With this week's Illustration Friday prompt being my most favorite color 💗PINK💗, well I couldn't resist posting something!
Cotton candy clouds, a strawberry moon and cherry blossoms with a sleeping baby elephant. The stuff dreams are made of....well, at least mine anyway.
Throwback to 2016's Sakura Dreamers. PRINTS and PENDANT NECKLACE available as well as some other GOODIES such as sketchbooks and mugs available in my Society 6 shop.
(PS-pendant necklace is FEATURED in the Spring 2018 Jewelry Affaire magazine. A full double page spread penned by yours truly.)
and i can't tell you how HAPPY i am to FINALLY be able to pick up the paintbrush again after a week of editing html and cropping and watermarking photos and staring at the 17" screen on my mac. SO ready to paint!!! :)
i am loving the new colors i have chosen for the site as well as the home page painting entitled, sakura dreamers, which i specifically designed with the new home page in mind. i LOVE sakura blossoms and elephants and dream in strawberry moons and cotton candy clouds (wait, don't we all? ;) )
been MIA lately with this WIP...the new home page/*face* of the enchanted easel.
i'm a big believer in evolution as an artist. in the past couple of years alone, my style has changed/evolved into a place where i feel happy, at peace and comfortable...not to say that i won't keep pushing myself to be the best painter i can be but i am very much enjoying the new style my art has taken on. with that being said...
here are some peeks at the painting i am currently wrapping up this week. little bit of sakura blossoms (my favorite), little bit of nighttime (the insomniac that i am), a strawberry moon, some cotton candy clouds, a sweet little sleeping elephant (maggie) and myself, of course. only thing missing is Peyton Manning...;)
can't wait to share it in june (with a new website and blog to match)!
this last commission was for me. i don't usually paint in silhouette nor do i pant graphically (for a lack of a better word). however, when the client gives you carte blanche, well life is a whole lot easier. :)
below are the reference photos i was given, my sketch and the finished painting is above.
{i think i did ok....never met a challenge i didn't like. ;)}
truly this week's IF theme was created just for me....and little maggie. ;) two little insomniac BFFs painting themselves a whimsical night sky. ' cause while the rest of the world sleeps, we paint. :)
{throwing back to last july 2014 for this one...my website's home page image and the *face* of the enchanted easel. a bit more about this painting here....}
to one year ago yesterday...and this painting, "moonlight mavens".
hard to believe this piece (and the newly designed website, by me) are exactly one year old! how do i know this? it was website renewal fee day yesterday (squarespace is awesome, by the way)....and, i have a memory like an elephant. ;)
here's the story behind this painting as well as a bit more about me (in case you didn't already know)...
{and, just because it's throwback thursday, well i thought i'd share a picture of a very small Nicole with lots of dreams behind those big brown eyes of being the bestest children's artist she could be! :)}
and, i've been under the weather (hence my lack of blogging). with that being said, let's play catch up, shall we? ;)
ok...first things first. with some commissions going on, there is still beautiful little lily who i have been working on for what seems like forever (no complaints though because i have fallen in love with her) and i am happy to say...she is just about DONE! another day or two and she'll be ready to be scanned and ready to SELL! :) here'a peek at the lovely flowers that gave her her name....
next up, we have some thumbnails of a couple of commissions i am currently in the process of taking on. one being a very personal and sweet portrait of an adopted mom and her daughter (and ex student of mine, actually) and her birth mother. looking forward to this one as it is chinese and we all know how much i LOVE asian art...from kokeshis to the anime influence. love it all.
commission number 2? baby jungle animals. right. up. my. alley. cute? baby? animals? yeah, i got this ...especially when it involves and ELEPHANT...my other favorite thing! :)
so, now that we are all caught up, i'm going back to my easel with the help of some kleenex and the cough drops i have been sucking on like candy all week. :(
actually, i finished it four days ago and kind of forgot to promote it. my downfall/undoing....self-promotion. i truly am the WORST at it. and it's not because i don't believe in myself or my work, it's that feeling of not wanting to be pushy (for a lack of a better word). plus, my introverted personality doesn't do me any favors there. slowly, but surely, i will improve in that area.
