Bird Brain

I've got birds on the brain, on my little itty bitty brain. These are most likely going to end up as textiles. I'm off to a party at the Chocolate Factory in Union Square, then somehow, I don't know how, I've been talked into seeing "Love Guru." I'm hoping the Chocolate party will inspire fun sketches.

Sidetracked by Life - but Back with Pumpkin Bread

Hi lovelies! I know it's been awhile. . . but man have I been busy! I'm developing a new line of sketchy goodness - drawings to be sneak peeked sooner rather than later. I'm working like a maniac in my other life in full time animator/story boarder/lover mode. I'm busier socially than ever, which means that I'm way busy socially and deserve a butterfly medal. I had a stellar beach weekend and I have the sun burn to show for it. I look like a cheetah all over my back where the spray sunscreen most likely needed to be rubbed in.

My computer went fried egg on me, but luckily I had a lovely boy around to fix it. Now I have a factory new-old computer and I promise to never, ever say a bad word about poor Ruby Computer ever again. It would be impossible for me to ever express my complete and utter thankfulness to God/Technology/Karma etc. . . that Ruby Computer didn't decide to pull down the curtain over Surtex. The nice thing is that without a computer at home I've lived a semi-normal life recently and have taken the vacation from the computer that I have long promised myself. Now I'm back - with a vengeance, and with Pumpkin Bread.

My friend Kristen is getting married in a couple of weeks and so the perfect group gift turned out to be recipe cards. Smiling Pumpkin Bread is the tops and so I thought I'd send her off to her huge fancy house in Long Island with a map for making it. I thought you'd probably like it too, even though I'm sure it tastes best in the Fall in a big old house on Long Island :)

My illustrated recipe card collection/calendar is going to be available on Etsy in the next few weeks. If you must have your hands on them check back next month and they could be yours!

Surtex is OVER baby!!!

I'm almost recovered from the thing that was Surtex 2008! I'm still sleeping more than I've ever slept in my life. I think my body is trying to make up for the days prior to the show where I slept an hour or two, went to eight or more hours of my day job, came home and worked on my own art until the wee hours where I snuck in a nap for an hour and then tiptoed out the door to my day job again. Luckily I managed to take off a full week of work, giving me two days before the show and one day after to try and get my sea legs again.

My mom was the lady of the hour and flew up from Hawaii to take care of me and to help out with the show. I'm very lucky to be blessed with the most supportive family on the planet. It's so nice to have parents that don't say stupid stuff like, "You really have to go to sleep, this is just crazy," or "Are you sure you really want to do this show, it seems like a pretty big expense? I mean can you afford all this?" It's a relief because that's what I was saying to myself in the mirror often enough. Haha. The last thing I needed was for someone to reinforce my fears. In life I tend to fluctuate between alarmingly self conscious and worried to overly confident and cocky. This whole Surtex ordeal brought out both sides of my introverted-extrovert personality.

I'm going to be blogging about Surtex off and on over the next couple of weeks. Today I'm going to touch on preparatory materials. At twenty-six I'm very lucky to have a couple of distinct and set styles. Growing up in an artistic household and then attending Pratt Institute where I got my BFA taught me one very important thing:

**As an artist it's imperative that you create work in a style that becomes you.**

If you do artwork that's all over the place and that doesn't have a look that can be traced to you, you can forget ever finding steady work. For this year's show I saw my art being divided in three ways that really stood out to me:

1. Fashionista East - consisting of feminine but bold vectorized black line and highly saturated flat color
2. Baby Mermaids - bright watercolors based on always sweet and often funny sketchy line art

3. No Ka Oi - vectorized artwork without a solid line, driven by shape and a set Pantone color palette

--a look that a lot of my surface design is taking lately--

As an artist when you interview for a job it's not uncommon for you to have three or four resumes. If I were interviewing for an animation position it's likely that my background in apparel would have no place on my resume. If I was looking to work as a graphic designer it's doubtful that an interviewer would want to know about my experience working as an oil painting instructor at Interlochen's summer art program. I went into Surtex knowing that it was important to take this concept to heart. The last thing I wanted was for a potential contact to fall in love with my baby mermaids and get home and not be able to remember where they saw them.

I designed three separate business cards so that people could take whichever card was going to remind them of what they were interested in my art for. It turns out that this idea was pure gold and I got a huge response from people who would methodically look through the three cards and then take one for their ever growing packet of artist materials.

Here are the three business cards that I pulled together for the show:

I also had over sized postcards printed with lots of writing space and with artwork similar to the business card above that matches my blog design. That ways potential clients could write notes to themselves so that they had stuff to talk about with me later.

