Cartoon Art Museum

I'm currently in SanFran and visited the Cartoon Art Museum. I have to admit, besides seeing Sargent's and members of the Bay Area Figurative's work, this has been my favorite douse of art. It also is a great example of the merits of line. So on the left is my CAM-inspired drawing. There will hopefully be more.

Save the Dates

These are our ultra home made Save the Dates. I was up until almost 2 working on them. Tonight will be another late night but we'll have basically all the inside-envelope work finished. Woohoo!

Happy Happy Happy

I've been having a hard time with birthday cards of late. Normally birthdays are where I excel. Weddings are the killer for me. I am yet (barring one) to make a wedding card I really really like. It's like the pressure gets to me or something.

I need to go back through my blog and find examples of cards that I've done and really liked and use those ideas for birthdays and weddings. I have to remind myself it's not terrible to use a design I've already used. It sounds silly to say out loud but there you have it :)

Oh happy day (indeed!)

This was from a friend's birthday months ago. Sometimes I get sizing wrong. Cupcake should have been larger. It's a fine example of how idea and execution are two different things.

Aug 14th Stamp

This is for our Save the Dates. Stamp made from rubber 3M adhesive stuck on a large tile. I made this for a test but then we really liked it. Our Save the Dates aren't very formal. OK actually nothing at our wedding is going to be very formal.

Thank You Card

These are the thank you cards I made for the surprise engagement party. (I'm engaged!)

I took an already really pretty card (I will find the name of these later in that I can't remember) and I cut a circle at one side. On the inside, I glued down a pretty piece of paper that coordinated with the outside (like the purple polkadots.)

Then I glued in a string. On the string I had another tiny piece of card stock that read "thank you."

One note: Originally I was going to use a punch to make a super clean circle but I ended up having to cut them by hand because the punches only go in so far. Also, next time instead of thread to hold the "thank you."

Oh hello there

So I have been absent for awhile, but while away my hands have been busy. Crafts await!

Yay Card

Happy Birthday Laurel!

This is my sister-in-law's birthday card. It's suppose to be a chihuahua. Her and my brother have two chihuahuas and they really do think of them as children.

Collage Journal 10

Collage Journal 9

Collage Journal 8

Collage Journal 7

Collage Journal 6

Collage Journal Day 5.1

Right side of page.

Collage Journal 5

Left side of page.

Collage Journal Day 4

I normally don't try anything with figures from magazines. I don't do very good with them aaand I should learn that's no reason not to try. So try I shall.

Collage Journal Day 3

This has nothing to do with this page but last night my family and I went up to Portland to join with the rest of our immediate family to celebrate my sister-in-law's birthday. My brother organized this whole night where we started for drinks at the top of a hotel bar, then proceeded on a tour of Portland's waterfront in bicycle cabs, had dinner at a fantastic Italian restaurant in our own room and finished with Voodoo doughnuts. My brother can work a night. It was all a surprise to my SIL and family is a great way to spend a night.

So happy birthday Laurel! May your 34th year be the sweetest yet. 

Collage Journal Day 2

I've been working on cleaning, really cleaning, my studio lately. The result is random Tupperware containers filled with tiny scraps. One is full of wisps of tissue paper. Another brims with card stock scraps. I hate throwing this stuff out because it just seems there must be *something* I can do with it.

And wallah. The collage journal has made these Tupperware containers gold minds. Today's entry, for example, consists mostly of those tiny pieces. It's also good practice for my brain to turn of its analytical harpy and just be able to grab paste grab paste my way through a night.

Collage Journal Day 1

The past few months I've been working on arts and crafts but have kept my head down in terms of this blog.

I've started working in a collage book, and I'm going to try and post an image a day from this visual journal.

The visual journal is a board book, and I'm spending a small amount of time in my studio every night working with paint and collage. I'm not trying to create anything grand here. I'm just trying to keep my hands in the materials and form the discipline of doing a little something every day.

Happy Birthday Amy

Birthday card. I was happy to get in a few papers I made myself including the back ground paper and then a few of the strips as well.

Happy 60th Dad!

Note to self: Do NOT touch the ink to see if it's dry. It is not dry. It will smudge. It won't smudge once it is dry so just leave it alone!

