Category Archives: flower

Gallery show at the Irvine Nature Center

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Alphabet of Flowers at Irvine Nature Center

Spring has sprung and the flowers are in bloom… in fact, they’re blooming all over the place! At Irvine Nature Center not only are their woodland trails and habitats sprouting, my Flower Alphabet has taken root in in their gallery. With a different flower for each letter of the alphabet, the prints will be on display April 30 – June 9, and prints and notecards will be for sale in their gift shop. If you’re  near the Owings Mills area, stop on by to visit their lovely grounds and learn more about nature and ecology!

Visit the Irvine Nature Center website for their open hours

Can’t make it? You can also see and buy the Flower Alphabet at my online stores:

Flower Alphabet at RedBubble: cards, prints, shirts, kids clothes, stickers,

Flower Alphabet at Zazzle: cell phone case, ornaments, jewelry boxes, and much more!

 

All together now: The Floral Alphabet poster

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The Floral Alphabet by Stephanie Smith

 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!

Flower Alphabet in Bloom

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April is almost over, and so is my alphabet of flowers!

The last few blossoms have finally bloomed at my RedBubble portfolio…

S is for Sunflower T is for Tulip U is for Ulster Mary V is for Violet W is for Water Lily X is for Xeranthemum Y is for Yarrow Z is for Zinnia

(where they are all available as prints, cards, shirts — including baby shirts — and die-cut stickers)

And the entire series is also fully stocked on customizable gift items at my Zazzle store!

As much fun as these were, I’m ready to move on to other projects. Tho I’m sure I’m not *quite* done with them, hee hee hee. In any case, stay tuned!

Showers of April flowers!

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Critterwings Flower Alphabet

Over at my Zazzle store, I’m having a special event!

Starting April 1, every day will see the release of a new product line featuring my Floral Alphabet series. These are the same flowers that you’ve been seeing here and at my RedBubble site, now on a full product line that includes mugs, pendants, coasters keychains, iPhone and iPad cases, and even postage stamps.

Check out the Flower Alphabet section of my store, it all kicks off today, April 1 with “A for Azalea” … see you there!

Welcome back!

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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:

F is for Fuschia H is for Hyacinth I is for Iris J is for Jasmine K is for King's Spear L is for Lily M is for Morning Glory N is for Nasturtium O is for Orchid P is for Pansy Q is for Queen Anne's Lace R is for Rose

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?

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A is for Azalea  B is for Begonia  C is for Columbine
D is for Daffodil  E is for Echinacea  G is for Gerbera….

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 card
Simply Snowflakes Photo Greeting Card Option 2 by critterwings

Simply Snowflakes Vertical Photo Card Option 1 photocard
Simply Snowflakes Vertical Photo Card Option 1 by critterwings

Simply Snowflakes Address Labels label
Simply Snowflakes Address Labels by critterwings

A new series begins

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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!

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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.

Last of the flower trading cards!

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O is for Orchid T is for Tulip V is for Violet

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:

G is for Gerbera    G is for Gladiolus
Gerber Daisy     or        Gladiolus?

S is for Snapdragon     S is for Sunflower
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!

…and still more flowers!

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U is for Ulster Mary X is for Xeranthemum

 

Z is for Zinnia Y is for Yarrow

I’m getting to the last of the trading-card-sized sketches from this series. The last few remaining letters are the ones that have been giving me trouble… either in deciding what flower to use, or in how I want to draw them. If you haven’t seen the rest of the series, you can check them out here and here and here and here….

I’ve been doing an unusual amount of traveling in June, so in July I’m very much looking forward to some time to sit down and draw the final versions for this whole series. Stay tuned!