Week of October 24, 2016: Final Galaxy paintings and a Clipart product!

Hello my friend, and Happy Hallowe'en!!

This past week has been just nuts for me and mine, what with preparing for Hallowe'en, finishing my galaxy series paintings, and my new job! But we made it to the other side without too many casualties so I call that a win. I have a few accomplishments to show you from this week, I made up 3 more galaxy paintings in the Fall/Hallowe'en theme, and I finished setting up my first clipart product and it is now available in my Etsy store!!

Galaxy Paintings:

I finished three more galaxy/nebula paintings which completes the series I think. For each one I tried to push myself and the image just a little more to see where this style could go. Quite a number of the six images received more attention than I expected, the maple leaf especially, so I might have to see about getting them up as products on Etsy. In fact I've already got a buyer for three of the originals (Yay!!)!

A galaxy bat. I really liked the idea of a night creature encompassing the night sky in its body. So cool.

A galaxy maple leaf. This goes more along with the fall theme and I wanted to give this image a more 3D element by adding a shadow. The galaxy/nebula also has a few extra elements. This was a very popular image in my Facebook group!

A galaxy crow. I tried to make this a scary looking crow but that's a bit difficult when you're working in silhouette, and the galaxy/nebula I chose is much larger than previous ones, with a lot more colour. There's so much more going on in this image than in the previous ones.

New Clipart Product on Etsy:

As promised I now have my first clipart product available in my Etsy store! These are the images that you will download instantly upon purchase. Click this link for more details.

Baby elephants clipart set available now in my Etsy store!

While you're in my store feel free to take a look at the few products I have available right now, but also please favourite my shop and share the love!

Coming Up:

This week I have a new challenge: I signed up for a 6 week online course through Newcastle University in Australia titled "Drawing Nature, Science and Culture: Natural History Illustration 101" and it starts this week. I'm very excited to take this course as it will be my first introduction to science illustration. I've done plenty of scientific drawings in my Biology courses but they were for lab purposes, I'm curious to see how different these will be from my experience. And of course I will be sharing what I do with you here and through my social media channels.

I think that's everything I have to share this week. I hope your Hallowe'en is safe and full of fun and laughter!

Until next time,

Mandy

If you'd like to see more of my work or keep up with me day-to-day you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook.

If you're interested in commissioning me, click here to be taken to my Contact page to send me an email or message me from my social media links above, I'd be happy to answer any questions :)

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Week of October 17, 2016: Galaxies and A New Job

Hello my friend, lovely to see you again! I trust that you are reasonably well and that life is at the very least tolerable for you. This past week has been a little harder for me than usual and I expect the next several months to be drastically different than the last year or so. Why? Well, with the Christmas season looming and my sales not being what I need them to be, I decided to take on the extra challenge of a part-time job. There are advantages and disadvantages to this decision and I will talk about that more a little later in the post. As far as my artistic endeavours are concerned, this week I tried something new - I've started painting a series of fall/Hallowe'en silhouette galaxies!

A New Series:

If you've been following me on Instagram or Facebook you will have seen these already, but bear with me and I'll add some more information here. Last week I was challenged to try some Hallowe'en style illustrations, you know, what with it being October and all. I've been hesitant to do anything in this genre because honestly I was having trouble coming up with something unique that fit the theme. I don't do scary or creepy and everything I could think up that was cute just seemed to fall flat. Then I had this idea: I've been wanting to paint nebulas or galaxies in watercolour. I'd seen quite a few of these done in a circle format and thought they were cool. Then I thought, why not make the format a silhouette of a Hallowe'en figure instead, and boom, instant idea!!

So, here's what I've done so far with this idea:

Galaxy Cat. I used a drawing of a black cat and I really wanted the eyes to stand out so
it seemed like the cat was a window into space. As if, when the cat moved, you would see different parts of space.

Witch's Hat. This I felt was a bit more obvious and more of a play on a wizard's hat
which usually has stars and moons on it - this has a whole galaxy!

Galaxy Jack-o-lantern. Usually the eyes and mouth are cut out of a pumpkin to make the
Jack-o-lantern, but here, the whole pumpkin has been cut out to
reveal... space!

These little paintings were a lot of fun to make and I got to use some supplies that I haven't used in a while, like my masking fluid and paints! I have a few more ideas to do this week before I completely quit this theme, but I've really enjoyed making these!

A New Challenge:

Okay, so down to this new job I have. It's actually really cool because I am working at a craft store (craft and art supplies!!!) so there's all the positives of that, plus the extra income which we are in need of this time of year. As well, it will get me out of the house and interacting with people a little more which I admit is one of the downfalls of working from home. The obvious negative is that I will mostly be working when my girls are in school, which is normally when I would be doing my artwork, so naturally there will be less time for that. However, I have wondered if maybe I don't schedule my time as well as I should, and that I might benefit from having a little less freedom to force myself to plan better. Sounds counter-productive doesn't it? I know, but I have read that when you are feeling blocked creatively sometimes it's best to reduce your options, give yourself less to work with, and I've noticed that this really works for me. 

I figured I'd give it a try at the very least. I'm committed to working into January and I will do my best to keep up with my regular sketches and whatnot, but I think it's safe to say that you can expect fewer illustrations in the week for the next several months.

A Production Snag:

This past week one of my goals was to set up a clip art product for sale in my Etsy store. I wanted my first product to be the icons I had made for my MATS B children's apparel assignment which should've just needed some tweaking. Turns out that I had underestimated the amount of work needed to get those icons up to a quality standard of product, plus I hit a snag when I was trying to get them into transparent background png format. So that's what I'll be working on this week as well.

And that's the end of another week for me. I only have a few shifts/week at my new job so far but I admit that training has proven to be harder than I expected. Still, I am determined to meet this challenge with positivity and enthusiasm since I see more benefits than disadvantages in doing it. 

This week I have another challenge in getting my family and house ready for Hallowe'en next week (is it really only next week? wow!) plus my youngest is turning 6 next week and I have another doll I want to make for her! Whew, are you exhausted yet? I think I might be very tired by the end of the week :)

I hope you have a great week, be happy, and stay safe my friend!

Until next time,

Mandy

If you'd like to see more of my work or keep up with me day-to-day you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook.

If you're interested in commissioning me, click here to be taken to my Contact page to send me an email or message me from my social media links above, I'd be happy to answer any questions :)