my art blog - by heather cash

My Artomat Submission

2012-03-05T09:45:00.001-08:00

I'm submitting my artwork to Artomat! They take old cigarette vending machines and turn them into art vending machines. There are over 90 machines in existence today! (Find one near you!)

In order to get your art into Artomat, you have to submit a prototype to get their approval. I just finished making my prototype which I am going to send to them today.

Each piece of artwork is 3"x2". So, I used a 3"x2" mini canvas to make a miniature painting. It's similar to my Sleepy Fox painting.

On the Artomat website, they recommend putting some info about yourself with the painting, so after wrapping the painting in foam wrap for protection, I taped an "About the Artist" card on the top (along with a little thank you note to the buyer).

Then I put the whole thing in a 2"x3" box made just for the Artomat machines.

Then, I put a hand-drawn cover on the front (although in the end I may end up printing something pretty)...

and a business card on the back. (The front of my business card is like a painting, the back is my contact info)

They also ask that applicants submit a little 2"x2" place card for the machine, so here's the one I designed:

And that's all! So I send it out today, and then I wait and see what happens! Hopefully they will accept it, and if so, then I send them 50 more (each original hand made art, and each different!) and they sell them for $5 each and give me $2.50 for each one sold.

Art & Family

2012-01-22T15:12:00.009-08:00

A year and a half ago, my dad passed away. Since then, I have realized that life is just too short to put off doing what you love (I always get sad when I remember that my dad never ended up retiring and doing woodwork), and that life is constantly changing. I've also learned the importance of family.

Because of this, I've decided to move to Erie, PA, to live near my grandmother - something I've always wanted to do, since my family moved to FL when I was 2, and I never got to live near her.

I'll be doing freelance web development part-time, and the rest of my time will be spent on my true passion, art. I will work on illustrating more books, creating and selling more paintings, and hopefully participating in art fairs and getting my work in small independently owned boutiques! I made an artist page on Facebook, so you can subscribe to it if you want to stay updated on all my art & illustration projects.

I'm so excited to start spending much more time on my two favorite things - art and family!

My last day at Google is this Friday, and I'll be flying to Pennsylvania in two weeks, on the 6th!

Art update

2012-01-05T12:06:00.000-08:00

With all the holiday bustle I haven't had a chance to post any updates, but I have lots to share! Here's what has happened since my last post...

I designed a coloring book, bookmarks, and the Amazon Webstore for Treasure Hunt in the Enchanted Forest, the book I illustrated.

The bookmarks are coin-themed. Each bookmark design features a different kind of special coin (like the War Nickel) along with a character from the book, and facts about the coin on the back of the bookmark.

Inside the book, there's a different activity on each page, and the children can apply what they've learned from reading the book.

Designing the Amazon Webstore was an interesting learning experience! The Amazon Webstore editing interface definitely took some getting used to, but I was glad I could upload my own CSS files :)

Also, recently I participated in my first ever craft fair - the holiday gift fair at work. It was so much fun setting up my booth and I met lots of new people!

Here is a picture of my booth. I had little easels with small paintings on them, and the rest of my paintings in a box in front of the booth. I also had packs of cards and my bookmarks, and a copy of the book I illustrated. The greeting cards are what sold the most! They went so fast. I already have plans for a new set of greeting cards, so I'm already excited for the next craft fair, whenever that may be!

Win a custom painting by me!!

2011-10-30T19:21:00.003-08:00

We created a Facebook page for the book I illustrated. We have an okay amount of fans, but we'd like more, so we can spread the word about Treasure Hunt and educate more kids and adults about the value of good money.

Whoever gets the most friends to LIKE our page will get a custom painting by me (the illustrator!). Here's how anyone can participate:

Tell your friends to "like" Treasure Hunt in the Enchanted Forest
Tell them to comment anywhere on the page, and tag you.
After 3 days (End of day Wednesday), we'll tally up the "likes" and whoever recommended the most friends wins! Winner will be contacted by me directly, I'll create a painting for you, and ship it free of charge.

For more samples of my work, see http://www.heathercash.com/portfolio

Treasure Hunt Children's Book - Cover art and website

2011-10-25T21:51:00.001-08:00

I mentioned in my previous posts that I was super busy illustrating this children's book - well, I finally finished! All the files are in the publisher's hands now, and we're just waiting for the book to get printed.

The last piece of art I completed for the book is the cover art. I didn't know what to do for the cover art, so I asked my mom and the author for ideas, and they both came up with the same idea! To show the whole enchanted forest, with a path leading to the treasure chest, since the whole theme of the story is a treasure hunt in the enchanted forest (the full title is "Treasure Hunt in the Enchanted Forest (The Search for Good Money).

The two owls are the main characters in the story. In the cover illustration, they are each holding a wing out, ushering the reader into the enchanted forest. There are coins on the path that lead to the treasure chest. I also included some of the other animal characters peaking out from the trees.

Another thing I finished recently is the website for the book. We were actually going to contract it out to someone else, but since I was finished with the illustrations, but my imagination was not yet finished running wild, I decided to create the website too. Here's a screenshot of the homepage of the site:

I had so much fun with the website! I made a Meet the Characters page, where you can click on a character and it will show a scene from the book with the character in it, and some text about the character. There's also some coloring pages, and a Make Your Own Matrix page (where kids can fill in things that they think could be money, and rate them based on the 5 qualities of money).

