Pandas!

Here's a sweet little panda set I made recently. This watercolor graphic set features a sad faced little bear and he comes with accessories to theme him up for Valentine's Day, celebrations like birthday or shower plus Christmas and winter too! He's available in my store, here: Cute Little Panda Graphic Set.

He can be purchased on Etsy, Creative Market and The Hungry JPEG too but he's less at my store :)

Watercolor Teddy Graphic Set now available!

This cute little teddy is now available in all of my stores! He's 10" tall and 300 DPI (PNG) He's super for invitations, nursery prints, mugs and t-shirts. You can find him here for purchase: https://www.slslines.com/products/blue-teddy-bear-watercolor-clipart

This set is also available on Etsy, CreativeMarket and The Hungry JPEG but it's less expensive at my store!

Cute Animals & Handsome Pirates

I've been hidden away in my studio for the past couple of weeks, painting animals for upcoming graphic sets. This isn't something I normally paint - cute little bears with balloons -  but it sure has been fun. I've painted cats, bunnies, bears and pandas. I have giraffes, birds and elephants on the go and still need to sketch out some sloths, monkeys and maybe an owl or two.

All of this sweetness is helping me forget about the depressing US news.

So yay for cute! I like cute! But I prefer zombies still. And handsome, bearded pirates who drink beer.

Speaking of beer - it's pub night on Friday! WOO! Happy PPF!

Ugly Christmas Sweaters

Life drawing madness - I'm back in! I used to run a local life drawing session for a few years and I was at the art centre every week, drawing away. But it got to be too much with work and I gave it up. Now I barely go which is a shame because it's always great practice.  BUT! There are so many online life drawing sites that I've been filling up my sketchbook with new drawings. It's been a blast. It's not quite the same of course, but I can draw in my PJs and that sort of thing always makes me happy. Here's a few links for those interested:

• http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/
• http://reference.sketchdaily.net/en/
• http://www.quickposes.com/

Here's a new Christmas graphics set I released this week. I don't actually have any ugly Christmas sweaters but I think I might want one or two now. This set is available on Etsy (without seamless backgrounds) and with them on CreativeMarket. Soon to be available at The Hungry JPEG too.

Is anyone else excited about Christmas yet? I am. LOL. It's ridiculous. I can't wait to decorate later this month.

Happy PPF everyone! Have a wonderful weekend :)

Coloring Tags for Christmas

I thought this might be a fun project for everyone! Christmas gift tags to color. I've made two sets here, one more traditional with cute elves and your crazy about Christmas aunt and the other set featuring a Beatnik snowman and hipster girls. They're available at Etsy though I will be adding to my store shortly.

Ticks and summer art

Here's some art from my summer journal, actually my watercolor journal. It's already October and I only have four sketches in it. Summer is over! And I'm probably the odd one out but I'm happy about it. I don't do well in the heat. I'm a total melter and much prefer the cool days of Autumn and Spring. I even love winter (until March).

This summer I was bit by a tick and ended up with Lyme Disease. I walking around at the cottage hunting for Pokemon and of course it was insanely hot and I didn't wear jeans because sweat. I was bit! I never did see the tick but I saw a big red patch on my skin that I ignored for a while. I thought it might have been an ant or bee sting. But it didn't go away and it got bigger and bigger. My doctor thought it might be contact dermatitis but the steroid creams she prescribed did nothing. I could see a red ring around the rash and I suggested a Lyme Disease test but my doctor looked at me like I was a bit crazy. Apparently, only 700 cases were confirmed in Canada last year so I can understand her skepticism. But the red ring rash combined with cottage walking made me nervous and I'm glad I pushed it because the test came back as positive. Luckily, it was early for me and I had four weeks of antibiotics and all turned out well. I never felt sick, I just had a huge rash. So public service announcement for cottage country - be careful! Those ticks are definitely here.

Masked Ladies and Dark Queens

I'm not sure how I became so far behind on my blog posting! Actually, I guess it happens more often than not. Who am I trying to kid, lol? I might possibly be in a state of near constant lag.

