Revisiting Old Drawings & Working on New Stuff

A few months ago, I got really into drawing food with colored pencils. It's a really fun process for me and I've always been much stronger with dry media than wet (i.e. paint). Lately, I've been working on sorta figuring out my drawing style. It had been a really long time since I just drew what I like. So naturally, when I started drawing again, a lot of my stuff looked a little bit like the artists I admire. And I was obsessing too much about how I was drawing and what I was drawing. Being in the graphic design world for a little too long, I had forgotten what it's like to work loosely. 

Once I got back into the groove of things, I realized that the food I had drawn a few months earlier don't really fit the style of my work. They mostly looked like studies that you were draw for a drawing class. So I revisited them and found that all they really needed were faces. 

This week I had a breakthrough in how I draw people. For a while, I was obsessing over the texture of hair. Don't get me wrong, when I really focus I'm pretty darn good at drawing hair! But what I found was in my attempt to give hair shape, I was making it look really flat. So I thought, "If it's going to look flat anyways, I might as well make it a whole shape!" That then opened up my mind to the possibility of infinite shapes for hair. Everything from something natural to something that looks like it's from another dimension (or a dream!)

Something else I ended up liking from just playing around: working with just two colors. What I like about working this way is it's a constraint that makes me have to figure out how to make something work. So after a drew a few heads, I challenged myself to figure out how to make this work with a body.

As you can see, I'm slowing working my way up to doing full figure drawings and eventually whole scenes. This is also my way of prepping myself for the Art Walk I'm participating in next month at The Community in Anaheim. I'll be doing live drawing during the event.

Thanks for following along! I'll be posting more works in progress soon!

Changes

I've been talking about this for quite some time now, and at the end of this year it's going happen. On January 1st, 2015 I'm going to shut down my Etsy shop. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop knitting just yet. It just means the shop is moving off Etsy. I'm tired of a lot of the changes Etsy's been making to the site and also (as I mentioned before) their fees. Last December, my Etsy bill was nearly $300 for the month. And most months, my bill ranges from $20-60 depending on how much I sell. That's a pretty hefty chunk of money that could've been used to grow my business or pay bills. I only pay Big Cartel a flat rate of $9.95/month regardless of how much I sell. Since being featured by Frankie, I've been getting a decent number of orders through Big Cartel. That gave me the confidence I needed to grow my business without Etsy. Starting bookmarking it now, because soon the knits will only be available HERE.

Knitting isn't the only thing I'm doing for a living; I've been trying to focus on my illustration career. When I'm not knitting, I'm drawing. It's a much scarier path than graphic design, but it's so much more satisfying to me. I love the challenge & excitement of the unknown. I'm currently trying to work on new pieces and prints to get ready for Renegade Craft's Winter Shows. The application period starts in September and it's only open for a week this year. So I really got to get it together! In the meantime, you can see what's currently available HERE.

Kevin and I decided to skip the Summer shows this year because it's too much work & stress on me for very little profit. Every year, he has to go to Comic Con for work so it leaves me working alone on the Summer shows. It's just too much work on one person. So we've been changing up the shows we do as well as researching some smaller ones to try. I'll be participating in the July Art Walk at The Community in Anaheim. (more about that later). In a couple months, I'll announce the Holiday show schedule so you know where you can find me at a show near you! Til next time!

New One-Offs

I've been working on some small one-off items to keep my hands working while I think up some new stuff for the shop. A while back I found a pack of 50 cards & envelopes at Big Lots. The price was so cheap I couldn't pass it up. I've been thinking of what I could do with them ever since. The quality of the cards are standard card stock, but the envelopes are definitely on the thinner side. Since I'm sorta in a lull right now, I thought the cards would be great for quick little one-of-a-kind cards. These are hand-drawn with colored pencils and are one-of-a-kind, never to be reproduced. These are the two that were released this past week, but more are on the way! You can find them in the shop!

Happy Apple Card

Pizza Face Card

My Life is Kinda Complete

Last week, I was featured in the fashion section of Frankie Magazine's blog.  I was super excited and extremely honored to be featured by them. They're my favorite art & lifestyle magazine from Australia. It's currently Autumn there, so my hats are perfect for the weather.

For the past couple of years, my friend Janie from Janie XY would joke that I'm famous in Australia because I get a good amount of orders from down under. Well, now I am actually kinda famous in Australia! I'm also super stoked about this because in the past, Frankie has featured quite a few of my friends. So at the start of 2014, one of my goals was to eventually make it into Frankie. Although, I didn't get published in the actual magazine, this is pretty darn close!

You can check out the feature here.