Relaunch || I’m back!

It has been a hard couple of years. When the world feels like it’s imploding with a global pandemic and life as we know it changing almost overnight, I shut down. My family became my Number One Priority.

My husband, a teacher, took over my drafting table to use as his desk for remotely teaching his students, and my youngest took over my work table for his studies. I was bouncing around, helping all three kids stay on top of their lessons and work, keeping the house running, trying to not panic and just be a support for my family.

And after awhile, it happend: I no longer saw oil paintings when I looked at the clouds. I didn’t see watercolors when a bird landed on one of my veggie plants. Our resident backyard bunny no longer made me want to draw. After an amazing start to 2020, I was devastated. My world was upside down, and to lose my passion for art? I couldn’t process that.

I mean, it got to be so bad that I almost got rid of all of my supplies and converted my studio over to an office and workspace for the family. I couldn’t even look at my work or a tube of paint.

Fast forward to the summer of 2021. I was outside doing something, and I looked at the sky and thought to myself, “I wonder how I would paint that cloud.” I stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn’t believe it, it HAD to be a fluke. I brushed it off and kept going about whatever I was doing.

A few days later, it happened again. And then again. And again. After two weeks of feeling inspired, I decided that I was going to slowly start working again: planning out supplies I needed, making a list of pieces I wanted to create, laying down some boundaries because if this was really happening, I wanted to do things different. I spent six weeks working tirelessly behind the scenes, planning, purchasing…up until my relaunch date.

October 1st, 2021 I relaunched my art business, and I am SO EXCITED!

This month I have *finally* finished book four of the Boathouse Mouse series…

…I’ve done an original watercolor painting…

…and an original oil painting…

…and finished a drawing I started before I walked away.

All of those will be launching or being revealed soon, so I hope you enjoyed the teasers 🙂

I cannot wait for what’s to come, after almost two years away, there is so much in my brain just wanting to come out on paper and canvas! Stay tuned for some hopefully awesome pieces!

Thank you so much for sticking around!

New Piece Alert: Raccoon

Hey there little guy! Welcome to the family!!!

Raccoon

This pencil drawing has been in the works since OCTOBER. I started him for the documentary that Stephen and I collaborated on, and then he got pushed to the back burner. Well, he’s been staring at me for long enough from the corner of my drafting table, so I made it a priority to get him finished this week.

Continue reading “New Piece Alert: Raccoon”

Behind the Scenes: Hogwarts

This piece has been a long time coming!

My thoughts behind that is two-fold: first, I’ve wanted to draw the Hogwarts castle for a really, really long time. And second, this drawing has been on my shelf as a commission for a YEAR.

Now I HATE making anyone wait for anything, especially an entire year. But this one was delayed for a lot of reasons: finding the right reference image and then having it sent to me the day before my phone decided to lose EVERYTHING on it, not being able to find the perfect reference image again, me selling and buying a house, and then still not being able to find the right image again. But, it was found and I had the drawing in hand ready for delivery less than a week later.

Continue reading “Behind the Scenes: Hogwarts”

Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: Day 23

Today’s drawing did not go the way I wanted it to by any means…but that’s completely and utterly my fault.

I asked on Facebook if I should finish up the Hogwarts House series that I started yesterday or if I should continue to choose the subjects randomly. That question completely backfired when my results were tied! I decided to choose one subject at random and then throw that suggestion and one of the house mascots into a bowl and draw that way. Well, that ALSO backfired when I drew randomly and it was a house mascot….and it just happened to be the one I’m terrified of:

Continue reading “Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: Day 23”

Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: Day 21

Happy last week of the challenge!!!

Crazy days like today make me anxious for it to be over. Between babysitting all day, trying to draw, doing work for my other business (I sell Monat hair products), and everyday life, one less thing on my plate is going to be a welcome thing!

Continue reading “Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: Day 21”

Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: Day 18

Guess what I started working on today!???!??

PRINTS!!!!

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So far I have the Giraffe in 5×7 and 8×10, Starry Sky in 8×10, and I’m working on the Sloth right now. Every one of the drawings should be available soon in 5×7 AND 8×10, so if there are any you are interested, let me know and I’ll get those images done first. I’ll be listing what I have available on Etsy within the next couple of days!

Continue reading “Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: Day 18”

Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: Day #17

I am having a serious issue with the challenge this year.

Okay, so maybe serious is a little too strong of a word to use, but I’m having a problem and I blame all of you: my list of things to draw keeps getting longer and longer as I keep adding amazing suggestions from you guys, but there is no way I can do them all in the time frame I have set aside for the challenge.

Now I could always add another week (or probably two or three if I were to do everything on my list) and get everything done, but I really can’t do that as I have a book that is just begging to be illustrated. Maybe I’ll do a challenge in the fall, but that’s my busy season with festivals so that doesn’t really work either. I might just have to save the rest of the list for next year or just randomly work on the drawings during the year here and there as my schedule allows. Whatever option I end up doing, you guys have really outdone yourselves with fantastic suggestions this year and it’s making it hard for me to choose what to do every day and wish that I could keep up this crazy challenge indefinitely! Kudos to you all!

But back to today’s drawing…

Continue reading “Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: Day #17”

Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: Day 16

Happy Monday!

This wasn’t the original drawing I had picked out for today. I woke up thinking about otters (random, I know!), and although an otter isn’t on my list, I wanted to draw one. However, when I got on Facebook this morning, the first thing I saw was a friend’s post about it being National Agriculture Week. What better way to celebrate than with this girl! Continue reading “Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: Day 16”

Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: Day 15

Week 3 is finished! Woo hoo!

I really hate to admit this, but I’m pretty tired of drawing animals. Don’t get me wrong, I love drawing them, but sometimes switching it up is nice!

I didn’t really have anything on my list that wasn’t an animal; the items that weren’t animals were a little too complex for me to work on today, so I had to figure something out.

Like I mentioned yesterday, I’m tired of winter. It snowed again last night and I had to scrape my van off this morning. My mind was drifting off to the summer sun, our annual vacations to the Outer Banks…and then it hit me: I’m working on a specific series of pieces, and I hadn’t added the next piece yet….until today:

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Title: Currituck Lighthouse

Size: 5×7

Medium: Graphite pencil and white gel pen ink on acid free paper

Inspired/nominated by: Me being cranky in the snow! And my friend, Vanessa, in a way. The first year my family went to the Outer Banks, she suggested I should go visit the five main lighthouses of the Outer Banks and then turn them into drawings or paintings. We only made it to three of them that year, and it wasn’t until our visit last year (our third year) that I made it our fourth: Currituck! My husband, his brother, and my littlest guy visited it and even climbed to the top! I drew the other three previously visited lighthouses during last year’s Drawing a Day Challenge: Bodie, Hatteras, and Ocracoke.

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Favorite parts: The trees and landscape! The hints of brick on the lighthouse! Ok, who am I kidding, it’s an Outer Banks lighthouse, I love all of it.

Challenging parts: There are so many layers of landscape and the buildings and trees, trying to get it all to play out well was challenging. That seems to be a recurring issue this year, but I’m also focusing on improving that, so I’m being stretched.

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Product availability: The original drawing is available in my Etsy store here and prints will be coming soon! I’m also planning on doing an OBX lighthouse note card set.

 

What’s your favorite lighthouse?