I have a ton of other ideas for the website, but one thing at a time :)

By the way, if you're as excited about the book as I am, you can subscribe to the book's Facebook page for updates!

Calico kitty cat Halloween costume

2011-10-22T23:53:00.001-08:00

We had an early Halloween party at work this year, and I decided to dress as a calico cat, inspired by my kitty Debay which I had until she was 19 years old. She was my best friend.

It actually ended up being much easier than I thought it would be! I got brown, tan, black, and white fur from JoAnn's (1 yard of each, though I hardly ended up using that much at all). I made arm and leg warmers, one of each color.

I had never made arm or leg warmers before! I was worried they wouldn't be the right size, would slip down, etc. I got some pretty wide elastic which I first sewed to the top of the fabric. Then I folded over the end with the elastic, so that you couldn't see the thread through the fabric. Then I just folded the whole thing in half and sewed along the seam. I thought it would end up sloppy because I didn't do any proper measuring, just basically eyeballed everything, but somehow they all turned out perfect!

For the skirt, I did it even more sloppy than the arm and leg warmers, but it also ended up looking really good somehow! I basically just patchworked all the different colored furs together to make a big rectangle. Then I wrapped it around me to estimate the width. Then I cut the skirt to the correct width, and sewed velcro along the seam so I could get the skirt on and off. Then I put the skirt on, trimmed up the bottom, and I was done! I was amazed at how great it turned out.

For my face I just got a kitty cat face painting kit at the Halloween store and went crazy. It was super fun. I found that painting on my face is waaaay harder than painting on fabric since skin is so loose, whenever you paint or draw on it, it moves all over the place!

I also painted my nails calico! As you can see in the picture, they are tan, black, and white.

Fan art

2011-10-18T17:42:00.000-08:00

I got an email today about some fan art!

Awhile back I sold this painting:

The buyer just emailed me and told me his daughter created some art based on my painting!

So adorable!! And so exciting that I am inspiring little artists :)

My Art Show - Pics!

2011-10-09T18:49:00.000-08:00

Just got back from my art show - it was really fun! I had a pretty steady stream of visitors (thank you to everyone who came!) and I even made some new friends!

Here are some pictures of a few of the people who dropped by. I wish I got pictures of all my visitors - it was hard to remember to take pictures the whole time!

My neighbor, Katherine, and her husband and his parents

My friend Pam

Dominion friends

When I got there, the barista told me that the bookmarks and cards have been selling! That was so exciting for me!

I also got an order for a couple custom paintings for a little girl's room. That should be fun :) And my business cards went really fast - I have to bring more back to the coffee shop!

My friend Fiona bought one of my paintings (one of my favorites actually). It is called "Curious" and it's a curious little tree.

And lastly, here's a picture of me with a few of my paintings.

...and now I'm off to illustrate my children's book! The fun never ends :)

My Art Exhibit at Willow Glen Coffee Roasting Company

2011-10-04T18:21:00.000-08:00

It's finally October! And I just finished putting my artwork up at Willow Glen Coffee Roasting Company! It will be up the whole month of October.

There will be a special Meet the Artist gathering this Sunday October 9th from 1-4pm. If you're in the South Bay area, I'd love for you to stop by and see me! More info at the end of this post. :)

Here are some pictures from today!

Positioning it just right :)

My friend Pam was such a big help! Thanks Pam :)

Putting the last one in place!

Here's the left wall...

And here's the right wall...

Here is my card and bookmark display! It's near the part where you can put sugar and stuff in your coffee.

I also put some bookmarks for sale right next to the register. I made that little fox painting to show the price of the bookmarks. :)

Hope you enjoyed the pics! And if you're in the Bay Area, I'd love for you to stop by on Sunday!

Here is their address and hours, in case you ever want to stop by during the month of October:

Willow Glen Coffee Roasting Company

1383 Lincoln Avenue

San Jose, CA 95125

408.297.9077

Special Event - Meet the Artist:

Sunday, Oct 9th, 1:00pm - 4:00pm

Hours:

Monday - Friday: 6:00am - 10:00pm

Saturday: 7:00am - 10:00pm

Sunday: 7:30am - 9:30pm

2011-10-04T17:58:00.001-08:00

Children's book sneak peek!

2011-09-25T09:15:00.001-08:00

As you might already know, I've been illustrating a children's book which is why I've been so insanely busy lately. The book is about some owls in an enchanted forest, and it teaches kids about money. I've been really pleased with my illustrations lately and wanted to share a sneak peek! I can't really post the whole pages, but here are some portions of my favorite illustrations that I've done.

I drew a bunch of different bills and coins - it took me two whole weeks! But I think the end result turned out really awesome. They're super detailed. While I did this, I discovered that the designs on our money are really beautiful - I had never paid much attention to them before.