Since this was my first show I came into it a tad blind and a bit not knowing to expect. It turns out all the print collateral stuff was right on the money. When I do the show next year I'll create stuff with the same design principles and sensibilities. However, I will make Hella sure that they are not sent to me via DHL shipping. I think I would have had more luck with a carrier pigeon. I actually didn't get stuff delivered on time the way it was supposed to go. I ended up printing the first day's print collateral on my HP 5150 - AKA 'The Little Engine that Could.' My mom actually had to go to the DHL warehouse to pick up the cards and everything in the wee hours of the morning on Monday the 9th, the second day of the show. It was OK because Sunday turned out to be pretty sleepy and the stuff from my printer was just fine. I was upset but everything worked out A-OK no thanks to the shipping service from hell. Seriously, never use them. Never. Ever. Never. Well you can use them if you don't care about ever getting your stuff. At one point they had no idea where on the continent my stuff was. Just a word to the wise, Fed Ex has none of these crazy problems. DHL was the only major glitch for this mission. Surtex turned out to be very NASA-like to me and I talk about it in a kind of scientific way now that I have this first show under my belt.

Next time I blog about Surtex I'll be talking about my booth. Rah Rah Rah! It's nice to be back :)

Surtex Count Down!!

I'll be at Surtex in Less than two weeks, much less than two weeks. Ok, let's be honest. I'm kind of freaking out. Ok, I'm really freaking out. My problem is that when I truly freak out I give myself a migraine forcing me to take a full ten hour time-out. Thus, I have to monitor my freak out levels so as to stay functioning. SO EXASPERATING!

I'm wandering into the slightly unknown when it comes to Surtex. Luckily I have a ton of experience with large shows and I'll be drawing on that. My mom has been defying child labor laws since 1987 when she used to dress me and my younger sister up in matching dresses and take us to gigantic craft fairs huge conference centers. We would work ten hour days as her "special sales girls." A lot has changed since the days when I used to work in exchange for pretty stickers and crayola crayons . . . I now work to buy Winsor & Newton inks... I'm ever so thankful for the sales experience. You should check her stuff out over at
Betty Tags.
She pretty much rocks.

I also have a unique situation at my job. I animate for a company that is smart enough to send their artists away on business trips to conferences now and again. That way we can talk with the people buying product and see how things are being received. These are done in pure convention style very similar to Surtex. I'm sure my experience with the shows that I go to for work in Chicago and Florida will be slightly different than my upcoming show in Manhattan. I'm afraid there won't be Hilton Hotel rooms, 600 thread count sheets and five course meals in the cards. . . sigh. . .

I have tons to do to get ready so my posting here at 'She Sure is Sketchy' may be sporadic. I've discovered that if I take a cold shower at one in the morning I can keep drawing for another hour or two :) I was supposed to get a new website up in time for the event. I'm on an illustration roll and I don't really want to stop to program stuff in html. It's a tough call. I'm still swamped creating intellectual property and filing art for copyright.

Okay, since I despise posting stuff that's just text, here's another peek at my Baby Mermaids. They're scheduled to make their official debut in ten days. . . but who's counting?
Ps. Come say 'Hi' at Surtex 2008!!! I'm in booth 2518 in Hall 1E. Come pick up a temporary tattoo and a smile :)

Grow Green!

I'm in surface design frenzy mode :)

Directory of Illustration

This has been big on my list of things to get done. It's the design of my Directory of Illustration page for their annual book. I thought things were getting kind of stale so I decided to add another huge deadline prior to Surtex. I'm silly (stupid) that way. I burned the midnight oil on this baby. I'm glad that it does a nice job of representing who I am and what I do.

Normally when I design something I know exactly how I want it to turn out. This just happened. I moved things around a lot and then I'd draw something new to stick in a blank space. It was an organic way to pull it together. I had most of the girls done as line art and I needed to color them for Surtex.

I'm obsessed with lists. I make them about everything. The nice part about this project was that I got to cross off a bunch of stuff, like 'Design page for DOI,' 'Submit page for DOI,' 'Color 'Perfect Package for Surtex, 'Finish color tests for 'rainy day,'' '"Design new 'AmberAlvarez.com' banner,'' 'Create textile inchies for Surtex''' etc. etc. It was a happy day. I'm nursing a migraine but it's doing wonders for my color work :)

**update: Ultimately I have found the Directory of Illustration to be a poor investment. Of all the marketing that I do, both online and in print, it has proven to be by far the weakest form of drumming up new business.

I am constantly being written by artists who are looking into doing it and wanting to know how I feel about the experience. I like the professional look of the site. I feel that it does improve the professionality of my work and diversify my online presense, but other than that, I think that it's not doing its job. I am speaking just for me, I'm sure other artists have seen great success with it, but it's not reaching my market the way it should.

