Strawberrykitten

Just a quick post tonight – I wanted to share my racoon sketch – every spare minute I get, after resting my extremely painful back and ribs (struggling with pregnancy at the min :/ ) I’m really trying to get some drawing done. today I’ve worked on a bit of character development, it needs a lot of work but it’s enjoyable work

Shop update – I’ve finally sold some bears! After being open about 4 weeks I got my first order over the weekend, a custom order for a giant frank bear…

[here he is before he got shipped]

The next night I got another order for the vampire bear! and today i got an order from the UK! So 3 bears in as many days! Very exciting, I hope I can keep the sales coming in

So other than the shop starting to gain momentum I have been consciously trying to do something either shop related or creative everyday – I find I get quite down when I can’t be creative.

I’m really trying to get my picture book plans rolling and because it’s using my bears as characters i’ve been doing some little drawings and paintings to make into business cards/ I.D/ thank you cards to be included with any bear sales. Here’s some work in progress…

[i love every stage of watercolour painting, it's got such a nice quality to it and its really enjoyable to use - i wanted to use my inks tonight but they have glued themselves shut, so i'll have to see how i want to finish them off when the watercolour stage is done] <- click image to see larger version

I’m going to get these cards printed at moo cards I think, maybe have some of them with actual photos of the bears too, not sure yet – oh and stickers too, that’s something I want in the future, maybe when more sales come in to pay for it!

In an effort to get into a creative routine I have started arranging the spare/computer room. I’ve dug out all my paints, inks, pencils etc and put them in my little ikea draws (which need painting to make them a bit prettier!) and I’ve put all bear construction tools and materials on the window sill for easy reach whilst constructing. There’s still a hell of a lot of stuff to sort out in that room – definitely a work in progress!

That’s me signing off for now – off to do a bit of shop promoting and more painting.

I don’t know what made me do the first little bear painting, but I enjoyed and liked him so much I decided to start something I’ve always wanted to do – make a picture book. Now I have a serious picture fetish! Love love love the illustrations – here’s some of my absolute faves…

So because I’m trying to get my bears selling I decided to make Frank the brown bear one of the charactors. The other charactors are taken from this photo of my mum and her cat.

[I adore this photo!!]

here’s my illustrated version of her that i’ve been working on, bear in mind it’s a work in progress so far, have lots of experiments to do before i find the right medium for my style, although i do love watercolours…

I really hate showing this kind of work, i find it embarrassing, this post is the first time my husbands even seen this image too as i prefer to have a final finished product to show off, but everyone at work (while using works reprographics department) were very complimentary so i decided to share

I’m hoping this will transpire into paper goods I can sell in my shop, along with stickers and prints etc all centred around these few characters.

I’ll keep you posted on the books progress – i’m sure it will be a lengthy one!