St Patrick's Day - March 17
See all my St. Pat's cards HERE
This design is also available on T-SHIRTS and other gifty things in my Zazzle shop
Persian New Year - March 21
The month of Ramadan begins on March 22, 2023
St Patrick's Day - March 17
See all my St. Pat's cards HERE
This design is also available on T-SHIRTS and other gifty things in my Zazzle shop
Persian New Year - March 21
The month of Ramadan begins on March 22, 2023
I was left with Instagram and Facebook. Both were problematic in that department. IG doesn't like live links although you can have them in your bio profile . Facebook did not like you being too sales oriented. So yes I can post my GreetingCardUniverse card links, but posting the weekend sales promo code got me a warning notice. sigh. I did sign up for a Facebook Artist Page. In January, I signed up for Post.News. Links and images look gorgeous on that site But I feel like I'm shouting into the void over there. Needless to say, I don't post as many links as I did on the bird app cause it's just not the thing to do on any of those social media platforms. Now what?
I did get creative in December, and did a countdown to Christmas and posted 25 winter/Christmas illustrations on IG, the majority of which were GCU cards. And yes that did help with my December/Christmas card sales. I also did a shorter run up to the Lunar New Year, Year of the Rabbit or Cat with illustrations/cards of, you guessed it, cats and rabbits- which helped with the January sales. And now we're at the end of February and my sales are way down compared to last year. Sure I could do a run up to Spring? But do I want to? Must I? Sigh.
Have I learned anything?
• Posting daily helps as far as engagement and getting new followers. No big insight here.
• My followers on all my sites seem to respond best to my Art Process Posts for illustrations or greeting card designs. They seem to find the process as interesting if not more interesting than the actual finished art. Thankfully, I enjoy documenting and sharing my art process.
• I realized I stopped blogging because I was micro-blogging on Twitter. No bird app and the blog revives. Hmmmm Maybe I'll do an occasional upcoming holiday blog post.
I would love to hear what social media sites you use to help promote/market yourself or your creations.
My Cupcake Bouquet greeting card design was inspired by a greeting card design challenge, #dhgartspark, on Instagram, Design House Greetings - Cue The Confetti. Which led to a lot of doodles in various notebooks and finally a full size pencil sketch and then an even tighter one. My next step is to take it to the light box to transfer the sketch to watercolor paper. I use Canson Montval Watercolor 140 lb paper.
Step 2: Is the inking. Black India ink with a brush and then wash with shadows.
Step 3: I paint my illustration traditionally. Using Higgins Waterproof/Water Resistant Colored Inks as if they're watercolors and then scan it all in.
Final Step: Bring it into Photoshop, clean up paint splotches, specs and dust and add details like sprinkles. Tah Dah - here's the finished art!
I hope to do a few more greeting card designs for this challenge before March1 happens. BUT who knows if I actually will. Anyhow hope you enjoyed reading about my art process.
Just go to cbig-nyc.com and click on the ART TAB. Then Click on the covers and voila, you can flip through the PDFs. Ahem. Yes, I know it's now 2023, but I'm still proud of the work I put into both the directories and the gorgeous illustration promo pages created by the participating CBIG members that make up the 2 books. Kudos to Debbie Cuneo for all the image collection and dealing with all sorts of minutiae. Special Thanks to Vicky Rubin for proof reading when I was getting too bleary eyed.
By the way my illustration promo-pages are on page 19 in the COLOR Directory and on page 5 in the BLACK & WHITE Directory.
I'm taking the period between January 1st and the start of the Year of the Rabbit, January 22nd to think about what I want to happen in the coming year and what I need to do to make it happen. As I was making my lists for all the facets of my life I realized that all this list making was an exercise in futility. If I didn't get a handle on my time, nothing would change from this year to the next.
Now I've never been good with time. My priority was based on If I don't do it now:
• Is it a matter of life or death?
• Will I cause pain or suffering?
• Is it commissioned work?
• Does it have a hard deadline?
• Will it effect me/us financially?
