Silhouette Nutcracker die cut design

This week in the Silhouette store I'm working on a bunch of pretty complicated diecut designs. The first is a hopefully not too scary nutcracker... I always find them really creepy! My kids seem to like them, though, so this would probably be pretty awesome on a children's t-shirt or tote bag for the holidays.

I think this one would be difficult to figure out, so I created a quick color key (below; right click to download) to help when cutting the shapes from the different colors of cardstock. I recommend American Crafts or Michael's Recollections brand cardstock, and avoid the textured kinds. I'd love to see what you make with the design!

Silhouette swing card tutorial

There are several swing card available in the Silhouette design store like this one, and I've finally put together a tutorial showing how to assemble them so they actually swing when opened. (I put them together wrong when gluing on the pieces the first time... should have made myself a tutorial to follow, ha!)

Date Nut Cake

Trying out a vertical format for my illustrated recipe -- see the original on They Draw & Cook!

Desserts

I think a new They Draw and Cook illustrated recipe is in the works... guess the theme!

Teeny tiny art

I've decided to miniaturize my daily paintings for the 30 day challenge I started yesterday. Oddly it's much more difficult to produce something good that's 2.5" x 3". I thought the ease of making good art would be directly proportional to its size, but apparently that's not the case. This took me a good two hours of fiddling around to get something moderately decent!

Here's my first attempt. It may soon end up stuck on the wall of my daughter's Barbie sized dollhouse, but in the meantime it looks nice on my bulletin board.

30 paintings in 30 days? or until I can't take it any more and need to glue some stuff to other stuff.

Today I'm starting a painting a day challenge for the month of September. I know of artists doing 365 day challenges but that seems a little ambitious for me at this point in my life. Maybe in a couple years when all day school for all children in my house becomes a reality.

In the meantime I'm painting 30 garden related (floral? but not limiting myself) watercolors this month just to see if I can do it without getting completely bored. Here's the first.

UPPERCASE!

Just a short post to share a quick preview of the upcoming issue of UPPERCASE magazine. I'm one of 30 illustrators profiled in it... what an honor! Also, I thought I should point out that I don't really have pink hair at this time in real life, though I did for a short time in college. I just like the color.

New Illustration Talent section underway for the fall issue. Subscribe today!

A video posted by Janine Vangool (@uppercasemag) on Aug 17, 2015 at 2:59pm PDT

Blooming

Two times in the past few years I've been lucky enough to be able to work on some of my dream projects. One was the fiberglass bulldog that I painted all over with Illinois wildflowers. Working on it in our family room with my newly-crawling son afoot should make it pretty obvious that I really wanted to do it... or that I'm certifiably nuts.

The other was this: a Project Life core kit that's being released today. I am amazed and quite proud of myself that I created this in only about a month and a half: dozens and dozens of individual patterns, textures and designs; a little hand painting, a little sketching, some collage, even bits of my children's artwork.

I love its name, Bloom, because of the obvious reference to flowers and gardens -- I'm a bit of a plant hoarder and this kit is full of bright, happy blooms -- and because of the metaphor: the strong roots and love of a family helps children bloom and grow.

I was so thrilled to be asked to work on this project and am even happier to finally have it out in the world. Can't wait to see what you do with it!

Contests, hound dogs, and the end of the winter of my discontent

When I was a kid, we lived near ski areas, ice skating rinks and open fields where we'd cross country ski on weekend afternoons. I was never too keen on winter in general, but having things to do helped.

Now I have small children and a dog, I have to drive and walk in the nasty slushy ickiness, and I have to say, winter has really lost its luster. I also now live in a fairly flat and suburban area (meaning, no skiing, no long solo walks in the woods, no ice skating on the frozen creek across from the school), and we've been cooped up in this house for what seems like ten years, bickering and screaming and throwing plastic bricks at one another. I am SO ready for you, warm temperatures that bring peace and quiet to the inside of homes across the land.

To make myself feel better, I've been doing some personal work lately. Fun things like drawing beagles and splooshy watercolor amoebas as I sit in the TV room waiting for my son's preschool class to end. The beagles ended up in this week's Spoonflower contest and the watercolors ended up as a semifinalist in the Pattern Observer/P&B Textiles contest.

