30 and Fabulous!

One of my best friends, Jamie, celebrated her 30th birthday last week. Jamie is one of those girls with great fashion sense, who isn't afraid to take risks and is simply adorable. (don't you agree?!) Knowing how much I love this dress, she wore it to my birthday the week before hers, which is where I took this photo. Happy birthday J, I hope you like the sketch!

(Dress is Free People, bag is Prada, and flip flops are Havianas.)

Wonderful wallpaper

I absolutely love the wallpaper options that are available right now. Besides being a great focal point in a room, wallpaper can also act as the perfect accent to enhance your artwork. Like a fantastic outfit, a fantastic room needs to have contrasting layers and accessories.

Here are 3 styled shots of prints from my shop, that are all enhanced by some fabulous wallpaper. The top and bottom photo's are Ferm Living (my favorite wallpaper company), and the middle one is a floral working sample from my previous job, that never actually made it to production. (Sorry if the photo is blurry, it's a old shot from before my blogging days!)

Mystie

I've added a fun new listings to my etsy shop. Her name is Mystie and she's a bit of a funky fashionista. (I actually hate that word, but for some reason it just suits her and I don't mind it here!)

Here's a little history about me, and why I chose that name for this print: The summer I turned 16 I lived in San Francisco and took classes at the San Francisco Academy of Art. I lived in the dorm, and made friends from all over the country. There was one girl I kept in touch with as a pen pal (yes "pen pal," as in actual letters through the mail because this was before the internet!) and her name was Mystie. She was very artsy and I although I lost touch with her years ago I'm thinking maybe she looks something like this now.

iPhone app

Even though I am a Mac user in every other way, I am one of the unlucky few who do yet have an iPhone. (sob, sob) I do have however, and iPhone application featuring my art work! The creators of iBridalGown contacted me a little while back about purchasing my Rebecca illustration as the background and main image for their iPhone application. iBridalGown helps brides in their wedding dress search by storing all the info as well as photo's of the dresses you try on.

Needless to say, I let them purchase the rights to use it and here it is. Hopefully one day I'll post a picture of my own iPhone with the app on it, but for now here's the image from their site. The app is available to purchase for $3.99 through itunes if your interested. It sounds like a great thing to have if your a bride to be and still on the hunt for that perfect dress.

Why Chose Just One

When I start a custom illustration I always send the client a few "roughs". These are quick and loose sketches just to try out different poses and layouts to see which ones work, how to best show off the details of the dress, and which pose the bride would prefer. Often times there are emails back and forth contemplating the pros and cons of the different sketches and seeing if I could combine different elements of the different roughs into one.

Well Shannon here was the first bride I had who just couldn't decided, loved two of them, and decided to order both! One is simply her and her gorgeous dress, and is more of a traditional fashion illustration. And the second one is mimicking a shot from her photographers album fully styled with all her wedding props; veil, bouquet, and even a monogrammed umbrella.

Shannon was definitely a satisfied customer, because I received the the sweetest email from her shortly after mailing out the artwork:

"I had the most wonderful surprise in my mailbox yesterday - your illustrations arrived! I can't even describe how delighted I am. I literally gasped when I saw them! You captured every detail and I will absolutely treasure these forever. I took them in to a frame shop to have nice frames done up for them so I can hang them in my bedroom and enjoy them every day. Thank you so much for being so patient with me and working so hard to get everything perfect. You have a real talent for capturing the feel of the fabrics and movement. Thank you very much for the wonderful illustrations!"

I love a satisfied customer! That and knowing my artwork is up in someone's home, it just never gets old! Thank you for the "thank you" Shannon!

Christmas in July

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a greeting card company out in Minnesota. They were having a "fashion illustration emergency". (I kid you not, that was the title of the email!) They needed some holiday time illustrations and pronto. I received the email on a friday and they needed sketches by end of day sunday!

Well, needless to say I got the job done, and thought I'd share one of the illustrations with you here. It was kind of funny to be sitting in my hot apt in the middle of July sketching out winter holiday scenes!