A Purple Heart

One of my loyal customers was in a quandary: She had purchased eight of my heart series prints, but nine makes a much better wall arrangement. We tossed around some ideas and thought that a purple cabbage heart might fill that blank space quite well. She was very patient, as I had a couple of things going on at that moment, but I think we were right: Look at this photo of her kitchen wall that she sent to me! I will be adding it to my shop shortly, if you'd like to try a similar project.

I love it when buyers send me photos of how they're using my prints,

so if you have any, please share!

Happy Valentine's Day!

A Box of Chocolates

(click to enlarge)

Well, I still can't get enough of linocut printing. This latest piece that I did for Valentine's Day is another reduction print, meaning that first you carve away the areas that you want to stay the paper color. After that first color is printed (the "milk chocolate" color in this piece) you carve away the areas that you want to remain the color that you just printed, and so on. Some artists even do reduction prints of twenty or more colors! One of my favorites is Sherrie York. Her website and blog show the steps in her process so beautifully. Amazing. Ok, back to my little print...

After printing the milk chocolate and dark chocolate, I "cheated" and made a separate little block for the red heart. I was going to put a border around the image, but after playing around with it, I decided that I like it as is.

I ended up with about ten prints that turned out with varying degrees of success including the one at the top of the post, from which I've made slightly larger digital prints for my Etsy shop. I love how they turned out: I can hardly tell the difference between the original block print and the reproductions!

So, along with this Christmas one, there are now two "A Box of..."

What should be next?

I love candy corn

3" x 3", Prismacolor colored pencil

Happy October! As a seasonal addition to my series of "botanical hearts", I give you the iconic candy of autumn in America—candy corn!

I love candy corn. I know, it's full of junky ingredients (mostly sugar) and I did find it humorous that this year's packages boast "Made with Real Honey" just above where it says "artificial flavors". But it's just so cute and nostalgic. It has certainly earned its iconic status—it was created in the 1880s by George Renninger of the Philadelphia-based Wunderle Candy Company. While I was researching that historical tidbit, I also learned that The National Confectioners Association estimates that 20 million pounds—just over 9,000 metric tons—of candy corn are sold annually. (I certainly did my part and consumed a bit while doing this little drawing.)

Just for fun, I thought I'd show you what my drawing board looks like when I'm testing colors, even for a simple little piece like this:

And here's another little WIP shot:

Happy October!

Note: If you'd like to see the other pieces in my Botanical Hearts series, the most recent one here has a link down toward the bottom of the post. One of these days I'll group them all together for easier viewing! 

The Tale of the Abandoned Watermelon

Prismacolor colored pencils on Strathmore Bristol, vellum, approx 3" x 3"

Oh, it started out simply enough: The beautiful patterns in the rinds of the small, seedless watermelons at the grocery store were calling my name.

When I got home, I set up my "model" to do the base drawing. Sometimes what appears to be a simple rounded shape can be one of the trickiest to draw. A "flexible curve" is an amazingly helpful tool. I've had this one for ages, since my designer days, but you can find a similar one wherever art/drafting supplies are sold. You just bend it around until you have the curve you want, and then lay it on your paper and use it as a template. Nifty!

Then I did some not-so-pretty swatches to figure out how to achieve the colors in the rind. As you probably know, with colored pencils, it's all about layering. I often pull out some reference books for ideas. Three of my favorites for this are Botanical Portraits with Colored Pencils by Ann Swan, Painting Light with Colored Pencil by Cecile Baird, and Colored Pencil Solution Book by Janie Gildow.                   .

One tip that I learned ages ago (probably from one of those three books) is that a very light layer of Canary Yellow under the greens of a botanical piece will add a lot of light and life.

Well, at this point, I got overwhelmed. I was trying to do a life-sized drawing, and even though it was a very small melon, it seemed a bit daunting (and more than a bit boring) to fill in the whole thing. I thought, should I cut it in half to expose the center? Nah...the red center always gets all of the attention. I decided to sleep on it.

The next day, it dawned on me: my little botanical/nature heart series! A while back I started these as a way to explore textures in a small piece—almost like doing swatches. In the end, I had so much fun working on this, and I know that if I'd tried to fill in that bigger watermelon piece, I'd have gone a little nutso. I just don't have that kind of patience. Here's a little overview of the process:

Canary Yellow and Tuscan Red

adding Indigo Blue

Olive Green, Dark Green...and  a few other greens!

