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By: andrea joseph,
on 12/23/2014
By: andrea joseph,
on 11/5/2014
By: Laura Zarrin,
on 2/5/2013
By: Laura Zarrin,
on 7/11/2012
By: andrea joseph,
on 5/21/2012
By: andrea joseph,
on 12/19/2011
This was a nice little surprise in my mail box today. I sold this drawing earlier in the year. It was destined for a little girl's bedroom wall on the other side of the world to me. How great does it look all mounted and framed? I would never have considered such vibrant colours or patterned mounts ('matts' in the US?). I probably would have gone with white. These photos make me totally reconsider how I'll frame my drawings in the future. I think it looks fabulous.
Do you have any of photos of my drawings in your homes? I'd love to gather some together for a future post.
Thanks, Oli, for these lovely pics.
By: andrea joseph,
on 7/19/2011
A new oldie up for sale on Etsy. Take a look HERE.
By: andrea joseph,
on 7/4/2011
A few posts ago I told you about how I'd swapped the childish purse I'd been carrying around for the ever so grown up owl purse on the left. The childish purse in question was the cat one on the right. When my friend saw my new purse she said "so now you've had an owl and a pussycat". Then we both looked at each other and said "now, THAT would be a good drawing".
I don't know if it's any good, but I do know that these pair are the most delicious of subjects to draw. I love all the patterns and textures. And, I'm not sure that I've finished with them yet.
This drawing is for sale HERE.
By: andrea joseph,
on 6/19/2011
This is the first time in ages that I have not had some kind of deadline looming on the horizon. And, after the stress of some of those deadlines I cannot believe I'm actually going to complain about that - but I am. I'm suddenly feeling so restless. I want something to work toward. Some project. I don't know what sort of project but I'll figure it out. I'll make something happen.
In the meantime, here's a new drawing. A few months ago my coin purse fell apart and I temporarily replaced it with an old purse that had belonged to my niece - when she was about five. It was ridiculously childish purse for 'a lady of a certain age' so, I decided I must replace it and went out to buy a new one. And, yep, you've guessed it; I came home with this much more grown up cloth owl.
This little guy is available for sale (the original drawing, not the purse) HERE.
By: andrea joseph,
on 3/25/2011
I was going to say that this is the finished version of the drawing I posted part of a little while back. But now looking at it on the screen I think it could do with more shading; a little sepia to give it an antique feel. That's how I had seen it in my head before I began. Also, I always intended adding a handle because it is supposed to be a drawer full of souvenirs. Or, the handle could have made it look like a suitcase. And, I love that ambiguity.
I'm often asked how long my drawings take. Well, at a guess, this one took a mere fifty hours. To appreciate the obsessive attention to detail click on the drawing and stick your conk in. Please do; FIFTY chuffing hours.
Oh dear, it seems that some of you have having trouble enlarging this image. I'll try to fix it, until then you can see the bigger version HERE.
I've just discovered Corel Painter and am thoroughly enjoying everything it has to offer. This blue owl started off as a teeny marker pen doodle in my moleskine ideas book, and was scanned in and dropped into Painter where I had a sinful amount of fun painting him over, playing with their oil brushes and palette. Couldn't do it without my Wacom Bamboo pen and tablet -- I spent a whole day immersed in a non-messy oil painting experience. Can't wait to get my hands 'dirty' again. I have further plans for my Blue Owl, he will be 'graduating' soon and wearing the proper attire for it.
Here's an older drawing (Bee Happy Daisies) that I reworked in photoshop (pre-Painter discovery) and uploaded to Zazzle. I cut the bees and flowers out and played with the design in various configurations on the different products that they have to offer ... I love the customization option on Zazzle that allows for this. So it's slightly different depending on which product it's on up at the store, but this is the original illustration:
Cheers!
Blue Owl cards and matching gifts at Floating Lemons at Zazzle
Bee Happy Daisies cards and matching gifts at Floating Lemons at Zazzle
By: andrea joseph,
on 1/27/2011
Not content with just drawing on air mail envelopes I've actually take to drawing the little buggers too.
I was going to take this opportunity to have a right old rant about the Royal Mail. I am seriously fecked off with them right now. There's been a much higher percentage of people not getting their mail from me this time round. Specifically the stuff I posted before Christmas. I'm not sure how they can justify this. Or how they expect small businesses, in a difficult time, to soak up the extra costs of resending orders. Plus, when I think of all the time I've put into getting this stuff out it just makes me furious. And, that's not the half of it. It's, perhaps, not so bad when you actually have the stuff to resend but when an original drawing goes missing then that really hurts. To anyone who has not yet received their order (if you ordered over a couple of weeks ago that is) then please get in touch and I'll put it right. Big apologies, once again.
