the optimistic bee

I noticed a young woman's tattoo the other day, it was a bee. With a name like Melissa, that means bee, I had to ask her about it and she told me it's meaning.
This time all the work is in illustrator. I used a nice irregular border on the shapes to help give it a more organic feel.

what would you see?

So, if you were sitting in this tree, what would you be looking out at?
I created the shadow of the tree by taking the colored layer created with a mask, overlaying a new color on it and then transforming it to look like it was laying on the ground, how easy!

"I've learned", or "I've heard"?

Happiness and growth? - oh, is that my current condition? I know that journey thing, but blisters along the way are a reality. So, "I'm learning", or "I'm striving to learn", or "I've heard" are perhaps more true than "I've learned". Anyhow the reality of this lesson is worth seeking out because I'm definitely lost in the foothills, and I might as well be gleaning what there is to know, and finding the happiness that surrounds me.
On to technical notes: Original airbrushed work I did some time ago, with a new background, rearranged sections, updated coloring - the works. I love photoshop!

Sandy Centennial

Here is a logo I developed for the city of Sandy and their upcoming 100 year anniversary. It can be seen currently at the city's website. http://www.cityofsandy.com/  I liked adding the cross-hatching details over the gradients to help it achieve an older and hand-drawn feel.

Signage for SCAC

I developed these logos for the Sandy Community Action Center with input from Sandy Lazenby and the Board of Directors. The "S" in Sandy shows people helping people, and they were especially interested in bringing the food box into the design. Both the logos are a bit longer horizontally than vertically, so I added a blue bar at top and bottom to take up that space and act to set the logos off like a partial frame. On the big sign, everything was kindof floating around, so I added the blue boxes, which is consistent with the business cards and brochure look.

MAMA Campaign

 
I was asked to work on an update for the MAMA Campaign/Midwives and Mothers in Action that incorporated the use of their old logo) on the left. The old web banner was pretty generic looking, and didn't actually use the title "MAMA Campaign", so I clarified that in this new version you can see at http://www.mamacampaign.org/

This is a great organization and a wonderful movement that wants to make good maternity care options available for women. Check it out, talk it up, support this worthy movement.

Sandy Community Action Center Brochure

Trifold brochure for our wonderful center, serving families in the Sandy area. The notebook was one I had hanging around here, scanned in and then worked over in photoshop. I took out a busy background on the santa photo and enjoyed seeing it become a central happy item for this inside page.

clear thinking

Is there a better place in life to be? 

where have all the mousies gone?

Did you know that the way to identify a Douglas Fir cone was to identify the little mousies that are running to hide and disappearing under the layers of the cone? ( see their tails and hind legs?) Now you do.

lost in the woods

Did you ever play "lost in the woods" when you were little. I did and it's amazing how different your own backyard or the familiar park would actually look when pretending it was the deep and dark unknown.  Of course it was no fun to play unless you had a good friend to cower, hide, bravely fight and eventually triumph with. My friend was Annette.

the survivor cat

Years ago the newspaper ran a story about a cat that had been thrown off a bridge in Portland and had survived. This was the cat. The photo stuck with me. Scornful, but needing a home, needing someone to trust again. I originally painted her in water color and now here she is color enhanced with Photoshop, but still just as accusing as ever. I like to think of her finally in a home that brought out the purr in her.

Carpe diem

Seize the moment, idea, inspiration, head picture, dream,
fleeting thought. . .
and to be prepared to do this, carry a notebook, put it by your bedside, in your bag, and keep it with you. There are times in life when ideas are bursting all around, keeping you up at night and it's exhausting, BUT, there are dry times too. So my notebooks and little scraps of paper are my pantry of tomorrow.