If you'd like to see the other hearts in this series, start here.

Happy watermelon-eating August to you! 

P.S. The last of my travel posts will be up shortly.

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Two Valentines

I pulled out this oldie for Valentine's Day—a little drawing that I did a couple of years ago for Illustration Friday. (You can read the original post here.) And, for those of you who prefer the sweet and traditional, here's my little sketch of conversation hearts from last year. (It was also for Illustration Friday; the original post is here.)

I also do a little series of "botanical hearts"
—you can see what I have done so far here.

Have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

I Love Autumn

I've been wanting to draw some of the Indian corn that I use to decorate this time of year, but drawing the whole ear (or several) seemed kind of daunting. So, I decided to re-visit my little series of Botanical Hearts. I like doing these little pieces because, as I mentioned in the earlier posts, I can play around with rendering techniques without committing to a huge project. I don't know how some colored pencil artists work on intricate, detailed pieces for days on end; I just don't have that kind of patience!

I hope you are enjoying your fall season so far. Here in Northern California, it's still quite warm this time of year; everything starts to look a little parched from our rain-less summers. But by Thanksgiving, our leaves will be changing colors and the rain will be here...I can't wait!

Here are the others in the series, so far:

(You can click on "hearts" in the labels below to see the original posts for these.)

Botanical Heart No. 4

I decided to do another little piece for the Botanical Hearts series I started back in February. I'm not all that happy with the center part, but I like how the rind edges turned out. But that's what's fun about doing these little hearts—they're kind of like swatches or samples, experimenting with new textures, etc. I might give this one another try.

I also think that my scanning is not showing the paper texture very well, so for fun, I took a quick shot with my iPhone. Obviously, it's unevenly lit, but I like it better. I've got to practice shooting my work with a camera. I have a cool copystand and everything...sounds like a summer project!

Here are the other ones I have so far:

Illustration Friday: Popularity

I'm interrupting my "botanical hearts" series to bring you this sketch of some hearts of a different sort. These classic little confections enjoy a soaring popularity this time of year. Nothing says "Valentine's Day" quite like conversation hearts.

Oddly enough, they're kind of challenging to draw. I spent a couple of hours on a more "photorealistic" drawing, only to scrap the darn thing. There's something about that type on them that trips me up: it's very imperfectly stamped onto the candies, but that imperfection is hard to duplicate. So I decided to do a quickie drawing, and I think that the more casual sketch sort of suits these little hearts.

Have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

February Hearts, Part 3

3" x 3", Prismacolor colored pencil

The third little heart in the series.

I even remembered to take a work-in-progress scan, probably because 

I needed a break from the repetition of drawing holly berries:

I'm hoping to eventually have nine of these "Nature Hearts",

so that they can be used individually or arranged all together in a square format, 

but here are the three I have so far:

And here's today's vintage Valentine postcard:
(scroll down for previous posts of hearts and vintage Valentines)

This one, from 1912, is to my husband's grandfather's future wife.
The message reads:

Dear Friend, How are you getting along. I am well.
When are you coming down? I hope you will get many Valentines.
True love from Cora B. ____.

February Hearts, Part 2

3" x 3", Prismacolor colored pencil

Here's the second in my new series of little drawings.

(Scroll down for the first.)

And here's another of my vintage Valentine postcards
sent to my husband's grandfather in 1910.

 (I've included this one more for the charming message than for the front image.)

It reads (uncorrected):

Mr. Adams,

Dear friend, rec your card and was very much surprise too hear from you and
 I appreicate being remember very much. Yes; Henry doesn't like me any more. 

Sincerly, Ida

Illustration Friday: Forward

3" x 3", Prismacolor colored pencil

I've been looking forward to February for a while now. (Okay, I know that's a stretch for the topic of "forward", but I hated to miss another week of Illustration Friday!)

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Why? Because February is the perfect month to post this first piece in a series of little drawings that I've started. I'll be posting more this week. Hopefully, you'll start to get the theme as you see more of them.

Also, I have a treasure trove of vintage postcards that belonged to my husband's grandfather, and since many of them are Valentines, I thought it'd be fun to share some of them with you throughout the month. Here's the first one, from 1911:

Can you read the message? It's written on the back of the heart embossing and says

"Can you guess. SWAK" (sealed with a kiss)

Happy February!