Artist Trading Cards: Tiny Gryphons

Posted on November 16, 2011 by stephanie

Tiny Griffons ATC #8 Chickadee

Where did the summer go? Oh, that’s right… between client work, an illustration-heavy project at my day job, and general craziness all the way around, I’ve had very little time for “just for fun” drawing. That’s one of the reasons I like the Doodle Swap Project, a little club of artists and designers who all make tiny trading-card-sized artworks for each other. It gives me an excuse to do some quick, small, simple drawings that I don’t have any time to overthink because they have to get out the door fast.

This time around the theme was “hybrid animals” chimera, creatures made up of two or more different unrelated animals. Perfect timing for me, since:

a) the idea for little gryphons that are a cross between songbirds and housecats (instead of the more traditional eagles and lions) has been kicking around in my head for a while, and

b) “Backyard” and household fantasy creatures are the theme of my Sketchbook project book. More about that one later…

So, this was a little bit of two birds with one stone. Or something like that. Here are the first few of the cards, I’ll be posting the rest soon. They’re all 2.5 x 3.5 inches, drawn with ink and watercolor pencils on bristol paper.

Anyone else think that these will make nice little notecards? 🙂

Tiny Griffons ATC #7 Crow

Tiny Griffons ATC #6 Robin

All together now: The Floral Alphabet poster

Posted on May 4, 2011 by stephanie

So, it was inevitable, after going through the entire alphabet in flowers, that they’d all be reunited when all was said and done. I’m now offering “The Floral Alphabet” as a poster and/or art print in both of my shops: at RedBubble and at Zazzle.

What’s the difference between the two sites? Basically, it depends on what kind of options you want, and if you were planning on buying anything else from either site. RedBubble’s printing is very high quality, but Zazzle has many more options to pick from. And both companies are very good about exchanges and returns if you are at all unhappy with the quality of what you receive.

I should be adding more gifts and housewares using the Floral Alphabet art to my Zazzle store in the weeks to come, with and without the monograms. If you have any particular requests, please let me know!

More from Mexico

Posted on March 30, 2011 by stephanie

This was probably the most finished drawing I drew on the beach during our recent trip to Mexico. The rest from the trip are just simple sketches. I’m sure this drawing doesn’t fully convey just how incredibly windy it was while we were there! In fact, the wind was so constant that the palm fronts stayed in the same upswept position the whole time I was drawing.

If you like this picture, you can buy it on prints or on cards from my RedBubble shop!

Welcome back!

Posted on February 12, 2011 by stephanie

So, once again I find myself blowing the dust off my blog. Oh my, has it really been so long since my last post? I could have sworn I’d written something here in November at least!

Then again, I was quite busy through the end of 2010: in addition to working on my own drawing projects, I had a few for other people. More about those later! In the meantime the alphabet continues on:

I’m in the home stretch for this series, and am already thinking of my next project. I’ll have more of an update later, hope this big mega-post makes up somewhat for all the lost time!

Do you know your A-B-Cs?

Posted on October 31, 2010 by stephanie

….

Hey, wait a minute… something’s not right there.

I have been trying to upload the images in my Floral Alphabet series in the proper order, but when I sat down to the drawing table, I hit a snag. For “F” I’d chosen the tall and elegant foxglove plant, which had worked out wonderfully in another drawing. However, I’d redesigned the template I was going to use for the series so that it was more square-shaped, and I just could not come up with a solution I was really happy with to frame such a tall flower in the allowed space and have it fit in with the rest of them.

So I’m starting “F” over from scratch, but I didn’t want that to hold up the rest of the series. It will show up sometime later, after I’ve decided on what flower will represent it. Right now I’m leaning toward fuschia… what do you think?

On a side note, if you’re reading this, you probably know I use RedBubble.com to display and sell my art, including the Floral Alphabet series. Well, they’ve done some major remodeling over there and while I’m still adjusting to some of the changes, I do like this: it’s much easier for people who want to buy things to preview what’s on offer for sale from my portfolio, like all of the stickers, all of the shirts, all of the greeting cards, and so on.