Everything else could go to the back of the line and be taken care of in due time. For the longest time this system sort of worked at least until the Pandemic hit mid-March 2020. I don't know about you but since then I've been plagued by a case of bad timing probably caused by too many pajama days sprinkled with too many days of uncertainty. So the last 3 years, I felt like I've been running around putting out fires. Still, I'm happy to report that the only thing I killed was a houseplant or two.
While last year was definitely better as I seemed to gain some of my old speed back with creative and commissioned work, everything else was like slogging through molasses. Weeks speeded up as my to do list piled on. So what do I plan on doing differently now that I've decided to be serious about my time management problem? For starters, I've decided to log my time. This way I can see how long a task actually takes as well as where I'm wasting it.
So far I've discovered (been doing this for a week):
1 - The weekly bills, a task I hate and dread and stress over and would always procrastinate before actually beginning, only takes an hour. Only one hour. Meanwhile I killed 2 hours not doing it.
2 - I can cram a lot of creative work into the last hour of the day because I suddenly realize that if I don't start it now it will be another day that I'm mad at myself for not getting to it.
3 - Keeping track of my time helps me to use my time more intentionally.
4 - I will still have days where I'm totally off.
They say it takes 90 days for something to become a habit. I'm taking it 1 month at a time.
I've been admiring ALL my illustrator friends' #artvsartist posts on social media. I have always been of two minds about it:
1- I want to do this!
2- EEK! I am not posting my image and do I even have enough work that I'm proud of etc... self-doubt and imposter syndrome showing up here. Balance that with I've created all this work but I can't show any of it until it's published and... Sigh.
Anyhow this year I decided to kick my uninvited guests self-doubt and imposter syndrome out the door and do it. TAH DAH!!! here's my #artvsartist2022.
It's actually a lovely way to review the year as an illustrator and to celebrate it. My 2022 illustration year started with a focus on my black and white illustrations in hopes of picking up middle grade/chapter book type projects. I also worked on my humans with hopes that they will play nice with my animal illustrations. I even tried some limited palette art which really appealed to my graphic designer side. I have also renewed my interest in Art Licensing and plan to build up a portfolio for that field in 2023.
Here's a fond farewell to 2022. I didn't manage to accomplish everything I wanted to do but there's always the coming year!
Bye Bye 2022 and Hello 2023! Wishing everyone a creative, productive and prosperous New Year!
One of the Reasons that made this years Society of Illustrators, Original Art Show a must see in person event was that my former teacher and mentor, the author illustrator, Robert Quackenbush was being honored posthumously on the 2nd floor. Since I was there of course I had to visit the 3rd floor where they exhibited SOI member illustrator sketch books. This was a bit of an eye opener. While a few of these illustrators had sketch books that looked like finished art quite a few of them had sketchbooks that looked like mine. Books filled with things like reference and research sketches as well as as recording life. I am so glad I left my studio bubble to see it ALL in person. I hope to do a few more visits to the SOI in 2023. I didn't realize how much I missed visiting galleries and such until I made this trip. Here's hoping to see more illustration exhibits in 2023.
I finally went to see The Society of Illustrators, Original Art Show 42nd Annual Exhibition in person. It has been awhile. Up until the Pandemic, seeing this show was one of my fave holiday traditions. The last two years I viewed it vicariously through the show catalog. I’m glad I went. It was an amazing smorgasbord of illustration. There was about 200 pieces a lot more than what they usually accept. Below are a few pictures of the show but they definitely don’t do it justice. While final digital art may look the same as the printed version, the originals for collage and traditional media has a tactile quality that must be seen in person.
As usual I bought the catalog as a gift to myself. It's a bonus for children's book illustrators as it lists along with the winning illustrator and book title, the medium, publisher, imprint, art director/designer, editor and author. Great for doing research as to who or where your illustrations might be appreciated.
I've been getting into the holiday spirit by posting my Christmas/wintry illustrations as an Advent Calendar over on my Instagram. As a greeting card designer it's no surprise that I have amassed quite a few Christmas designs and I thought this might be a good way to show some off. There might also be a few fresh ones that are just illustration thrown into the mix. I'm posting daily over on IG but I'll be posting them in batches over here for those who aren't on IG.
Happy Mother's day to all the mom's, and mother figures. We are who we are because of you.