2580 Walton Boulevard
Here’s a commission I did over the summer for a girl who was moving and wanted a memento. I love that this is more of a portrait of her time in the house and memory of it than of the building itself. It includes both the front of her house and the view out the back (we’ll just forget that there were neighbouring houses). She lived on a golf course and got frequent deer visitors (and also a mangy squirrel, but he didn’t make the final cut)! The cat in the front window is no longer with us. Poor kitty. Try to do that with a photo! Well, you know, if you didn’t have photoshop…
it’s the thought that counts
The little maple turning red by the lake was my cue to end my summer hiatus. At a certain point every summer, Christmas goes from having just passed to looming. And so, I sat down to work on a new Christmas card. Doesn’t this gift-bearing owl just scream “Joy to the World” to you?
Along with my various summery activities of late, I’ve entered the world of craft fairs. Since I usually do all of my selling and stuff on line, it was really fun and informative to be able to talk to so many customers face to face. People had such interesting and varied things to say about my work: “do you have any owls?,” “where are your owls?,” and “why don’t you have any owls?.” Perhaps I should have called this one “here’s your stinkin’ owl.”
Honestly, I’ve always had a fondness for owls. Adding to my hesitation to draw them is probably the fact that the owl marketplace is pretty much saturated. A long-standing joke among Etsy sellers is that “owls and cowls” pave the path to success.
Coming next week: an owl in a cowl.
even flowers must be modest
I’ve always really liked Forget-me-nots, even when going through anti-flower (aka must not be a predictable girl) phases. Perhaps they’re small enough and unfrilly enough to get a pass. There’s a tiny, peachy, mystery wildflower that I see occasionally that falls into the same category.
This year, we had about a week of blue before the Forget-me-nots all got mowed down. Boo. The dandelions got mowed down with them, much to both kids’ dismay (and mine). I get that some people have allergies, but, beyond that, I really don’t understand the dandelion hate. Maybe they don’t get presented with as many dandelion bouquets as I do.
if I were a fish
I’m not inclined to go fishing any more than I’m inclined to go bow hunting (okay, maybe just a little more inclined). However, I’m pretty sure that I would quite enjoy fly fishing if not for the whole hook through cheek/removing said hook aspect. In other words, I should just go stand in the middle of a stream in a pair of hip waders. Ooh! And one of those vests with lots of pockets!
Again, this is a pattern for fabric, which is why those half fish all line up. I have no idea what one might do with fish fabric. Vest with lots of pockets, perhaps?
trippity-trop, trippity-trop
Gosh, I feel like something’s missing from this Billy Goats Gruff picture… oh! There’s supposed to be a troll under bridge!? You know, as a child, I always felt that the troll in the story only functioned as a physical manifestation of the two younger goats’ insecurities about their worthiness of the greener pastures. And so, it was actually to themselves that they made promises of growing fat until they were strong enough to butt these insecurities off of the bridge to adulthood. Uh… yeah. Or maybe I just didn’t want to ruin my cute little pastoral screen with an ugly old troll. Either way…
I’m working on this drawing to be a border design for fabric, so the hills and clouds match up for a smooth repeat. Wait a minute! Can one even trippity-trop over a stone bridge? It only just occurred to me that perhaps tropping only comes from hooves on wood! Huh. I better find myself a goat to experiment with.
Okay, adding some details because it’s such a wide drawing. Wee, mid, and grande Gruff:
that’s one fat quarter
Summer and Christmas both sneak up on me. I’m excellent at planning for both, months in advance, but that pesky execution step gets me every time. I recently made a list of all of the things I have to do before I can effectively peddle my wares this summer, and was a little alarmed by the length of said list. Let’s see… buy new canopy? Check! Buy fancy folding chair? Check! Anything that requires actual work as opposed to just spending money that I have yet to earn? Uh… I’ll get to it. The monotony of amassing inventory can wait while I do more entertaining things, like designing decorative bunting for my canopy, for instance! I fit all of these huge flags (8″ long) onto a fat quarter, to be ordered from Spoonflower.
at the pet parade
If there’s one thing I think we can all agree on, it’s this: animals are cuter than people. No, don’t try to argue. That’s a fact. If Prince Wallaby had been marrying Cat Middleton and all the little guest hedgehogs and squirrels were to wear ridiculous hats (you know, to make them look bigger and, therefore, not as appetizing to the bride), you better believe I would have tuned in. I blame this fact for the distinct lack of the human figure in my oeuvre. Because I’m in the process of setting up a new portfolio site for myself, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and take on some grittier, less-fluffy subject matter, in an attempt to round out my selection of drawings. Look, I even had to turn the bunny away so that he couldn’t steal the spotlight. Oh, the price we pay for art.
Recently, Doodle and I read Owls in the Family as his introduction to all things Mowat (who, I’m sure, would agree that animals are cuter than people). I hadn’t read it since I loved it as a kid, and Wol and Weeps did not disappoint. I may or may not have shed a few tears at the end. Doodle may or may not have wondered when we were going to get back to The Magic Tree House series. The old copy that I found at a second hand shop has hilarious illustrations by Robert Frankenberg every few pages, but when I recently bought a new copy as a gift, it was illustration-free! What?! Anyway, there is a pet parade in the book (complete with a little boy holding a jar full of tadpoles) and, as you might guess, hilarity ensues.
colossal backer
I’ve been meaning to design some fabric for a while, but haven’t mustered the patience to deal with the pattern/repeat aspect of such an endeavor. With pattern construction on the brain again, I visited Spoonflower for the first time in ages and was impressed by how much the site has grown and what people were managing to cram onto a fat quarter. Dolls! Puppets! Of course! I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of pillow panels before, seeing as how I thought they were the coolest when I was little.
So, here are the beginnings of my first pillow designs. You can see the original drawings here and here, by the way. I was going to start with the back of this guy (because who wouldn’t want a lazy squid pillow on their couch? Nobody.), but then I realized that the full size version of that drawing is amongst those still to be rescued from my dead laptop. I had already come up with the brilliant title for this post and just couldn’t let it go.
I really enjoy sewing, but have a bad attitude when it come to patterns and directions in general. I guess I don’t like being told what to do. I always think that I can just figure it out on my own, and, occasionally, I’m right. Anyway, I’m going to have to include some instructions along with these. Something like “cut, sew, stuff” should do it.
