oh sweet vino

We've been making a bit of progress on the wine label for Pace wines I mentioned a week or so back. It's had some setbacks and ideas keep changing but I think it's almost done.

The 70's typeface one has been vetoed since we can't legally use "twenty ten" as the year on the label. And it would be too difficult to change the varietal every year...it's a shame but I really love how it turned out.

I also need to wrap it up within the next couple of days before I start my road trip to Austin, Texas! This will be my first trip back to Texas since I graduated 2 years ago (and fled to Italy)... I'm so excited to get back to Austin, especially since my visit coincides with the music festival, SXSW. Which Jovanotti, my favorite Italian singer, will be performing at...che fortuna!

Currently with the labels, we have a bunch of different ideas that we're playing with...one of which gives me an excuse to play with some wine...

I've been painting with wine today to make these cute little succulent plant patterns to use as a background behind the text for a version of the wine label. Such fun! And it's such a lovely color to work with.

I haven't played/painted with wine in quite some time, not since my little Vino book  I made in Italy. But I really love the result of it...and so far I'm loving the combination of text on top of it.

These are some other label ideas I've been playing around with. Which idea do you like best?

Now if only there was a little more product research involved...

heckyl & jyve

Busy week! I got my website up and running this week, and today put some prints up for sale in my 2nd Etsy shop, heckyl & jyve. So far, I've put up a handful of my lithography prints but I will be adding some intaglio prints too! Here's a little peek at some of my prints that will be up for sale on there...

sketchy notions

It's official! I have my own website! I'm so unbelievably happy to finally have one. It is high time that I got one and started getting more professional with my work. Next step...business cards!

Also! I've been getting a 2nd Etsy shop, heckyl & jyve, up and ready for my prints and less children's book oriented stuff.

AND! The icing on the happy cake for these past 24 hours...my sketchbook post was featured on one of my favorite sites, Craftgawker. Happy day!

SO! Check out my website if you'd like, sketchy notions. It has all my children's books, artist books, prints, photos and many things I never even put on this blog...for example, my little Belgium book (which was I actually photographed for the first time ever yesterday!)

sketchbook ode & the last of the Italy sketches

These 2 sketches were the last sketches I did in my now ENORMOUS sketchbook that lasted my whole stay in Europe, starting way back in May 2010 until this past December.

The first one is from when I went to visit my good friend Vanessa in Lucca. It's such a fun little town with amazing food and the greatest raised wall that encircles the older part of the city. And you can rent bikes to ride around on top of it!

The second image is the last sketch I did in Italy, as I was waiting in the airport to catch my dreaded flight to Switzerland.

 



















Unfortunately, there are still 5 blank pages in it and I can't bring myself to sketch anything from photos after all the time I spent on the other drawings on location...I guess I'll just have to go back, what a shame!

 

I really love how fat this sketchbook is now. Nearly all my train tickets, museum stubs, business cards and other randomly assorted paper scraps and items are kept in the back pocket. It is now so full that the binding is coming undone!

I still like to carry this guy around with me, it's kind of like a comfort blanket now. Aside from my lucky bag, this is the one item that was constantly with me through my travels and daily life.


It travelled all over Europe with me. From Belgium to Sicily (in one day!),

to Switzerland and across France,

across Spain and everything Gaudi,

and, of course, all over Italy.

I branched out to using mini sketchbooks while I was travelling but this big guy was my go to every time I needed to draw some thing/place amazing.