I have a bunch of other stuff in the works... tons of Surtex prep (my work will be there with my fabulous agent, Painted Planet), a giant (and secret until July) mega-project that is done and currently in production, a logo design, new Silhouette diecut designs and the usual sketchbook and collage nonsense.

Tonight they say we're going to get about two inches of snow. I think I am slowly losing my mind. Maybe I should send the kids upstairs to look for my lost marbles? (That actually kept them busy for about 20 minutes once!!!)

Ribbon storage box assembly instructions

Several people have been asking for a tutorial for this ribbon box design, so here you go! Hopefully you can make sense of my potentially too technical drawings. :)

Busy, busy

I need to get on a schedule with blog & FB posting. It's just too easy to overlook it for months (er, half a year) at a time.

My excuse this time is an autumn funk, which ended quite suddenly when a couple big opportunities came in a couple weeks before Christmas. I went from feeling like giving up all this art nonsense to crazy busy all within a couple days.

The project I'm still wrapping up I can't talk about yet, but it's pretty exciting and something I've been wanting to do for years. The other news is that I'm thrilled to be represented by Painted Planet Licensing Group! Now I get to be a real artist like I've wanted to be since I was three!

In other news and in no particular order, here are a few things I've been working on lately.

Experimenting with watercolor, hand-drawn elements + digital. I really love typography and watercolor, and the combination of messy + hard-edged here is really appealing to me.

This illustration is in the Crazy Cat Lady Planner, since I'm a former one of those myself. You know you need one (link to Etsy shop)! This was all digital but based on a pencil sketch.

Collage + paint. Trying to figure out how to make these marketable because I love doing them so much.

And my latest Make Art That Sells Bootcamp project. This one is completely handpainted on a slice of birch.My acrylic skills are a little rusty and still can't find my good brushes.

I've been really trying to figure out how to combine all the things I love to do into something marketable. Drawing, painting, collage, digital. I'm still not sure my style is apparent in all the different pieces, like those above. One of these days I'll figure it all out.

Feeling a bit spacey

I've been absent from Spoonflower contests for a while. MATS and other things have taken over my life since February or so, but I couldn't pass up this most recent contest: Cosmic Voyage.

I have a special fondness for space and astronomy. It ranks right up there with my interest in tornadoes and apes that communicate via sign language. Growing up in a rural area with very dark skies, we could regularly see the Milky Way, and in college I was fascinated by SETI and went on a reading binge where I read a bunch of books on the subject. Aside from my own interest, my husband always wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up, so he really, REALLY likes astronomy.

The first Christmas my husband and I were dating, I bought him a big, fancy telescope kind of like this one. It was so awesome: it was motorized, had an automatic star finder device, and could track celestial objects across the sky. It went with us on our trip to NY to see my parents that December, and one night as my husband-to-be and my dad looked at the stars together from out on the driveway, he asked my dad's permission to marry me.

Now, 11 years later, our oldest child is maybe just old enough to appreciate (that is, not break) the telescope. Maybe we'll get it up out of the basement this summer!

Here's what I came up with for the Spoonflower contest -- some astronauts, watercolor planets, and goofy aliens. It's entitled "Space… A Friendly Place!" because thinking that the aliens might not be glad to see us (as in, they might want to annihilate us) is something I'd rather not contemplate. Thanks to my husband's Ancient Aliens just-before-bed obsession, I often go to sleep creeped out by alien abduction and that sort of thing. (Actually I do like to get a glimpse of that guy's hair.) So my aliens are a little bit goofy and very, very nice.

MATS at Surtex

Surtex, the big licensing show in NYC, is coming up this weekend, and some of my MATS mates and other artists I know have been knocking themselves out preparing for it. I've put together a list of their fabulous promo cards and look books. Take a peek at some really amazing work!

This week our 5 year old is graduating from preschool, which happens to be at the same time as Surtex, and of course I don't want to miss her ceremony, so Surtex is out this year. One of these years I'll make it to NYC walk the show. It's been almost a quarter century since I've been to that part of the world… dang, I'm old!

