Sketching Social Media

I really couldn't help myself.

I tried....

but you know me, once I get started...I have a hard time stopping.

Have a day so great people whisper about it for years...?

I hope your birthday is the stuff of myths and legends!

I told my friends how old you are. They didn't believe me..?

OK. OK. I'm stopping.

Well, I am stopping for now.

My Creative Space - This is my desk:

This is my desk on "work".
I've been watching a lot of PSAs lately as I'm studying to get my permit. At 28 I figure it's probably time to learn to drive.

On the fateful day I invented 'Baby Mermaids' the brilliant Sandra Gaddis and I were running on sleeplessness, giggles and hot tea. Apparently this is the exact mix I need for pure genius. It's been years since the spark that made Baby Mermaids, and nothing as creatively spectacular or clarifying has happened to me since, until....

What we will call THE PERFECT STORM (which happened today) I had a semi-lame but acceptable blog post ready to roll and scheduled to go live. I planned to be in bed hours ago, but this PERFECT STORM must be shared, and shared with you now on the evening of its birth.

On Sunday night my friend Sam brought me these.
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING MORE ENCHANTING?

(Incidentally if it's years since this post has happened and my future husband is reading the archives of this blog in our penthouse apartment across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I want you to know I never expect these blooms to be topped, so no pressure)

At one point this rainbow bouquet must have been a bunch of white roses. It seems they were somehow magically dyed to become rainbow blooms. They have been in a place of honor on the windowsill since the fateful day they were delivered. This afternoon after days of not sleeping and pushing myself too hard between job-job and licensing clients and follow up from Surtex (it feels like months since I've had a weekend) AKA PERFECT STORM... I panicked in a way that only happens when you are delusional from not sleeping. What if they were getting too much sun?! I picked them up and moved them to the kitchen table out of the harm of gama sun rays.

In the process one perfect petal fell from its rose and in theatrical Beauty and the Beast style floated to the table....

I was instantly devastated, proof that I need to go to bed. BUT THEN, my eyes did that criss-crossy thing that they do when you are looking at a magic eye poster or smoking crack ;)

In fast non-thinking trans like motions I started tearing petals. One after another.

At 8:00PM - prior to the next creative chapter in my life, my workdesk looked like this.



It's obvious what we're looking at here, right?
.
.
.
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RIGHT?
OK, if you can't see them, maybe you're a healthy girl who goes to bed and remembers to eat ;)

They're fairy wings!!!
In homage to the masses of UK followers we have here, I thought they would start out sharing a spot of tea. As in, "would you care to join me for a cup of tea?"

They weren't working out exactly the way I had imagined in the moment that I'd cannibalized my bouquet of beauty. Exhausted and blurry eyed I crawled to the kitchen, driven by the power of suggestion to brew a cup of Earl Grey...

PERFECT STORM!

It's going to be hard to sit through job-job all day. I've got fairies to develop! Funny how we're only tired until we're lit up with an idea.

Now spit-spot - Off to Julia's to peek at all the other desks,
you know, the ones that aren't presided over by sleep starved idiots ;)

SO? We have these girlies sharing a cuppa hot tea.
What else do you think Photo Fairies do? I think they go to the beach, for sure.

Of Mice and Owls

Here's a couple of pages from the children's book I'm percolating with these days.
The turn around time on this project is whiplash worthy. I have thirty pages due by the end of the month. My novel hasn't really budged since November 1st. While I watch the world's writing tallies go off the charts I pull out the Col-Erase and draw me some unruly animals and everything is fine.
It's kind of killing me to see how great everyone is doing on their novels at NaNoWriMo. I take solace in knowing that I'm working hard crossing so many things off the parchment paper of stuff to do that rolls out of my studio, down the stairs through the door, down the street and across the Brooklyn Bridge as it makes it's way to Midtown.

The nice thing is that while I'm overwhelmed all the projects I have in the air, all working really means is listening to Ben Folds and drawing animals. Sometimes I even eat chocolate while I do that. So life is good and while things are crazy I'll just save it for the drawing board.

