A cat named Muss

As my next art/craft show, OVCC's Artisans @ The Archives: Christmas Market, quickly approaches I'm happy to announce that one of my characters "Muss" will be featured on a poster in support of a fellow guild member who is growing a "Monkey Tail" mustache for Movember. He is hoping to raise $200 for mens health research!  It's  fun to see Muss put to good use. Here's a peak at what the poster will look like:

The Christmas Market takes place this weekend at the National Archives, I'll be there selling my handmade cards and gift boxes, come by and say hello. In support of the Movember challenge I'll donate $1 from every "Muss" card I sell this weekend.

Here's Muss' Christmas card:

In a month I'll be participating in Pop Expo, this is so exciting. Muss will be there too! He's the star of a comic mini that is filled with all kinds of anime fun designed to test your knowledge,  this is the cover:

Lastly, if you're interested in seeing more of Muss' antics, he can be found here: What Muss Be

Talk to you soon :-)

Getting Ready for Christmas

I thought I should give a little update on something I've been working on for upcoming Christmas craft shows happening in November. One of the things I enjoy doing is making greeting cards and  I will be debuting a new line of cards I call Party Chicks:

These are fun bright colored birds who love to have a good time and are super eager to spread their enthusiasm! Here is a sample:

A sub-group of the Party Chick are the Party Penguins, and they have been busy getting ready for the holiday season. You can find them hanging out on gift tags and cards. Here's just a few,  more will be posted on Facebook.

That's all for this week. I've got two weeks until Geek Market and sooo much to do. I'm getting nervous but excited too.  Now back to work!

Watercolor cards

The summer is motoring by and I realize I haven't posted in a while. I've been working hard on some new items for the fall. In fact I may have overdone it, my shoulders have been aching lately!

I'm really excited about a show I have coming up but I'll talk more about that in a future post.

For now here is a picture of some cards I made back in the spring using watercolors, something I don't do too often. They are all one of a kind.

Talk to you soon :-)

Just Wacky

Sometimes I make cards out of random doodles simply because I like the character and think they'd make fun cards. Here are a few of them, they have all been colored using Copic Markers:

Introducing Mopey Dolls

Unfortunately I didn't blog as much as I had planned to last year. I'm going to start 2013 by posting some pictures of cards I made over past eight months. I have a series of cards I've nicknamed "Mopey Dolls" which featured a chibi styled girl. These are fun to draw and lend themselves to bright cheery backgrounds.

First up is one of my favourites, this blue-eyed cutie was the first time I tried colouring in the image with pencil crayons (on the dress) in addition to markers and it came out better than I expected. It's embellished with coloured paper, ribbon and stamped words embossed in gold:

For this next one I used a more horizontal design. The face and eyes were coloured with Copic Markers the rest is coloured with pencil crayons (Prismacolor) and embellished with some ribbon and heart shaped punches:

The next card I decided to cut out the "Mopey doll" image and glued it to some coloured paper. I then experimented with stitching a boarder around the image. It's embellished with paper flowers and a gold embossed stamped word: 

When I made the next three cards I was trying out a ribbon cutter that cuts a pattern in paper that makes it easy to tread a a ribbon. Two of the cards used a stamped background and  the middle card features more stitching and some paper punch flowers:

Finding Creativity

Sometimes trying to be creative is a very difficult thing. It just doesn’t seem to work on demand. There are days you may want to do or make something, but you find yourself clueless about where to start. Other days you can have so many ideas that you’re left figuring out what to do first.  As the saying goes, “when it rains it pours”.

But what does one do when there is a dry spell? How do you handle days where nothing you draw looks right or you just can’t think of a subject to write about? Everything I’ve read on “writer’s block” suggests that the only solution is to keep pushing through. If you’re a writer just write, or if you draw just draw anything. It doesn’t need to good or have a point, you just have to keep moving. So I do what is suggested in the hopes when inspiration hits me I’ll be at the ready, pen in hand.

What my inner psychologist wonders is why this happens in the first place and whether there is a way to predict these ebbs and flows.

This week’s card I created when I was thinking of card that a son might give his mother. Once again I took one doodle and presented two ways: one for Mother’s day, the second as a birthday card.

Let's Get Started!

I always wished there was something productive I could do with my doodles then one day it occurred to me that I could make them into cards! I like to experiment using techniques borrowed from the worlds of illustrating, fine art and crafting. My hope for this blog is to make a place to show what I’m up to as I search for ways to make use of my incessant doodling.

This first card creation is one of my crazier images. I came up with it on an unusually warm and sunny March day. I thought it would be funny to make a character with tulip shaped hair that is overjoyed that spring is here. My daughter thinks it looks silly, but that’s kind of the point.