making a splash!

It can pour, drip, drizzle, splash, mist, downpour, shower, be intermittent, steady, occasional --- the descriptive list goes on.  Being a lifelong Oregonian I can really enjoy the rain - not that I always do, but I can. So here's to fall, heading into winter, and looking forward to good times!

Alander's Detective Day

Open publication - Free publishing - More picture book

My original pencil drawings colored in photoshop, this is a preview of a (yet unpublished) book by Bethany Dalton.

It's uploaded to a site called ISSUU.   A great way to view publications and I'll be using it more.

I took photographs of "Alander" and "Nonya" to use as reference when I sketched out the drawings. It was really fun to give life to these personalities with the multiple layers of colorings and brushes with endless possiblitities of manipulation in Photoshop.

Start packing!

This is a pencil drawing I did this summer while we were camping at the beach. Now it's colored in photoshop and  given a voice with the sentiment of Catherine Douzel.

Sometimes a cup of tea is shared
with a friend,
a book,
music,
an unfocused gaze out your window.

-but each cup is a journey of sorts
and that's a wonderful thing.

This print is now available in my etsy shop, you might want to check it out - but you'll definitely want to make time for regular journeys in this fall season.

Happy brewing!

coffee town

Coffee Town, where there is always something brewing. The lights are on in everyone's house as they find themselves adding to the general excitement of the village.

This pen and ink drawing was drawn in a yurt at the beach, scanned and colored in photoshop, and imagined long before anything actually took place on a piece of paper.

Soon to be available at my etsy shop.

I'm a little teapot

Original watercolor enhanced in photoshop. A new use for a cracked teapot, new life coming on strong! I love the old illustrations where the registration is just a bit off, I tried to convey that feel here.

Open for Business

Ahh peaches!

Open them up and you reveal the sweet, juicy and delicious, surrounding the heart or stone at the center. In the right hands the pit is more than just an inedible cast off, it's that very stone that holds the possibility of new beginning, new life.

Sometimes life is the pits, or maybe it's just all about the pits . . .  and their possibilities.

Here's two running!

Here is the final logo I developed for the Mt Hood Athletic Club's Running Club. It incorporates the swoosh and colors of their original club logo, and adds a fun and active element in the runners and shoe.
I enjoyed making the swoosh more active allowing it to weave it's way through the MHAC.  A great facility that really adds so much to the community of Sandy!

fall dropping in

Working on designs for fall cards! These are in the development stage, started of as scans of black and white ink drawings, and then colored in photoshop. I like the contrast between daylight and night-time fall. I ordered paper and envelopes and hope to get these finished and printed soon and into my etsy shop

new print completed!

Ahhhh, this one has finally flown in and landed. Actually this bird sits on the fence and prepares to fly. The inspiration is all around, good examples surround, the moon lights the way, and the time is right.

This print comes in both 8 x 10 and 13 x 19 versions. Printed right out to the edges, but with plenty of room to mat and frame.

Check it out in my etsy shop.

coming attractions

OK I went hiking in the gorge on Monday instead of drawing, and then there was the art museum on Tuesday, then back to work at both my jobs on Wednesday so I haven't posted on anything lately, but I am working on another raven piece and this is the first of the sketches.
Obviously not finished yet, but I plan to set him on a fence with other flying ravens in the background. I've got some good ideas on a detailed sky that I'm excited about too.
So that's where we stand, not idle, just not yet completed!

once again (as opposed to nevermore)

We went camping at the beach 2 weeks ago, and even though it rained most of the time, we enjoyed the comforting roar of the ocean, the fog horn in the distance, and the croak of the crows that are constantly scanning and assessing the camp sites waiting for their turn at ---- well, at whatever!

I took a bunch of photos that are giving me some great reference to work with. This started out as a pencil sketch, the pencil lines are still visible here and there around my finished print. Don't you just love the way crows are black and violet and blue? This will be joining my etsy shop pronto!
hopscotch graphics

as my dad always said . . .

Hmmmm, this really isn't a negative, pessimistic saying, it's just  - well, true! We have said it often enough at our house and it seems to lighten the frustration of the moment and remind us that it's just one of those little rules of life, true not just for us, but in general.

This is a seek preview of the giclee print that will be offered in my Etsy shop very soon!