So far so good

whoa- where is 2015 going?! I'm writing this while feeling crazy sick- so let's focus on how awesome this year has been so far:

-The month of January for both of my etsy shops was better than any month in 2014! That was something i was not expecting since sales usually dip a bit after the holidays.

-I've been posting a lot of process and studio pics on instagram and have been gaining 100 new followers a week this year- crazy!

-I finished one commissioned logo piece and am currently working on another.

-I'm in the midst of Lilla Roger's Make Art that Sells Bootcamp which is super fun and making me excited to start Part B of her MATS course in March!

Here's some of the work I've done this year:

Can't wait to see what the rest of this year holds and get over this crazy virus! gonna go drink some tea now.

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:

Seas and Songs

Doing work for yourself is easy, doing work for others is hard. But it can be really rewarding. I just created this piece for singer/songwriter Alison Rae from Minnesota. It was a uber-quick turnaround- her new EP is coming out this week! Originally Alison wanted to license the "ships, flower" image from my ChipmunkCheeks shop, but since she liked the newer pieces I was making- I offered to do an original work in that style. I think it turned out loverly- just like her music.