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Victoria Johnson

• Look Book
• Website

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Alex Columbo / Studio Alex

• Look Book
• Website

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Sarah Ehlinger / Very Sarie

• Look Book
• Website

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Bari J.

• Look Book
• Website

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Kathy Weller

Artwork ©Kathy Weller

• Website
• Blog

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Feng Liang

Website

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Aileen Tu (exhibiting with Cultivate Art Collective)

• Website

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Gina Linn Designs

• Website

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Stacy Peterson

• Website

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Nina Edwards / Metropolitan Miss

• Website

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Lauren Minco

• Website

They Draw & Travel

I've been working feverishly (no, really!! I actually did have a fever!) on a map for a contest on They Draw & Travel. The task was to draw a map of the town where you live now or your home town. I decided to draw my home town of LeRoy, NY, even though I haven't lived there in over 20 years, because I know (knew) it so well.

That knowledge was kind of a problem, because OF COURSE I had to include all the details on most of the notable buildings, so it took me something like 100 years to finish it, and both the to-do list of stuff to draw and the time it was taking me to illustrate them increased exponentially because I was so sick. I was still tweaking after I'd uploaded it, but I think I'm going to call it done now.

Today they're posting the runner-ups and honorable mentions…. very exciting! I know mine hasn't won any special mention; really, I'm just happy to have finished it, especially considering the circumstances!

Anyway, I loved seeing all the different ways other artists interpreted the theme: hand-drawn, computer illustrated, some very loosely designed, some more traditional. It was a surprise to find out so many of my fellow MATS-ians created maps, too! I wanted to highlight as many as I could, so in no particular order, here they are:

• So Much to Do in Manitou, Colorado by Stephanie Olivieri
• Gibsons, British Columbia by Jana Curll
• Welcome to Bremen Altstadt, Germany by Tessa Rath
• Purple Mountain Majesties in Colorado Springs by Wendy Brightbill
• DC LOVE by Susanne Kasielke
• Greater Providence, Rhode Island Hot Weiner Tour by Jill Howarth
• Curiosities of Toronto, Canada by Ashley Lotecki
• A Tour Along the Kamo River in Kyoto, Japan by Reika Hunt
• What’s so great about Portsmouth, UK? by Jen Burbridge
• Cincinnati, Ohio by Brooke Albrecht
• My House in Forest Hills, Queens, New York by jane sanders
• Adelaide, South Australia by Kate Mason
• A Beautiful and Magical Visit to Prague, Czech Republic by Petra Hämmerleinova
• Orlando, Florida: Beyond the Mouse by Lori Weitzel
• A Grand Adventure in Japan by Nicole LaRue
• Magical Serifos by JOANNA CHRYSOHOIDIS
• High Towers in Stockholm, Sweden by Anna Berger
• Portsmouth, New Hampshire by Shannon Hays
• Fanciful Map of San Francisco, California by mary rachael schafer

So what? Sew postcards!

I think I may have found a new appreciation for sewing. Thanks to my playtime yesterday (working on my contribution to the Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap), I have some big ideas percolating about combining all the different stuff I do: digital vector illustration, watercolor, paper crafting, sewing, acrylic on canvas paintings.

I almost didn't sign up for the postcard swap. I definitely don't need more stuff to do, especially projects with deadlines. Some days I consider it a really big accomplishment if I take a shower. And my youngest is almost a preschooler… so it's not like I have the new-mom excuse anymore.

When I was about nine years old, my mom, who has loved to sew since she was about that same age, decided I was old enough to learn. So she taught me, but I never really liked it. All the measuring and cutting and seam ripping -- a process I didn't particularly enjoy, all to make projects I liked, but didn't LOVE.

So my sewing machine sits inside a sewing cabinet in the other side of my house -- away from the dog (she's young and still chews table legs occasionally), away from the kids and my computer and art nook (A.K.A. a corner of the family room.) I rarely sew, mostly because of the cabinet's location, but also, out of sight, out of mind. Yesterday I decided to move the machine to the little table next to my computer desk.

