Arrolynn

another print

2011-08-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

I'm still working on prints and patterns, trying to experiment with colors and bringing textures into illustrator. Here's one for back to school!

2011-08-09T20:33:00.001-07:00

New Pattern, with barn animals!

Patterns.

2011-06-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

A while ago I posted that I was beginning to teach myself (and with the help of an awesome friend) how to make repeating patterns. I took a break for a while to work on other things but I'm getting back into it. When I first started playing around with patterns I felt like they had to be crisp, clean, vectorized, and shiny. When I worked in illustrator, I hate to sound cliche, but I would lose my "style". So I've been experimenting with sharpies, live tracing, and drawing with the pencil tool straight on the tablet to get the hand drawn quality that I'm looking for. So far I'm loving the results and very excited to get better with pattern making.

2011-03-15T18:10:00.000-07:00

rawr.

2011-03-09T20:30:00.000-08:00

mythological creatures celebrate birthdays too!

Sock Designs

2011-03-04T21:13:00.000-08:00

My friend Gail told me about this contest. Sock it to Me in Oregon is having a global sock design competetion. They're going to take 25 designs and have people vote for them on facebook. If by some wonderful miracle I make the cut...I will be bugging all of my dear friends and any of you out there that follow me to vote on March 7th. If I don't make the cut I still had a blast designing them, and learned a lot about patterns. Here's my designs...I crammed them all into my one day off!

Happy new year and all that jazz

2011-01-02T18:16:00.000-08:00

My new year resolutions pretty much all revolve around art...well art and the classic "i'm going to eat so much healthier" one. Unfortunately I've never met a cookie I didn't like. Mainly I want my etsy store and portfolio to evolve and grow dramatically. I'm trying to market myself for as many illustration "fields" that I can. The next few months I'll be working on getting a collection of greeting cards together, and some pattern designs...and from there I'LL TAKE OVER THE WORLD.....and maybe make some wallpaper.

Now for some color. A friend of mine commissioned me for a present to give her boyfriend this christmas. He loves superheroes....well who doesn't...but she wanted them in my quirky Arrolynness style. I had free reign....so naturally I thought about what a superhero's day off would be like. I think it involves, ice cream cones, dog walking, book reading, and flirting with the ladies.

and yes, that's batman and robin on a bicycle for two.

Popsicles

2010-11-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

OK. So I have a new obsession. It's serious. It's popsicles.

For my birthday my husband got me this nifty popsicle maker....it makes them in 7 minutes!!! SEVEN. It really is awesome. The main part is the base, which is filled with freezing liquid. You pop the sucker in the freezer for 24 hrs. and it's ready to go. Any time you get a craving for a popsicle you just whip it out, put in the special stick, and pour in your favorite juice. I've made more popsicles in two weeks than I have in my lifetime. So far I've made....watermelon, cantaloupe, orange juice, fudgesicle, peach, banana-blueberry yogurt swirl, cranberry-orange, chai, and coffee. Every time a new one comes out I give it to Doug to do the taste test...I'm starting to think he bought this to benefit himself.

Inspired by my recent popsicle craze I thought a new illustration was needed.

map paintings

2010-10-22T13:39:00.001-07:00

I feel so ashamed. I've failed as a blogger. Once upon a time I posted many times a week...adding new images and exciting news....well ok, somewhat interesting news...but at least I posted! So for those of you who haven't given up on me I promise to post more regularly.

Long ago I experimented with making collage paintings. Well I've gotten back into that, but this time it's with old road maps! My family has collected a ton through the years, we traveled mucho. We were that family that sang corny songs and played cheesy games along the way. And it was fun. So I asked my dad to dig them out of the attic so I could cut them apart and give them a use once more. I'm using these map paintings to play with colors,, shapes, and textures that I don't usually use. Sometimes I plan ahead, or sometimes I just begin making shapes according to the lines already on the map. If you want to keep up with them I'm selling the originals in my etsy store.

In other news I now have artist representation from Advocate art in London. I'm excited to see where that relationship will take me, hopefully it will open new doors in illustration. Also the book I illustrated, No Girl's Allowed by Tyndale, is now officially published! I'll admit that I haven't picked up a copy yet....such a slacker.

