Weekend InspirACEOn

I just finished another ACEO card in my InspirACEOns series and thought I'd start off the weekend by sharing it.

"Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil." -Psalm 23:4

I hope everyone has a nice, safe weekend!

A Family Feline WIP

Here's a quick WIP shot of my latest My Furry Family piece, this one based on my little runt kitten.

This little kitty's pose is called "The Belly Roll".

I'll share the completed piece as soon as I finish it. And then I'll have three more family felines to draw!

InspirACEOnal Sneak Peek

I've been having a blast designing and creating inspirational ACEO cards for my InspirACEOns series. Here's a sneak peek of the newest additions to this series:

And here's a group shot of all the pieces in this ever-growing InspirACEOns series of mine:

I'll be making these original ACEOs available in my Etsy shop soon, and I'll let you know when that happens.

I hope everyone's had a great first half of the week! The weekend is just around the corner!

Fresh Week, Fresh Start

My journal and I are ready for another week!

I hope you all have a great week! And stay tuned for pictures and other news on some of my latest My Furry Family and InspirACEOns pieces!

A Little Birdie

This little cardinal I drew in my sketchbook scrapbook journal this past week has been very helpful in keeping track of my daily endeavors. Thanks, little birdie!

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

InspirACEOns

I have started on another new artistic endeavor, amongst all of my others I have in the works. I've had some ACEO cards sitting around just collecting dust for quite some time now, and for this new project I decided to put them to use. In short, my new art project involves creating inspirational ACEO cards, or what I like to call InspirACEOns.

I have thus far created two pieces in my InspirACEOns series.

For this one, as you can see, I just drew a miniature version of another piece that I recently shared. I think I like this miniature drawing better. "When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go." -Carol Burnett

"Courage, dear heart." -C.S. Lewis

I already have a more or less tome's worth of quotes that I would like to illustrate, so this will certainly be a large, continual series. What I really like about these particular pieces is that they are not only fun but also relatively quick to create. ACEO cards are 2.5" x 3.5", so it doesn't take long to fill this canvas. And since I apparently enjoy having a multitude of projects started at once, it's nice to have pieces that I can have fun drawing in just one sitting.

I anticipate that most if not all of these will be pen drawings. What's more, I plan on selling the originals of these InspirACEOns in my Etsy shop. So stay tuned for news on their arrival in my shop!

Have a wonderful day, bloggers!

My Furry Family: The Cozy Canine

My next My Furry Family piece stars the sole canine in my family. She is a lab/shepherd/you-name-it mix, weighs 55 pounds, and is almost 2 years old. She is very active and very playful, and she is an ornery goofball. She is also very sweet and thankfully gets along with the multitude of cats in the family, usually. Also, she likes to take up as much room as she can on the couch, and she likes to sleep in some peculiar positions.

The cozy canine.

The Panda in My Journal

Here are my sketchbook scrapbook journal pages from last week:

The giant panda is one of my favorite animals, so one was bound to make an appearance in my journal sooner or later. And I'm sure plenty more will make their way into my journal over time.

I've got a number of projects in the works right now. I'm of course still doing my usual drawings, currently my focus being my My Furry Family series. But I've also got some other projects in the works, some being experimental yet fun, and some involving good ole upcycling. I'll share these projects as I complete them, and I plan on ultimately making them available in my Etsy shop as well.

I hope everyone has a great Monday!

Hold on to Your Dreams

In between My Furry Family pieces I stumbled upon a beautiful, inspirational quote, and so I drew this:

"When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go." -Carol Burnett

Here's a close-up of the little bear who helped me illustrate this beautiful quote.

I wanted to add a simple, subtle background. I sort of like how this turned out, although I'm not sure I'm 100% there yet.

Another close-up of Mr. Bear.

I hope you like it! And don't forget to hold on to your dreams!

My Furry Family: Pet my belly. I dare you.

The second piece in my My Furry Family series is complete! This one is based on my almost 2-year-old orange tabby boy. He is a rescue, and he has quite a back story. The short version is that, at the age of roughly six weeks, he was dumped at the front door of the veterinary clinic where I used to work. Accompanying him was a note saying that he had been a barn cat, but a coyote had broken into the barn and killed his mother and litter mates. He survived the attack, but as a result of it he no longer has the use of his hind legs, and he developed scoliosis.

This special kitty of mine can be such a sweet boy, and he loves to cuddle and to be held. But, he can also be quite feisty when he wants to be. Petting his belly is risky business.

