Christmas Card Pictures

Sometimes you realize that it's time to send Christmas cards, and you don't have a decent family picture to send with them. So you run to a picturesque spot, meet your sister's family, and quickly take a few photos as the sun is setting. 

Here is Christina and her family:

Chrissy took this picture of my family, obviously. But I edited it, so here it is. (:

Alison's Baby Shower and Diaper Cake

Myself, my mother in law, and a few other friends put together this fun baby shower for my sister in law and beloved friend Alison.

This is the diaper cake Aubree and I made for her.

And the mini version since we had some more stuff and didn't want to add more to the one above. This one felt like a little bouquet which made me happy.

 Steph made all of the paper pinwheels.

Pretty food table:

I made those quiches! (I'm not the world's best cook/baker.) If nothing else, they were pretty.

The activity at the shower was making onesies for the soon-to-be baby girl. Here's what I constructed.

Laurie's Family Pictures

I feel like I'm getting a disproportionate amount of photography on this little blog. But here's some more. I took family pictures of my sister Laurie's family. My biggest accomplishment from these pictures is having the guts to call a friend I haven't talked to in a long time to ask permission to go on their property. It ended up being the perfect location. 

Sylvia

I was commissioned to do this pastel portrait of my late friend Sylvia, the mother of my friends Jessica and Rachel, by Rachel. She was a special lady, and it was a neat experience drawing this. I didn't have an exact photo reference, so we had to improvise and I had to go on memory and gut a little more then I'm used to. 

I like that in the final product she looks happy. I think she is.

Initial sketch for the family's approval and feedback:

Final portrait:

Mason

I took some newborn pictures of Mason, the son of our friends Sam and Aubree. He was only a week old in these pictures, but he is a a big boy. It was dark by the time we actually got started, so the artificial light is harsh, but they are still sweet.

Doo be doo be doo bah

Per his request, I made my son's Perry the Platypus costume for Halloween. I couldn't have bought one if I wanted to, even online they were sparse and hideous. I'm all about sewing Halloween costumes, when hot glue guns, velcro, and unfinished edges are perfectly acceptable.

The head piece was made by using a baseball cap as a base, with foam used to shape the rest of the head and the beak. I could only find a black fedora, but, amazingly I bleached it and it turned out the perfect brown.

Quilted Platypus tail:

Five Year Old Pictures

A few of the photos that I took of Frankie on a lovely, cloudy day. I can't believe he's so big.

Little Red Tree

We spent a weekend in the Mountains, and the leaves were beautiful.

Donation

This is the 2-tone charcoal sketch for the people that purchased it at Jenecee's auction in March. This was kind of a weird situation. To me saying that you buy "1 portrait" means ONE person. I tried to tell him this multiple times, but he would just ignore that I had ever said it. I finally gave up and went from the picture they wanted. Not my favorite piece ever, but hopefully they liked it. They got a killer deal.

Black Eye and Good Light

I was taking pictures of Frankie's black and swollen eye. I discovered that perching him on the end of my dining room table is a great place to take portrait photos in my house. I kind of wish he didn't have the black eye in these because they are great.

Birthday Cake

It is so much fun to brave the marshmallow fondant once a year and create Frankie's cake. To be fair, Frankie helped with this a lot, too.

Summer Slacker

Like the title implies, Summer and all it's excursions have been rough on my creative goals. That, and work has been crazy busy. Plus my little family is hoping for a new addition through adoption. It has been really time consuming getting everything ready. See our adoption blog here, it was a creative work in and of itself.

But here's a few things, and I should be getting back into the swing of things now.

This is a rendering of a house that I designed, basically from the ground up. The floor plan and everything else was from scratch. I think it turned out beautifully, too bad their subdivision doesn't think it fits in and probably won't let them build it this way.

In the photography realm, here's a few that I like. Frankie going for a swim on a fishing excursion:

And my nephew, I took a few family pictures for his family, but this was my favorite.

I scrapbooked! My son is now 3 months old in his baby book instead of a week old.

I finalized a sketch for another illustration for Nick's game. This is the space pirate Big Mama Mehah. I was giggling to myself as I did this sketch.

pencil, flowers, tablet

So once again, things have been crazy and I haven't been posting as I should. But I've still been creating. I co-created a whole class reunion! But I don't have any pictures of that here. It wasn't very visual.

So here's some catchup:

A sketch of Frankie's Sunday nap on the couch at the beginning of the month:

Bridal bouquet and groom boutonniere for bridal pictures. The rest of the wedding is this weekend. Sadly, I don't get to make her bouquet again. It was a really fun one. (I may have stolen the second two pictures from the bride's facebook. She wanted to be my friend, she probably didn't know the risks.)

And lastly, I am helping my brother in law Nick illustrate a new game he has created.

The game is based in the future, in space. This is for a card that involves you transporting the circus on your ship in return for payment.

Sketch 1

Sketch 2 after looking up some visual sources. (Bad picture, I was being lazy.)

First session with my new tablet, my payment for helping Nick with the illustrations. 

It connects to my desktop, acts like another monitor, and I can draw/paint right on the surface with a stylus. 

It still makes me drool every time I take it out. 

Final product after finding some better sources and getting the hang of the tablet:

Brian Head Fire Station

I started and finished this rendering this week. It is a conceptual rendering for a proposal MRW submitted to Brian Head City. Let's hope they like it.

Plein Air at Ivins Resevoir

8x10, Oil on Canvas

I painted while my boys fished.

Spring Berry Wreath

Not too bad for $8 worth of berry bushes from the dollar store, wire, and cardboard. I've been wanting one of these forever but they are usually quite expensive.

Fini