Enough chit-chat...here are some pictures

2010-08-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

Growing up my family and I would always go on summer camping trips. They are still some of my favorite memories. I wish I had a camper like this....

2010-07-20T21:31:00.000-07:00

This is for a book idea that's been brewing in my head. Thank you for visiting!

Mermaid Party

2010-06-28T22:25:00.000-07:00

My friend is having an under the sea themed birthday party, SO I thought it was about time to venture down the path of mermaid illustrations. Thank you for visiting :)

2010-06-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

I feel like it's been a while since I've done art just for fun. So I'm spending some time each day to do neat pictures of neat things all while playing with color and techniques. I'm also going to kill two birds with one stone...I'm going to use this experimentation time to knock out the flood of birthdays that there are in the next couple months. So here was a card for someone who likes music and a phone because old phones are neat. Thank you for visiting :)

2010-05-27T23:28:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine had a tea party themed birthday. It was the cutest idea for a party. When we got there we made big frilly hats and decorated them. I was just impressed by the variety of things she had laying around the house to decorate the hat with. Then we had all kinds of tea, snacks, and yummies. It's always good to get a bunch of girls together and catch up and reminisce. For her present, I thought it was a good time to do a tea party illustration! As always, thanks for stopping by!

Etsy

2010-05-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

So I've finally gotten around to open an Etsy shop! It's called Tophat Society, if you're bored...check it out! http://www.etsy.com/shop/Arrolynn Right now I've been playing around with sculpey doing magnets and such. Every once in a while it's nice to create something just for fun. I'm going to have characters on there from my sketchbook and soon I'll put up some prints. First I need a nice printer....or know someone that has a nice printer...and now some penguins!

Hello!

2010-05-02T19:56:00.000-07:00

It feels like it's been five years since I've posted! It's been a busy year. I got married and had a book deal with Tyndale House Publishers for 120 illustrations all around the same time.

The book is called "No Girls Allowed" and will be published this fall. The illustrations are going to be 3x3 and most if not all will be converted to grayscale. I've posted some below. I thought posting all 120 would be annoying and boring to you. Soon I'll be working on another children's book, but I can't give out any details yet! The other picture I posted is a box I painted for the wedding. If someone brought us envelopes to the wedding (probably full of money) they could slip it in here so it wouldn't get lost. Because seriously no one wants to loose money. As always thank you for visiting!

There are fishies and coral on the sides!

2009-11-03T22:34:00.000-08:00

My manager at work is having another baby any day soon! I took this chance to paint something cute and smultzy.

2009-11-02T10:04:00.000-08:00

A card for Gail.

Patterns and Ohger

2009-10-19T09:11:00.000-07:00

finished the clock print today!

WHAT!??? Arrolynn is posting! I'm sorry to all three of you that follow my blog...it's been ages since I've posted anything. The things that I've been working on I'm either not allowed to show them, or they're just really boring. No one wants to see my mailing list. One thing I have been doing lately is working on prints and patterns. I'm starting to experiment with them to open the field of work. It's really exciting if you think of it....there's greeting card companies...wallpaper, stationary, clothes.. so many people need patterns! So here is my first attempt at a repetitive pattern. Oye. I really had some issues when it came to repeating the tile...but I did learn alot and I had a blast. I drew it with pen and scanned it in and then colored in photoshop, but I am also going to paint one. right now I'm just playing around... Next I'm working on one with clocks. In other news! The guys over a Drawger.com contacted me a little over a month ago with the exciting news that they're starting a new site but for up and coming illustrators. If your familiar with Drawger it's a place to showcase illustrators working today, but it's invitation only. Ohger is going to be a place for new talent that art directors and editors and whatnot can visit. It runs just like Drawger... it's by invitation or applying and it's only open to current students or recent graduates. So go check it out! I promise I'll post more.