"Pet my belly. I dare you."

I'm trying to instill at least some of my four-legged furballs' unique characteristics into these drawings. For this one, I tried to capture one of my boy's typical adorably smug expressions, as well as his scoliosis and the usual posture of his paralyzed hind legs.

I've been wanting to create drawings of my animals for a long time now, so I'm glad to finally be getting around to it. I hope you like them!

My Furry Family: The Queen

I'm working on a new series of drawing that I'm calling My Furry Family. As the title suggests, this series of drawings will be an illustrated record of the four-legged furballs in my life. I love animals, as I'm sure you've gathered from the artwork I post on this blog. There are a number of animals in my life, so this series will not be a short one.

The first furry family member I've drawn is my oldest, dear cat. She is a beautiful calico, and she is 21 years old. I have had her since I was a very young child. She has earned the status of more or less royalty in this family, and she reigns over not only the other animals but us humans as well.

The Queen

I was compelled to create more than one version of my old girl, primarily because, due to a medical emergency, she recently underwent surgery and now has a different appearance.

The Pirate Queen

One-eyed and adorable.

Good night!

Evening Journaling

I failed to make it to my desk during the daylight hours to get nicely lit pictures of my updated sketchbook scrapbook journal. Nevertheless, I did pull out my journal and camera tonight and took a couple shots by the glow of my evening lamp:

This was the primary drawing for this past week's journal pages. We had a fair amount of snow last week, so this little snowman was very fitting.

This is part of the drawing that I just completed for this upcoming week's journal pages. I love pandas.

Until next time!

Sketchbook Scrapbook Journal

I'm waiting for a sunny day in order to get some up-to-date pictures of my sketchbook scrapbook journal in decent, natural lighting. Until I do so, though, I thought I'd give you a couple brief visuals of my journal's first two weeks of existence. As you'll see below, my journal is more like a decorated, often busy planner.

I first started my sketchbook scrapbook journal during Christmas week. This here is a picture of the completed pages of my journal for that week.

This is the main image I drew for my journal's New Year week.

I am now on the third week of my sketchbook scrapbook journal. I'm having a blast keeping this journal. Not only do I love keeping such a record of my daily life, but each day I look forward to coming up with drawings or finding clippings to incorporate into that day's journal/planner entries.

As soon as I can I'll get updated pictures, including the completed entries from New Year week and the current entries from this week.

Have a good night!

The Pencil Penguin

I finally finished this little guy:

He's been in the works for quite some time now. For some reason, right after I started him, I just couldn't seem to find the time or the inspiration to complete him. But then today it snowed -- the first real snow I've seen this winter -- and that really put me in the mood to see this wintry little fellow completed.

I have tons more stuff in the works and in the planning stages that I intend on sharing soon. First and foremost, I've been keeping up with my sketchbook scrapbook journal, but I just haven't finished photographing and uploading the pages I've thus far completed. I can't express how much I'm enjoying keeping this journal, so I really am excited to share it with you guys.

And as you've seen with my recent Post-it art, I've been in an especially crafty mood lately. And that crafty mood hasn't diminished at all. I've got a number of new pieces of Post-it art as well as other various arts and crafts planned, and I'll continue sharing them as I complete them.

But now, this is when I ask you to have a little patience with me...In case you couldn't tell from all of my artwork, I love animals. That being said, my 21-year-old cat will be undergoing surgery on Tuesday, and in the meantime I've having to administer more medications and keep her under an even more watchful eye than usual. Then she'll require extra care after the surgery. I'll do my best to continue making regular posts during this time, but over the next week or so please be patient with me, as I'll admit that my animals are my children and their care is a priority for me.

Anyway, I hope you like my little pencil penguin! And I'll be sharing more of my arts and crafts with you soon!

Have a great week!

New Year Post-it Notes

As I waited for the clock to strike midnight on New Year's Eve, I worked on a couple more pieces of Post-it art. I'm just having so much fun with these, but I also have an inkling to return to the drawings that I have started both on paper and in my head. If only there was more time in the day to get more done!

Anyway, here are my most recent pieces of Post-it art (this time with the beautiful sun as a light source):

This is my so far untitled pink kitty.

 I again used cardstock folded in accordion style to raise the cat and one of the clouds to the forefront.

I am currently calling this one "Dragon Fire".

Again, I raised the dragon up off the paper with accordion folded cardstock.

So, here is my current collection of Post-it art, which, given how much fun I'm having, is sure to grow very fast:

Happy New Year!