Work In Progress Wednesday: National Bike Week

In honor of National Bike week and the weather FINALLY taking a turn for the better here in Michigan I thought I would work on a quick bike watercolor. My quick project is turning into more of a detailed and longer process than I originally planned. But on the upside I think if I can pull it off it will be quite pretty. I will post the final back here once I am finished messing with it :)

Flower of the month: Lily of the Valley

May is here and with it comes the Lily of the Valley or the May Lily. I though it would be fun to start working on a flower of the month watercolor project starting with the May Lily.

I have a patch of these lovely delicate flowers on the shady side of my yard and enjoy seeing and smelling them when they come up every spring. And I thought could use my Lilies as reference… But they haven’t bloomed yet, maybe by the end of May they will be here.

Weird fact - did you know that Lily of the Valley are not really lilies, they are actually part of the asparagus family? The flower symbolizes modesty, chastity, purity, and signify the "return of happiness". That’s a lot of symbolism for such a tiny flower.

What type of flowers are you looking forward to seeing spring to life this May.

Sweet Things Watercolor

For a long time now I have been noodling around with my sketch book, experimenting with watercolor and now I am ready to start offering some of my paintings for sale.  

Drawing is something I have enjoyed doing for a long time, I took the leap into watercolor and I am really enjoying the experience and results.  I hope that you enjoy the results as well, all 3 painting are available framed in my shop.

Cupcake Original Watercolor 

5" x 7" Framed

Just One Slice Original Watercolor 

5" x 7" Framed 

Spring Branches Original Watercolor 

16" x 13" Framed 

Oops.... A Reminder To Always Spell Check

Proof that chatting and sketching can be detrimental to your art work.

On Saturday I had art day with my friend Cheryl, we went to lunch, the local Dick Blick art store and then we settled down and got to business.  I sketched a new painting, she worked with sculpy and we did a lot of chatting.

The chatting may have led to my embarrasing spelling mistake in said new painting, unfortunately I didn't even notice until my husband pointed it out to me when it was about 98% complete.  I mean I know how to spell Moulin Rouge so I didn't even think to spell check.

So I now have a Molin Rouge painting.  Other than the spelling error I think that it turned out pretty good.  I may even hang it at home to remind me to always always check the little things.

Illustration #2

Illustration #2, originally uploaded by Sweet_Things_Design.

Another up-date on how the art is coming for the new Sweet Things apron pattern packaging. This is the 2nd illustration for the Flirty-girl apron pattern packaging. The illustration and inking are complete and now the watercolor begins!

To see the original image click here.

To visit Cheryl Oz's etsy shop for more wonderful watercolor images click here.

Thanks for stopping by!

New Packaging art

New Packaging art , originally uploaded by Sweet_Things_Design.

Here it is the watercolor for the first image is complete. It turned out so great! I already got a sneak peak at how it will look on the packaging and I am so impressed! It's turning out even better than I had hoped :)

There are three more images that will be done for the packaging. I will keep you up-dated on the progress.

For more great watercolor images visit Cheryl at her blog here, and at her Etsy shop here.

Work In Progress

Work In Progress , originally uploaded by Sweet_Things_Design.

My friend Cheryl was kind enough to share a photo of the progress she has made on the apron pattern packaging she is working on for my shop today.

The drawing is based on this original photo she took during our lunchtime photoshoot yesterday. Next step is watercolor... so exciting! Thank you Cheryl :)

Back to Work

Well I am back to work now after a great vacation spent with my husband and son.  We relaxed took the baby to the zoo, Lake Huron and let him hang out on Grandma and Grandpa's boat for the first time.  It was a wonderful relaxing time and now I am ready to get back to business at both my full time advertising job and my crafting.

I posted two great aprons on etsy today, and I am ready to start on another one.  Here is the fabric I am going to use, how great are those roosters.  I can not wait to start.  

Over vacation my mother-in-law invited me to raid both her fabric stock pile and button tin.  I found some really great materials both new and vintage and am having fun thinking up ideas how to use it all!  

I also made a side-trip to the fabric store with husband and baby in tow.  It was the day after the holiday and they were running a sale on the Christmas fabric.  I couldn't resist and picked up some great fabrics for both Christmas and Halloween.  So be on the lookout for some new holiday treats coming soon.  A big thanks to my husband for some great ideas for Christmas projects too :)

Meanwhile in my "spare" time I have been sketching up some ideas for some fresh little pillows with summer fruit and yummy confectionary treats as my inspiration. Yumm, they look so cute already just on paper.  I am thinking about painting them too but I'm not sure if I want to go with watercolor or acrylic, hmm.  

Now that I am devoting more time and energy to crafting  it seems like inspiration is everywhere and I have more ideas than I can keep up with.  The flood gates are open so I am trying to be really good with my ever-handy sketchbook to capture them all for later.

So I want to know what inspires you? 

Till next time