Sketchbook

2009-06-06T21:55:00.000-07:00

2009-04-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

This weekend I worked on an illustration for the Los Angeles Times. I talked to them on Thursday night, and they wanted to see sketches by the next day and a final on Monday. The article was really great. It was in the food section and it was talking about how these days organic and ethnic foods are more accessible to the public. You can walk into any grocery store and buy things from the organic section. So the sketch they went with was a field with rows of vegetables playing off of the idea of grocery isles, with people shopping between them with shopping carts. The design editor was incredibly nice and I really enjoyed working on this project!

2009-04-10T23:35:00.000-07:00

This is for the "Waking the Giants" Ringling 100 project. It's going to be really interesting to see how it turns out. I haven't done any swirls in an illustration since thesis...so I thought I'd reminisce with this one.

Sketching

I'm still here!

2009-03-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

Hello! It's been ages since I've posted. I've been working on a couple books, so that's been fun. Also recently I found out that I got an illustration into the 2009 Society of Illustrators student exhibition. I didn't think that could happen since I already graduated. More shocking then that is I received the Albert Dorne Scholarship. Even better is that my buddies Gail, Tina, and Sarah are in the show too! I was so excited when I found out that I burnt all my giraffe and airplane cookies. It's such a great opportunity and honor, congratulations to everyone else that got in!!

2009-01-16T19:31:00.000-08:00

Small Project for a group teaching dance lessons and spanish tutoring. I had lots of fun with this one!

The Snowman's Ball.

2008-12-15T21:41:00.000-08:00

Gail and I are still doing christmas themes, this week we're doing snowmen and reindeer. Next week we'll play up the Santa's! Working part time and with other things going on, I've become a bit distracted. I've still kept up with mailers and portfolio work...but I haven't done enough for myself. I don't know...maybe everyone gets derailed briefly after college? Any thoughts?

2008-12-10T20:45:00.000-08:00

Woah. What? I updated? Yay! Gail and I are getting into holiday themes, and we started with elves. I've been so busy painting envelopes and send outs, I haven't done anything lately that was just for fun. I love christmas illustrations!

2008-09-17T21:34:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

Gail and I have finally started our own blog together. It's called A and G (and it's posted on my right) We've just started it so bare with us... We're going to challenge each other each week to keep up the creativity, so the first word is "Home". I would have a blast if I owned a house boat like that. Also I have been back to my sketching craze. Sketching in the tub without getting my book wet was quite difficult. I hope everyone one is doing well, thank you for always stopping by and leaving comments!

2008-09-11T20:11:00.000-07:00

I haven't done anything digitally in a while, so I did with my Illustration Friday piece! The topic was clutter. As always thank you for looking!

2008-07-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

new business card.

Alright. I haven't disappeared. I've been mostly working on Portfolios and send outs. That and working part time at the Gap. Every now and then I like to spend the day downtown sketching and walking around. I was drawing the Geese when these cute children came up to feed them with bread, they were just thrilled to be feeding Geese. So I thought it would make a great Illustration. I also posted one of my mailer envelopes. I bought the padded envelopes to send out my portfolios, and painted them with my illustrations. I miss everyone from Ringling, I hope all are doing well!

2008-04-13T21:31:00.001-07:00

I'm working on this piece for an editorial that talks about the difficulties of having a romantic dinner in restaurants today. The article talks about all of the different noises and sounds that can be overwhelming while you try to have your peaceful dinner. I had fun with some experimentation and there are still a few changes I'd like to make.

2008-03-13T13:39:00.000-07:00

More Thesis.

2008-02-25T14:53:00.001-08:00

I did another sculpey the other day, for this illustration. This is my take on SciFi....the 50's retro malt shop with aliens. I really had fun with this piece, and I have a few small changes to make before I move onto the drive-in. Thanks for stopping by!

2008-02-18T11:39:00.000-08:00

My first sculpey! For our Sci-fi piece I'm doing retro 50's activities, with aliens of course. I'm going to create a few of the characters in sculpey first.

2008-02-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

I did this sketch in class and really liked it.. so I painted it when I got home. I really had fun with the color.
At the Aquarium
Olga's House
At the beach with their toy cars.
Oliver's House.