I’ve also been slowly-but-surely adding some new products to my Zazzle store, in anticipation of the holidays. Things like customizable photo-cards, address labels, and stamps. As always, if there are any images from this blog you’d like to see on an item in the store that’s not currently offered, please let me know!

Simply Snowflakes Photo Greeting Card Option 2 by critterwings

Simply Snowflakes Vertical Photo Card Option 1 by critterwings

Simply Snowflakes Address Labels by critterwings

A new series begins

Posted on October 7, 2010 by stephanie

All summer I’d been planning on drawing an alphabet of flowers I even posted the “sketch” versions here already. Now the final drawings are taking shape, and as I finish each one I’m posting them to my RedBubble site, as prints, cards, T-shirts and stickers (stickers are one of the options within “T-shirts”… yes, I know it doesn’t really make sense but there ya go) I have about half of them drawn on paper, and the first batch are scanned and being colored.

Speaking of RedBubble, they’re having an excellent sale on calendars this week, more details in the next post….

F is for Fantastic Fun!

Posted on September 23, 2010 by stephanie

One of the things I like about being at RedBubble is the great community of other artists there. I recently had a chance to collaborate with a whole bunch of them in a project to make a child’s alphabet, each of us illustrating one letter or number. The project is wrapping up and soon a set of prints will be making a grand tour of various schools and child care facilities starting in Scotland.

My contribution, as you can see above, was the letter “F” and it was great fun to make! It and all the rest can be seen in this thread at RedBubble, where you can buy cards or prints if you like. In the meantime, I’m working on my own somewhat simpler alphabet project and hope to have it done soon.

A touch of fantasy

Posted on September 18, 2010 by stephanie

Here’s a quick piece of new art from my RedBubble site! Sometimes I’ll jump into one of the many challenges or drawing jams there to try something a little different with my style and tools. This time, instead of using inks I made the drawing entirely in pencil, and colored it all in Photoshop. It’s just a quick little study, which is why the background is so very bare.

I’ve been busy dusting off some of my art to make some new items for the Critterwings store… keep an eye out for new announcements very soon!

The Dragon of Winter

Posted on May 28, 2010 by stephanie

The Dragon of Winter detail

It’s a little out-of-season at the moment, but new art has been posted in my RedBubble portfolio! I’ve been working on The Dragon of Winter for a while, a companion piece to The Dragon of Autumn. It took me a while to sort out exactly what I wanted to do with all those snowflakes after I’d drawn them. It was created with the same process: ink drawings, layered together with Photoshop coloring and a few watercolor textures.

(Also available as one of those cool new stickers RedBubble offers…)

I’ve been working on several new pieces… watch this space!

Illustration Friday: Subterranean

Posted on March 18, 2010 by stephanie

It Starts Underground
click to enlarge

With such a deeply evocative word for Illustration Friday this week, and feeling bad about missing last week’s word, I spent a little extra time to play with my watercolors. It’s been way too long since I splashed around with real paint…. ahhhhh. I’m also clearly feeling the spring, as the bulbs in my garden are already popping up all over. So much energy goes on underground before we see those tiny green shoots….

I’m not quite sure if I’m completely done with it, but here it is. Micron pen and watercolor on 140lb Canson watercolor paper, 9×12 inches.

For those who are interested, RedBubble has recently introduced some new products to their lineup: Greeting cards in two sizes, postcards, and the option to print images on the backs of shirts instead of the front… with the promise of more to come. So far everything I’ve ordered from them has been gorgeous, and they have some of the nicest T-shirts out there. Check out the offerings in my RedBubble Gallery and see if anything catches your eye!

Scribbles & Scribings

Thoughts from the pen of Stephanie Smith

Category Archives: Finished drawings