Scribbles & Scribings

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!

   
    ….

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

If you read this blog, you know I have artwork on RedBubble.com, a site that is both a gallery and a place to buy things. This week they are having a sale on their excellent calendars, including a few with art by yours truly.

If you buy 3 calendars you get 15% off; if you buy 6 or more you get 25% off! There’s no code, the discount automatically shows up in your shopping cart, but only until Thursday Oct 14.

Here’s a little something to sweeten the pot: if you want a calendar made of any combo of the images I have online (in this blog and at RedBubble) just let me know by Monday and I’ll put them together into a calendar for you to order!

Their calendars are pretty sweet; they have a wire ring binding with a built-in hanger, and the prints are crisp and bright. Here’s one of last year’s calendars for example.

But wait, there’s more! If you want a calendar, but need a different size or style, I also have the Chinese Zodiac calendars for sale at my Zazzle store, where there are plenty of options to customize them to your liking. And Zazzle is having their calendars on sale too: use coupon code  2011CALENDAR at checkout to get 30% off the price of any calendar, now through November 4.

If you’re not in the market for calendars, Zazzle still has something for you. In honor of Columbus day, use coupon code 1492COLUMBUS to get 14.92% off your total order through October 11. See details here, and remember, at both RedBubble and Zazzle you can mix-and-match products from different artists and even make your own custom items and they’ll all apply to the same deal!

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….

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.

Chinese Zodiac 2011: The Year of the Rabbit by critterwings

Before today is over, it will officially be autumn. To celebrate, Zazzle is having a sale through midnight (PST) Thursday Sept 23: use the coupon code AUTUMNZAZZLE to get 50% off cards, 40% off invitations, 30% off calendars, and 10% off shirts! This is good on all of your purchases at Zazzle, whether they’re from Critterwings, another Zazzle seller, or your own custom items.

Chinese Zodiac 2011: The Year of the Rabbit by critterwings

To celebrate the change of the seasons, I’ve added these two new calendars from my Chinese Zodiac art series, updated for 2011: the Year of the Rabbit. There are also a bunch of brand new mugs, and I’m adding updated pieces every week from this series and from others… get ready for your holiday shopping! If you prefer the vertical one-page style of calendar, I’ve also added these calendars to my RedBubble site — the RedBubble calendars look fantastic. And, as always, if there are any images from this blog, my portfolio, or from my RedBubble site that you’d really like to see for sale on a particular type of gift, let me know.

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!

I haven’t talked much in this blog about comics, but it’s true… our house is full of them. My husband has been collecting since he was 12, while I discovered them later in life. I’m not a big fan of the traditional superhero genre tho, I usually prefer fantasy stories instead, and have become a voracious reader of various online comics. So while he was eager to crawl through the bins at Baltimore Comic-Con a few weeks ago, I’d been saving up my mad money for this past weekend, and my annual pilgrimage to Bethesda, MD for the Small Press Expo.

SPX is one of the longer-running conventions for independent creators and small-scale publishers of comics of all kinds, and increasingly the webcomics folks have been joining in to sell their own “dead tree” editions. This year I also made a detour to a brand-new conference taking place just up the street, Intervention, which was focused more exclusively on the webcomics crowd. Both had authors in attendance I wanted to meet and books I knew I’d want to purchase — Intervention had a few folks who rarely come to this area — so I bit the bullet and paid the separate entry fees… and then spent WAY too much on books! Both also had their share of vendors selling artwork, small crafts, and other fun stuff. The set of tetris magnets I bought is already racking up points on my refrigerator.

Yup, I’m glad I brought the backpack! (I was also hauling around my own sketchbook and camera… not that I ever took either of them out, I guess they were just there as extra ballast) If anyone I ran into this weekend is reading this… HI!!!! It was great meeting and talking with all you wonderful artists/writers! I envy all of you with the drive and dedication to your artform, especially knowing how hard it can be to make a living at it. Kudos!

Would I attend both again next year? Well… honestly the higher entry price for Intervention made it a little hard to justify for me. I don’t generally hang around for the programming at these things. I think I’ve attended 3 panels/presentations in all the years I’ve been going to SPX. I do a round or two through all the tables and then call it a day. And this year in particular I had to leave around 4pm to meet friends for “The Day the Earth Stood Still” which was showing that weekend only at the AFI Theater. Yes, it was an all day geek-fest. I guess I’ll have to see what happens next year. For now I just have to figure out where on my groaning bookshelves these are all going to fit!

If there’s any interest, I can go through my stack of books in more detail…

It seems like I turn around and BAM realize I haven’t made a blog post for over a month and a half. Blame it on the crazy, hazy days of summer. This year it’s been the crazy HOT days of summer around here: we’re officially tied for the most days over 90 degrees in a single summer, and it seemed like we definitely got more than our usual share of 100+ days too.

I spent some of the time I was hiding indoors where it’s air-conditioned at my drawing table, working on my flower alphabet, playing around with materials, and keeping my hand in with sketches, including some rather silly ink drawings and experimenting with watercolor pencils, like in the small piece above. Most of that work has been posted directly to my RedBubble portfolio, I’ll try to remember to cross-post here as well.

I’m also slowly adding new products and upgraded artwork to my Chinese Zodiac series at RedBubble and at my Zazzle store, generally trying to get ready for the holiday season (I can’t believe it’s already time to be thinking about that!) As always, if there’s a particular product that you’d like to see one of my images on, just let me know!

I’ve finally scanned and posted the last of my flower trading cards. I’ve already started working on the full-size versions, and have the first few scanned. I’m in the process of cleaning them up and coloring them right now. Some of the final artwork will be a bit different from these small ones, but that was part of the point of making them: to see what worked and what didn’t work. In fact, I’m still not 100% decided on which flower to use for two of my letters, so I did both:

  
Gerber Daisy     or        Gladiolus?

   
Snapdragon       or        Sunflower?

Decisions, decisions… there are just too many flowers that begin with “S!” Any opinions out there?

To see the whole series, check them out here and here and here and here and here…. or just check out the whole set in my Flickr account.

With the intense heat wave the Atlantic coast has been having, it’s hard to think of something as fresh as spring flowers! Even the summer-blooming flowers in my garden have been wilting in the sun, despite my efforts to keep them watered. And I’m feeling a bit squirrely from hiding indoors so much… I miss the outside! We had a respite this week with some much needed rain, but now the hot is socked in again, with extra humidity on top. Even knowing we’re not having the worst of it is poor consolation. Thank goodness for air conditioning!