I went into making the postcard with no ideas about color, no preliminary sketches, nothing but a little box of scraps, ribbon and sequins that didn't even go together. I just cut and added stuff, used a bunch of fancy stitches that I've never used before, and it was fun! I wasn't following a pattern or plan, just winging it; creating and making decisions about what to add or do next the whole time I was sewing. I think that had a lot to do with it.

So now I'm wondering, what if I made mini quilts like this? Scanned them in? Added them to my vector illustrations and scanned in pen sketches and watercolor blotches? I'm excited to try.

2014, the Year of Good Stuff

I've always wondered about the philosophy of "everything happens for a reason." If I look back at situations that got me to where I am today, personally and professionally, I can definitely connect the dots. Everything influenced what came after it.

So, A (no money for college) led to B (a "cheap" state school fully funded by student loans) led to C (my freshman roommate who moved to Chicago) led to D (me moving to Chicago) led to E (meeting my husband and having three awfully boisterous but wonderful little ones), led to F (a Christmas present led to my art licensing career), and here I am.

But, does everything REALLY happen for a reason, or do we figure out a reason for everything that happened, after the fact? Do we have any control over it?

The point of all this is, I think sometimes it's good to be proactive to make sure that they're GOOD things happening. (Though I do believe that something good can be found in just about everything. Case in point, the cat "accidents" (ugh) over the past week resulted in a sparkly clean laundry room.) With that in mind, here are the good things I'm planning for 2014:

• Paint (take Flora Bowley's Bloom True e-course)
• Develop a truly awesome portfolio (MATS Part B & Bootcamp should help)
• Get a couple new licensing partners in the Home, Gift and Wall Art categories
• Figure out the details for an art/craft book I want to write
• Update my website, including only the stuff I really love to do (and deleting the stuff I don't)
• Be more calm more often
• Draw every day

Make Art That Sells, doing what you love, and finding joy along the way

I recently completed Part A of Lilla Rogers' insanely rigorous yet wonderful online class, Make Art That Sells, which concentrated on bolt fabric, home decor, children's books, wall art, and gifts.  It's a jam-packed five weeks full of tips, tricks, advice, and info on five different art markets, lots of drawing, lots of self-doubt and ultimately lots of growth.

Some of us MATS students decided to do a little blog tour all about the class, and today along with Victoria Johnson and Emily Dyer, it's my turn!

I was seriously impressed with the talent of my classmates. Here are just two examples:

Art created during MATS by Victoria Johnson

Victoria is so good at effortlessly combining hand-drawn and digital, and making them work together beautifully to create cohesive and awesomely cool things that would appeal to a wide range of ages, myself included. (I'd love to have those plates in my kitchen!)

Children's book illustration by Emily Dyer

And I was really impressed with Emily's cut paper designs -- she does them by hand, and it was such a treat to see her in-progress photos! The cut paper illustrations are incredibly intricate and beautiful all on their own, and make a bold and unique style when combined with digital, like in the illustration above, that reminds me a little of linocut, which I love.

Investing in myself

I went into MATS after a bunch of years in graphic design/illustration, with two licenses for my work, but no idea what to do next -- no clue what steps to take to get to that place I didn't even know I wanted to go to.

I decided, I'm at the point in my life where I know I reeeeally love art licensing, a lot, and I want to do more of it. And MATS seemed a good investment in myself so I can reach that goal.

There was a lot of talking myself out of it before I actually went ahead and signed up for the course (barely a week before it started, naturally.) I wondered, since I've been marginally successful so far -- or maybe just really lucky, would I get a lot out of this course? I've never spent nearly as much for an online course… is the cost worth it? Is it really as awesome and life-changing as others have claimed?

Well, if your average art/business of art class is a two-scoop ice cream cone, MATS is like a twenty scoop, five banana mega über banana split with ten kinds of sprinkles, peanuts and pecans and a gallon of caramel and chocolate sauces, with a cherry on top, and you must eat the whole thing in about a half hour. Yes, it IS absolutely all that and a bag of chips.

What's it all about?

