IF - blur

I can't believe another week has gone by and it's time to post another Illustration Friday challenge. I decided to do another greeting card, because I had so much fun making last week's.

"Santa skates so fast sometimes, he's just a blur of red and white". I don't know, maybe that's a stretch for the theme, but I didn't really want to make a blurry object or person. That's what's so great about IF challenges - you can do whatever you want, there are no rules! Just imagine he is blurry, OK?

IF - skinny

For Illustration Friday this week I decided to make a greeting card, featuring a bird with really long, skinny legs. I first thought of illustrating someone drinking a tall, skinny latte, then I thought of a kid with really long, skinny legs, but neither of those ideas really formed a clear path for me. The bird plan just felt right and I'm happy with the way it turned out. Plus, it was just so fun to do! Don't you just love it when that happens!

a muse window sneak peek

What have I been working on? Playing with paint and glitter, making props for the A Muse window. Now that Halloween is over, it's time to start decorating for the holidays, so I made these oversized ornaments to hang in the window of Linda's shop.

She had the brilliant idea of painting them in lime green and pink instead of the traditional red and green. I think it's such a fresh, modern take on holiday trimming and they will look so fab in the window!

This is a little sneaky peek - the window will be going in tomorrow.

trick or treat

IF - fast

For Illustration Friday this week - Penquins like to go fast down snowy hills on sleds and skis!

I had so much fun creating penquins for last week IF challenge, I decided to do them again. This was created entirely in Illustrator.

Now, I have to choose between this one and last week's Frosty's Ice Cream shop for my holiday promo card. Which one would you choose? Which image do you think is stronger? Send me a comment and vote for your favorite! I'd love to hear from you!

IF - frozen

I'm finally getting my If entry posted for this week. I started this on Saturday, but only had a bit of time each day to work on it, so it seemed like forever before I finished it! I'm really proud of myself for doing the entire piece in Illustrator, even the shading! I think I'm finally getting a handle on the brushes in IA. I even tried a bit of gradient shading on the penguins, which I think works pretty well.

I might work on this a bit more and send it out as a holiday promo card. It's not quite the right size for a card, so I'll have to do a bit of reworking. I should have thought of a card size when I started this!

bee's knees

Yesterday, I was raking leaves in the front yard and a bee flew up my pant leg and stung me above the knee. Of course, I freaked out and went running in the house, tore off the jeans, cursing all the way. I cleaned the sting, put on some Neosporin, shook out the jeans and put them back on to go out and finish what I was doing. That little devil was still in the pants! More shaking and he was finally loose. Who knew raking leaves could be so dangerous!