Just continuing to work on Olga. Here is four more spreads, tell me what you think! I'm exhausted, but loving every moment.

2008-01-23T16:46:00.000-08:00

These are 5 pages from my Olga book! I went on a painting frenzy recently....and actually I'm still going. The top one is the last page in the book...after Olga tucks Oliver in she goes to sleep in her house. I thought it was sweet. The second is in the beginning of the book.....Olga and Seymour were friends at the zoo and talked to each other..and sometimes got lattes. The bottom is one of Olga and Oliver's wonderful adventures at the crazy miniature golf wonderland. Comments always welcome, and appreciated!

2008-01-17T14:53:00.001-08:00

I painted my last Seymour spread! yaaay! I only have a few spots to paint, and the whole book is done...minus type. The top image is an illustration for my independent study. It's an editorial on luxury campgrounds.

Olga and Seymour

2008-01-07T08:42:00.001-08:00

Welcome back from the holidays! I hope everyone enjoyed their break. Here are some of the things I worked on...I did some sketching at the airport and some in my Willis book for fun, I painted four more pages of Seymour, and I started some studies on Olga. "Olga" is the second book that I'm working for thesis. The ostrich and her little friend Oliver enjoy the pleasures of the weekend. "Seymour" was about a typical school day (riding the yellow bus, show n tell, recess). I have lots of exciting things planned for Olga and Oliver. First I toyed with the idea of her house being underground, showing the "split earth" view. Everything in the main room is viewable like the pictures of her friends and family, flowers, and of course the Television she can just use the remote. The top two rooms are all reachable....so she can lay her neck down on the mini bed at night. I was thinking about putting little umbrellas on the top view to block out any rainfall. Olga and Oliver also love playing cards in their fort! (That's what I used to do) Let me know what you think so far, thanks!!

2007-12-09T13:09:00.001-08:00

Thanks for stopping by! This is my self portrait for the Senior Poster! I was originally just going to do it in oils like I would normally do.....but let's face it...this is more me!

2007-12-03T15:43:00.001-08:00

Willis in London touring around! This goes to Gail!

ZOO!

2007-11-29T22:31:00.000-08:00

This is for Illustration Friday! The subject is ZOO. Don't worry all the animals are let out at night. During the day they love to hang out in their sweet wagons.

2007-11-27T22:41:00.001-08:00

Here is some more Seymour spreads. The happy Giraffe! My plan is to finish the 32 pages by January, and for my thesis I want to do spin off about an Ostrich. I'm thinking about Olga, but any name suggestions would be awesome! Also there's some more pages from my Willis book for fun!

2007-11-14T09:20:00.001-08:00

The top was a something I did for fun. I did two more Seymour Spreads ya! I've really been enjoying Willis and my Seymour book, they get me through the day. Everyone loves a Giraffe butt right? Anyways, he makes me smile, so I hope he makes you smile too!

2007-11-07T17:46:00.000-08:00

...and something just for fun. I imagine them humming a tune with smiles all the way to a picnic.
Hooray Seymour! This is my first illustration for my children's book. It's when Seymour comes home with his new family from the zoo!

2007-11-01T20:08:00.001-07:00

Willis in England!

2007-10-31T21:38:00.000-07:00

This is what I'm going for on my website. I wan't it to be fun and playful! It has all of my little tid-bits thrown together...stripes, swirls and glazes. It scanned very dark... so I'm going to do some tweaking. The portfolio, blog, contact, links and bio sections will be on the windows. Hopefully it'll work into a good website.

2007-10-28T12:51:00.001-07:00

This was for illustration, I wanted to create a dog park paradise. :) It's large, so it's probably best to click on it.
Willis in Rome, showing off his arms!
Wills smashing grapes to make wine, or grapefruit juice for kids.

2007-10-23T18:38:00.001-07:00

Look at me...I can hold up the Pisa!

Willis is traveling through Italy right now. He's been to Venice and then visited the leaning tower of Pisa. Right now he is in Rome (haven't painted it yet) and tomorrow he goes into the country for grape smashing with his footsies.

2007-10-20T07:54:00.001-07:00

I wanted to have some fun and get into the Halloween spirit!

