Christmas Gift Preview

It's that time of the year where my art making is at its high. Every Christmas I make paintings for family members as gifts. Here's a sneak peak of one of my Salt Lake Temple linoleum prints framed and ready to go. This one is for Jeff's grandma.

I can't wait to share the rest of my projects!

On the Savannah

Just having a little fun sketching today. Although I'm pretty sure being carried away by balloons was one of my many childhood fears. :)

Salt Lake Temple

I finished carving my linoleum block and printed a few runs last night. I love how they are turning out. Now I can't wait to see how the ink will react to adding color. Hopefully it won't run!

Brides and Grooms

Style

 I'm still trying to figure out what style I want to use for my custom drawings. Which one do you like best?

Sibling Love

Backgrounds

The nice thing about creating art on the computer is the flexibility. In this case, I can't decide what background looks best. What do you think?

Linoleum Block Print

I'm trying something new this week and making a linoleum block print of the Salt Lake Temple. Here is my progress so far. It's been very therapeutic to physically carve something. Plus I decided to buy the easy carve material to reduce the risk of cutting myself. I have really liked the medium so far, but I don't think I would use it again if I was doing a more organic image. It's really easy to carve straight lines, but curves are a little harder. The fun part about making prints is the element of surprise after you print your first image. I'll let you know how they turn out!

Custom Couples

I've been practicing my custom drawings.

I love how my little sister's engagement photo turned out.

And this one is drawn from one of my wedding photos. 

Sketching

I'm loving my new Wacom Bamboo Tablet. Jeff knew I had been eyeing it, and I was thrilled when it showed up in the mail a few days later. It was a very happy surprise after Baby Jane and I took turns with the stomach flu. 

With this tablet the possibilities are endless. It is so nice to sketch and automatically be able to save it digitally. Plus there are so many fun tools and brushes. Basically I'm obsessed. Having a baby that wants my constant attention doesn't leave a lot of room for art. But I'm hoping my tablet will allow me to spend a few minutes here and there to create. I'm also hoping to do more custom work by turning photos into sketches like this one.