There's one part of the book where the little owlets make a lemonade stand. My favorite part was doing the tree trunk! I loved making the little cracks in the trunk and the rings that tell how old the tree is. I also had so much fun doing the lettering. I first drew the letters just as opaque yellow, then I added a layer mask and drew some semi-transparent lines to make it look like the texture of the tree is showing through.

I love this woodpecker :) I have a thing for birds, and I think woodpeckers are so cute! So I had a lot of fun drawing him. He is the store owner in the story :)

That's it! Hope you enjoyed the sneak peek :) The book should get printed sometime this year - maybe in a month or so (depending on when I finish the illustrations). I don't have much left though! Out of 32 pages I only have about 5 pages left. Woo-hoo :)

Card and bookmark display

2011-09-04T19:11:00.001-08:00

Only a month until my art goes up in Willow Glen Coffee Shop! In addition to having my paintings up, I'll also be selling cards and bookmarks that I've made from my paintings. I was trying to think of a creative way to display the items available, and I thought of making a painting of some trees and hanging the cards and bookmarks up on a real clothesline! I love the way it turned out!

The painting I made is a 20 x 20. For the clothesline, I used white cloth stem wire from the floral section of JoAnn's. I figured it would be more sturdy than string. I got the miniature clothespins from the craft section of Walmart. I like this arrangement because if I ever come up with new cards / bookmarks, I can just take these ones down and rearrange.

The little bird in the lower left is holding a sign with the prices. The sign is a separate piece as well, so if I ever want to change it, I can just make a new sign.

Within the next few days I'll be figuring out how my packaging for the greeting cards is going to look, so I'll post some pics once I get that figured out!

Snail Mail My Email project

2011-08-10T21:58:00.000-08:00

I am so excited to be a volunteer for Snail Mail My Email! Snail Mail My Email is a month-long art project, where users can write a message to a friend, email it to Snail Mail My Email, and a volunteer will hand-write the letter and send it out! I've been having so much fun creating the letters. Sometimes users ask for a particular drawing, and sometimes they don't ask and I just come up with something. And sometimes they ask for a flower petal to be included, too :)

Below are some of the letters I've created!

This one was so much fun - I decided to draw a dad and daughter owl, since the letter is from a dad to his daughter.

Sometimes when I can't think of what to draw, I have to search the letter for inspiration. With this one, it was the fact that she called her husband "hunny" - so I made a whole bee/honey theme!

This one was interesting! The sender is supposed to choose between a drawing, flower petal, or lipstick kiss... This person wrote for me to include "anything origami"... I don't know origami! But I figured, now's the perfect time to learn :) And so I learned how to make a crane.

I had no idea what to draw for this one, so I just drew some woodland creatures. :)

So many of these are love letters! I've drawn like a kazillion hearts by now :-P

Hope you enjoyed my drawings! If you want to send a letter to someone, you still have 5 days left! The project will run until the 15th.

Children's book illustration

2011-07-09T15:00:00.000-08:00

I know it's been forever since I've posted, but I've had so much going on lately! I went out of town for three weeks and worked out of Ireland, so I didn't get any painting done in that time. It's been so long since I've painted! I just got back a couple days ago, and am so ready to get back into painting.

But, before I paint some more, I have another project I have to finish first! I'm illustrating a children's book! It's a book that teaches children about money. I won't give too many details but it should be done soon anyways. I'm really excited because it's my first children's book illustration project ever - and I've always wanted to illustrate a children's book!

I'm doing all the illustration in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet. I had never done this before. My friend at work, Susie, who's an amazing illustrator (she has created some amazing Google doodles) taught me how to paint in Photoshop using a tablet.

Also, my friend Derek moved to NY recently. He wants me to paint something for his apartment! He wants an abstract painting that will include yellow, orange, and green. I have some really cool ideas and I'm so excited to start it. I will post pictures once I have it done! It will be a 24" x 12".

Pin the Tail on the Princess

2011-05-18T23:31:00.000-08:00

My friend Tabatha had a princess-themed birthday party for her two twin girls turning 4. Tabatha asked me to draw Ariel from The Little Mermaid on some paper on the wall (really big, like as tall as me) so that we could play Pin the Tail on the Princess!

First I drew Ariel in pencil and then outlined her in black marker.

Pinning the tail on Ariel! Each kid colored in her tail before pinning it onto Ariel.

The final product - Ariel with her colorful tails :)

Eiffel Tower custom painting

2011-05-14T16:06:00.000-08:00

My friend Karen's mom, Pam, had a birthday recently. Pam loves the Eiffel Tower and the color blue. Karen suggested that I make a painting similar to my Peaceful Tree painting - a white outlined painting on blue. So I made Pam a 12"x12" white Eiffel Tower painting with a blue and teal background.

I tried to make it more interesting than the usual Eiffel Tower painting by giving it some perspective. When I traveled to Paris a couple years ago and saw the Eiffel Tower, it was so huge and it really towered over me. So I brought that experience into my painting.

I also painted dark blue swirlies around the edge to make the background a little more interesting.

Preparing for my paintings at Willow Glen Coffee

2011-05-03T20:28:00.001-08:00

It's been way too long since I've posted, but that's because I've been so busy! I got booked for the month of October, to have my paintings up in Willow Glen Coffee Roasting Company in San Jose!

