Christmas Dogs and Cats

 

Here are a couple new embroidery designs at Embroidery Library (search "Christmas Cats Meow" and "Christmas Canines"). Not exactly an "off the clock" project, but these where pretty fun to work on and I wanted to share them on the blog. I love drawing in this style. I did a lot of gestures and quick sketches before tightening up like the b/w drawings shown here. Just playing with each character and trying to come up with a fun pose, silhouette, personality, etc. 

Victorian Cat Designs

A couple embroidery designs from work (UrbanThreads). The guy cat on the left was drawn a year or so ago and his new feline friend was added last month to our collection. It was a good challenge trying to make the two look like they go together, even though it had been some time since the first cat was created. In hindsight, I think I would give the guy cat a neck. That might help the proportions of the two cats to look more equal. It was fun researching the Steampunk/Victorian themes for costumes and attire. It was also fun to flex the character design muscles a little bit. I really tried to nail a cool silhouette with each of their poses and give them a little attitude.

Cartoon Robot Designs

Here are some robot designs and sketches I did for Urban Threads recently. The top drawing was a little detailed and we decided on going for a more "chunky and blocky" look. The design is geared (pun intended) for kids so I think it was a good call.

I enjoy seeing into the process of some one's thoughts and love looking at artist's sketchbooks. It's sort of like the bonus footage on a DVD you enjoy. They show you behind the scenes of the film or commentary from the director about their thoughts, budget, location, etc. I love that stuff.

Cats in a Scarf

Happy Valentine's Day :)

Cartoon Monster Designs

This was an embroidery design assignment from work and I wanted to share a little bit of my process. The top image is the sew out of the design after being digitized, the middle image is the vector art and the bottom image is the pencil rough. My job is making the drawings and the vector art. You can find the machine and hand embroidery files at Urbanthreads.

I usually start with a pencil sketch to get approved before going on to Adobe Illustrator and drawing it again on the computer. The process seams to change depending on my confidence with the subject. Sometimes I use thumbnails, sometimes it's really loose and gestural drawings. In this case I stayed pretty tight and clean and also tried to keep each monster unique. I get so much inspiration from animation and character design artists and am always looking for ways to plug that into my drawings at work.

Thank you for stopping by and checking out the art. And thank you everyone out there for making your own creations and sharing them with the world! Cooking, quilting, designing, crafting... everything. It's a treat to share art on this blog and a treat to experience what everyone else it making in the world.

:)

Christmas at the Beach

Here's a series of cartoon Christmas characters I did not to long ago. The theme was Santa, Mrs. Claus and the gang relaxing at the beach and enjoying the off season. The art was created for machine embroidery and the designs can be found at Emblibrary.com

I really worked hard on these and tried to have fun with them in the process. While drawing the roughs, I was looking at a lot of character design blogs for inspiration. Lately, it's been a lot of about silhouettes and shapes for me. The computer has been a huge tool (sometimes a crutch) in my creative process. In Adobe Illustrator, I'm constantly using the mirror tool, flipping back and forth to find wholes and week spots. Also, filling in all the shapes with a dark value helps me get a good read of the silhouette and adjust/tweak where needed.

I'm due for some beach/outdoor rest and relaxation time as well. Too much going on this summer, but it has been a fun one to say the least. Looking forward to playing some golf this weekend and hopefully getting out to do some hiking soon, too. Best wishes to you and hope you have a good rest of the summer :)

Robo Kitty

Tattoo Inspired Animal Designs

Some more art from work. The original concept for these started out a year ago with a peacock design I did and the style sort of evolved to an "inky" tattoo look. These were are a lot of fun to design. Because their simplicity, my favorite part of creating these was the decision making process; what to include and what not to, and making the image read as a particular animal. They are a bit abstract and hopeful they read well. For each animal, there are three designs to the series; a corner, a border and a feature (used for machine embroidery.)

Hope it's a great week for you and thanks for stopping by.

Merry Holidays!

It's that time of the year again. Here's a couple of my favorite Christmas/winter designs from this year.The Santa designs are from last year and where a lot of fun creating. I'd really love to do more character designing; it reminds me of caricature and graphic design which I used to do a lot more of when I was in college.

Best wishes to you this season and a Happy New Year! :)

Cardinal Stack

Recently we did a series of "stack" designs at Embroidery Library. The stack being three animals or objects of a similar nature sitting on top of each other. The cardinals were my favorite of the series. Something about simplicity really interests me, whether it's writing, speaking, etc.

2010 Favorites

These are some of my favorite designs I've worked on in the last year. Big props to the amazingly tallented digitizers and art directors at Urban Threads. These embroider designs are a team effort between us all. I can't say enough good things about this group of people. It's been a great year.

Season's Greatings

Happy Holidays everyone!

Flapper Designs

My art teacher in high school told us about combining two different ideas to make something fun and different. Like the person that came up with chocolate and peanut butter together... that's genius... OK maybe not genius but it was a good enough idea to the people that began Reese's candy.

Lately animation has been a huge inspiration to me and these flapper designs where my effort to combine that with my love for graphic design. It was also an experimentation with style. I feel like some things worked and others I'd probably revisit and change. The last two designs are my favorites, particularly because of the gesture and angularity of the poses.

Thanks for stopping by!

Halloweenies

Happy Halloween!

Rubber (Stitched) Duckies

A couple months ago I was fortunate enough to draw and design a series of rubber ducks at work. I first created a "template" to keep the size and angles of each design the same and then began drawing up ideas for the individual ducks. This was fun to brain storm with my creative directors and I'm really glad this project was a team effort. To me, it's always nice to have a second or third person look at my art before I take it to a finish. They spot things that you sometimes miss (proportion issue, an object looks like something that you didn't intend it too, etc.) There were 20 ducks in the series with my favorite being the punk duck.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hot Couture Cat Designs

Steampunk Embroidery

Embroidery Designs

Here's a couple images of the embroidery projects I've been working on. The bottom image is a Jacobean design I made and it's embroidered onto a walker. On our website, the customers can upload pictures of their projects to share. It's always cool to see how others are using your designs.

Anyways, I thought I'd share what I've been up too lately. I get super inspired when I'm surfing other people's art blogs so this is to give back to everyone else that's doing sweet stuff with their art and sharing it with the world! If you'd like to see more or are interested in embroidery, here's the links to our two sites. Urban Threads and Embroidery Library. Thanks for stopping by :)