New Tumblr!

As promised, I started an art tumblr for original drawings and quick illustrations:

http://arcribbins.tumblr.com/

Expect regular updates, as my intention is to have a picture post every day.

Just saw the Illo Friday word is "Grounded" this week. Seems like a good one; I'm sure I can come up with something.

hey, it's 2012!

My husband and I spent most of December driving around California, visiting family and the occasional tourist attraction. It was an amazing month, but we're both glad to be back and getting back into the routine of normal life. James recently received the good news that he passed all of the CPA exams (which had consumed his life for the latter half of 2011) and we're both stoked about the new year.

My holiday cards were a hit with our friends and family, and I also turned out this watercolor painting for my grandma, who wanted something with jellyfish. It's completely different from what I usually do, but it was a fun experiment:

Then later in the month, I got to see these guys at the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

When we were in Monterey, we had some downtime in the motel that we spent watching The Next Great Baker on TLC (we're Cake Boss fans). One of the challenges was to create a wedding cake that embodied one of the three themes offered: vintage, princess fantasy or Hollywood glamor. Naturally, that led to me drawing the lineart for this, which I later painted with watercolor:

There's so much I want to do this year and though the year may have started out with hitting up a bar for brunch in my pajamas (hey, there was a special) I'm feeling very optimistic about getting things done this year. I'm definitely going to keep writing and continuing to submit short stories for publication—and hopefully, with the support of my writing group, I can find it in me to finally finish the second draft of the novel I started in 2008. On the 4th, I'm going to be launching a tumblr blog with all original content to keep up with my sketches and smaller projects.

I'm also going to be making a more serious effort to use my twitter account. We'll see how that last one goes.

christmas card design

I spent yesterday and today working on this design for a holiday greeting card. I was originally going to put some text in the center, but I liked it better without. Here's the line work before I colored it:

And the painted version is now finished and can be seen here!

it's autumn already?

I'm definitely appreciating the cooler weather, but it feels like summer absolutely flew by. I have a very summery illustration series of girls of bathing suits I'm still finishing up. At the moment, I'm in the middle of redesigning my site, but I'll get that up that up very soon.

Here's a mixed media (pen, watercolor, markers and colored pencil) piece I did yesterday while staying dry inside. I used an Aquash-style brush for the watercolor, which worked much nicer than I'd been expecting.

Illustration Friday: Swell

'Swell' as in 'Hunky Dory' as in, 'Let's dress up and pretend it's the '40s.'

Let's just go with it. Ballpoint, watercolor, colored pencil and gouache.

...and a finished project!

I finished this graphic on Friday for a Wise Guys game. I was given only very basic guidelines for the faces, so there was a lot of creative flexibility. And it wound up being a lot of fun!

a belated personal update

I've keep asking myself where the last two months went then I remember, oh yeah, I've been planning my wedding! James and I are getting married on July 23rd, which is...well, excitingly close!

Melissa Tomeoni is our wedding photographer—and we already had a lot of fun with her in June during our 'engagement shoot.' Her photography is beautiful. Check out her blog!

(James is pretty great too).