Alice in Wonderland - illustration

Alice in Wonderland - detail
click on the image to see it larger

Things suddenly got busy at the end of this month, with my City of Craft application (cross fingers for me!) and a few work things. But ever since I received an email about it I wanted to create some artwork for a blog called Uncovered Cover Art.

The idea is to create cover artwork for a book (and design if you can manage it). I had thought of Alice in Wonderland, but of course so had lots of other people. But it's amazing how varied the results can be when different artists approach the same project. In a way, that's part of the fun of it. And then one evening an image popped into my head which led to some sketches and I decided to go with it.

This is the full composition but I didn't have enough time left to do the design:

Alice in Wonderland - click on the image to see it larger

I've been working on digital illustrations for some time now and decided I would work on a new style for this project. I did the line art in Illustrator and was happy with it and brought it in to Photoshop to add colour and texture. But after a very long day working on it I suddenly didn't like it at all.

When this happens, the best thing is just to go back to the stage where you used to like it. So I went back to the line art, which I edited a bit, and started colouring all over again. This time I wanted to try a limited palette and use more flat areas of colour (inspired by linocuts). There's some texture but I tried to stop before it was over-worked.

 Here's a comparison. Detail of the first version:

And the updated version:

I love yellow and grey. Anyway, I do like the final art and was so happy to see it added to the blog today - the last day! There is a dazzling array of talent on this blog, quite intimidating, so it's an honour to be among them. And I also feel like I really benefited from this opportunity to develop my digital style.

Thanks to the creator of the blog, Heidi Kellenberger for a brilliant concept executed really well.

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Acorn needle book - redesigned

Just in time for fall, here's an update to my acorn needle book. I happened to find a little length of Japanese ribbon with squirrels on it at a sweet little shop called Polka Dot Kids. I don't have kids but for some reason... I'm not sure why... I still go into this shop anytime I'm passing by.

Often I tell myself I'd better not splurge on something just because it's adorable. But ribbon with squirrels on it? Well that's actually a logical addition to my sewing supplies. In fact, since I didn't already have ribbon with squirrels on it, I was essentially filling a gap in my supplies. You know, being practical.

So now the acorn needle book is back, with a little squirrel ribbon for a stem and quilt batting inside to give it more structure. I redesigned the shape to be more symmetrical after realizing that the front needed to match the back so that it all lines up when assembled. The acorn needle book is in my shop now, with more on the way.

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New camera, new shop

I have a new camera! I'm quite excited about it, but please note I haven't read the manual yet. Due to a modest budget, I bought it on craigslist, but to me it's pretty fancy. It's a Canon Rebel XT and I'm so happy to finally have a DSLR after using my little point and shoot for so long. (I used to love my old SLR but couldn't cope with film anymore.)

So to celebrate, there's lots of new things in the shop today, including the little coin pouch pictured above. It started with a fabulous super-wide vintage tie that I had to buy despite the fact that buying a tie for the fabric doesn't make too much sense. It had a hole in it, so I had no compunction about pulling it apart, washing it and cutting out pieces for my pouches. It turns out you can get a surprising amount of fabric from a nice wide vintage tie. I have more of these pouches in a variety of sizes so if you have a request let me know and I'll add it to the shop.

Oddly, the final motivation to get the new camera was those blue quilted pouches (mentioned in my last post) whose colour just wasn't coming out right in the photos. And in the end the blue wasn't quite right with the new camera either. I guess it's just a hard-to-capture blue. Is there such a thing? I'm not sure but I'll be doing my best and getting those into the shop shortly as well.

And sometimes it doesn't matter what the motivation is if it works out in the end. I'm very happy with my new camera. Good-bye autofocus!

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Quilted pouches

I've been taking a little blogging holiday this summer, apparently. So here's a little post just to get back into the habit, some new quilted pouches that are making their way into my shop today... The colours of some of them didn't come out quite right in the photographs so I'm fussing with them, but the first three are in there now.

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