During five weeks, you get info and advice about five different markets. You get a ton of really useful tips about how to break down an otherwise Big Scary Important project into tiny, manageable and fun steps. You get advice on how to make the most of your time, despite your own personal circumstances (full time job, kids + pets to take care of, whatever else you're juggling.) You get advice about being true to yourself, finding joy in everything you do, and making stuff YOU love, work that will ultimately sell because all that joy will shine through! The whole course, from Lilla herself to all my fellow students, is infused with excitement, positivity and joy. Surprisingly so. I haven't felt this much a part of a like-minded community of artists since college!

My collage/digital hybrid wall art

Crying over plates

During the class, I hoped to get inspired to try mediums again that I haven't used in years (oil and acrylic, collage) and ones I still use but not as much as I'd like (watercolor), and possibly use them in new ways. My work has been feeling kind of stale and I hoped to figure out how to combine traditional mediums with the digital that I do 90% of the time nowadays. During MATS, I thought I'd pick up some insider tips about breaking into markets I haven't tried yet.

I started out excited, optimistic and inspired. After a week of struggling with my bolt fabric design, I was a bit discouraged. After two weeks I actually cried, my plate designs were that bad. After three weeks I thought maybe I should give up new markets and stick to what I know.

I was surprised to realize I have not much of a clue when it came to wall art, home decor, and gifts. In retrospect, I've never designed plates, and my oil painting days were many years ago, and I realized I need to just RELAX already and enjoy the process (that's where Lilla's brilliant idea to do minis --drawing lots and lots of icons before tackling the actual project -- really helped me out!)

Postscript

What I learned:

• People buy your joy
• There's room for all good art
• Everyone is at a different place in their art journey, and wherever you are now is right where you need to be!

I just love that phrase: "people buy your joy." It's so true. Thinking back to my most successful work, those were also the ones I most enjoyed creating. The ones I'd get so wrapped up in, I'd forget to go to the bathroom and feed the children, and things I had cooking on the stove always burned.

Did I do everything I wanted to during MATS? Well, I got out my acrylics and collage stuff and painted on canvas. I found some new ways of working. I filled up a sketchbook. I drew in Starbucks. I have a million ideas for things I want to create. I now have more knowledge and confidence to make good work. And I'm excited to put all these ideas into practice. So yeah, in case you're wondering, I'd recommend the class… it was definitely worth it!

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And now, a list of blog tour participants!

• Aisha Khan – http://www.aishaandherwork.blogspot.com/
• Linda Tordoff – http://www.paintlovestudio.blogspot.co.uk/
• Jill Byers – http://www.jillbyers.blogspot.com/
• Martina Lenhardt - www.ma-len.blogspot.com
• Melissa Doran – www.melissadoran.com
• Sarah Gager – www.sarahgager.com
• HungYu CHEN – www.rainbowfishchen.com
• Stephanie Corfee – www.stephaniecorfee.com
• Sophie Verhille – http://blog.sophie-verhille.com/
• Jo Chambers – www.studiolegohead.blogspot.co.uk
• Son Atwal – www.applekaur.com/blog
• Angie Sandy – http://www.angiesandy.com/blog
• Rachael Schafer – www.rachaelschaferdesigns.com
• Sarah Ehlinger – www.verysarie.com
• Jordan Vinograd Kim – http://www.foundandrewound.com/blog/
• Jen Burbridge – www.madebyburbs.co.uk
• Carolina Coto – www.carolinacotoart.com
• Aileen Tu – http://aileentu.com/blog/
• Claire Lordon – www.clairelordon.blogspot.com
• Eva Marion Seyffarth – www.eva-marion-seyffarth.blogspot.de
• Anna Whitford – www.rosanna-rossi.co.uk
• Mary Tanana – http://groovitydesigns.com/2013/11/29/make-art-that-sells-blog-tour/
• Victoria Johnson – http://victoriajohnsondesignblog.blogspot.it
• Emily Dyer – http://www.emilydyer.com/blog
• Nic Squirrell – http://nicsquirrell.blogspot.co.uk
• Melinda Hopkirk – www.crouchriverstudio.com
• Deb Trevitt – http://www.debtrevitt.com/blog/
• Danielle McDonald – http://reddogandjude.blogspot.com.au/
• Jennifer Appel – http://www.jaillustration.com
• Wendy Brightbill – http://www.agirlandherbrush.wordpress.com
• Renske de Kinkelder – www.renskedekinkelder.com
• Nicole Piar – http://www.ghostkittendesign.blogspot.com/
• Andrea van Dalen – http://dreamkeeperfae.blogspot.nl/
• Ohn Mar Win – http://illustrationsouljourney.blogspot.co.uk/
• Diane Neukirch – http://dianeneukirch.blogspot.com
• Lisa Deighan – http://www.lisadeighan.com
• Tina Koyama – http://tinakoyama.blogspot.jp/
• Antje Martens-Oberwelland – http://antjeart.com

