Happiness Is... my work on the cover of Atlanta INtown!

I found out a couple weeks ago that the illustration that I completed for one of the challenges at SCAD-ATL's "Generate" event was chosen for cover of Atlanta INtown's "Best of the Holidays 2009" issue, and I have been bursting with excitement for the big reveal since! (See this post about the creation of the art). Last night was finally the day--the cover art revealing was held at Atlantic Station's Christmas Tree Lighting. The Lighting events at Atlantic Station were magical: there was snow, bubble balloons shaped as stars and snowflakes, Christmas carols sang by a choir, and Santa Claus...I am officially in the holiday spirit.

My mom, Pat, dad, me, and sister Reghan holding the framed cover

What even made the night more special was that my family surprised me and drove up from Tampa to be there at the event. I have been so looking forward to seeing them over the break and seeing them a few days earlier made me so happy!

That's my picture on the cover!! How cool is that?!

To the wonderful people I met last night from Atlanta INtown, Wendy and Elizabeth--thanks for choosing my art! They gave me a framed picture of the cover to put up in my studio, which looks really awesome!

Me holding a mini version of the billboard-- my illustration is on the right side near where my finger is pointing.

The "Best of the Holidays" issue comes out next week, so Atlantans, look out for it! The illustration is also going to be on part of a billboard advertising The Holiday Shops in Atlantic Station. It will be up starting next week over near the IKEA at Atlantic Station, so look out for it if you are driving around or through Atlanta.

A Surprise at Dancing Fields is on sale!

The children's chapter book I illustrated, A Surprise at Dancing Fields is now available for sale!! The book is beautifully written by Ronit Elk-- the story follows four girls during their adventure-filled summer in a very special neighborhood.

Stay tuned for the book's listings on Amazon.com and BN.com coming soon.

Camera Patterns!

Which color do you like?

Well, I have decided to get in the habit of making Friday my personal challenge day. Today's challenge has been to design a photo binder using Zazzle (yup, it's for another contest!). I wanted to additionally use a pattern in the creation of the binder. I was originally going to make a couple different variations on the design, but kinda ran out of daylight hours, so a future post may hold some of my other camera pattern ideas.

Click here for my binder with all the text and customizable photos.

I went with the blue because I figure a lot of people like blue...and Pat didn't like the purple. A painting professor of mine in undergrad always said the two colors that never sell are green and orange--that has always stuck in my head, so I try to avoid those colors when creating art.

For the contest, I decided it might be a good play to have a photo as the cover OR my illustrated image. People get the opportunity to choose, whereas on some of the other designs if you don't want to put your image on the front, you are left with a gaping hole in the design. On the other hand, I guess if you are designing on Zazzle then you will want to put your photos on everything.

One thing I really wish I could have done with the design was create a custom shape cut-out for the photos to fit into, instead of them being full size square images. I know there is a way to do that using the Zazzle tools, but I could not figure it out or find the right "Help" post to guide me in doing that.

Oh, and by the way, I opened a Zazzle store a couple weeks ago. Check it out: My Zazzle Store

UPDATE: Whoa, just learned something new: PNGs have transparency capabilities! I thought only GIFs did. SO I revised my photo binder design entry. Here it is.

Birthday Her Way

This was my personal challenge of the day, to create a birthday card geared toward women. It's my entry for an online contest. I recently found out that I was finalist of sorts for the previous card contest I entered in September, so I was encouraged, and wanted to enter something again. I've become quite the contest junkie lately...

Anyways, I am still working on coming up with some clever interior text (so hard!). But it will probably be along the lines of "Relax and soak it in! Happy Birthday."

Logo Design

This is a logo design for an upstart illustration club I have recently become a part of here in Atlanta, made up of SCAD-Atlanta illustration students. The logo design is a contest, and the deadline hasn't been announced yet, so it may change--I think I could actually even make this more crazy looking-- but I am overall happy with this attempt. I had in mind the art of Ralph Steadman. I abandoned my usual inking tool of the Micron, and used a croquil to get the line quality I wanted. Making the ink splotches and scratchy letters are just so much fun, and I love the tactile line marks the croquil makes on the page.