Woodworking Brand

Earlier in the month I posted a couple of designs for a woodworking brand for my stepfather.  Now that the design has been chosen, I have been working on a digital version of the design using Adobe Illustrator.  I never had the opportunity to learn Illustrator in the lab so after 3 scrapped attempts and 2000+ undo's I have able to create the following version.

It is still not perfect.  I have a few minor adjustments to make in addition to figuring out how to get a black fill for the 'S.'  Regarding the fill, if anyone has any advice to share it would be very much appreciated!

New Business Cards!

I just ordered my first set of business cards featuring my artwork from Vistaprint, and am very excited to receive them and start passing around.  Hopefully I will like them as much in person as I like the preview above!  The image is a pink iris rendered in watercolor and color pencil.

'Change of Address' Announcements

I designed and created these cards to announce our move to a new house late last summer, and both the outside and inside are shown above.

We are planning to move again this year so it's almost time for a new design!

Botanical Art at Filoli

I love botanical illustration and recently began taking classes towards a certificate in Botanical Art at Filoli.  Today was the first day of 'Drawing Plants in Perspective' and the above drawings were completed today with graphite pencils on bristol paper.

For our first assignment, we need to complete drawings of a branch and some sort of round botanical object (without perfect symmetry).  I am on the hunt for subjects and welcome suggestions!

And just for fun....a little Filoli trivia courtesy of Wikipedia:

The "exterior of Filoli [was] used as the Carrington Mansion on the TV series Dynasty."

'Branch & Bird' Table by Wood Magic

My stepfather has a piece of furniture that will be featured in an upcoming show at the BJ Spoke gallery on Long Island.  The side-table incorporates a stylized 'branch & bird nest' motif which is shown below.

Scientific Illustration

The first person to suggest scientific illustration to me as a potential career was my high school AP Biology teacher, but it wasn't until later when I was working in the Talbot lab at Stanford University that I began to seriously entertain the idea.  I was asked to create an illustration for a paper showing the myelination process for an axon, and the final illustration is shown below along with how it appeared in publication.

Completed using graphite pencils on bristol paper.

Found Art

Typically, 'found art' is made using everyday objects in an artful way but for today's post I am interpreting the term in a different manner.  Similar to seeing shapes in the clouds, I saw the smudge photographed below on our shower door and had to share because to me it looks just like a bald mermaid with one arm extended and the other bent.