The coffee shop is so cute. It's very eclectic and colorful. Each chair is painted with a different design, and even the walls are different colors!

They promote a different artist each month. My month will be October! I'll have my paintings up all month! In addition to having my paintings up, I'll also be selling bookmarks and cards that I'll have printed from my paintings.

So, I've been working hard on getting enough paintings made (I'm thinking like 30) so I haven't posted much on my etsy site because I'm saving most of them for the coffee shop. And I've also been getting cards and bookmarks made! Despite the reviews I've read online, I've actually gotten great results from Overnight Prints so far, for my cards and bookmarks. Since they have such great prices, I'll stick with them unless they start messing up my orders. :-P

Above: So far, I've made a card and two bookmarks. They came out great so I'm now working on more designs!

Above: My two bookmark designs, including front and back.

Above: My card design, front and back. The card is blank inside.

I'll give more updates as I make more stuff! So excited for my first ever participation in any kind of art showing!

My portfolio

2011-04-16T13:28:00.001-08:00

I started working on a portfolio - a real tangible portfolio (as opposed to an online portfolio) so that I can bring it with me if I want to try to get my art in stores, coffee shops, etc.

I got an album, photo corners, and colored paper from the scrapbooking section in Michael's, and I got photographs of my paintings printed at Walgreen's. They didn't have any super interesting albums, so I got plain black. I went with 8 1/2 x 11", because the bigger ones just seemed too big, and the smaller ones seemed too small.

I designed an 8x10 cover page, which is shown on the right, and on the left side you can see a little pocket I made for my business cards. (These business cards are little and square - I got them from Jak Prints)

Here's a close-up of my business card pocket. I cut a square out of scrapbooking paper, and I cut a slightly larger square out of an extra clear album page that I had. Then I sewed the two together (I do not trust glue with smooth plastic) and I glued and taped the final pocket to the inside cover of the book.

Here are some sample inside pages:

By the way - I think using the photo corners is a really good idea, because I found that sometimes the picture I had wouldn't be cropped right, but I would be like "I can just put this in now, and swap it out later when I get a better version of the picture". So I highly recommend photo corners. :D

Google Chrome nail art

2011-04-07T19:52:00.000-08:00

We started a tradition on my team at work - every Thursday is Nail Polish Thursday, and the girls do their nails. One guy on my team, Scott, kindly allowed me to do whatever I wanted to his toenails! So, I painted them Google Chrome themed!

I didn't use any special brush or anything for the Chrome logo. I just put very little paint on the nail polish brush, and I just dabbed it on in place (rather than brush it). It was actually much easier than I expected!

Puppy dog painting

2011-04-03T19:13:00.002-08:00

Back in January I did a custom painting for a charity auction at work. The winning bidder asked for a painting of a black and white puppy for his daughter's room. He just sent me a picture of the painting up in the room - so exciting to see it in action! I think the bright colors go really well with the bright purple wall, too!

Here's a closer picture:

A furry friendship

2011-04-01T00:41:00.000-08:00

I got this idea in my head of a bunch of woodland creatures standing on top of each other in the forest. I came home from work, ate some dinner, and then started painting at 7pm. I painted non-stop until 12:30am and this is the result. Four woodland creature friends - a red fox, a blue owl, a grey bunny, and a brown squirrel - all standing on top of each other to make a tower.

These creatures have such a strong friendship. They stand on each other and they lift each other up. They are always there for each other. And if one of them loses balance, the others will compensate. It's pretty much the best friendship ever :D

Can't wait until this weekend, when I can take some better pictures outside in the sunlight, and then post this on etsy! I hope it ends up in a kids room - I think it would be sooo cute there.

Macy's paintings

2011-03-27T16:06:00.003-08:00

I finished baby Macy's paintings today! I'm so excited because this means they'll be over to my sister's house on the other side of the continent in time for Macy's grand entrance into the world :)

By the way, it's kind of hard to tell in the picture because the table is so dark, but I painted chocolate brown around the edges because Macy's colors are pink and chocolate brown.

You can click on any image to enlarge it :D

Macy's paintings - almost done!

2011-03-26T17:17:00.000-08:00

I completed the animals in Macy's paintings today! All I have left is the vines. The animals by themselves look a little boring, so I'm going to do some pretty vines (including the one the monkey will be hanging from) to make them a little more interesting.

Macy's elephant

2011-03-22T21:32:00.000-08:00

I finished Macy's elephant tonight! Looking at the picture now, I don't know if it looks too simple, like if I should add some stuff... but I will ask my sister and see what she thinks.

I also did the giraffe, but then I hated it! So I took off all the paint and hopefully I can still salvage what's left of the background, and try again later...

Macy's painting update & cross stitch update

2011-03-21T00:27:00.000-08:00

So I got back to CA Friday night around midnight. My first priority coming home was to work on Macy's paintings, because she's due really soon now!

I sketched out the animals on paper first, and then I painted the initial shapes of the animals in white. That way, when I paint the animals in color, the pattern won't show through (because the white paint is so thick).