I'm back on the ATC train! I joined a few swaps over at IllustratedATCs.com and made some mask ladies and a few dark queens. These are all watercolor and ink. My masquerade ladies were inspired by that TV show, Skin Wars. I'd never heard of it before it hit Netflix but once I saw episode one, I became an instant addict and would love to try body painting. It looks like so much fun. I just need a model. Any volunteers?

I actually do have much artwork to share but it's for new and upcoming workshops! I've been busy filming and editing for the past couple of weeks. I'm hoping to finish up all of the new workshops over the next week or two and get them up and online. I should have an update and a teaser video for next week.

It's that time of the year! Almost!

I know Christmas seems so far away but for designers and creatives who need to plan in advance, it's definitely that time of the year! I've created a fun and whimsical new Christmas set this year featuring sweet little birds with multiple wreaths and arrangements. Added bonus - there are 54 individual elements in this set so you can easily create your own designs! Check it out in my store. Or you can purchase on CreativeMarket with a small version on Etsy.

I also have a larger version on my retro pinup girls colouring book available now! You can purchase it in my Etsy store.

This adult coloring book features beautiful nude vintage pinup girls in many shapes and sizes including fabulous round curves and tall and slim beauties. These retro nudes are tasteful and fun and are easy to color! Pages are single sided for your coloring ease. This coloring book is intended for 18+ years only. Coloring book size is 8.5" x 11" with 24 single sided coloring pages.

The Great Rebellion: Bunny Rising

Ok.... so I don't know what my bunny page is about really. It started as a doodle in my sketchbook and I thought, "Ohhhh! Cool! I'll paint that." And when I was done the painting, I wondered what the heck I had just painted. But I am happy to have painted rebel bunnies and weird bird humans. It's something to cross off of the "Things to Paint List."  Unlike the Great Bunny Rebellion, I really did have a plan in mind for the lady below holding her head. She's based on a prompt from Journal52 (Off With Their Head!). I'd like to think that if my head was ever removed, I'd blow out puffy clouds of goldfish and butterflies. 

The little bird was painted into a mini art deco book and I made a walk-through video of the process. You can view it here on my YouTube channel.

Happy weekend everyone :)

Sunrise and Sunset, mixed media style

I have finally finished my summer art journal. Joy, bliss & glee! I filled out the entire journal and it was a great goal to reach. I've been making my own journals lately since I don't like filling out 100 page spiral bound notebooks. They're too big and I'm far too lazy... or overwhelmed. Probably both. I make my own 20 page journals and it's so much easier to theme them, and then finish them. So yay, a summer art goal reached!

This Sunrise & Sunset journal page was so much fun to create. I love ridiculous faces and couldn't pass up the opportunity to make sun faces, mixed media style. I filmed the process and have upload it to my YouTube Channel. The tutorial can be found here: https://youtu.be/N_WTzemIhfs and the PDF template for the sun faces is available here. If you have any questions, just send me a note, I'm happy to help.

Materials I used:

• Stonehenge paper
• Golden heavy body acrylic paints
• Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid (satin)
• Patterned scrapbooking papers
• Brown Micron brush pen

This page was inspired by Journal52 prompts (Sunrise & Sunset). It's a great place to find inspiration for your art journals.

Voodoo Art Dolls & YouTube Channel

I've made a YouTube channel! Finally. I've been meaning to do it for ages and upload lots of the old workshops I used to give through ArtTrader Magazine. I've already added a few, including this fun little one - 10 Minute Art Dolls, Voodoo Style. It makes a cute little project for Halloween art dolls to hang in a window.

This template comes with two pages. The first page has the faces and stitches already drawn on. The second page features only the body and limb shapes so that you can draw your own faces and whatever else you want to add.

The YouTube video is just a quick little walk-through on how I paint my dolls and put them together with brads.

It's almost Halloween! The best time of the year!

Download the PDF here and view the video walkthrough here.

Please don't distribute this file. I'd prefer it if you linked back to this blog if you want to share! Thanks :)

Pensive thoughts & old art videos

Happy Friday! Always a good day I think. I often go to a pub to meet my Dad on Fridays where we share a few beers and some pub grub. Or it's movie night and we go and see whatever awesome comic or sci-fi movie is out. And if either of the above doesn't work out, we go out for all you can eat sushi. That's why I love Fridays! Tonight I think it's out to dinner.