Simpler Times

Lee Lee's Valise is Hot Stuff

A while ago I posted about a new client I have been working with to create a line of fuller figured illustrations. After a bit of a struggle and a lot of development work I must say I am tickled with the result. My client, Lisa Dolan, owner of 'Lee Lee's Valise,' the hit new boutique that's creating a stir everywhere, was a dream to work with. I didn't design the antique cameo logo, which has been with Lee Lee's Valise since it's grand opening last Spring. It was important that we work the logo into the illustration in a flattering way since it's integral to the store's branding and name recognition. Lisa's store has been on 'What Not to Wear' multiple times. She's always getting new girls who come running to the boutique after an episode airs looking for the store's cameo and chandeliers which that she's known by. I think that they add the perfect touch of class to this sassy, sexy sweet campaign.
Here's the very final sketch of this illustration that I carried away from a meeting with Lisa. Most of the sketching happens in my art studio, the notes all happen during our face to face consultations. I'm afraid I'm going to get spoiled by the novelty of actually sketching in front of a client where we can discuss details and make everything perfectly clear in person. Another exciting part of this campaign is that the silhouettes and many of the accessories in the illustrations are based off of clothes that Lisa actually has in the store! The particular temptress you see above is wearing Tadashi, this line of gowns is in the store now, so run, don't walk! Now that it's pretty obvious that I'm stoked on this gig I'm going to go back to sketching.

This is a sneak peek at a new signature line I'm unveiling this May at the Javitz center here in New York. I'm pleased as punch about it. I wanted to give my lovely ittle blog stalkers a tiny looksee. My liscensing artwork has been under pretty tight wraps so this post is kind of a big deal :) These kiddies and their friends will be taking their place in the 'Sweet Spot' of my 'Sassy, Sexy, Sweet' booth on May 18th.

Naked Time

Sometimes when I'm in the midst of paying my student loans I wonder, 'Why oh why did I insist that I HAD to go to a private art school?!' Then something like the Twentieth Annual Pratt Institute Draw-A-Thon happens and I thank my lucky stars I'm a Pratt alumni. This was my seventh year at the Draw-A-Thon. The Draw-A-Thon is not for the faint of heart. It takes place on Pratt's beautiful campus every spring between the hours of 7pm to 7am - we're talking twelve consecutive hours of life drawing, people!

Most of these were done in the 5 to 10 minute room. IRL they're full sized on 11x14" 50lb paper or 10x12" cotton rag, dual-surface watercolor paper, cold pressed of course. I use Copic Sketch markers, Speedball Ink, Windsor Newton watercolor, my trusty water brush pen, Col-Erase and Prismacolor pencils, gauche, graphite and a lot of shear excitement in my life drawing :) I just did a grand total and over the course of one evening I raked in just under 200 of these babies.

After everything was said and done these were my favorites:

This was my seventh consecutive Draw-A-Thon. If you're thinking of attending next year let me know and I'll get you your tickets. I've learned a lot over the years. For starters, the key to success is hydration! Don't be fooled into downing that six pack of red bull, you're going to go cross eyed at 4am if you do that. Another thing, go running or cross training or salsa dancing or SOMETHING the day of. You're going to be sitting on artist benches, or the floor for half a day. At five am you're going to want the memory of using your legs.
Bring a ton of medium and a lot of different drawing surfaces, I bring an over sized sketchbook and a watercolor block. I stuff a Chinese Laundry shoe box (a great excuse to buy sexy pumps) full of art supplies. Gone are the days of stacks of newsprint and charcoal. . . sigh. . . The freshmen at this thing are so cute, dirty, covered with soot, but cute.

Get there on time! If you get there on time you'll get your money's worth. $15 for 18 models for twelve hours is cheaper by the minute if you get there in time to warm up in the gesture room before everyone else gets there. It also gives you a chance to stake out some prime territory.

I always go with my friend Sandra, it's our thing. It's best to take a close friend so when you have a model's nekid bum in your face at 3am you have someone to cross your eyes at. I kind of feel bad for anyone reading this because they probably won't be able to go with Sandra. You'll be hard pressed to find a better life drawing partner. Life drawing's funny for me. It's like going to the gym, or cooking, I really LOVE it, but only after I start doing it. I'm always the happiest person on earth at Pratt's Draw-a-Thon. One reason Sandra's the perfect friend to take a long is that she's vying for first place in the happiest girl on earth contest too, so we keep each other going on ecstatic vibes until dawn. Don't go with a sour puss or a jerk face who is going to wimp out and want to pack up at midnight. How often do you have a chance to catch up on a year's worth of life drawing in one sweet evening!?