End of January: Progress isn't always pretty

Hello! Is it as gloomy where you are as it is here? So far, I have to say that the weather we've had this January has been less than optimal, we've had a lot of overcast sky, rain, and ice - not even good weather for winter activities! I'm feeling very starved for sunlight!

Temptations

So, we've made it to the last week of January for the year - how are you coming along with your resolutions? I'm still plugging away at mine and things still seem on track, even with the last minute changes from a few weeks ago. One of the things I learned last year was that being a full-time mom means that, at most, you can do part-time school/work and pretty much nothing else. You have to be extremely focused so you can get what you want/need done and not go insane!

The reason I bring this up is that my focus has been tested frequently the last few weeks with all the deals on online art classes and such (I had another one today!). They are so tempting!! But I'm winning so far by reminding myself of my goals for the year and determining whether the temptations will help me get there or will they distract me from them. It's a struggle though, I just don't have the time to do everything I want!

My first Certificate with Lynda

What have I managed to get accomplished the past few weeks? Well, I completed my first course (and received the certificate for it) on Lynda.com, which was a generalized introduction to Graphic Design. It was pretty awesome actually. It covered all the basics that I learned from my Certificate with Conestoga College, but in a more practical and focused way. I really felt confident in my skills and talent as a designer when the course was over. I still have to finish the final assignment and I plan to get that done today, then I hope to finish the remaining courses for the Graphic Design Learning Path before the month is over.

Negative Painting

On the creative side, I've been working through various practice pieces in negative painting in watercolour, with varying degrees of success. Negative painting is quite challenging and I admit to some struggle with it. The biggest challenge for me isn't in looking at the objects you wish to paint from a negative perspective (not that I'm perfect at that yet either), but in the glazing needed to create the layers that make negative painting so appealing! I either have too much water, too much paint, or the wrong colour. Still, this is all learning and I'm progressing through all the "ugly" creations, so I guess it's going well!

If you haven't seen my Facebook/Pinterest feed lately here's what I've managed to do so far:

I feel this is my best and was done following an example by Linda Kemp from her book "Watercolor: Painting Outside the Lines"

I thought I would try my own design based on violets. 

Um, yeah, there's so much wrong here, however I feel the layering idea is improving!

Obviously I need to do more research as to what makes a good negative painting and how to achieve that so that's my goal for the next few weeks. Hopefully you'll see more examples of practice pieces in my next post!

In the meantime I hope you have a great week in whatever way is most important to you. Don't forget to take time out for yourself because you are awesome!

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 :)

Mid-January 2017: How I'm Setting Myself up for Success in 2017

Hallo my friend and Happy 2017! It's so good to see you again, I know it's been awhile. How was your December? As usual a lot happened to the Wiklund family this past month. On the plus side we had a very full month of family and friends with plenty of food and gifts. On the negative side, we lost a very close family member mid-December. My father-in-law passed away in hospital due to an infection and subsequent complications. We were all very saddened by his loss, as you can imagine. He is, and will continue to be, missed by many.

But on to happier things. This is 2017, a new year, a new direction, a new hope!! Maybe that's putting a bit much onto this but it's how I've been feeling the past week or so. 2016 was a year of exploration for me. It was a year of trying things out, of discovering what I liked to do, of expanding my skills and really stretching to see what I can do. Mostly it was about developing my illustration and art skills. It was a lot of fun and I've learned a lot, but I will be taking 2017 in a different direction.

No, I'm not going to stop doing art and illustrations (don't think I could if I tried anyway), but I am going to focus my creative energies in a different direction. I don't think you'll be surprised to hear that I will be concentrating on selling my services as a Freelance Graphic Designer this year. Painting and drawing will still happen, in fact I have quite a few plans in the coming months for these skills, but they will be taking more of a backseat than you've seen up to now.

So in this post, I'd like to show you what I've done to help set myself up for success, with Graphic Design being my new focus, in 2017.

