Inktober 9 - 15

Tomorrow I'm going to call Inktober half way done. And I'm still shocked at my consistency. I'm learning a lot. I'm squeezing in the time to draw. It's really challenging, but is also really rewarding.

I should post more often so I don't have 7 at a time – eek.

Day 9: Skulls in Hats. Fun to get the watercolors out for this one.

Day 10: I ran the Queen Bee Half and did this to commemorate my time (and PR!)

Day 11: After spending a day at the Ohio Renaissance Festival, I drew ye olde monster in his Ren Faire outfit eating a juicee turkey legge.

Day 12: An evil juggler and his poor pumpkins. 

Day 13: My FAVORITE so far. Cloud airship.

Day 14: Just a fashionable girl walking her Dinodrog.

Day 15: The cutest vampire who ever un-lived.

Inktober days 5 - 8

More Inktober! I'm amazed that I've managed to be this consistent. 8 days in a row! It is one of my goals. I'm drawing all I can when I can.

Day 5: Bench Time

Day 6: Crabby Cabby

Day 7: A Moster Selfie

Day 8: Scary Scarecrow

Inktober has begun!

I'm taking Inktober very seriously this year. Not going to miss a day and also trying hard to work on a couple of things. One is on story-telling and the other is on composition. Of course some days, the drawings will just be whatever I can fit in and quickly sketch.

Here's what I have so far - 4 days in.

Day 1

Day 2: The Monster Date

Day 3: Whimsy Town

Day 4: Bird Halloween Costumes

Time to start blogging again!

It's been a while. But I'm trying my best to focus more on illustration and maybe heading somewhere with it more than the three times a year I get to draw (in)frequency that I've been maintaining.

I recently did a workshop online called Build A Freelance Illustration Business. It was ran by Salli Swindell of "They Draw and Cook," and it was fantastic. On top of that, they created a facebook page for everyone who paid for the workshop to build a community together, and that too has been more than I ever expected. It's so great interacting with people who are in similar stages of their career or passions. Everyone is supportive and energetic. Maybe it's my perspective from working by myself all day, but I'm finding the group to be really helpful.

I've ramped up some social media things, mostly to keep myself producing. I got my website running through Behance, published my facebook page for Stephanie Smith Creative, changed my Instagram handle to be StephanieSmithCreative, made a separate twitter account, and even started a Pinterest page. I'm trying to do something at least every other day. It's hard with the work load I have now with my graphic design business, but I'm settling in and adjusting some things.

Here are all of my social media / web presence:

Stephanie Smith Creative

web - http://www.stephaniesmithcreative.com

instagram - https://instagram.com/stephaniesmithcreative/

twitter - https://twitter.com/ssmith_creative

facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/StephanieSmithCreative

blog - http://stephaniesmithcreative.blogspot.com/

tumblr - http://stephaniesmithcreative.tumblr.com/

linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/pub/stephanie-smith/5/498/9a8

pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/helmssmith/stephanie-smith-creative/

BoomBoom Prints - www.boomboomprints.com/shop/artist/StephanieSmithCreative

I want to start focusing on producing prints, and am going to start with BoomBoom Prints, and this market of children and baby stuff. That's what people usually say my style fits, so I'm going to explore it some more, focusing it there even more. Then another idea / category I like is pop culture stuff. I'd like to do some fan art in my style – see what happens there. And last, I really like the idea of some sort of project or ongoing thing that uses art but enlightens people or makes them happy or interact somehow. Kind of like what Salli and Nate have done with They Draw & Cook and They Draw & Travel...but not for the artist community. I haven't figured out what that would be yet. 

So that's a quick update. And without further ado, here are my Morning Monsters I've been posting recently.

National Pig Day

It's National Pig Day. I had no idea. But here's a drawing of a smart pig reading from her library. 

"Metropolis" for Illustration Friday

Broomball in 50º Weather

It's bound to be a soggy mess this week!

Morning Observation Sketch

Really trying to get back into drawing every day. So, this morning I decided to sketch what was in front of me, with any old pen, no matter how I thought it would turn out.

And so, here is my cup of coffee and keyboard.

It was pretty fun. I like being loose when I sketch. My drawings are usually very tight, but I seem to enjoy exploring this other side as well. I could see slapping some color on the keyboard, irregularly and not accurate to the real keyboard. This is probably all a good exercise for me to step back a bit and not be so focused on minute details.

Anyway, cheers to a little drawing!

Year of the Pig

My friend's daughters are into their Chinese zodiacs. So, he wanted me to do a painting of them for their birthdays this year. This is the Year of the Pig one. The other will be Year of the Monkey. This was a super fun idea. I finally bought good water color paper and wow, what a difference that made. I'm super excited to start painting more soon!

Into the Stars

This was a painting I just did for my husband's co-worker who lost her baby nephew. His name was Nashton and he had crazy hair. On the back of the painting, I wrote the following quote from The Little Prince:

"For you, though, for you it will be different. When you look up at the sky at night, since I'll be living on one of them, since I'll be laughing on one of them, for you, it'll be as if all the stars are laughing."

Sesame Street characters

These were some of my favorites. I had a bunch of silly songs in my head while working on these!

MG on a beach

Movember

Greg is leading up the Movember celebration at his company and is giving awards. He had a limited budget, which only got him one prize from the Art of Shaving store at the mall. So that award goes to Best Moustache.

For the other two...I did award drawings, so he at least has a certificate. :)

And so...The Creepiest Moustache and Wildest Moustache awards:

Steampunk Turkey

I can't wait to color this!

Bear and Bird