illustration Friday: Legendary

The legendary Marie Antoinette has gone down in history for having said the phrase, "Let them eat cake", but there is much controversy over whether this was the actual wording, or if it was even she who said it, or if it was instead spoken by Marie-Therese 100 years earlier. If you take all the callous political meaning out then eating cake and cupcakes sounds like a good idea to me! :) I was inspired by the Kirsten Dunst movie version of Marie Antoinette, which may have not been a good movie, but was the very definition of delicious eye candy.

I actually finished the sketch for this illustration back in October when the IF topic was 'Sugary'. I knew I wanted it to be very pink, but figuring out which pink went where, and how much blue and cream to use became a tricky puzzle for me, and I got stuck and put it aside, but went back to it many times. Then, last week when the topic was 'Intricate' I thought it might be a good time to tackle the details once again, but didn't get it finished until now.

I think I stressed myself out with this one because I knew I wanted to offer it as a greeting card and a print. I finally started up an Imagekind gallery store, and I'll be stocking it with more art throughout the year. My cupcake lovin' Maire is available here.

Illustration Friday: Breezy

This week the topic, 'breezy', led me to do some character studies of the 3 little pigs, who soon found that their homes became quite breezy when that wolf came a calling.

Instead of just the three, I ended up with 4 pigs. The fourth, rarely mentioned piggie, was so involved in his puzzle that he never even noticed what was going on around him. Luckily, he was roommates with the pig in the brick house, so he never had anything to worry about except for a few pieces that fell on the floor because the window was cracked open a bit. This piggie is dedicated to my mom who is the expert puzzle doer of the family. :)

The pigs in my drawings started out looking not so worried, but by the time I got to this last one the reality of the situation finally settled in. This guy obviously lived in the straw house that is now no more. I usually just play with my line work in photoshop, but this week I decided to bring it into illustrator to try simplifying it a bit, and then I ended up coloring all the characters in illustrator, and then bringing them back into photoshop to add the texture.

This piggie on white is more cartoony than my usual style, and a fun experiment.
I also wanted to share the evolution of the idea for these illustrations this week. I was eating lunch which was a nice Israeli couscous with asparagus, and relaxing and gazing out the window when I noticed a wolf staring back at me. Usually when I see things like this they are not photographable because they exist somewhere between imagination and reality, but this time the imagery stayed put for me to capture.

Can you see the wolf's head?

Bonus points for also spotting the bunny.

The wolf should be worried since that bunny is rather large in comparison. :P

Scroll down for the reveal.

Kreativ Blogger Award

I want to say big thanks yous and send hugs to Andi Butler and Christine Grove for giving me these sweet awards. It appears that Andi's blog is under construction. (I can't wait to see what exciting things she's up to over there!)

Now I'm supposed to list 7 things I love, so here we go.

1) My family and friends
2) Traveling to new places.
3) Being warm - Or more accurately just not being cold
4) Art, of course! Color, texture, pattern, design, typography, retro design, the whole enchilada!
5) Staring out windows. Perhaps something I picked up from growing up with cats.
6) Sour candy. But, I can't find any sour enough. They always end up too sweet, not enough sour. Does anyone know any great super sour candies?
7) Nature walks. Through the woods by a lake or river, or on a quiet ocean beach are my favorites.

I now pass on this award to some inspirational artists who's blogs I love to visit:
Annie Patterson
Anthony Van Arsdale
Kristin Sorra