Goal Setting:

I've spent the last few years reading about how to be successful in business and in life, and all the posts, books, and gurus recommend writing down your goals! Start with the big picture and funnel it down into smaller, doable, pieces. Lucky for me, one of the creative blogs I follow called The Postman's Knock has a couple of posts about a yearly goal sheet and a weekly goal sheet that she had lettered and illustrated, that can be downloaded and printed for free (click here to get your copy  of the year sheet, or here for the weekly sheet).  Exactly the kind of thing I was looking for! Here's what I did with it:

The three forms I'm using to help me succeed with my goals for 2017.

My goals for 2017.

How I used a storyboard sheet to layout my monthly goals for the first third of the year.

A breakdown of my monthly goals into weekly and daily actionable tasks.

You can also see a separate sheet that I used and doesn't come with the TPK download. I felt that before I could break things down into weeks, I needed to break them down into months, but I couldn't find a sheet that truly matched my needs. I searched online and found this storyboard frame from a teachers site called Educationworld (click here to get a copy) and it seems to fit well enough for now. I am using this sheet to map out my first quarter/third of the year.

Living Maps:

You might have noticed that I started filling out these forms in pen, but then moved to pencil. That's because I want the monthly and weekly goals to be slightly flexible. If your family is anything like mine then you'll know that plans can change on a dime in the span of a day, let alone a week or several months, so I wanted to allow for some wiggle room if necessary. Obviously I can't know what will be going on in three months, or even next month, I can only plan out what I'd like to happen and do my best to work around the circumstances.

What really impressed me right away when filling these out, was how quickly I could fill four months! I mean, man! I may have packed them a little too much because I honestly am not quite sure how the rest of the year will pan out yet. I imagine that some of these tasks will take longer than I expect them to (if history has shown me anything, it's that everything takes longer than you expect), so I will likely have to push them into the next quarter/third.

Hardware & Environment:

Another way that I've been setting myself up for success is by making my working environment more comfortable and easier to work in. A problem I noticed in 2016 was that I couldn't work in the evening hours after the kids were in bed because my office/art room is right next to their room, and even with closing the door, we were intrusive to each other. So, some new arrangements had to be made.

Instead of my office/art room being an all-in-one room, I've moved my office to the rec-room, where we already have a small work area set up, with a desktop computer. I've rearranged my art room to be more spacious and accommodating for multiple types of projects and I've moved my printer/scanner downstairs. I even got myself an adapter so I can connect my little 13" MacBook Pro to the much larger 21" monitor - boy is it ever sexy!! I'm very much looking forward to working in these new spaces!

Education:

You might remember that I finished a certificate in Graphic Design through Conestoga College so I have at least a grounding in the software and mind set required for Graphic Designers in todays high-tech society, but I'm not stopping there! While there are a few skills from my certificate that I feel people will want to take advantage of, I am aware that I've only scratched the surface on what graphic design is, how it works, and how to create it.

I'm currently enrolled in two MOOC classes, Introduction to Marketing and Project Management Life Cycle, both offered through edX.org. I will also be subscribing to online schools like Lynda.com and Skillshare.com, as well as following other online tutorials, to learn, grow, and develop. Learning never stops for those that are passionate!

Other Goals:

Of course, setting up my business isn't the only goal of 2017, I have quite a few family and art-related goals. For example, I've been trying to do a yard sale for about 10 years now and have never managed it. This year I plan to change that!! I also hope to submit 2 paintings (that have yet to be created) to shows this spring! And of course, I have the usual goals to eat more veggies and exercise regularly (blah blah blah, but necessary).

One running theme to my goals for the year is that 3/4 of them are completely outside of my comfort zone! Another thing I learned from those guru's mentioned above is that success never came to those that didn't take risks, that didn't dare to make mistakes, that didn't push themselves to be more. I think this post clearly shows that I have pretty high hopes for this year, and I think I've taken the right steps so far to make those dreams a reality!

Well, that's all that I wanted to share with you today. If you'd like to share your goals for the year and how you're setting yourself up for success too, please feel free to comment, I'd love to read what you're up to. Otherwise, have a great couple of weeks. Stay safe, be positive, and again, Happy New Year!

