Two Little WIPs came out to play

Woo...hello my dear friends!!  I haven't done too much arting this week, as I'm getting things set up for a shop on Etsy and Luulla.  So I've been looking at other store owners to see how they price their things, how much they charge for shipping and so on. I was supposed to do this last year, but didn't have the confidence enough to think I could actually sell anything. *laughs*  But this year...with being out of work again...I thought..."Well, heck...what could I lose anyway?? Sometimes you gotta spend money to make money." So, I'm going for it!  I'll also be offering special commissions in my shops too...you can do that right??  Because if someone doesn't see what they want...well, I could easily make it.  I'll post a link here when everything is all set up...there's just a few last touches I want to make first.

I have several art pieces on the go right now...and a children's book I've begun work on.  Let's start with the WIP for the children's book first:

Meet little Sandy...she's the lead character in "The Birthday Wish" that I'm currently in the works in writing.  I originally wrote this back when I was in grade 4, but I was cleaning out my closet recently and I came across it.  Though it does need a bit of a major re-write...I couldn't resist giving a fresh hand at it again...the story line is just too cute.  She's learns a valuable lesson in being very careful about what you wish for, as you just may get it.  That's all I'll say about it so far. *wink*  Doing a children's book is something I've always wanted to give a try at...as they are such works of wonders to look at and charming to read in their sweet innocence.  I've been studying on how to draw children, so I hope this little lady looks like she's 8 or at the very most 10 years old.

She was much larger than my scanner could handle, as you can see.  I'll have to get a high res scan at the print shop to get the entire image in.

WIP number two!  It's a little mermaid paper doll!

I still have as yet to ink and colour her...but that will only take about two days to do.  She's for my lovely friend Cameron who is hosting a fabulous mermaid giveaway.  How could I resist that?! Nope...I just can't.  This little mermaid will be about 20 cm when cut out...which I'm probably going to have to get my tiny scissors out for cutting around those tiny beads I drew.  Ahhh, I think I love to torture my hands. *laugh*  I also gave her a little trident to hold...and just to make it seems a little less scary, I capped off the pointy spears with pearls.

Oh! And just to answer a question, I one of the pens I use in doing some illustration work is made by Sakura.  They're called  Gelly Roll and the particular line I'm in love with right now is the Gold series.  I have two:

They come in Pink gold, Black gold, Green gold, Purple gold, Red Gold and so on.  They are really super awesome in that they don't clog, are smooth and quick flowing once the ink starts on the paper and dry fast.  And it's neat to watch the colour change as they dry...they go from a bright basic colour to a gold finish when dry, with a colour outline of what they originally were.  When I get more funds in, I'm going to get the whole lot of them!

I think the Sakura Gelly Rolls also come in white, neon and desaturated colours...I'll have to check though...it's been awhile since I was last at De Serres art store.

Okay, that's all for tonight. I'm going to tuck myself in bed with a good book.  Have a wonderful creative weekend my dear friends! Cheers!

A fresh Start, some blog changes...oh, and a wine lable too

Hellllooo my lovely fellows!  Sorry to have gone on a rather impromptu hiatus since last month without letting any of you know.  Shame on me or what?! *laughs* A lot of heavy things have been going on in my life lately, and I needed some time away from the Internet world to sort of get my head together, get my emotions back in check, and think about the direction of my life and where I really want to go and how to get there in the first place. *laughs*  I've been working on a small business plan, which has required an insane amount of reading at the library. Wow...so much to learn!

But first, I want to talk about this lovely little lady you see here first.  I've been working on some wine label designs lately....thanks to a very special man in my life right now who thought it was something I could try and from a another nice woman on face book who thought the same thing...plus my mum.  So, I couldn't ignore all that commotion.  Here's one of my first attempts at it.  I took some figuring out first by heading down to the liquor stores in my area to have a long look at what professional labels look like, then pulling out some books on Mucha...I had a look at what he created.  I've had on old sketching sitting around for ages, that has gone unused, and I've been looking for a reason to use the sketch for something.  I gave her a more updated look though and browsed through some manga books for some ideas on how to do up her hair.  After doing another rough, I inked her in with my trusty sepia fine liner pen and added colour with some coloured pencils, and I must say....I LOVE the new gelly roll gold pens I bought!  They add such an awesome effect.  She took a bit long to finish, about a week and a half.  I usually love to add a lot of little details, but I really wanted to have a de-cluttered illustration for a very clean and hopefully professional looking finish.  I'd love to hear any suggestions on what I could do to make any other improvements to this and I'm more than open for a critique.

Okay, I know, I know...this is a monster of a post already, *laughs*, but I'm making some more changes to my blog here and I want to know what you lovely people want to see in a blog.  What makes you want to return to certain blogs again and again.  I want to make my blog an easy and fun read for you lovely readers.  So talk to me, do you like seeing updates once a day, once a week, do you like seeing works-in-progress shots, having a look behind the scenes at studios,  everyday life stuff, tutorials, give-aways....or anything at all that you can think of that'll make this a wonderful and inspiring space to visit.  My ears are open to any suggestions, and you have my sincerest thanks in sharing what ideas you have with me. *big virtual hug*

Oh man, if you've read this far...you deserve a giant cake! Have a great and creative week dear friends...cheers!