ok, back to the new site (and not my undoings-as there are a few...;))....
so, i decided to go with squarespace. i was previously hosted by intuit/homestead for the past few years but i felt like it was time for a change. and what a welcome change squarespace was/is. what wonderful customer service/assistance they have (available 24/7-and for insomniacs like myself who love to work late at night, well that right there, my friends, is priceless). also, i built the whole site in less than a week. for me, that's pretty awesome, as i do not like spending more time on my Mac than i have to. easel girl, right here (hence the fact that i don't paint digitally).
i have only the best things to say about squarespace and would highly recommend them. oh, and their mobile site is another huge plus. didn't have that with intuit...and isn't everything *mobile* now?!
now that the site is DONE (yay me!) it's back to the easel. and let me tell you, i have had some serious painting withdrawal. *needed to sniff tubes of paint just to get through*. ;)
{ps and btw, in the process of adding some new shops/venues where my art can be bought. as i said, self-promo, my undoing.}
so, now the back story for this painting (because isn't there always one.)...
well, i knew i wanted something different...something to represent the new style i seem to have evolved into with the start of 2014. i also knew i didn't want an easel in the image, knowing of course that this would be the new front page of the website.
so...i had to include my stuffed elephant, maggie into the design because she is my partner in creative crime, after all. couple that with the fact that i am an insomniac and do my best work after midnight (don't all of us artists?!) and the fact that i'm obsessed with chris martin and the coldplay song "yellow" ("look at the stars, look how they shine for you....i drew a line, i drew a line for you and all the things you do, and it was all yellow") well, there it is.
a little coldplay, a little insomnia, a little nicole and a little maggie, of course...and so "moonlight mavens" was born. from my head to the sketchbook to the finished painting.
just a glimpse at the new *face* of the enchanted easel. this business is my proverbial *baby*. I've built it all by myself and have done most of the legwork after not one, not two, but THREE cervical spine surgeries in the last four years. 'cause that's just how i roll. ;)
I've had the painting done for over a week but i'm doing my best to re-build a new website hosted by squarespace...which, by the way, i HIGHLY recommend. i didn't think such wonderful and cooperative corporations existed anymore. they are fantastic. it's just a matter of getting acquainted with the new site and how it works as well as adding watermarks and shrinking images for the web....mundane stuff like that. let's just say, i would rather be painting. but then again, what else is new?!
hoping to be done by the end of this coming week. if not sooner....*fingers crossed on that one* ;)
{a peek at my next painting entitled "moonlight mavens". it will also double as my new homepage image on my website. always trying to re-invent myself....}
{and it kind of was inspired by favorite Coldplay song. kind of...;)}
finally got around to making some changes to the sketches on my website over the weekend. i re-drew them all because i prefer my mechanical pencil to a stylus ANYDAY!
please, it took me almost 14 hours straight just to re-configure everything and "clean up" the sketches a bit in photoshop...and add the pink.
DONE!!!
14 hours on a Mac in photoshop...no thanks! i much prefer my pencil and paintbrush!
well, for all of you who follow me on facebook (or on here), you know i have been working on this cute little elephant over the last 4 days. it was a surprise gift for the wonderful secretary in my neurosurgeon's office, jackie, who is about to pop soon! these people have been so amazing to me through 3 neck surgeries/cervical spine/fusions that there was just NO way i could let it go without doing something. jackie has always been so lovely to me over the years that it was a no-brainer for me to want to paint her something super cute for the impending arrival of her little one.
since she's waiting until the baby is born to know whether it will be a little girl or boy, i wanted to make sure that i created/designed something gender friendly. also, it turns out, jackie LOVES elephants (like me). so, it couldn't have turned out any better.
i delivered it to her personally today and she was so surprised. her reaction made the rest of my 2013 for sure. granted, i'm a bit sore from painting so much for so many days in a row (as i'm still trying to recover fully here from my 3rd surgery) but i have to say, her reaction made the soreness worthwhile.
i have decided to sell PRINTS of this in my etsy shop found here:
it is available in sizes 6x6 or 8x8. a perfect addition for any baby boy/girl's nursery. besides, who could resist a cute little baby elephant...in a diaper? ;)
