the National Stationery Show 2018

One of the big accomplishments of 2018 for me was debuting Sketchy Notions at the National Stationery Show in NEW YORK CITY! For those of you not directly tied to the paper world, the National Stationery Show or NSS is a HUGE trade show for all things paper. Retailers come from all over the world to shop for their stores for the following year from their old favorites and also from new folks...like me! Big brands send people to source artists and designs to license from too.

When researching, I had a hard time finding information from fellow card makers about their experience at NSS so I wanted to do a bit of a breakdown of my time in NY and how I pulled it off!

FYI - this is a really long post so no hard feelings if you just want to scroll and look at the pictures ;)

Quarto the traveling sketchbook: update I

This first week of traveling and sketching with Quarto has been really productive! I'm already through a signature and a half! I don't think I was even this productive with Terzo two years ago...

This batch of sketches is mostly from Lucca but there's a couple that I made in New York and Santa Barbara during the trek over. I also made a quick visit to Pisa today. It hit me yesterday that in all the time I've spent over here, I had yet to sketch the famed tower! So I hopped on a train this morning and waded through the masses of tourists to sketch the tower at last. 

1. First sketch to break in Quarto at the Santa Barbara Airport.

2. I met my friend Amanda in New York and went on a Chelsea spree in the Chelsea neighborhood! We also walked along the High Line and had some bagels from Murrays.

3. Testing out my new calligraphy brush pen on Via Santa Croce in Lucca.

4. Watercoloring up on the walls of Lucca, again at last! 

5. Piazza San Martino in Lucca.

6. Slowly working on sketching all the rooftops I can from the terrace on the top floor...

7. Also working on mapping the city at last! And a sketch from the busier portion of Via Santa Croce in the center of town.

8. Tourists of Lucca and the facade of Cattedrale San Martino.

9. Pisa! The Tower took a while to draw but I'm glad that I finally have a sketch of it. Then I couldn't resist having some fun sketching everyone in their various poses trying to hold/kick/pinch/hug/push the tower! 

10. Another watercolor of the walls...this is one of my favorite sections on the wall, it has the lushest trees and the best moody lighting...

I'm so curious to see what this fat beast will look like once I'm through with it in a few weeks. The transformation of Terzo was pretty crazy, just a modest black sketchbook that swelled until it was fat and happy and full of Italy. So excited to see what I find these next couple months. 

Until the next update you can follow along with my everyday photos on Instagram! 

The New York triplets

Hello 2014! Seeing as it is now January, it is probably safe to share the rest of my holiday commissions. These triplets were a beast to finish but I loved the results (and luckily the sweet lady that commissioned them did too!). 

I was contacted by Pamela back in December, who wanted a photo album to give to her daughter for her New York trip memorabilia. In order to make room for future New York visits, the project quickly evolved into three albums! Throughout the albums there are illustrations of iconic New York monuments and other little bits of the city, including pink Magnolia blossoms to tie all three albums together! 

There are more iconic spaces on the backs of the albums too. Everything from the Public Library lions and Central Park, to the entry buttons from the Metropolitan Museum and Playbills. It has been years since I last visited that city so it was a fun challenge to recreate all these famous sights in watercolor! There are some more photos of the triplets on my website too.