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 :)

November 16-30, 2016

Hello again and "Happy end of November" to you (is that a thing? it should totally be a thing!)! How's it going? Are you knee-deep in Christmas/holiday preparations or have you been done for ages? Me, I haven't even started yet. Honestly everything's been in such a whirlwind of activities that I've had trouble finding time to breathe, let alone plan my holidays! But I finally have a break for a few days and my plans include catching up on some familial responsibilities (I have to help Santa for my girls after all).

The past two weeks have been a little nuts, the store I'm working at did a week long sale for Black Friday so I worked more shifts than normal (yay extra money, boo less time), which means I didn't make much progress on the art front. Here's what I managed:

NHIllustration Course:

For the course I'm taking we were assigned to draw a flower/plant detailing the plant anatomy by showing the geometric shape and arrangement of the petals in the flowers, arrangement and orientation of the leaves and the basic plant anatomy. My biggest criticism for my final illustration is that there needed to be more information written, things like height, depth, maybe some colour swatches, that sort of thing. Otherwise I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out.

My NHI plant assignment: Snowdrops

A Christmas Project:

For Christmas this year I thought it would be nice to stretch my illustrative skills a little and make something personal for the members of my family. For the girls, I want to make pillow dolls (hopefully that will make more sense in the next post) with illustrated images of them printed onto the fabric. I started by sketching out some ideas for their faces.

Illustrations of my girls' faces for their Christmas present.

For my husband I have something special planned. A few years ago I got him some t-shirts with "Trust me I'm a Doctor", "Trust me I'm a Scientist" and "Trust me I'm a Paleolimnologist" written on them. He loved them and has worn them so much that they are pretty much done, so this year I thought I'd make him up a set of shirts with illustrated logos on them, so a step up from the last ones. One of his favourite games to play is Fallout so I thought that I'd draw my husband's face in a manner similar to the character in the game and arrange a few other illustrations that are specific to his field, then have the lettering surrounding it. Here's where I'm at with that:

My husband as the main character for his t-shirt design.

I'm going to print it onto an iron-on and put that on the shirt. If it turns out, I might redo it next time with a more permanent transfer/inking method.

Plans for December:

I'm a little behind in my NHI course, this week we are supposed to submit a drawing of a bird - nothing too complex - and I hope to finish that today. Next week is the final assignment for the course and I believe we'll be drawing a furry creature for that. For this week I hope to get pretty far in my Christmas projects, practically to the printed stage if at all possible, plus I have a lot of shopping to do still. My girls are very excited about the upcoming holidays and are pushing to have the tree up this weekend.

And that's it for this post my friend. I hope your first weeks of December are smooth, and if not relaxing then at least not too anxiety-ridden. Don't forget to add a little creativity to your days this month!

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 :)

November 01-15, 2016: Natural History Illustration

Hello my friend, and how did your first half of November go? Did Hallowe'en treat you well, or was it a non-issue for you? Ours went well. As many other parents I spoke with also said, we didn't get as many trick-or-treaters as we expected, but that didn't stop my girls from collecting a great haul!

You might have noticed that there was no post last week, this was intentional. With my new job and other priorities, by the end of the week I found that there really wasn't much to report in my creative endeavours so I've decided to move to a bi-monthly schedule instead of a weekly one. In doing this my hope is that I will keep slightly more time on my side to keep the momentum going without burning out, and you will keep getting updates on my progress!

So...the last two weeks have been just crazy! Someone in one of my Facebook groups drew attention to a new online course for natural history illustration, being offered by a University in Australia. If you know nothing else about me, you should know that I've always wanted to learn more about drawing nature in a realistic manner. In many ways I've managed to learn how to do this, but it's all been informal, whatever I can get my hands on. This would be a chance to learn from actual Illustrators and get some tips and tricks that might make what I do faster and/or easier. And as a bonus, I could audit the course for free!! I'm sure you can guess what I decided to do.

The course is titled "Drawing Nature, Science and Culture: Natural History Illustration"(click on the title to go to the webpage) and is being offered by the University of Newcastle Australia. I am currently working in week 3 I believe (or it could be week 4 since week 1 was fairly low-key) and I've done a few drawings for the homework assignments.

The first assignment was to do some practicing with tone by using 4 or 5 different pencils. I chose to attempt this piece of bark that my girls collected from one of their nature walks recently.