Inspired by Patty Van Dorin's Journal Pages in Vol 1 of Somerset Apprentice.

Decorative Envelopes Tutorial

Update

I've been quiet here for awhile, which is ironic because it is in large part because I've been working on more art.

This might change ever so slightly in that my work plate just filled up to the top. (But all in a really good way :)

I'm currently editing two DVDs. The first one is during work hours and it's Donna Zagotta's. (If you'd like to be notified when either are about to be released feel free to email me at kelly[at]ccpvideos.com)

Donna works in watercolor and gauche and has a pretty incredible process. Also, there is something soothing about watching someone paint with gauche.

The second artist I'm editing is Robert Dancik. In his DVD Robert works on a material he helped produce called Faux Bone. I'm working on Robert's in my free time and it will be ready to the public in less than three months.

I'm very excited about both of these projects and it's neat to be editing two incredibly different art forms in tandem.

Breakfast (Inspire Me Thursday)

Inspire me Thursday entry for Breakfast.

Autemn Flavor Valentines Card

I took the image from yesterday and was playing around in photoshop. I only wish I had worked in a higher resolution so that I could try and print it. Lesson learned?

Leaf Card

I'm always on the look out for things that could be stencils. Yesterday I found some Class A'Peel Stickers and had high hopes. There were a couple that looked full of potential but I limited myself to the Jumbo Damask Leaf. When I got home I found a card that I had stamped and written on at random a few weeks before. (You know, one of those nights you just need to do something creative. Something. Anything.) I wasn't real impressed with the outcome but seeing it now I had a new idea.

I took a few of the stickers and tried to defuzz them by putting them on my fleece sweater. Once I thought they wouldn't stick to the paper too much I put them down the painted over them with black. Paint. I think the result is great and I'm excited to make more of these.

Now I just wish I had bought more!

Dove Card Tutorial

Ornament Tutorial

How to Cut a Snowflake

1. Cut a circle from a square.
2. Make 6 evenly spaced cuts around the circle. Don't cut all the way to the center.
3. Between the long splices, cut little v's. (Image 4)
4. Now cut an entire branch out. I work down one side and then the other. (Image 5)
5. Work around the circle cutting out flakes.

Snowed In

I'm working from home today due to snow and ice. Our office manager lives only a few miles away and came in at a roaring 5 mph. The other editor Zach got stuck near Portland last night and is currently slowly making his way south. We're Oregonians. We're marksman when it comes to rain gear. We shut down at the slightest threat of snow.

I can't edit (no editing equipment in my apartment) so I'm continuing to work on chapter art for the Christmas craft tutorials. Here's a third one.

Chapter Break Art 3

Chapter Break Art 2

OK so "ornament" needs some centering but I think we're on the right track.

(Thank you Mom :)

Chapter Break Art

I will be posting some Christmas craft videos in the next few weeks. For those videos I'm designing chapter break art. This is a very (very) first draft of one. It's forcing me to push my comfort range, and it's a lot of just trying something, walking away, and then coming back to assess the design.

Einstein- Final Draft

Here's the final piece for Inspire Me Thursday's subject of "Einstein." To see the progression look below. There isn't too much change between the three.

Again, the quote is:
"Imagination is more important than knowledge.- Einstein

Snowflakes 3 (a card)

I loooove designing snowflakes. I think I might have found a new obsession. (There is a unified less-than-enthused "Yay" from my family.)

Yay!

Einstein First Drafts

The Einstein quote behind reads, "Imagination is more important than knowledge.- Einstein

I'm going to let it sit a bit before I critique, but the easiest is that the "I" and the "n" of the top line should move off the page a bit. The whole letter shouldn't be visible. Also once again I can't get the right color for the butterfly. I want a vibrant red and it keeps coming out duller than the pallet picker shows me. Hmmm...

Snowflakes 2

You guessed it, more snowflakes.

Snowflakes

I'm working on snowflake patterns for my winter digital work. There will be a lot of these in Craft Amor's future.

(click to enlarge)

Final Try

This week's theme at Inspire Me Thursday is "coffee break."

My graphic. The graphic's evolution is down below.

Coffee Break 2

Here's the evolution of what I worked on today for Inspire Me Thursday.