2007-10-17T20:01:00.001-07:00

This was an illustration I did for an article I read about vacationing in the Hamptons. It's thousands of dollars to rent there...so many people camp. So I thought I'd be fun to smush a tent between two big mansions covered with windows, because the more windows the more expensive the view is.

Willis in Venice!

2007-10-04T13:37:00.001-07:00

Willis at a Cafe in Paris. I've been having so much fun lately doing these self promotion Willis pieces. Each one takes 30 minutes to an hour, they come so quickly because I'm not really
worrying about it being perfect. It's funny because I always worked on something until I killed it...now I think I know when to stop. My self promotion is going to be postcards as postcards. I am going to send out all of the vacation spots to make them look like snapshots from Willis' travels. Soon I will be setting up a blog for Willis to talk and give educational tips, something that children can tune into. I've just been working on something I can do a bit differently for my self promotion.
This is my cover rough for my children's book.

2007-10-01T22:21:00.001-07:00

Willis in Ireland!
Ice Fishing

2007-09-29T16:05:00.000-07:00

My vacation man as an egyptologist. I think his name is Willis. I have plans for Willis...
Yodel lay Yodel lay hee hoo!

Would you like some hot coco?

2007-09-26T20:07:00.001-07:00

Another series of my vacation man.

Hiking

2007-09-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be fun to do a little series of this man that I created the other day, the one skiing. Now he's hiking!

2007-09-23T23:22:00.000-07:00

Illustration for the short story "The Butler, by Roald Dahl.

Illustration I did for a kid's imagination with a box...everyone played in boxes!

Study for my robot illustration and class sketches

Lido Beach

Sketch from the Don Cesar in St. Petersberg, beautiful hotel!

Lately I've been trying to use the style and freedom that I have in my sketchbook in my Illustrations. I always tighten up and I loose something when I do a final illustration, so I'm working keeping that freedom/creativity that I naturally do in my sketchbook. I'm playing with proportions, perspective, line quality, leaving somethings unpainted...Here are some sketches and a couple illustrations.

2007-09-20T14:18:00.001-07:00

Something I did for fun last night, I think it's cute :)

2007-09-09T20:47:00.000-07:00

Sketch for my next Illusration, I'm playing with kids imaginations...This one uses his box to play as a robot, and I'm doing another in a Spaceship with planet cutouts on string around his room. I'm really trying to bring my sketchbook style into my Illustrations.

Sketchbook page from Sarasota News and Books

Farmer Wheee!

2007-09-05T23:11:00.000-07:00

So I had a pretty fantastic day today. I had a phone interview with Adam Rex, if you don't know him look him up....now. He's a great illustrator with wonderful books including "Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich" and a new one coming soon that I'm really excited about..."The True Meaning of Smekday" (both written and Illustrated by Rex). He's incredibly nice and even gave me feedback on some of my work! You can imagine how overjoyed I was when he found some pieces he really liked....oh joy. It's so exciting contacting our "heroes" of illustration. Its a great way to get direct feedback about the field you want to go into...and just to see that everyone started out in the same place..as an art student. Did some concept sketches...and at 1am I decided to paint a farmer man for fun. I've been experimenting with color...anyways I like it because I had lots of fun...which is always a plus. Have a great day!

2007-09-03T13:19:00.001-07:00

Working on my piece for the word "manscape". I've been having a lot of fun...playing with the twist of manscape and landscape. This is the most stylized and static piece I've ever done, so it's been very enjoyable to work on. I had a lot of ideas for this project, so I'm going to do some spot illustrations too, all playing with landscaping. I'm going to do a man getting his chest hair raked, a bald man's head being watered by a flower pot...and other sorts of fun things :)

Happy Barber Men

2007-08-28T18:37:00.001-07:00

I always get sidetracked when I'm doing thumbnails...I'm illustrating the word "manscape" in Illustration. So I'm going with this funny barber shop...where the men come in..and have "landscaping" done. Bald men's heads are watered with the flower pot, men's afros are turned into tree like sculptures. It's going to be fun! But then I started painting little barber men ...I'm always distracted. :)

Time to photograph some paintings

2007-07-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

The pictuers I took earlier in the year were horrible....these are a bit better.

