Here’s my original sketch: Ben Franklin being the pimp that I can only assume he was.  And here is the hilarious final version that Rachel Dougherty bestowed upon my original idea.

I have to say, I really think she did an incredible job of capturing Franklin’s enormous swag.

Similarly, here is her original sketch of Washington crossing the Delaware (in style).  And this is my final vision:

It was such a fun exercise that I’m really glad I got the chance to participate in.  Although I must say I almost felt like I was right back in college with how tight the deadlines were, but I guess they wouldn’t have felt so tight if I wasn’t wasting so much time at work or with my social engagements.  This was also a good exercise in proving to myself that I don’t have to sacrifice either one of those things, though.  I can have a beer with my honey AND finish an awesome piece- all in the same night!

Here’s a piece that I did after a particularly rushed and stressful string of days.

A little dutch saying that I repeat in my head when people start asking me to do more things than I can.

I decided to start forcing myself to do these drawings at work (as opposed to facebook-ing or reddit-ing, or whatever else I would be doing to kill time), because I was never much of a doodler  and it’s something that has always bothered me.  When it comes to an assignment or deadline-driven project, sure no problem- I’ll draw for hours, but drawing just for the sake of drawing has never really engaged me.  I’ve got dozens of notebooks and sketchbooks, but they’re full of lists and to-dos and plans.  I’ve spent very long periods of time post-college drawing nothing at all.

I’m working on fixing this problem.

And then in an effort to actually cover some wall space I decided to create a couple more hex signs.  Appropriately enough, Yards Brewing Co themed hex signs.  How cute!

The first one I did is based on the Poor Richard’s Tavern Spruce Ale (which is not an ale at all, but one of my new favorite alcoholic beverages):

The center piece was drawn from an existing traditional design, but the rest I kind of made up on the fly.

The second on is based on the Brawler:

This one is largely based on a traditional design, which ironically enough, is a symbol of peace and contentment.

I’ll take some good photos of the final prints once the show is down and I’ve got my pieces back- my favorite part about the hanging was using embroidery hoops as little frames for the canvas prints.  I dare say this is one of my more adorable projects to date.

On a related note- it’s also made me realize how much I’ve grown to enjoy vector art.  I’ve always been a pencil and paper, collage, and Photoshop kind of girl.  Lots of hands-on, lots of texture- but through my job I’ve gotten really good at navigating around in Illustrator, and this project has me wanting to try my hand at more vector art.  I’m curious how much I can come up with- and how fast!

The last update I have is that freelance project (the one that’s been consuming my life for the past three months)- I illustrated a children’s book!  It’s silly, about turtles and frogs, and pretty adorable.  So once all the edits are over I’ll post some pre-publishing teasers

And now, for me at least, it’s bedtime.  Ciao!

As promised, here is a more inclusive post with all seven pieces that I did for the Drink Philly show in November.  (One of my many new years resolutions is to be more on top of things, blog included)

These were all conceived in a brainstorming session among friends- some sound more delicious and appealing to me than others- some I just really liked the wordplay.

Some are a little tongue in cheek.

And some were just plain fun to draw!

All in all, it was a really great show- and I look forward to showing with them again in the future.  Once I recover from the holidays and get my new work space put together.  I’m also really looking forward to seeing what Drink Philly’s got in store for us this month.

Maybe I’ll see you there!

We showed with Drink Philly for another First Friday, but this time it felt a little more important because it was just the four of us and the show went over amazing!  The atmosphere was great, it was loud and crowded and exciting, I’m so proud of us!

Like I said, there will be plenty more pictures (maybe even some process shots), but for now, here are some great shots my sister snapped , and a little teaser.

Keep and eye out for the rest of my labels!

For now, I’m going to go continue to catch up on sleep.  Yes it’s been three whole days and I’m still back-logged.  I require a lot of beauty sleep.

Wishful tattoo thinking unfortunately (the size this would have to be is a little more of an investment than I’m ready for at this point in my tattoo life)

So instead I ended up having something a little more traditional done- still a small homage to my family’s pennsylvania dutch roots.

And Second, another piece for a little show.  Megan, who showed at Drink Philly last month, organized the Melt show (the theme of food, by any interpretation of the imagination).  This piece was something that I had started right after I graduated (when I was still trying to force myself to stay artistically active, before I had my spirit broken..) and by luck it fit the theme- so I took a minute to sit down and finally finish the thing.

I think it came out alright- and by alright, I mean awesome.

I’ve got another show coming up in the fall- so keep an eye out for some fun in-progress updates and book makings.. should be interesting!

Drink Philly opened up their office for the first time as a gallery space and invited the public in for beer sampling and pretty pictures.  It was a little bit of a melting pot show with a couple of fine art painters (Megan Coonelly and Brit Miller) and a photographer (Jimmy Lin) and two illustrators (April Kuhn and myself).  It went over really great, was massively attended (see below), and was a lot of fun!

Hopefully we’ll be working with them again and participating in more shows in their space.  It also served as great motivation for me who, post-college, has been having a lot of trouble getting my act together.

And here are the two new pieces I created for the show.  I used the same techniques as I did in my last post (that piece was also in the show).  It’s very involved and not totally practical, but I think the effect is really interesting and it also serves as a tool to get me more into the project (I love cutting and pasting and playing with paper!)

Because I’m so proud of it, here’s the drawing construct first:

At the time, because the drawing/cutouts/shadows were relatively complex I kept the colors pretty simple…  Looking at it now, I kind of want to either redo the piece, or go back in and spend some more time with the painting aspect.  We’ll see….

And here’s the other piece that I did, which turned out to be my favorite.. even though it had the most involved and annoying process.  I ended up drawing everything on different layers of layout bond, which I photographed separately and digitally composed (because layout bond is too thin to make the 3D constructs out of- hence the annoying rippling that I encountered in the first piece), then I printed the drawings, drew back over them to get good, thick, textured lines, and then I cut, composed, and took the final photos.  A lot of fuss, but I think totally worth it because I kind of love how it came out.

It’s definitely the best 3D effect I’ve gotten so far- and it carried through really well to the final product.  Probably has a lot to do with the nature of the drawing, the fact that it’s kind of in an empty space (no real perspective to deal with), but this is still a learning process so we’ll have to see what interesting new road blocks I run into with the next piece!

Thanks for looking, and the next time I’m in a show, maybe I’ll actually give some notice, invite some people, and we can bust the seams out of that gallery!

tried a new approach this time around- i like cutting out and building stuff :]

started out  with a flat sketch.. by the time i had figured out all the layers and overlapping parts it was mighty confusing, but i figured it apart onto separate layers of layout bond and then used my bookarts prowess and made a little cut-out diorama (similar to how i would construct a carousel book).  i used a shoebox and everything!  the photo above was a test shot… obviously this technique will require some further tweaking in future projects…

my one major disappointment was that once i started to add the flat colors it lost a lot of the really cool 3D effect from the layers and photography :/

but i think the final made a lovely comeback, and i totally love it!  again, i’m going to be doing some major tweaking and experimentation with my next project- i don’t like the wobbly lines (a product of the paper buckling when i tried to avoid having to actually crease it…)

so we’ll see where this goes- maybe i should just make a whole book next time!  (that might be a lot bit of a project for me right now- being all rusty as i am- but we’ll see)

thanks for looking!!  i promise to update again soon (i actually have to now or april will kick my ass!)

this is kevin- the picure doesn’t say much about him- but the comic is taking place in a good part of his timeline, so he’s just standing in as a superficial character.  i have a few short stories about him, things don’t always go well for him.  actually, things don’t really go well in the comic- but it’s not a tragedy or anything.   there’s ice cream.