Also, I got really far on my cross stitch while I was at Nana's! I even cross stitched on the plane ride back! Here's how far I got:

Cross stitch tip: How to cross stitch faster

2011-03-17T21:05:00.000-08:00

I learned a new tip from my Nana - a way to cross stitch faster!

Usually, I cross stitch like this:

Push needle through from front...

Push needle through from back...

Well, you can actually do it all in one step! Here's the trick that Nana taught me:

You never even have to mess with the back!

However, take note that the stitches actually end up to be not as tight as when you do it the long way... but, maybe it's possible to work on that and still have nice, tight stitches.

And now, I'd like to just share some of my favorite work by my Nana! Here are a few things she has hanging around her house:

She has this hanging in the little shed that leads into her house	This is in her living room. As you can see, she also made quilts a lot!
This one is awesome! It's the whole length of her couch! This is Rainbow Row.	A cute little house... hanging in her bedroom.

Gift from Nana + my blog award

2011-03-15T19:08:00.000-08:00

My Nana has always been obsessed with cross stitching. She was always cross stitching every chance she got. She even taught me how to cross stitch. She hasn't cross stitched in about a year now though - I guess she is finally done.

I just came to my Nana's to stay for a week for my birthday. Before I came, I was talking to her on the phone and telling her there were a few colors of thread I couldn't find for the cross stitch I'm working on. She was like "I have a lot of thread here - I might have the colors you need." I just thought "She probably doesn't have it, but I'll look anyways."

Then when I got to my Nana's she showed me her collection. Holy COW! She has basically every color ever known to mankind. It was insane! And even better, she handed them down to me! So now they are mine!! She is definitely the sweetest grandmother that ever lived!

Above: This is every color of thread known to mankind.

Needless to say, I found the colors I needed :)

My blog award

So, in addition to this cute gift from Nana, something else cool happened recently. I got an email saying that my blog was picked for a Stylish Blogger award by Cait from Book Geekery (thank you Cait!). She's in love with books, and has the cutest Esty shop where she sells book-related items, like this sooo cute Sleeping Beauty Journal.

So, because I got this award, I'm supposed to thank the person who awarded me (okay that's just common courtesy), include 7 facts about myself, pass the award on to other bloggers, and notify them of winning the award.

I don't know how interesting this will be, but here's my 7 facts:

My favorite vegetable is onion.
I eat an avocado almost every day.
I always buy cage-free eggs. My dad always bought them too. He said "The chickens get to run around and play."
I love/am obsessed with the card game Dominion. I play with friends every Friday and I look forward to it every week!
Some people say they wish humans didn't have to sleep so they'd have more time for stuff. Well I don't feel that way. I like sleeping because it feels good! I wish we just had more hours in the day.
I hate it when in advertisements, websites, etc. they have a list of things, and some things are verbs, and some are adjectives, etc. It annoys me to no end!
I hate pennies. I think they're so worthless. (Hopefully I didn't offend anyone who loves pennies!) My brother feels even more strongly - he throws them in the trash! I just throw mine on the ground. :-P

And now for passing the award on... My favorite blogger ever is Mir Dinara. I originally found her blog because my friend forwarded me this blog post of hers - this amazing masterpiece that she cut out of paper! Apparently it was featured on another blog about paper. I thought it was awesome so I started following her. Her work is absolutely beautiful!! If you check out her blog you will fall in love. Her designs are so cute and adorable and the colors are amazing. So this is absolutely my favorite blog in the whole wide world. I get SO excited when she posts something new!

Some other ones I really like are:

Katie Daisy - Another absolutely amazing artist! I don't know how she does it. Her work is beautiful. Look at this amazing watercolor art! Unbelievable.
Soulful Journals - Very inspiring, and she makes the cutest and most creative journals.

Three of a Kind featured in a treasury on Etsy!

2011-03-12T19:02:00.000-08:00

I was so excited today to find out that one of my paintings, Three of a Kind, was featured in a treasury on Etsy!

In case you don't know what a treasury is, it's a hand-picked list of items (16 items max) that all have something in common. The treasury that my painting was featured in is called "Picture Perfect" and consists only of paintings.

Thanks to Jill who handpicked my painting to be in this treasury! Her etsy shop is sawitforyou. She has a really cute shop where she sells handmade wooden crafts, super cute and country looking. Actually she first heard about my shop because I favorited her shop because her stuff was so cute! :-P

Nana's for my birthday

2011-03-10T20:11:00.005-08:00

I'm leaving tomorrow to travel to my Nana's (grandmother's) house in Erie, PA for a week to celebrate my birthday!

It's always very relaxed there (we basically read, eat, watch tv, drink coffee, and just relax all day) so I'm planning on getting a lot of my current cross stitch - "Peace" by Birds of a Feather - done during the week I'm there. I actually got the pattern for this cross stitch from Nana. She got the pattern awhile ago and never used it, so she gave it to me. I just started it very recently. Here's where I'm at so far:

Let's see how far I get in a week! It will be really cool if I can finish the whole thing :D

Baby elephant

2011-03-09T00:23:00.000-08:00

I made this baby elephant painting / mixed media tonight! I love how the colors turned out. I was worried about the blue, that it wouldn't go with the pink, but then I added a little yellow to it (to make it more of a turquoise than just blue) and I think it came out perfect. Also, this time I used quilt batting behind the fabric so that it's kind of 3d and soft. I think it would be perfect for a little girl's room!

