Doodle Every Day

One of my goals for this year was to draw more often—with real pencils, pens and paper, and not just on the computer. So for the past 11 months, I've been doodling every day and posting to Instagram. At the beginning of this journey, I never imagined how much this exercise would inform my art, bring me more confidence, help me define my style and make me want to draw even more.

I now have over 1200 followers tuning into my feed and I'm so grateful for each and every one of them and all the lovely comments I receive. If you care to have a look, hit the link to the right, or find me @shindigstudio

Below, I'm posting a few of my favorite doodles from the year and a few insights I've learned along the way (in no particular order):

• Instagram is full of amazingly talented artists
• details make your art more fun (and popular!)
• Instagrammers love cats more than dogs (or maybe I just draw cats better…)
• when in doubt, draw a cute, smiling girl

Send Some Love

What could be sweeter than Minted's Valentine's Day Card challenge? I love designing for kids, so this competition was right up my alley. This year I have four classroom valentine designs up for voting, so pop on over and send some love my way.

vote for berry good friends here

vote for cool cat here

vote for some bunny here

vote for sweet as candy here

Here, Kitty Kitty

I think November is the perfect month to cuddle up with a cat. And that's exactly what I've been doing—at least digitally. My real cat is rather aloof. Here's the start of a new collection I'm calling Here, Kitty Kitty. Coordinates are in the works.

Party Time!

I found myself working on lots of birthday cards and characters recently, so I thought I'd post a few here for fun. A couple of the designs are for Minted's latest challenge, but the rest need loving homes. Greeting card companies, here I come!

Butterfly Garden

Every butterfly needs a flower or two, right? As promised, a few floral coordinates to go with my butterfly guys.

Time Flies…

Eeks! It's been awhile since my last post. The last few weeks I've been so busy with a lot of corporate design projects—tradeshow booth banners and graphics, logos, business invitations—a huge part of what I do, but not so much fun to blog about.

In my spare time, I've been working on some butterfly and moth illustrations. Here's a sneak peek at a couple of them. I think these would make great notecards or wall art for children. Some coordinating repeat patterns are next up on the agenda...

Terrariums and Talent Searches

For the past two weeks I've been focused on the Lilla Rogers' Global Talent Search. It's quite the contest in the art world, with hundreds of amazingly talented illustrators from around the globe entering for a shot at the grand prize—representation by one of the world's top art agents.

I love all things Lilla, so naturally I signed up—not only for the great assignment, but also for the opportunity to push myself and journey outside of my comfort zone.

Terrarium Wall Art was the theme. I found it to be great subject matter, so full of possibilities. Maybe even too many options. From the beginning, I had a bell jar shape in my head, so I kept to that direction and tried exploring watercolor washes and painting plant shapes with india ink. As I often do, I worked on two layouts simultaneously. One with clean shapes filled with textures and washes and the other more painterly—a huge departure from my usual approach.

It was so difficult to chose which image to upload. There are things I love about each of these compositions. In the end, I went with the first layout, because I felt it was more representative of my style. And I adore orchids and ferns, especially when they are sprouting.

So now I wait with fingers crossed to see if I make the top 50 (out of nearly 1000 submissions!). Either way, the process was fun and I'm proud of my effort. And I'm so looking forward to viewing the amazing gallery of work….