Above is a new page from my journal, theme of Limericks - always fun to make those up! I'm not very good at it but I try. This was painted in acrylics over book pages. Barely mixed media, LOL. I think that counts though.

In other news, I'm working on many new online classes - themes in link. I used to do a lot of workshops for ArtTrader Magazine but that was ages ago. So I'm (slowly) uploading a lot of that old content to my brand new YouTube channel where it's available for free. Plus I'll be adding various new videos too. Please subscribe if you're into art vids! I made a few new videos this week but they need an edit first. I hope to have them up next week.

Bright Pop Flowers in Pink & Yellow

A new set of bright and shiny graphics! This retro pop flavored set of flowers comes in bright pink, orange and yellow.  There's a bigger set of these graphics in my store and on Creative Market with a small set on Etsy - (they have upload restrictions unfortunately.

I managed to shake off my summer relaxation mode (which was working well) and get back to work on editing graphics. Lots of new sets to come including a big Christmas set next week. Can't wait to share it.

Experiments in art

Continuing on with my lazy and indulgent, barely-working summer, I'm still in art journal art mode. Yay! The lady at left was created for either prompt: Holding On or Letting Go. I went with both. Might as well complicate things when you can! :)


The page at top right was made with a new local art journal group. It's really fun to create art with people and ever since I stopped the weekly life drawing group, I've really missed being around other artistic people. At the last journal meeting, we tried Gesso Overpainting (I don't know if that needs capitalizing like it's a real thing) and it was pretty cool. I'm not sure what I made! It's a shape with blobs and fangs and could possibly be people in weird positions?! Maybe? But I could see this technique being used for something much cooler. I'll add it to the journal list of things to try again!


I started yet another journal - this is number four. It's getting ridiculous. My art journal addiction is strong. This one has a focus on interesting portraits. I think I paint way too many pretty girls in journals and in general so this book will be different. My reference for this painting was one of the old vintage mugshots found online. I think this man committed a crime in 1924. I don't know what it was but I hope he was a bootlegger. Maybe he needs a backstory added to this page. Rum runner...

Happy PPF. I hope to win the lottery this weekend, wish me luck!

Professional dreamer, lazy summer worker

This summer has seen me working very little and actively trying to avoid work. I went on holiday and came back far too relaxed and it's not wearing off! Then again, the work that I have to do is sort of mind numbing. I create graphics for designers and creatives to use in commercial art - that's the fun part. I love to paint things up. The mind numbing part is editing all of those graphics to make them into nice digital files. I have pages and pages of pretty watercolors, all waiting for a clean and edit. And in order to avoid this sort of eye burning work, I've been making many art journal pages. It's a nice change of course - I get to keep this art!

Above are a couple of pages from my summer art journal. The antler lady is a mixed media / acrylic. I actually used some of my own graphic files in this one, LOL. All of the flowers are from my watercolor graphic sets. The entwined ladies on the right are in colored pencil over a mixed media background (quote is from Tom Robbins).

Stitched

I've been on a roll with journal art for the past week or two. I really hope it lasts, at least long enough to finish this short journal, lol. This is another spread for the Journal52 prompts (here are skulls and stitched themes). They've been really helpful since I am totally not a word journaller and sometimes look at a blank page for ages before I decide what to actually paint. The prompts help.

It's been really nice to be off of work too. Once I came back from vacation, I decided to take some time to make art for me. I tried to jump right back into work but it just wasn't working. LOL. And I so rarely take any time off. It's always work, work, work. And I love my work (since I get to paint and draw for that too) but sometimes... you know..  Anyway, the quiet time only last until August 1. One more glorious weekend of freedom! I will drink beer to celebrate.

Art journals pages, again!

Here's the latest page from my new summer art journal. It's a double spread with a double theme. I've been following prompts from Journal52 and have covered Mirth here as well as Emulate (art in the style of Joe Sorren). Lots of fun with this one!

