Early sketches from my 2015 Advent Calendar

Taking these in-progress shots with my phone

On the left is what I had last week. Below is a little sneak-peek of what I started with this morning.
Between getting the design nailed down, correcting the perspective and tweaking the drawing style of the reindeer to match the rabbits, this has been a loooooong slow process. Spent most of the day designing the border and background, and then painting it all in. Whew! Last week I got all of the inside images drawn and colored.

Next up: scanning it all and making it work with Photoshop, Then printing, cutting all the doors (24x3 per calendar!), carefully gluing together and packing them up. And posting them on Etsy! That's how we do it, kids. 

 

Phew! Can't believe I made it this far in one day!

Winter catch-up!

So the past few weeks have gone by in a bit of an art-making blur, though I don't have the usual type of finished product to show for it.

First came the a day of three art demos for the Vermont Maturity magazine's 50+ Expo:  Relief printing, Walnut ink, and Oil Paintstiks.  I spent the majority of the prep time working with paintstiks, as those were entirely new to me.  Here's the photoset.  I'm doing another demo (of paintstiks) on the 26th of February at Artists' Mediums.



In the middle of the January I went to my third "Cross Pollinators" crit group.  There I shared a project I'd worked on at the beginning of the month:  living dress drawings done super-small, in just graphite, trying to mimic old photographs.  I've started creating a loose story line around them (very loose!) and am setting them in a vintage-style black photo album/ scrapbook.  
But THEN!  Just as I'm working super small, and everyone at the group was interested in seeing the dresses far bigger, I got an email from S.P.A.C.E. facilitator Christy Mitchell.  The call to action was for an interactive, almost life-sized paper doll show for February.  I came up with two outfit designs and got them fully painted in the nick of time to be scanned by the originator of the  idea, Jme Wheeler.  The night before the opening, scissors flew as pieces came out of the printer.  



The opening itself had a nice turnout, and several of us are hoping we could take the idea a bit further.  Once we find out how much the printing actually cost, perhaps we will! 



Artists involved in the Dress Me Up Show:  Jme Wheeler, Christy Mitchell, Wylie Sofia Garcia, Beth Robinson, Justin Atherton, and me!


I'll edit this post later to add the images of my two outfits.  
Ciao!  
Off to make valentines and eat good food.