Little Bird

2011-03-06T17:11:00.000-08:00

I did some experimenting this weekend! I decided to try something different. I combined two things I love - painting and needlework. I painted the sky and main branch, and I hand-sewed the bird and leaves out of quilting fabric! I hand-sewed the other branches and leaves right onto the canvas with white thread.

Macy's painting - in progress

2011-03-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

My niece, Macy, is going to be born soon! I'm working on some paintings for her room. My sister / her mom wanted some jungle animals on an animal print background. I got the backgrounds done so far - wow, they took me like over 3 hours to do!

I got stencils for the backgrounds, but the stencils were really small. If I only used the stencils, then I would have had major repeating and it would have look too contrived. So, I did portions of it with the stencil, and then I filled in the rest with shapes that I painted by hand. Hopefully it looks "random" enough!

Here's an example:

Before (You can see the columns of animal print. Actually I had already started filling in the left side, which you can see is all filled in. But the rest is just columns of animal print)...

After (I filed in the rest of the print by hand):

And here are all 3 of the finished backgrounds (the swatches on the left are the fabric swatches for the bedding, and the paint color for the room):

Now I just have to paint the animals on! I might do 3 monkeys, or a monkey and two other kinds of animals.

Three of a kind

2011-03-03T20:43:00.001-08:00

I finished another painting - it's three birds sitting together on a branch. I thought it would be neat to use almost every color of the rainbow. I used red, orange, and yellow for the birds, green for the tree leaves, and blue for the sky.

More birdies!

2011-02-28T21:02:00.003-08:00

I just can't get enough of birds :)

I finished two new paintings tonight. For these two, I decided to get some inspiration from some previous paintings I had created.

The first one is inspired by a painting that I made awhile back, but sold just recently, called Best Friends. It's a white silhouette of two birds in a storm. The painting I made tonight is the two best friends, but it's right before the storm. The sky looks strange colors, and they know a storm is coming. So, they're sticking together, because they know that as long as they're together, they'll be safe.

I was going to do them as white silhouettes like with the first painting, but as I started painting the outlines, I thought the outlines actually looked pretty cool! So I decided to just keep it like that instead!

The second painting is inspired by one I created recently and it sold within like a day of posting it. It's also my favorite painting of all the paintings I've had on my Etsy site. It's called Finally Found Our Place. Although I was thrilled that it sold so quickly, it was also my favorite so I miss it. So I decided to create another one very similar, and here it is.

Colored forest

2011-02-27T23:39:00.000-08:00

I've had this concept in my head for like 3 weeks now, and I finally got a chance to get it on canvas. After painting Finally Found Our Place, I really liked the black tree with the colored leaves, so I decided to take the concept further. I wanted to do a painting that was about a completely black forest with colored leaves on all the trees.

It's kind of like the saying "Don't miss the forest for the trees" - only this is more like "Don't miss the leaves for the trees". No matter how dark and dreary any forest is, there are always some beautiful colored leaves somewhere in the forest. So this painting is about not getting caught up in the negative, and instead looking to the good things, no matter how small.

I posted it on my etsy, but sometimes this stuff sells so fast I don't even get a chance to enjoy it. So I jacked up the price so I can enjoy this painting for a little while! I have it hanging above my bed :)

My lamp shade

2011-02-27T18:50:00.000-08:00

I finally got nightstands for my bedroom, so I was really excited to get a little bedside lamp to put on my nightstand. I can finally read before going to bed without having to either (a) use a flashlight or (b) get out of bed when I'm ready to sleep!

I looked all over for a cute lampshade, but I couldn't find one anywhere! Apparently no one makes any cute lampshades. They're all so plain. So (of course :)) I decided to make my own. I found some super cute fabric and ribbon at JoAnn's. And although covering a lampshade with fabric and ribbon probably sounds really easy, it's actually quite challenging. Since the lampshade is tapered, it's really hard to fit the ribbon around the edges. I wish they made tapered ribbon!

After two attempts it finally looks okay, but still not perfect. But still a million times better than a plain old boring one-color lampshade. :)

Super Mario Bros. Birthday!

2011-02-23T18:03:00.003-08:00

My nephew's Super Mario Bros. birthday party turned out great! Luckily my sister gave me a ton of creative freedom to do basically whatever I wanted. So, I made the cake (my first fondant cake EVER) and I designed the party favors (candy bars)! It was SO much fun, especially because I LOVE Super Mario Bros.!

The cake was such a hit. We had the party at Monkey Joe's (one of those places with big blow-up jungle gyms for kids to climb around on) and there were even people from OTHER parties coming in to ours to check out the cake!

I had so much fun making the party favors too. My sister and I were looking around for party favors and we realized that they are so expensive! She saw some Mario candy bar wrappers for sale on Ebay, and I was like "I can do SO much better than that!" and of course immediately my head was racing with ideas. The final products were amazing. I had so much fun with them!