'Surviving Ebola' may be taking a back burner, but PiBoIdMo is going swimmingly. Don't forget to stop by Tara's great motivational blog to kickstart your kid's book thinking. I hope you're all finding inspiration while the year dies out your window ;)

I'll write my novel, and I'll do it this month, but right now this book is the thing!

listening to right this second: "Narcolepsy" -- Ben Folds

Tweet Cred

This morning at "job-job" I jumped into a battle. Our graphic designer was checking Pantones against our latest promo giveaway. I'll ruin the surprise. He was designing a shirt. The shirt was made to pimp our twitter feed. It's beautifully designed, but marketing totally missed the boat! The shirt features are everyday logo with the words "follow us" running along the bottom.
Lame toast.
The thing that first attracted me to the twitter culture was the funny fan art birds that show up on people's websites. I love that this logo lends itself to wide artist interpretation.

I thrill when I find a unique Twitter Bird.

"No, no, no, no, no!" I exclaimed. "The whole fun of Twitter is designing a twitter bird in a new style!" If you're going to design a shirt do it right. We're a children's animation company for goodness sakes!! Who better to design a bit of fan art in our iconic style?
Anyway, they asked me to prove it, I showed them an array of fun cute tweeting birdies.

Then they backed me into a corner. "IF it's sooooooooo cool why don't you have one you've done!? Huh?! Huh!?" Damn it! Trapped. In the end our logo stayed and I was labeled "hypocrite".
Way to shove the thought back into the box, boys.

Sad thing is -- I've been meaning to get a little twitter bird done in She Sure is Sketchy style for quite some time. This is so I have a comeback next time. Take that! boys!!! Haha.

Here's some quick birdie doodles. Which is your favorite?
I'll finish up a couple for you to use too, maybe you're more open minded than my marketing team.
One can hope ;)

A Dip in the Shallow End

Yesterday I came back from the hot springs - yes. the. hot. springs.
Montana, seriously, I love you.When I got back, invigorated by the natural healing water that's pumped in from Yellowstone, and overcome with euphoria -- I opened a suspicious file in my backup drive. A swim in steaming purified spring water followed closely with the blinding bliss caused by a Snuggie, Tracy Champman and a toasted Idaho Spud can do that to you - make you crazy enough to open a folder labeled: 'Scans_Fall 2001' Apparently I used to draw in my teens too. Looking at the vast majority of these old bits of me, several themes are evident. Still going through velvet-poster-collection detox - unicorns were big. Real big.

I came across a plethora of weird cartoony-pain/torture-drawings - these are two of the 'real keepers'. I guess I was nineteen and into boys who cut themselves, so um... yeah....

This one actually got a chuckle from me. This is a portrait of my ex-boyfriend, Adam. He's usually referred to by my friends as "That tag artist that was obsessed with 'The Real World?'" Embarrassingly enough, It's an accurate description. This effect was accomplished with sharpie on napkin after a particularly loving moment in which Adam brought me a flower. It actually captures him pretty well. Luckily, my tastes have changed post apocalyptic straight-edge punk.

I try to ignore the fact that sketches I used to think were phenomenal then are cringe worthy now. Shallow. So Shallow.

listening to right this second: "Just Can't Get Enough" -- The Saturdays

Hand Me Lemons

I have a hard time not drawing.

It's kind of what I'm meant to do. This lovely Sunday morning found me looking at this strainer of citrus on my kitchen table.
You know what that meant: lemonade. Half way through squeezing these babies I abandoned them and reached for my watercolors. I know that old adage. I'm the exception. Hand me lemons and I'll make some surface design.
Incidentally, the lemonade was perfection. How anyone drinks this stuff from a carton I'll never know.
Summer+Homemade Lemonade+Sunday+Watercolors = Bliss

Listening to right this second: "Shut Up and Let Me Go!" -- The Ting Tings

Retro Moment

Sometimes late at night, when my eyes water and I fight sleep I like to pull out old stuff.

My watery eyes make it look glam-fab and I have ideas about it I didn't have when I originally penned it.Tonight while streamlining my office I unearthed this old everything book - Circa 2007
These designs were all tossed aside as 'meh.' Something about them make me happy now though, two years later. So I'll develop them and use them to wow my clients.I also like going through my old everything books because they help me ready my answer when people ask me "Have you always been so cool?" After looking back at past me with future me eyes I can quickly answer,
--"Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!"Now I'll turn these old sketches into current, hip, sassy, sexy, sweet bits of sought after design.But first to bed.

Tuxedos Are So Passé

Here are a few concepts I'm children's booking with a writing partner. You know penguin character development is one of my favorite things to do...