So, I'll save that rant for another time.
And, 'feck' isn't a swear word. No. How can it be when priests use it all the time?
I still haven't started the tax returns.
By: andrea joseph,
on 12/17/2010
It wasn't until the day I was leaving Clermont Ferrand that I realised that I hadn't bought any souvenirs of the trip. We'd been so busy at the exhibition that I'd forgotten - which is ironic as I was there to exhibit my travel sketchbook that was themed 'souvenirs of my travels'. So on our final day we had an hour before we had to be the airport to find some souvenirs.
Luckily my stadar (a kind of radar, or gaydar, that detects stationery outlets in the vicinity), which had been going off for the whole trip, pointed me in the direction of a great big stationers close to our hotel. Now, for me, stationery plus souvenirs ticks so many boxes I couldn't have been happier.
So, here are my souvenirs of Clermont Ferrand; a half blue and half red pencil, two stencil maps of France and a ruler. Mission accomplished.
I'm not so happy with the blue and red drawing, above. No doubt I'll mess around with that some more in the future.
Of course, there are also all of the sugar packets, napkins, tram tickets, receipts, bills and business cards I also collected during the trip, but hey that's another drawing. Or six.
These drawing are a part of my aforementioned souvenir themed sketchbook. You can see the rest of the series HERE.
By: Barbara Gulotta,
on 11/18/2010
This drawing started as a small sketch of 2 turkeys for my (sketchbook project)…
I added a little color & a beautiful yellow lab.
By: andrea joseph,
on 10/19/2010
Well, hello dolly.
There certainly seems to be a theme running through my work at the moment. The drawing, above, was another that I really enjoyed doing. I love having so many different textures to tackle, and each of the dolls had a texture and character of it's own. I'm leaving them there, for now, though. I'm all dolled out.
By: andrea joseph,
on 10/16/2010
Here's a spread from my travel Moleskine. I know. I know what you are thinking. You don't spell recieved like that.
By: Laura Zarrin,
on 10/4/2010
By: andrea joseph,
on 9/29/2010
A couple more spreads from my travel themed Moleskine. It's a tale of two drawings. A game of two halves. Or something like that. The drawing above is of some bouquet garni I bought in Lyon. Now, I know some twigs and sticks wrapped in leaves isn't going to float every bodies boat, but it does mine.
I enjoyed this drawing, loved the subject, colours and the textures and I like to think it shows.
In contrast, the sea anemones, below, turned out to be quite the opposite. Although, the subject is very beautiful I couldn't get a handle on it. It really should have been lovely - gorgeous shapes, amazing textures, patterns and colours - but I just couldn't make it work. I end up getting so frustrated when I cannot achieve on paper what I see in my head. I didn't enjoy this one, at all.
And, I think that shows too.
Anyway, enough moaning. You can see the rest of my travel moleskine HERE.
By: andrea joseph,
on 9/13/2010
So, as I said, some brand spanking new drawings from my travel Moleskine. Ah, I just love those sketch books so much. That beautiful smooth cream paper. Plus, of course, it's a heavyweight paper which means it can just about withstand all my obsessive cross hatching. I don't think there is anyway you can improve the Moleskine product - although I'd love them to add a bigger size paper size, and perhaps a nice bright white paper to their range. Not that I'm complaining. I just love these books.
I am now feeling determined to finish this travel themed Moley. Maybe by the end of the year. I know it might not sound like the most ambitious ambition (?) in the world, but these spreads do take hours - and sometimes I'm talking about double figures. Not that I'm complaining. I just love to draw, so I'm going to go hell for leather in this sketchbook. Time permitting, of course.
Anyway, to celebrate my return to the travel Moleskine I've put a sale on the zine that I've produced from this book. It contains nine drawings all with a travel theme. Buy it now by visiting my little shop HERE. 
By: Laura Zarrin,
on 8/16/2010
By: Laura Zarrin,
on 8/11/2010
By: Laura Zarrin,
on 8/5/2010
By: Laura Zarrin,
on 7/15/2010
What's Bronte's deepest, darkest secret that she keeps locked away in her diary? She's dreams of becoming a ballerina!
By: Laura Zarrin,
on 7/8/2010
By: Laura Zarrin,
on 6/21/2010
I've been so inspired by Kelly Light's blog Ripple. It's amazing how it has snowballed. I've donated/bought about four painting already. I've lost control. I finally got my sketch card finished. It's about 5 1/2" x 5" and is an original color pencil painting. You can get it here for a $10 donation. What a deal!
Barbeques!! This is too cute!