And the painting turned out pretty cool too. My sister already hung it up in my nephew's room. The whole time I was visiting, whenever we were in his room, he'd look at the painting and get distracted and be like "Look, there's goomba!" or "There's the spikey guy. I wonder what he's doing?" It was so cute!

Mario painting complete!

2011-02-10T19:21:00.000-08:00

I finally finished my Mario painting for my nephew! I just did the final touches today - some coins, Bowser's head on the castle, the bridge, the pink tree. Here are some pictures!

(Above) The final painting

(Above) World 1

Featuring Piranha plant, mushrooms, arrow sign, coins, and Goomba.

(Above) World 2 and World 3

World 2 (Desert world) featuring pyramid, palm trees, and spikeys.

World 3 (Ice world) featuring trees, penguin (I hate those guys!), coins, and a star coin.

(Above) World 8 - Bowser's Castle

Featuring volcano, lava, and Bowser's castle with Bowser's head on it!

Mario painting - progress picture

2011-02-06T22:46:00.000-08:00

Here's what I have so far the Mario painting. I added all of the big things, like the tube, pyramid, trees, volcano, castle, etc.

I'm sooo tired... I think I'm done painting for the day. Wow this painting is taking a really long time! I hope I can get it done in time for my nephew's birthday :-/ I'll definitely have to work on it after work this week.

Mario painting - base colors

2011-02-06T14:43:00.000-08:00

I got the base colors down for the Mario painting. My favorite part is the lava - I think it looks really cool!

Here's a picture.

Mario painting - new concept

2011-02-06T13:10:00.000-08:00

Okay, I changed my mind. I started to play the game because I wanted to see if it inspired any new ideas for the painting, and it did! I started thinking that it would be cool if I could include some of the desert world and ice world in the painting. Then I realized - I can make each hill be a different world! So I went and played through worlds 1 through 3, and I picked out all my favorite things from those worlds and incorporated them into my sketch. Then for the castle at the top, I copied a few things from world 8 (like lava, volcanoes, etc.). So it's basically going to be composed of worlds 1-3 and 8.

Then I realized my canvas is really too small to fit everything I want to include (it's only 10" wide by 20" high). At the art store, they were out of 12x24s, but they did have 15x30s. I thought that would be too expensive to ship, but I went to the UPS website and calculated it, and it turns out it's like the same price as a 24" painting! So, I went back to the art store and got a bunch of 15x30s. So this painting is going to be 15" wide by 30" high.

Anyways, here is my new sketch. There are so many details though - definitely different from most of my paintings. So, I hope I can make it look good. I do worry that it will look too cluttered. I guess I'll see what happens.

Mario painting

2011-02-05T19:22:00.001-08:00

My nephew's 5th birthday is coming up, and he LOVES Mario so I'm going to attempt to paint him a Mario picture! I tried to get really creative with the layout... I was going to do a long horizontal one, but I felt like I didn't have enough height. So then I thought about rotating the canvas so that it's tall, and I came up with a pretty cool layout! Here's the initial sketch.

The little man running is going to be Mario (I'll make it actually look like him when I paint it). I want it to look cartoony, but I also want to use lots of shading and texture.

Hopefully I can get it done this weekend so I can send it in time for his birthday! I'm traveling to visit him but I don't want to take it when I travel, I'm afraid I'll damage it.

New painting - Finally Found Our Place

2011-02-01T23:01:00.001-08:00

I got a burst of inspiration tonight... I wasn't even planning on painting, was just going to veg out on the couch and read or something. But then I got an idea and I just had to go with it while it was fresh in my head.

I'm going to call this "Finally Found Our Place". It's about two owls who have been wandering around the dark black forest for so long together. Then they finally found a beautiful black tree with bright, colorful leaves. Now that they've found their place, they'll stay there forever, because it makes them happy.

Started some new paintings

2011-01-25T23:19:00.001-08:00

I usually just paint on the weekends, but lately my weekends have been so busy I haven't been able to paint anything new for my etsy site! So I decided to do a little bit of painting tonight after work. I started by painting some yellow-orange backgrounds on 4 canvases. I had no idea what I was going to paint on them. Well I ended up doing a forest on one, and a pretty design on another, and the other two I haven't worked on yet.

I'm not completely sure about the pretty design one - it feels weird to me that it doesn't have a focal point. It's just a pattern. But, maybe I'm just not used to that. It's probably good for me to do something a little different and uncomfortable every once in awhile!

Puppy dog painting complete!

2011-01-16T11:54:00.005-08:00

I finished the puppy dog painting! I really like the way it turned out. One thing I learned doing my first custom painting: Custom paintings are really fun because someone gives you a concept (like "paint a dog") and then you get to be creative with it, but still within the confines of what they want. It's very different than just painting whatever subject you dream up, but I like it.

My owl painting in action!

2011-01-10T20:34:00.002-08:00

Awhile back, I sold a painting on my etsy site (actually 3 that go together to make one picture). The painting is of a blue owl in a forest of orange. I got an email today with a picture of my painting in the actual room! It ended up going in a baby's nursery. So cute! And so cool to see my painting hanging up in someone's room!