I used the pallette knife on this and wanted to play with color....it's a bit intense and I still have to tone it down, but I really like the feeling of it.

This painting was at the beginning of the semester it's not one of my favorites but I had fun at the time.

This is me having a laugh...didn't you know that Vader had his own crazy straw?

Sketchbook!

2007-06-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

Sketchbook! I've been having alot of fun experimenting in my sketchbook lately. I've been playing with different medias and papers. It's fun all wrapped up together!

2007-05-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

I went job hunting downtown on Friday. I was there for about 9 hours....4 of which I spent just sitting at Panera or on the lake drawing. :) Heres a few pages that I did. It was great :)

Pratt Spazmo

2007-05-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

better scan

Hellloo. I was playing around with some new acrylic colors and the spazmos from class. hope every one's summer is going good. :)

Clown Book

2007-05-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

This Semester I had the pleasure in meeting Karen and Greg DeSanto, at the Circus Sarasota. After interviewing them and having a few laughs, I made my first artist's book. I wanted to make an interactive, fun, children's book. There are paper dolls, sliding pieces, and windows to open. On Karen's costume she has two large yellow pockets on red pants, and with the cover of the book I wanted to imitate that. In the pocket are the pieces for the paper dolls and a Ukulele. The entire experience was rewarding in so many ways. The actually construction of building the book is difficult, but I had lots of fun :) So here are some of the pages.

A sophisticated drink, for a sophisticated pig.

2007-05-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

These are wine labels that I designed for Pratt's class. I was playing off of the classic Three Little Pigs, which everyone loves!

All Summer in a Day Illustration

2007-04-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

This was one of my Illustrations for All Summer in a day, awesome story. I'm happy with it, theres a few things I'm going to fix from suggestions in class. Critique was great, everyone did awesome work! In the story she's the only one who remembers what the sun looks like, so I came up with this idea that the students have drawings hung all over the window with the rain ...and all of them are about clouds or rain...things that they know, and then there is one of the sun. I had so much fun doing this piece, I've been happy doing things outside of my comfort zone. :)

All Summer in a Day

2007-04-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

O.K. Right now I'm trying to go through one of those artist transitions....There are things that I've been doing in my sketchbook that I love, funny characters and line drawings from life. In painting I've also been having fun with the palette knife...making juicy chunks. So to please myself and get out of a rut, I'm trying to combine the two. So after class on Friday I ran home and did this Illustration from scratch in about two hours. It's rough but it's the direction I want to go in. I did a little pen drawing in my book, and then painted it onto the board. I want to play with fun shapes, keeping the lines in certain areas, flat shapes in some areas, and play with proportions. I have a problem of being to boring when it comes to drawing from reference....but I have to say that I've never had so much fun painting before. In other Illustrations I would paint in the eyes....I was just having fun with the character from the story "All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury. The girl is depressed and a loner, and it rains 7 years straight so it's like a grey storm in her eyes...oooooh how deep lol. Also I wanted her hair and skin to be as pale as the background so she almost disappears if it weren't for the jumper and the few lines. In the story she kind of disappears into the students and classroom because she is so quiet, and no one likes her :(. Anyways I had so much fun! Now I have to do my actual Illustration for Tuesday, plus some pen and inks. Yay!

White bear

2007-04-08T20:53:00.000-07:00

This was my texture collage for Computer Illustration. I wanted to play with pattern and flat shapes, not somthing I usually do. The story originates from Norway....so everything is Swirrrrrrrrrrrrlllyyyyy even the bears feet! woah!

Little Pigs Vineyards

2007-04-08T20:33:00.000-07:00

There are a couple of my piggies for my wine company, Little Pigs Vineyards. Oink Oink!

SKETCHBOOK!

2007-03-02T20:25:00.000-08:00

gesture in crayon.

At the Zoo. I fed a Giraffe!

2007-03-02T19:51:00.000-08:00

2007-02-27T19:40:00.000-08:00