And here's another page with the theme of Seed. Acrylic painting with scrapbook paper flowers.

Art Journals!

After a nice vacation for a couple of weeks, I've been (far too slowly) getting back to work. I have plenty of new art painted for graphic sets. That's the easy part. The hard part - scanning, cleaning, promoting - I still have to do. So no new graphic sets here yet. Next week.

On a more fun note, I decided I needed a bit more time off and I started an art journal for the fun of it. I never make art for myself. It's always for work or for a trade or for some course I'm taking. I think the last thing I painted just for fun was a couple of years back. Way too long. So I decided this would be the summer of art journaling.

I made my own 8" x 11" journal and stuck in some nice Bristol board and some cool Stongehenge drawing paper (which I proceeded to paint on), stuck it all together with a pamphlet stitch and boom- one hand made journal with a small number of pages so I can actually complete it.

Above is a double spread... pretty girls, my fave thing to paint. And below are a couple of pages about giddy excitement (new journal!) and fave imaginary creatures.

Happy PPF!

Back from vacation!

I've spent the past few weeks in Europe with my family having a great vacation! I'm finally back and am trying to get caught up with work and painting away. I'll have more art to post next week when I've had some time to finish new projects.

Here's my husband (painted by Frans Hals in Haarlem, The Netherlands). I think my husband sort of matches the painting with that long half grey beard, lol. And that's my daughter at the Trevi Fountain in Rome. What a beautiful city!

Below is a set of pretty folk art birds I painted as a graphic set. I just love a whimsical style of bright, cheerful art and thought cute birds and funky trees go well together. This set is available in my store as well as on Etsy and CreativeMarket.

Happy PPF!

DIY: Watercolor Gift Tags

Watercolor tags and cards look so pretty! And they're super easy to make.

Instructions & Materials

Here's what you'll need to make your own pretty gift tags:

• Watercolor paper. For these tags, I used the cheap paper that comes in pads for $5 or so. There's no need to use your expensive paper for the tags but the weight should be 140 lbs rather than the 90 lb version.
• Watercolor paints, any brand is fine. 
• White gel pen or white paint for lettering and designs. 
• Stamps with white ink pad (optional).
• Twine or pretty ribbons to tie your tags.

For creating the tags themselves, I simply used my paper slicer to crate the rectangle shapes. As you can see by my photo (at the top), I made my tags in different lengths and widths for a bit of variety. I used scissors to snip off the top corners though you'll need to be a bit careful here to ensure that you snip the same size of paper from each corner.


I wanted to make my tags full of bright shades of blues and reds. I started with the darker colors at the bottom and moved up with lighter shades of blue and red. You can basically do what you like here - be it a strip or a ball or even a single color covering the entire tag but you will want to try and get some color variation happening so you get the full watercolor effect on your tags.


The brand of watercolors I used here is Winsor & Newton's Professional Watercolors though you could use any really, even child's watercolor paint. But the colors won't be this bold and saturated with kid's paints.


Once your paint is dry, it's time to add a pretty design or a sentiment. You could paint the letters on if you have a steady hand a small paintbrush but I prefer to simply use a gel pen. I always use the Uniball Signo since it's my favorite white pen but others will work too. Another option is to use your stamps and white ink pad as I did below in the bottom photo. The stamps look fabulous too!


Another option is to paint a simple little flower or set of leaves on your tag as I've done in the bottom photo.


To create the holes, I used a hole puncher and then added my twine and ribbon. Voila! All done.


If you don't want to make your own or you don't have all of the materials, I have a print and cut freebie version that you can download. You can still make your own! Please check out the blog post and the downloadable file here.


Here's my blue set! Happy creating.

Freebie! Watercolor Gift Tags

I love cute little gift tags and I don't always want to make them from scratch. So I've made up a set of watercolor style gift tags for you to download and print from home!



All you'll need is some cardstock to print the file on as well as some pretty patterned paper (optional) to use as a backing and some twine or ribbon for the tags.

Download the PDF file here.

The "how to" is simple! Just print your PDF onto some stable paper. I chose 110 lb cardstock and it worked perfectly.