Puppy dog painting - in progress

2011-01-09T20:10:00.000-08:00

I've gotten pretty far on the puppy dog painting. This one is taking quite awhile because I wanted the fur to look like real fur. Well, not completely realistic, but at least have some texture. I think it's turning out really good! All I have left is the grass and the flowers, and those should be pretty quick and easy.

Puppy dog painting

2011-01-08T11:29:00.000-08:00

We had a charity auction at work, and I auctioned off a custom painting. The winning bidder wants a painting of a black and white dog for his 3 year old daughter. Here's the concept I've sketched up - so excited to get it on canvas!

How to ship a painting

2011-01-07T10:02:00.068-08:00

I had to read up on a lot of sites to figure out the best way to ship a painting. Here's how I ship mine to ensure that nothing goes wrong during shipping!

Step 1: Wrap the painting in clear plastic wrap.
This protects the painting's surface against any water that might get in.
Where to get it: You can get a giant roll of plastic wrap from OfficeMax.

Step 2: Wrap the painting in foam wrap.
This protects the canvas against dents.
Where to get it: I get mine from Uhaul (just walk into any location).

Step 3: Sandwich the painting between two layers of cardboard.
This will protect against dropping, banging, etc. The cardboard should be slightly larger than the painting itself, so that if the corners are banged, the painting's corners won't be affected.
Where to get it: Uline sells cardboard sheets in bulk, which I love because I'm lazy and if you get the right size they don't need cutting (or they need very little cutting). Otherwise, you can reuse old cardboard boxes, but I recommend being picky about this and not using old beat-up cardboard boxes. It will look more professional and offer more protection, too.

Step 4: Wrap the painting in bubble wrap.
This will provide even tougher protection (including the painting's corners) against dropping.
Note: It is very important to sandwich the painting between cardboard before wrapping in bubble wrap. If you just wrap the painting in bubble wrap with nothing in between, then if the paint softens during shipping due to warm temperature, the bubble wrap will cause indents in your painting.
Where to get it: You can get bubble wrap at OfficeMax, or for a better price, go to UHaul. For an even better price, go to Uline, but you'll need to buy a lot of it (since they sell stuff in bulk).

Step 5: Wrap the whole thing in brown paper.
This will keep out dirt and makes for a much better presentation too!
Where to get it: Uhaul sells really nice layered brown paper. They have a cheaper price online than in the store (and it comes as a huge roll instead of a small pack).

Step 6: Box it up.
Put it in a shipping box filled with foam popcorn pieces, and it's ready to ship!
Where to get it: I get my boxes from Uline. They have basically every size you can imagine! I usually go about 5-6" bigger than the painting size. That allows a few inches for wrapping (bubble wrap, etc.), and a few inches extra inside the box for popcorn, etc. They have a lot of different kinds of boxes on their website, so I've found the easiest way is to search by size. I have like 5 different favorite sizes for canvases, so I got like 5 different size boxes.
I get popcorn from Uline as well. You can buy a huge bag of it (It's really huge - like as big as me. It's so big I keep it on my back porch) and then you don't have to worry about getting more for a really long time!

Step 7: Ship it!
For shipping, I usually use UPS - they seem to be the cheapest. I can go up to a 30" painting (about a 36" box) and it still costs only about $15 to ship.

They have a shipping calculator on their website.

Select "Detailed Time and Cost.
Make sure you select tomorrow or the next day for shipping date - otherwise, the price will be insanely high.

The price varies depending on where the recipient is located.
It usually takes a week to go from one side of the US to the other, like from California to Georgia, but it only takes like 2 days to ship to close locations, like from California to Nevada.
Make sure you pack your painting very safely because they do throw the boxes around! If you followed the instructions above though, you should be safe. :)

I've used FedEx a couple of times, just because their walk-in store was open until 11pm whereas UPS Store was closed, and I needed to get a package out asap. Their prices were about the same as UPS.
I never use USPS because they are more expensive.
For international shipping, I've only looked into shipping from the US to Europe and Canada. Europe was really expensive ($70+ to ship a painting) which was disappointing (if anyone finds any good solutions for shipping to Europe, let me know!). And Canada wasn't too bad, it was $20, which is only $5 more than the usual price.

Holiday gifts

2011-01-06T07:12:00.000-08:00

For Christmas this year, I decided to paint some pictures for some of my family members. My mom is crazy about roosters, and her kitchen is yellow, blue, and white. So I painted her a little blue and white rooster on a yellow background. I love the way this one came out!

For my grandmother, well she's really into apples. Her whole kitchen is decorated in apples! So I painted her a picture of a little bird sitting in an apple tree.

Hello world.

2011-01-03T08:32:00.000-08:00

This is the start of my blog about painting. I was always into art growing up, and always chose art as all of my extracurricular classes - drawing, painting, ceramics, etc. But then once I finished school, I didn't do much art after that.

Then back in September I decided I wanted a painting for above my couch in my family room. I couldn't find quite the right painting, with the exact colors I wanted. So I decided to just paint it myself!

I had such a great time that I decided to start painting even more, and sell them online. I just thought it would be so cool to have my paintings up in other people's houses! So I did - I set up a website on Etsy (raspberryh.etsy.com) and have had a few sales! It's been pretty exciting.