Hula friends

Aloha! My husband Luke and I just got back from our honeymoon in Hawaii, and Im already missing it! Lazy warm beaches, snorkeling with tons of fish, dolphins and sea turtles! An amazing hike on the Kalalau trail in Kauai, and just absorbing the beauty and peace of the ocean and tropical paradise... ahhh... perfect! heres a little painting I just finished of how I feel, still in Hawaiian time :)

Cirque du Johnson!

I recently had a fun illustration commission for the Johnson family, with all four family members plus their pets in a circus act! I had lots of fun vintage circus reference, and got in the mood painting to circus music (John Phillip Sousa!) Heres a little bit from my process, from sketches to the finished painting. It was a challenge to get all the figures into one composition, but I'm happy with how it came together. They used this as their Christmas card!

to Bear's great delight...

Owl and Mouse look at the moon

one of my daily mini paintings out of my 4x3" sketchbook (tiny!), but I liked it so much I kept going with it... harvest crescent moon out tonight and it feels very fall...

Painting time-lapse

"they explored the treetops"

Here's a fun time-lapse I did while painting the finishes for my book. It was pretty fun to see afterwards! The only part that was hard was trying not to move my board, and racing my daylight! It took a total of 6 hours.

daily painting #1

Ive been trying a new exercise, doing a painting a day in an ity-bity watercolor journal! Sometimes there is so much to do in a day, errands, emails, other work that I never get to painting anything, so I decided at the very minimum I would paint one small thing. Here we go!

Bella & Luci's book!

The last six months have been spent working on a secret book project, that I've been dying to share for forever! I finally finished the illustrations in July and had a couple copies printed. It was a surprise book for friends of ours (and awesome photographers at Bellalu Photography!) Lindsey & Nathan Freitas and their adorable daughters Bella & Luci. The idea was planted in my head last December, when Lindsey mentioned to me how she would love to have a storybook about her two girls. I had so much fun writing, and sketching out the thumbnails for the book trying to figure out the flow of a full 32 page book (and trying my hardest not to mention anything to them the whole time!). And finally after months of multiple dummies and redrawing, I tackled the final step: painting 34 watercolor illustrations! Whew it's done, and I'm pretty proud of it!

heres a couple in-progress sketches from my book dummy:

and the finishes:

Whats Inside? A color concept book

A random idea for a color concept book came to me about a year ago, and I re-discovered the sketches the other day. So heres what I came up with so far, the little bunny just crept in as I went along! hehe.

new work: "Go Fish!"

Beauty and the Beast cover illustration

beauty and the beast

I did this illustration for a young adult novel cover concept. The first sketches were too much like a girl and wolf, so I added horns and pants to make the beast a little more human and beastly at the same time. Beauty wears a locket with a mysterious picture of a handsome prince, but she has yet to find out that its the Beast himself.

( first sketch, and revised final sketch)

Edwardian Beetles

Edwardian beetles! Luke and I went to the Edwardian Ball in January and it was such a magical festive night! So many great costumes, and creativity everywhere. Plus dancing in a fancy dress and top hat? yes please! We will have to go again next year.

New Illustration: The Beetle Ball

A new illustration I have been working on over the last 6 months! These critters have been waiting on me forever, and whew its finally finished. Now time to go find some blue grass music and dance!!

Happy Christmas!

The first snow

Gingerbread bugs

New Illustration: Lost in Leaves

Ive been working hard on some new illustrations, a few are still in process and half painted. This is my most recently finished painting, a cover illustration based on the myth of Daphne & Apollo. Apollo was struck by Cupids arrow and falls madly in love with the nymph Daphne. She runs away from him and calls on her father the river god who, protecting her, turns her into a laurel tree.  Here are some photos of the painting process along the way. I started with a clean line drawing that I transferred onto my watercolor board with my homemade graphite transfer paper. Then I painted in washes of watercolor and used salt to create the mossy texture. The final touches were digital in photoshop to clean up some edges and emphasize some lights and darks in the atmosphere.