I glued some pretty patterned paper on the back of the printed tags (I used a glue stick for this). Once the papers are sealed together, cut out your tags. I used a slicer but scissors work well too.

To create the hole for the ribbon, I used a three hole punch though you can purchase single hole punches of course. It figures that I couldn't find mine when I needed it!

Add some twine or ribbon and voila! Pretty watercolor gift tags.

These watercolor shapes come from my Pink Watercolor Shapes Set. They're in PNG format and can be used to make your own tags, cards and products!

Happy creating!

Please don't distribute this file. I'd prefer it if you linked back to this blog if you want to share! Thanks :)

Coloring Books & Christmas... in June. It happens.

I'm thrilled that this Adult Coloring Book is finally finished and available! A group of us from the trading website IllustratedATCs.com created this fun little coloring book to raise money for our website server costs. It's filled with 33 awesome pages of illustrations and designs in many themes from fantasy to flowers to zentangles, animals and more. There are 29 artists involved, including a few visitors to this blog. It's a downloadable and printable PDF, meaning that you will need to print it at home. You can find it in my store if you're interested and it will likely be for sale at some point on Wonderstrange too. Two of my coloring pages are in this one.

I know! I know! It's way too early for Christmas painting, right? I can't help myself. I'm excited already, lol. It's my favorite season of all. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration. I really like Halloween. So totally my second favorite season of all! It's crazy to start this early but since this is an illustration set, I have to get a move on and have it ready for all of the lovely designers out there. Hence, Christmas in June!

And finally, a Throwback Thursday, but not me. It's art from years ago! I bought this most amazing handmade watercolor book and I meant it to be my special mixed media art journal. And yeah, we all know how that goes. Many of you know how hard it is to fill an art book or a sketch book. It's like this impossible goal way out there, years in the future, "One day you will be able to fill an entire sketchbook! One day!" I'm still not there yet. Some of my sketchbooks have been around longer than my kids. So yes, this is a book I really need to finish. I started it 6 years ago. Maybe this is the year. SIGH. I don't even believe myself anymore.

Happy PPF and happy weekend!

Juggling Tribbles

Star Trek has long been one of my favorite shows. I used to watch the original series as reruns when I was a kid though I'm old enough to have watched all of Star Trek TNG when it first came out on TV. I still binge watch it now and again, plus all of the other series too. And I'm ridiculously excited for the new version coming to TV in 2017. WOO! This set of Star Trek ATCs features the always fuzzy and cute little tribbles along with the original series cast. These were marker and ink. I would like a tribble, but only one... like that's possible, lol.

Here's a bright summery set of watercolor daisies, one of my fave flowers. I think I have just about every color in my garden. Ok, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but there are a lot of them out there. This set is available in my store with pretty wreaths and other arrangements, and on Creative Market and Etsy too.



Happy long weekend! Happy PPF too :)

Cats in sweaters, blue birds and rock icons.

Happy Friday! My favorite day of the week. This means the end of the work week and the beginning of weekend fun (unless housework is involved of course). On Fridays, it's either pub night where I get to drink a couple of cold beers with people I enjoy or it's all you can eat sushi at a local restaurant. Yum and yum. Either one makes me happy.

I made this set of rock icon ATCs for an art present exchange on one of the trading sites I belong to. I forgot to post them a while back so here they are - Hendrix, McCartney, Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin in watercolor and ink. Speaking of classic rock, I just finished watching that Tom Petty documentary on Netflix today. OMG... four hours! It was like a Ken Burns series in movie form. Two hours in and I looked down to see how much was left and it was only halfway through. LOL.

I wish I could put a cute little hand knitted winter sweater on my grumpy cat though I think she'd probably take out one of my eyes if I tried. But I can paint little sweaters on cats and that's the next best thing. I do love cats, even my grumpy little ball of dramatic fur. This set of watercolor illustrations is available in all of my stores.

 

I painted this set of whimsical folk birds last week and have sorted it into a set of PNGs for all of you lovely designers out there. This one was a lot of fun to make too. There's something about cute animals that makes me happy. You can't be sad when you're looking at a kitten or a puppy can you?