For week 2, we were taught how to measure and better understand what's involved in nature illustration. This shell is leading up to a larger project. Notes are very important for natural illustrations.

My first attempt at drawing a sand dollar from my own collection helped me to see what troubles I might encounter for the larger assignment.

My desk and setup prior to beginning my 5 object illustration assignment.

The finished assignment. 

For Remembrance Day this year I was inspired to make a little something. I'm almost always late for things like this but since week 3 of my course didn't have homework per se, I decided to do a little painting and lettering to honour our vets and those that continue to serve. Thank you for your service and your sacrifice!

Remembrance Day

And that's about it for this post. As I mentioned there was no homework in the course this week so I've been spending the time trying to catch up on my other priorities and improve my stamina so I can continue working this week.

Sleep and energy are on my wish list this week so today I'd like to wish that you have as much of both as you need!

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 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 :)

Week of October 10, 2016: A map, a dog, some fall elements, and new art supplies!

Hello again! I don't know about where you are, but the weather here is downright weird. This past weekend we had every conceivable form of weather aside from snow! Frost first thing in the morning, but mid-afternoon temperatures were in the 20's. It was great for getting some much needed yard work done, right up until the rain hit and hasn't stopped yet. When I bring the girls home from school today (in their rain gear) we'll likely be eating popsicles due to the hot afternoon walk. Not what I expect from October, but we all have to adapt don't we?

How was this past week for you? Any excitement? Did you manage to finally check that one item that's been driving you batty off your to-do list? I have! I finally completed my map for MATS B (pause for cheers and applause)!! I also painted a quick sketch of one my Aunt's chihuahua's, a fall items sketch, and tested out my new pearlescent watercolour palette and sepia Sakura pens!

Map of Kitchener-Waterloo:

My completed map for MATS B

I am so relieved with how this map turned out. If you've been following my posts you'll know just how much I struggled with this assignment. It isn't anything like what I expected it to look like though. I do find it very charming, but I had hoped to create something in a more traditional style. I'm hoping to come back to it at some point to see if I can make it the way I had expected to in the first place, now that it's done I have a better idea of what I could try. One thing Lilla Rogers keeps telling us is to try something new, to break out of our rutts and experiment and I feel I most definitely did that with this project, and for that I am very proud of myself!

Little Chihuahua sketch:

Little Bella, a watercolour and ink sketch.

This is taken from a photo my Mom took of one of three of my Aunt's chihuahua's. She is such a sweet little thing, though she is very protective of her "mom"! When I did the sketch my aim was to keep it loose and light, in part to give the impression of all the energy this little bundle of love has! I think it came across very well. I would like to try to sketch up her brother and sister as well. They will each bring their own challenges because one is completely black with short fur, and the other is tan with long, feathery fur!

Some fall elements:

Fall elements collected during a nature walk.

Last weekend, my husband took the girls out for a nature walk out by the University. They took a bag with them to collect their "treasures" (I have abut twenty horse chestnuts lined up on my hutch right now). I thought it would be fun to go through their collection and sketch up a little spread of elements. I really like the way the covered chestnut and the pinecones turned out here.

New Art Supplies:

A quick fall sketch to test out my new pearlesecnt watercolour palette and sepia Sakura pens.

I had an opportunity this week to purchase some new pens and paints and thought I'd try out this set of pearlescent watercolours! The picture doesn't do the painting justice, the metallic sparkle comes through very well with these paints, though the colours are a bit muted. I love the colours in this set, they perfectly match the more "natural" tones I generally move towards. And the Sakura pens!! I've been wanting to try some sepia pens for inking for a little while now, but what's awesome with this set is that it also comes with a brush-tipped pen!! I'm looking forward to playing with both more in the future. One thing I especially want to try with the pearlescent paints is painting on darker coloured card stock! I've been watching a few videos on Youtube and the results are incredible!

Well, there goes another week! My plans this week are pretty simple, I am going to set up my first clip-art product for my Etsy store, I would like to sketch another one of my Aunt's adorable dogs, and I want to try sketching some ghouls and goblins - I haven't decided if they will be playful or creepy, maybe I'll try one of each!

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 :)