Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone had a merry merry Christmas!
Ahhh, the holidays. Lots of festivities, family, friends, and COOKIES! I did some pretty crazy amount of baking this year. The year of cookie experimenting with new recipes. Nothing better then watching the people you care for eating the cookies you bake.

Had to take a picture, they were so pretty. And yummy. You can find the recipes I used here:
Gingerbread Cookies
Russian Tea Cookies
Peppermint Chocolate Chip
Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Best part was having to sample all the cookies. My cookie quota this year has been filled. Good thing the new year is right around the corner.

One of the best parts about being an artist is the ability to make really personal handmade gifts.


One fun idea to add to gifts are hand painted ornaments :)  Paint images that make you think of the person and then top them by hooking the ornament to the wrapping.



My favorite handmade gift was for my little brother. We grew up playing Zelda so I decided to hand paint a wooden box with Zelda illustrations. Many days, many hours, were spent after work on this gift and I loved how it turned out (so did he, Yay!). Painted using acrylic and colored pencils.

Can't believe Christmas is over already. So much energy and time preparing for one day... I say it should at least be a three day event. Can't wait for the new year, I predict lots more art and more fun changes coming this way.

~Cheers~

Newsletter graphics

One of the fun parts of working at my day job is helping to create the newsletter images each month. Which means I get to practice with Illustrator! I have started to feel a lot more comfortable with designing with this tool. I am use to hand drawing everything (working with lines) so my brain had to make a switch to drawing with "shapes" and then molding into the desired form.

Here are some of the images, you can see where I was still awkward with shapes in the earlier ones. Starting with my most recent:

A header and a closure image.

A mix from two different newsletters. 

For some reason Font is really intimidating for me. I think it's because I am working with someones hard work (the font) and wanting to use it appropriately. I am pretty sure font experts will laugh at my attempts but here they are. I have fun, like the growth image, where I can illustrate off it.

And my earlier ones. Learning, learning, learning. So much more to improve on. I think I kill myself at times with all the different software knowledge I have in my head. I want to do it all! Hopefully I can do more like my April Bunny.

I wish everyone a happy April and bunny month!