Maybe I should take up drinking?

When I signed up for Making Art That Sells, I thought it would be just what I needed at this point in my art licensing career. I have my Silhouette and Timeless Treasures licenses, and client projects, but my work felt sort of stagnant. I've been wanting to bring in some more hand-drawn imagery especially into my fabric designs, but am not sure quite how to combine it with digital. I was hoping the class would help sort it out.

I thought it would teach me a lot and be a lot of work (it is both)… but I had this notion that it would be tons of fun. Strangely and surprisingly, I'm finding it difficult and frustrating, and in classic melodramatic Jen style, it's having me doubting my talent and ambition and feeling discouraged and mopey.

The first week was bolt fabric… fun and easy, right? Nope. It was like my friend's husband in his bowling tournament: I crashed and burned. Fun sketching… but frustrating coming up with a print I was even sort of happy with.

I was slightly nervous about week two (plates), which I have no experience designing for…. again I had lots of fun sketching, but the final assignment was the same kind of thing as week 1.

Then last week was children's books, which I do have a bit of experience with. I really enjoyed creating the week's assignment -- I was excited to work on it! -- and thought the final result was a bit better than weeks 1 & 2, but it has the same stiff, uncomfortableness as my other two assignments.

This week it's wall art. I'm feeling even more anxious about it.

It's probably that I'm putting too much pressure on myself to come up with something super awesome. If I was still 21, I might try drinking a few beers and working on my assignment.

Once semester in college, I took a figure drawing course with a very colorful professor. She always wore black clothes, patterned knee socks and black Chuck Taylors. I remember us giggling over her artwork when we found out she created sculptures of giant phalluses (we were only 20 or 21, after all!)

One night some friends and I imbibed before starting in on our homework, which was drawing each other in charcoal. The next day we hung up our work in the studio. Judy came in and studied the drawings. She commented on mine, not knowing whose it was. "Such freedom, so loose and wonderful! Whose is this?" "It's mine," I replied, "but not my best work. I had a little to drink before I drew it." She said, "Well, I'd say you need to drink EVERY time you draw!" Everyone laughed.

I've never forgotten that. It was said jokingly, but there was a real lesson within: lighten up, have fun, stop taking everything so seriously! Tap into your humor and quirkiness!

Art has always been fun for me, and if it's not, like these past couple weeks, I need to figure out how to make it fun again. So, with that, here's what I want to accomplish during the rest of MATS:

- HAVE FUN and enjoy the process; play lots.

- Remember this is NOT a competition.

- Remember that everyone's taste is different & everyone is at a different place in their art.

- Play with combining hand-drawn / hand painted stuff with digital.

Okay? No big deal. Calm down. It's all good. Everything will look better in the morning. I can so totally do this. Yay team. Breeeeathe. Go into the studio and make some great stuff!

Bellydancing badly

At least that's what it felt like this week. Last week's Make Art That Sells assignment was deceptively simple -- design a set of  2 to 4 bromeliad-themed plates -- and I thought it would be a piece of cake (slight pun intended.) I love plants and I can draw them pretty well. I predicted I'd have lots of free time this weekend because I was going to be done early.

Ha ha.

Surprisingly, I felt all week like that time I got the bright idea to sign up for a new-mom bellydancing class. Kids as young as infants were welcome, so I brought my 5 month old and 2 year old.

