-sea" if you will. :)

I was happy with how it turned out given my vacationing circumstances. Also- since creating art with icons makes your work really versatile- you can easily turn bits from this into:

A little illustration for a card or print. Or into:

A cute fish pattern! 

I think that was the biggest takeaway from MATS- as Lilla says "icons, icons, icons." And it's true- when your work is versatile- the possibilities for different gigs is endless. Now it's time to get back to work and keep on crackin'!

MATS B Week 4 - Editorial

Good gracious- i'm so far behind on my blogging. Time to catch-up! Week 4 in Make Art that Sells B was one of my favorite (and arguably most successful) weeks yet. I knew it would be a map assignment and I was kind of dreading that I needed to do a map of Dubuque, Iowa. Then I found out that we could do a map of where we lived OR a favorite place. I could do Yosemite or Bloomington, IN, or somewhere else! But then I thought about it- and realized that illustrating Dubuque was a good opportunity to really look at our new city and challenge myself. (Thankfully Dubuque does have a lot of interesting old buildings, a river, and a noticeable german/irish Catholic influence). Here's what I made:

I adore how it turned out! It was so fun to draw such a variety of icons- from a nun and trout to an eagle and trolley!

MATS B Week 3 - Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking. I must admit I was kind of dreading this week since I am not a scrapbooker and haven't felt much of a connection to a lot of the scrapbook market. But the mini assignment that was provided was airships- blimps, dirigibles, balloons! love it! I just wanted to have some fun with it at first so I painted up this piece:

Then I got started on the assignment. The truly freeing part about this week was just being able to make a ton of little icons and then puzzle-piece them together. So on Wednesday I painted my shapes and words:

I wanted to go kinda steampunk-light and focus on nautical adventure. About an hour into work on Thursday I realized that Juni didn't have school the next day and my mom was coming to visit. So I pushed hard and finished it up on Thursday night:

I like how it turned out. However I think some things get a little lost since it's all very much a similar tone. My favorite things are the whale weather vane, the birds, and the fact that i got to letter "ahoy-hoy" and "huzzah." On Sunday I was able to sit down and paint during Juniper's nap...

And then on Monday I procrastinated by making these guys:

Can you tell that it's been kinda a grey week here in Dubuque? Maybe some warmer weather and sunshine will add a little more color to my art. ha! Now time to work work work!

MATS B WEEK 2 - Baby/Kids Apparel

ah seahorses! I feel like ive been doing a lot of ocean illustrations for Oopsy Daisy (coming this summer i think)- but I was excited to go at it again in a new way. Right away the idea of "Hide and SEAk" came to me and though i tried to think of other ideas- it just stuck around. So i went with the bad pun. I got to a point with my main pattern where I wanted to settle on the color scheme. Here are some color drafts that I sent around to some trusted illustrator friends and the MATS community to get some votes on:

from this I narrowed it down to the off white and dark blue...

Here I blocked in some potential coordinate color ideas. I was leaning toward the lighter colors but something needed to change...

 Then I switched out the blues for the olives and it felt fresh but kinda vintage and fun! So I went to work and came up with the final....

and quickly realized that this was crazy-boat-overload. So i tweaked it till I had this...

ah so much better! Juniper definitely needs some eyeball leggings asap! 

But wait! there's more! 

So I still had that pretty sweet darker color scheme and some time on my hands (well, a morning at least). So I decided to jump on the llama train (yes, there is a llama train) and made this...

i'm kinda obsessed and now I definitely need to get this licensed and made into a sheet/comforter/pillow set! 

MATS B WEEK 1 - Paper Market

Ah the first week back for part B of Make Art That Sells! I love the fast pace of these assignments and end up being super productive. This week the assignment was to create a holiday card with a toy train theme. After countless thumbnails (actually about 32)- I realized I wanted to just focus on some beautifully colored/decorated train cars rather than on illustrating a whole scene. The main reason behind this was Lilla's voice saying "make a card you would send." For me it had to be simple, interesting, and beautiful. Here's what I ended up submitting:

I think it's cute and I really like the colors I used. I think it would be awesome as wrapping paper. I'm not 100% on the hand lettering and a few other elements- so I may revisit it at some other point. But it's so good to be back at it!