I took the McJumpquez's comment and added color to the steam. I have them red for love but the reds aren't translating well from my Photoshop file to the web conversion. I'm still mastering opacity so that's part of it.

I like:
I like the more dramatic values of the squares. I'm still deciding if I like squarer shape, and I'm leaning toward yes. I like the love in the base of the cup. I like how it creates the corner. Also the white line running behind the mug added a lot and helps the lettering placement make visual sense.

I don't like:
The color and value (but I think mostly value) of the steam hearts makes them hard to see. The cup jumps because it's an 8 while the dark hearts are almost the same value as the dark gray on the right. I prefer the hearts' hue in the bottom images, but the orange hearts stand out better.

I need to repeat the black somewhere or cut off an edge of the cup. I tried cropping the cup edge and it makes the image unbalanced. However the big block of an 8 value grabs focus instead of the steam. It's amazing actually that even though the hearts are red they command less attention than that (almost) black mug. Oh the power of Values.
(click for larger images)

Coffee Break

The Inspire Me Thursday's theme is "Coffee Break." Here's my first graphic although I'm not going to link until I've thought about it a wee bit. I like the heart steam but I'm not sure about the colors or the text. I look at it and sort of think, "What's the point of looking at this?"

No Drinking and Shooting

I made both of the papers used here. When I thought about combining them for a card the cup paper was blue in my mind. Blue and silver...because those are the paints I used. Yet when I glued it down against the copper brown color it seems very green. Green isn't bad but it has this camouflage feel that is a bit confusing. As in, "Why is my martini ready for hunting season and what does this have to do with thanks?"

I'm sending it anyway!

(ps- It's a thank you card for a friend who hosted a cast party at her house.)

Graffiti- First Attempt

I can never spell "graffiti" right. I have to spell check it every time.

OK, so this is my first attempt at vectors in the graffiti style. At 17, I visited Berlin and fell in love with graffiti. My German cousin is a graffiti artist and took me on an East/West wall art tour and since then I have sought it out in every country I've visited. I've still never seen anything as cool as Berlin but in the graffiti world that makes sense.

Lisa Engelbrecht mentioned graffiti a lot when we filmed her DVD. Now that I have my evenings and weekends back I'll be working on calligraphy and font play in general.

peace and joy

I'm giving in to the Christmas spirit. I'm not a humbugger but I find holidays overwhelming. I don't like crowds. I don't like guilt. I like mankind and the idea of being surrounded by those we love. But Christmas music has started in the stores, and I can feel my blood pressure creeping skyward. Instead of fighting it, I'm going to embrace it. And by embrace I mean start making cards. That's how I cope with something: make a card.

So here's attempt one of hopefully many. I like the swirls (which is a big deal actually for me) but I'm not sure about their placement. The card is trying to incorporate a few too many different design feels, and I think it hurts the cohesion. Also, it's heavy to the right.

Autumn Paper

Last night I worked on paper for autumn cards. I like how the paper turned out but realized the leaf print was too large for cards. It wouldn't read on a 4x6" area.

1. Brown paper and covered it in Mod Podge.
2. I cut out a stencil in cereal box cardboard and applied brown craft paint with the design.
3. I painted a green glaze (craft paint and Golden glazing medium) and used bubble wrap to create texture.

4. Back to the cardboard stencil with light violet glaze (purple craft paint and Golden glazing medium.) I also used the leaf shape remaining from the stencil cut and painted around the outside edge of it.
5. Stencil and copper paint. When the paint was still wet I used a rubber leaf stamp and stamped off the wet paint.
6. Second purple paint glaze. This one a bit darker.
7. Mod Podge.

Oh Sun, See You in June

This pattern is in exact opposition to what I'm seeing outside of my office window today. It's cold. It's dark. It's blustery and wet. September and October were some of the prettiest I've ever seen here in Oregon. November might just let us have it.

As I was browsing Michael's yesterday for post-Halloween sales, I realized that I often get excited about a holiday right after it's over. Maybe it's because the pressure is gone. So I've decided that I can make cards for any time of year at any time during the year. I'll just keep them and send them appropriately. I know this isn't a rocket science realization but it's funny how we need to give ourselves official permission to do certain things. I've given myself permission. I'm also writing it down (here) for when I forget.