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Make Art That Sells Assignment 5 Final - Party Goods. It's all over now :*{ No more Make Art That Sells class work. I had a BLAST on this last project. I decided to work on bits which would be appropriate for a little girl's party. So I came up with these three Flower Girl characters and laced some of the little icons from their dresses into the ribbon-like patterns on the paper goods: Flower Girl character designs. © Samantha Grenier My favorite part of this assignment sketching out ideas. I became fascinated with folk art and florals. Below are a couple pages from my books: Party Paper Sketches 1 Assorted Icons - © Samantha Grenier Party Paper Sketches 2 Birds and Girls - © Samantha Grenier I was tempted to render my final pieces in paint, (I have Folk Art brand paint sitting on my desk!) but I'm kind of a novice with the "finished" look in paint, so I shy'ed away from it. I can see this in my cut paper technique too. Party-party!...

Map of Amherst, NH - Editorial Illustration Assignment I can hardly believe Lilla's course is nearly over. This session has been challenging but very rewarding. I'm THRILLED I took up a spot in Part B. I was nervous just before the class started up because I struggled with conceptualizing my finals for Part A, and I've got a big side project on my hands which I had to juggle into the mixture of drawing. Above everything else in the course, I really looked forward to this past week's assignment: Editorial. I've been so focused the past couple years on Children's Book illustration, but I have a strong attraction to editorial work which I'm starting to re-investigate while I build up my Picture Book portfolio. This week's assignment was to design a map of our home town. So WELCOME to Amherst, New Hampshire: Close-up of some of the colonial buildings from the historical district. And a Pine branch. Amherst prides itself on it's rich colo...

Scrapbooking bits - final assignment Who doesn't like scoping out the towers of loose papers at the craft shop? It's a pretty big area to avoid. Scrapbooking is usually my first stop: search for paper textures and eye the motifs. What surprised me most about this week is that there are still scrapbooking companies licensing from freelancers for there collections. I thought this was an area where companies relied on in-house designers. Well... surprise ! They also find artist inspiration to make accessories too. How about that? This week's assignment was to design a sheet of icons which could be suitable for chipboard pieces or stickers, or inspiration bits and pieces. I started with a LOT of drawings... here's a snippet: Sketchbook spread with scrapbooking inspirations. Then I went nuts on PATTERNS to apply to my digital cuts: Pink-pink-pink herringbone pattern Assorted patterns which could be used for washi tape, paper, icon decorations, etc. ...

Assignment #2: Baby Apparel Babies are fun. No doubt about that :-) I had oodles of fun working on my camp-themed Baby Apparel Assignment for the Make Art That Sells eCourse . I struggled with this assignment... just a little bit. The struggle wasn't about coming up with ideas to complete the assignment, but that I couldn't stop drawing. Below are some close-ups of the final artwork, since it's so hard to see in it's tiny-format. Placement fabric design: Animal trailers and trees. Baby Girl's dress mock-up. Tree patterned onesie. "Camp Cutie" onesie. The color pallet was inspired by Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom .  I got a little carried away with the film inspiration and ideas kept flowing in about scouting. I had to take a day or two to re-collect my thoughts on the project, but kept drawing all the while. I eventually landed on my final animal campers, which may be a little abstract for baby apparel, but still cute no...

Holiday Card -- First Assignments Yep! Back in class :-) I'm back to taking Lilla Roger's eCourse Make Art The Sells (or MATS for short). The first assignment had me whittling away at Holiday cards. I LOVED making this card! I know I may have gotten a little too ambitious with this assignment, but I had a vision and I just had to go for it. I don't want to burn out after assignment #1... I've got four more weeks to tackle! This is definitely one of the market niches I've really taken to. Though the assignment was to make 2 cards, my second composition never left the sketchbook because I became so consumed by this one. I did struggle with background quite a bit. Here are some of the samples: Holiday card background samples. Right to left - flat navy, silver lacy, and assorted darks (shown here with lace detail). The navy is a little different for a Christmasy card. All the bits and pieces were originally pooled together against a white background, bu...

I flourished despite about 50 disputes with a container of Mod Podge: "Flourish" decorative collage. I'm going to be perfectly honest here: I nearly (and am still tempted to) tear up a huge wad of tissue/tracing/velum/watercolor papers and just spell out the word "SHIT!" I didn't think it would be appropriate for the class, it seemed resentful. It does sound snarky and negative, but I can see it... "Shit" would be fun. Who wouldn't want a big "S-H-I-T" on their wall? Yes, I did swear at my materials about a dozen times before collaging  won me over. I think it's the designing of the composition I like so much... that and transparency papers. Part of the construction of this piece consisted of a fight with a single paint brush, glue, humidity, bleeding inks, and my inability to get a zipper to zip the way I wanted it to. Also I was stabbed by a staple from the zipper package. My grudge against the zipper has passed and I...

Meet my egotistical snail! So week #3 from Lilla Rogers' Make Art That Sells eCourse was all about the Picture Book. "Yay!" I thought. I thought.... Almost there, but no lollipop! We were to either illustrate a book cover or interior spread to a Hans Christen Andersen fable. I chose the spread because I really liked the assortment of possibilities, but I feel like I tried to show too much: "Finished" illustration spread for The Snail and the Rose Tree , by Hans Christen Andersen. The bit I enjoyed the most about this assignment was that we needed to somehow integrate hand-lettering - whether it be the title of the book or text within the story.  I can't explain why I've been dragging my feet on about testing out hand lettering, but I really had fun with this, I just wish I tried illustrating type and hand lettering sooner: Text "Bear Nuts" - Those are Hazelnuts. Text "Give Milk". Text "Grow Roses". ...

Submitted Bolt Fabric Assignment My first week of Lilla Rogers' eCourse  (Make Art That Sells) is winding down now. It was enlightening while challenging. I'm in LOVE with fabric designing and I'll most certainly begin exploring this area later this summer. For now I've got to get through weeks 2-5 and the  LA SCBWI Conference  - one focus at a time right now! Probably the most challenging bit was suffering through another cold, while juggling the work-load. What is this? #3 or 4 this year? It was the type of distraction which could derail creativity.... Could, but didn't. I did drift off to sleep thinking of the assignments very often, so there are some things I failed to capture just due to the fatigue. Of course a giant head cold strikes as soon as I've got to busy myself with a looming deadline!  Blah ! Well I'm surviving. I'm pretty sure the cold is starting to taper. At least I got SOME rest this weekend. I've been sneaking e...