Well I messed up the line spacing but otherwise this is fun and different.
Letters are hand cut based on the Holiday font. I think I might have actually used this one before. Simple shapes, easy to work with. The big spark is also hand cut, and the rest are drawn with metallic markers.
Always trying to find some light in the darkness.
if you’re like me, after you accomplish something, you completely erase it from your memory banks because my brain only allows me to recall egregious mistakes. Doesn’t want me to get puffed up and egotistical, I suppose. So I completely forgot about this kickass commission I drew at some time in the misty past, like August or September. It was a birthday present for the client’s partner, and I promised not to share it until said partner’s birthday, which is today!
Happy Birthday, Cam!
The client wanted a design that reflected her partner’s gaming tag, and, if I could fit it in, his zodiac sign. Admittedly, that scorpion didn’t make things easy: scorpions are small and covered in fidgety details in comparison to nice, chunky design elements like giant saguaros and skulls. I had to draw that little dude like 5 times before I was comfortable with him but he came out pretty cute and a little bit dangerous in the end.
In reality, the scorpions around here are itty bitty, like an inch or 2 long, but mature saguaros are like 40 feet high, so everyone got the Alice in Wonderland treatment.
If you follow this blog, you know I can work in many styles and am always thrilled to collaborate with clients on projects like this. Design work starts at $300 for this kind of logo.
I sort of want to keep working on this but it’s Friday and I like to leave school by 5….
This isn’t my first calavera bulletin board but this one is way better than the first one and after 12 years I guess it’s OK to repeat myself a little. But I really wish I could cover the whole thing with roses. And more dots and hearts on the skull. But sometimes you have to just say when.
I made this cute tree with 3-dimensional books for in interior bulletin board, so it should last a while. I’ve done a similar design in the past, but this time I cut the leaves out individually with the decorative scissors. The Girl (now 18, so a woman) was in town that week (she left town early in the pandemic) and she came and helped me make the books, which are just folded paper scraps and staples.
This is something I’ve been thinking about since I finished the feigned glass windows: feigned glass light box. Michael’s had some tiny shadow boxes that they were, of course, sold out of, but I got this bigger box and The Man cut a hole in the back and installed the LEDs.
I used clear plastic for a background and sealed the whole thing with the clear plastic as well, and the rest of the design is scrap pieces from the original project, except for the bats, which are heavy cardstock that I painted purple. I used hot glue to stick affix the panel to the box and then more hot glue to seal the edges with ribbon.
This particular box was created to be a birthday present.
Definitely want to do some more experimentation with this type of thing but I have to find a good (affordable) source for the boxes and the lights.
There is a long and glorious history of mobile libraries powered by sure-footed donkeys, delivering books to people in remote or undeveloped areas where readers have no other access to texts, so when the librarian asked me to decorate the cart she intended to use to bring books to classrooms on days when the library is inaccessible to students, I knew I wanted to make this donkey-drawn bookmobile to pay homage to the most literate members of the asinine species.
Total run time was probably just over 2 hours. The school counselor helped me laminate it so it should last for a while.
Just a little window dressing I knocked up so there GATE program bulletin board didn’t look so forlorn. I forgot it’s slightly bigger than my bulletin board and my design is a bit small (I cropped it here) and the lettering is wonky but the gate and the hummingbirds are sound.
It’s a bit pared down but my hands are still in recovery mode from the feigned glass windows (ultimately a ~30-hour job) and also it was 108° outside, the breezeway, where this bulletin board hangs. I use metallic paint pens rather than staples, because it’s easier and that cork is getting destroyed.
it’s the back of a lion. The Lineweaver Lions go back to school Thursday, and I drew a lion’s back. That is the whole gimmick.
i also knocked together another simple design so there wouldn’t be an empty bulletin board right at the beginning of the tour on parents’ night, which I’ll put in a separate post.
Whew! That’s a wrap on this project (more or less; I still have to add some latticework to cover the gaps but I’m glad to be done with the difficult part). Keen eyes will note some themes common to my work.
The whole thing took about 30 hours, a smidge under but will likely get to 30 with the latticework. My hand and my scissors are wrecked. I’m taking the scissors to be sharpened but my hand will just have to be endured.
We did the tech rehearsal last night and the whole thing looks even better with light streaming through the panels as intended.
Anyway, school starts next week so I have to go do my bulletin board now.
Whew! This second one took one about 5 or 6 hours, maybe half as long as the first one. Plus I didn’t have to wait for materials to be delivered. There should be enough of everything left to finish the third one in style (wish I had a *bit* more blue, but with care it should suffice).
This piece seemed to dictate itself. I had different ideas about how the color would play out, and for the geometric shapes as well, but then it sort of came together with way more yellow than I intended, with more complexity at the edges and less where I ended up using bigger pieces. But I think it looks great.
The person who commissioned it loves it so far, plus I got another commission today!
I can’t seem to figure out how to do captions on my phone; maybe I’ll edit it later. But the caption should read, “Google ‘lemniscate’ right now.”
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