I was uncoordinated and uncomfortable during every class; didn't have a clue what I was doing. Plus, as I was trying to remember where to put that damn scarf so I didn't trip over it or slip on it, I had to keep a close an eye on my wild older child who would dash out the door and run free, screaming down the hall and outside if given the slightest opportunity.

That bromeliad assignment was really, really frustrating. Sadly, I didn't enjoy about half of it.

I started out studying bromeliads and drawing very detailed and realistic studies. They were nice, but I'm trying to loosen up. So then I did some fast sketchy drawings and used some different tools: dip pen & ink, and watercolor, drawing with the brush. I liked the drawings, but what to do with them???

One of my favorite looks is when sketches are combined with more finished illustrations and everything is done in a range of mediums. That's what I tried first: a cluster of multihued plants growing vertically, pen, pencil, watercolor, vector all on one plate. But I hated it. It was NOT working.

Then I tried a simpler, one color layout using just the sketches. That didn't work either.

Then I tried a simple multicolored border just on the edge of the plates. It was delicate and pretty but a little too Grandma. I definitely wasn't going for Grandma. I kinda felt like crying out of frustration.

Then I tried using the same sketches but changed the layout to more of a messy wreath / border type design around the edges of the plates, with the plants going every which way, and with a bird hidden in each design. It was better, but nothing like what I originally wanted. That's what I settled on, though. Maybe it'll grow on me.

The most frustrating thing was I couldn't figure out WHY the layouts weren't working. I still don't know. Maybe it's my inner struggle: traditional, realistic renderings vs. retro mod stylized sketches. Maybe it's my use of color. Maybe I should spend more time on my initial sketches, or on cleaning up the scanned-in drawings. Maybe I just need more practice designing something other than fabric and single diecut designs.

Anyway, plate week is all done. I'd like to revisit it someday because I do like that stuff... I just had no idea how difficult it was to do!

This week is Children's Book Illustration, which I feel much more comfortable with. Character design I can do in my sleep (evidenced by 2,129+ of these wacky little drawings)! I just *know* this week will be better.

Stretching...

As I wrote in my last post, I decided kind of at the last minute to sign up for Make Art That Sells, Part A. It's now one week into the class and I've finished our first assignment, creating bolt fabric with a vintage Pyrex-style casserole and berry theme.

Going into the class, I didn't expect week one to be particularly earth-shattering for me. I've been designing fabric for a couple years, took two fantastic classes with Michelle Fifis (Sellable Sketch and The Ultimate Guide to Repeats) and have my work licensed (although the majority of it is in the scrapbooking market, and just one print is licensed in the fabric market...), so I thought I had my style and method figured out, although maybe it just needing some fine tuning.

As it turns out, I was totally wrong. I realized I'm bored, bored, bored with my work and need to do something new. It was kind of tough going this week!

I started out the week sketching in my usual style (realistic) and with my usual mediums (Pigma Micron pens, watercolor, colored pencil). Then I drew directly into Illustrator the way I usually do, stylizing the forms so they weren't too stodgy (because in my mind, realistic = stodgy and stylized = retro cool.)

I put together a retro style print as I usually do, and hated it. It was fine, but I had no motivation. Part of the point of this class is to grow, which means trying something new and taking chances.

So I scanned in a bunch of my sketches, tweaked them a little, traced and colorized them in Illustrator. The final print was more exciting than my usual stylized vector stuff, but not quite there yet. It wasn't really vintage kitchen; it was more sketchbooky floral. It wasn't Pyrex/casserole dish enough; I enjoyed drawing berries and leaves so much more than dishes, so it had mostly botanical motifs.

It was hugely frustrating and I felt like I put in hours and hours and got absolutely nowhere -- pages and pages of sketches and no fabulous, professional print collection to show for it.

But the final print was more "me", a little quirky, and had much more of the hand of the artist in it, which I love seeing in others' work. It's a stepping stone in the direction I've wanted to go for a long time, but never knew how to get there or even begin. So I call it a success. Kind of.

Next I think I'll try sketching larger, with less attention to the details, and with a different tool (watercolor paper / brushes) and see where that leads. I'm excited to get started!