MATS Part A - Round-up

Welp- here they are. My first five weeks of Lilla Rogers's Make Art That Sells course. Looking at them all together- i feel proud of what I made. My favorite is week 2's whistling goat plates and I think my weakest is week 1's root veggie pattern. I feel so fortunate to have been in 4/5 of Lilla's reviews (week 1 did not make it). I went into the course knowing that there was a high likelihood of not having any of my work reviewed. She talks about 15-20 pieces every week and with a class of about 200- well- you do the numbers. I truly feel like I learned so much while she talked about other people's work- that even if my work was not talked about- I would not have felt too disappointed. Creating this work propelled me into mega-productivity. Besides these 5 pieces I made a bunch more work in the 5 weeks:

The recipe, teeth, gems, and reef illos were re-worked from illustrations I had already made. Space cats and doll patterns were completely new, and the botanicals were for Audi Magazine. I also did a site-redesign and kept up with sales from my etsy shops and wholesale accounts. Basically the past five weeks proves my theory that I am most productive when I am juggling lots of gigs. Although I don't think I can quite keep up this pace 100% of the time- I am starting a 25-day holiday thankfulness countdown. I'm illustrating 25 things I am thankful for this holiday season. You can follow along on instagram. Here's the first one:

MATS WEEK 5 - gift market

The final week of Make Art That Sells focused on the gift market. So fun! We illustrated "hyper lush" zippered pouches and were free to also include a few other products. Lilla had us gather and illustrate our collections (or things we love) early in the week to use for the final. Since I don't really collect anything I ended up illustrating bouquets I had made back during my florist days. For my extra products I didn't want to just re-use the same bouquets from the pouch so I created 3 little critters to "wear" the bouquets on their little noggins! Here's the first version where I included basically everything I had and the kitchen sink:

I felt so fortunate to have Lilla review my piece and make some suggestions on ways to improve. I needed to focus on one color-way and design the page a bit more. Here's what I came up with:

I really love the more muted version- and the page layout feels fresher. It was a great note to end on and I feel really excited about the months ahead! (And MATS part B in the spring!!)

MATS Week 4 - Wall Art

I am in disbelief that four weeks have already gone by. Last week was wall art- I challenged myself to stay away from my typical process of paint/scan/photoshop collage/edit/add detail. I wanted to do it all by hand. I found last week fun, invigorating, agonizing, and difficult. For some reason- even though this was supposed to be our "free and easy" week- I really struggled. We each had a color scheme based on our bday (mine was blue/green), we needed it to be square, abstract, include some floral imagery, and a word or phrase. We were also encouraged to use collage elements. To me this felt like more "restrictions" than the previous week's "illustrate Tortoise & Hare, use hand-lettering" assignment. But I can see how many people found the wall art more enjoyable.

I'll show you what I ended up with- and then the steps that got me there...

There are many layers of gesso on this bad-boy- but I actually really like how it turned out. Although it feels different than my other work- it still has aspects of it that resonate with the other pieces. One of the hardest things for me was choosing a word. I didn't want to go super-inspirational and I didn't want to go too obscure. "Forage" fell perfectly in the middle between "Discover" and "Paidia & Ludus" (hub's suggestion). 

I started three canvases at once- all covered in a patchwork of green/blue inky squares. Here are parts of the two that did not make the cut:

There are elements in each that I like- but I'm so pleased with the minimal imagery and maximal texture I was able to get in my finished piece. I'm currently in the home stretch of week 5- can't wait to show you how this Make Art That Sells part A ends up!

Also- if you haven't seen my website update (full of new work)- check it out HERE!

MATS week 3 - Children's Books

I was probably most nervous for this week of Lilla Rogers's Make Art That Sells course. First of all, I haven't drawn characters (aside from my chipmunk cheek animals) in a long time (really ever?!). I also don't really do scenes. Characters + scenes = children's book. Anyhoo, coming off feeling great about last week's assignment- I decided to push my fears aside, create an illustration that felt like "me" and that I would be drawn to on a book shelf. The first part of the assignment was creating a tortoise character. I did a few pages of sketches/paintings- and felt like I landed upon something with these guys:

I really liked their texture, awkwardness, and googly eyes. For some reason I didn't want a green tortoise. I knew that for the final illo I wanted the colors to be informed by the scene/season. After doing these I felt like they belonged in a desert. The assignment was to illustrate the cover or a spread of The Tortoise and the Hare incorporating some hand lettering. Once I had them in the desert- I knew I wanted my lettering to be more "western" styled. Here's how my final turned out:

I love this color palatte! I experimented with some different textures/brushes in photoshop and really enjoy the result. I was able to complete this with a few days to spare (I worked hard early on because I felt a cold coming on and really wanted to just rest up this weekend). But in my experience work begets work- so I took the extra time I had and worked up this little pattern...

I think I have conquered my fear of characters (the googly eyes were key is this!). This idea of space cats was just floating aimlessly around my brain earlier in the week- so I had to follow through with it. The hubs thinks it would make a great sheet set and i have to agree.