pretty in pink

Just popping in to the 'ole bliggity blog to say Hi! No time this week to do the Illustration Friday challenge, I'm too busy happily sketching my little fingers to the bone. Nothing I can share yet, so I'm sharing this painting I did a few years ago. Can you tell I *love* desserts? Oh, yeah! Hope ya all are having a great week!

IF - celebrate

For Illustration Friday this week, with the theme word - celebrate. This image is based on another one of the stamp designs in the latest A Muse spring stamp release. Party chicks! Yay! They are having a rockin good time!

This theme is so perfect for this week, because I actually am celebrating today! I have been given an awesome opportunity to illustrate my 1st children's book and the deal was confirmed today. Woo-hooo! I can hardly believe my great fortune to have this dream come true. Many thanks to the author and publisher of the book for having such faith in me. I'll share more details about the book and the process I'll be going through to illustrate it, when I'm allowed to share.

So, I'm a bit nervous, but mostly really excited to begin this journey. I may not be able to contribute as much to the IF challenges in the next few months, but I promise to check in with all my blog buddies from time to time. Wish me luck...here I go.

a muse window display

It's window display time at the A Muse store. This is what I made for it, based on the new Easter stamp, Carrot car. I hung him in one of the 3 windows, then painted, right on the window, puff clouds of steam coming from the car, so he's just zooming along. I also painted green grass and easter eggs along the bottom of the 3 windows. We've never painted right on the window before, so I was a little nervous about how it would turn out and it really did work out quite nicely.

Linda took some photos, so I expect them to show up on her blog in the next few days. She even took a couple of me painting...I was, like -"Make sure I don't have plumber's pants", since I was bent over, kneeling on the floor!

IF - time

"Time for dinner!" Geez, where has the time gone...here it is Thurs and I've been messing around with this off and on all week. Time to post it, even though I wanted to pop it into Photoshop and do some shading. I guess that will have to wait. I do have a good excuse for not being as energetic as usual. The mother of all colds came to visit our house and everyone is sick, even the cat started sneezing yesterday. We are on the end of it now, finally! I can see light at the end of the tunnel of discarded kleenex.

new from a muse

A Muse, the wonderful paper-crafting company that I illustrate for, just released their new spring line of stamps and papers. I always like to pick my favorites that I designed from the new releases and post them here. This time, my favorites happened to be the ones they used in their updated blog banner, so I lifted it from the blog to show here. The clouds and the bunny princess - they look so cute with the colored circles behind them. The ladies at A Muse rock!

IF - flawed

"Poor little black manx kitty feels flawed when he sees other cats with big, curly tails."

Having fun playing in and learning Illustrator. Now that I have my CS4, there's even more to learn and explore! I had a blast making this one.