Happy Birthday!

Can't believe it's been two years of blogging. It's sure been fun making so many new friends!

Something Fun!

Today I attended the Golden Gate Kennel Club Dog Show at the Cow Palace, just south of San Francisco. It's a benched show which means the dogs are on display with their breeders and available for hugs and photo ops. Here are a few photos that were somewhat in focus. A little tough taking clear shots with all the excitement.This little guy is a wire-haired dachshund. Oh so cute! Something to think about for the future, although I'd never breathe a word of it around here with my little old lady Gracie getting on in years.

This Standard Poodle was looking pretty confident that he had the win in the bag.

The Irish Wolfhounds were done and done.

How handsome is this Great Dane and what expressive ears!

And of course I couldn't help posting a picture of my own Best in Show, with her own set of extremely expressive ears, my little baby Gracie. She's a real stinker when I point a

camera at her. She just won't crack a smile!

Illustration Friday: Focused

As part of his New Year's resolution to reduce stress, Arty spent considerable time each day focused on his breathing which helped him experience a sense of inner peace and relaxation.

Illustration Friday: Pioneer

When it came to trailblazing, Marcy's dogs were the best.

Happy New Year everyone!

More Fun at Lowes

If you've been following my blog, you might remember these guys from last Christmas. Well, they got licensed to Lowes for the 2009 holiday season as art flags. I've had so much fun finding them at my local stores. And I just got back yesterday from a trip to Maui to get a little R&R and guess what....they have Lowes in Hawaii! And, of course, I had to go in a check it out. Sure enough, there were a couple of flags left. :o)

Owl Fabric Preview!

My pesky little owls have found their way onto fabric! Robert Kaufman will be producing this collection of owls and coordinating fabrics which will be sold through Hancock Fabrics sometime next year. Hooty Hoot!

Illustration Friday: Music

Bobby was one cool dog....and the bongos were music to his ears.

Look what I found at Lowe's....

Here's something fun I worked on over a year ago for a company called Southern Patio. They saw my designs at Surtex and asked me to draw front, side and back views of specific designs that they liked. Prototypes were made in China and this polar bear is currently selling at Lowe's for the holidays. Very light weight and made out of resin. I had so much fun buying one for myself and trying to explain at the checkout counter that I had designed this bear.

I have four more sculptures that will be in Lowe's after the Christmas rush. Here is the prototype for Snail Stackers and the drawings that I did of the different views.

Order My Products Online!

Thought I'd share with you a link where you can purchase my whimsical owls directly from Gallery 19 which is the online store for Design Design and M. Middleton, who license my artwork. A versatile design...can be used all year round.

This birthday card has turned out to be really popular! Design Design always does such a nice job with their cards. Artwork on the inside too. Click here to order.

Click here for the "It's a Hoot!" Medium tote with a die-cut handle...super cute!

Click here for the "It's a Hoot!" continuous roll wrap.

There is also tissue paper to match which can be used inside the tote bags.

Illustration Friday - Fast

Lucy knew that Jack was trying to pull a fast one....offering her a dog biscuit when she knew darn well there were sugar-coated treats in that box!

Illustration Friday: Flying

The little mouse couldn't help herself. Once she strapped on her tiny little skis, she just went flying down the slopes.

Watercolor Class

Have been super busy these last couple of months with the development of new marketing materials and the redesigning of my website (finally!) It's been so fun, but very labor intensive. My new website will be up towards the end of this month. Through it all, I've continued with my watercolor classes with Guy Magallanes. This rose was painted from a photograph I took in my garden. The actual painting is quite large (18" wide). I had a great time painting big and learned so much about washes. Thank you Guy!

Illustration Friday: Pattern

Haven't posted for ages, but this topic reminded me that I have tons of patterns in my collections that I use for licensing. This one was created in photoshop. I love using the chalk tool to give it a "stamped" look.

Illustration Friday: Idle

"There they are again.....those blasted, four-legged varmints and their idle ways...." cursed the little hen.

There's a Dog in my Gym Class...!

More experiments with technique...a digital sketch and color comp and a traditional painting with watercolor and acrylic. I only painted the characters and scanned them into my computer and added the shadows and background in Photoshop. Tight, but clean. And since everything is painted separately, I can use the characters for other fun stuff!

Wacky Days of Summer

Spent part of the day working on different techniques for my portfolio. I did this sketch in Photoshop using my Wacom Tablet. I printed out the sketch and using my light table, I inked it onto Arches 140 lb. hot-press watercolor paper with black india ink and a crow-quill pen. I then painted the characters, cast shadows and grass with watercolor and a little colored pencil for texture. I scanned the illustration back into Photoshop and knocked out the white background. Working in layers, I added flowers which is a pattern I pulled from one of my digital surface designs. Behind that I added a digital blue background and added the clouds.

I like being able to combine traditional illustration with digital. Saves time, for sure, but also gives you freedom to really play around without destroying any original artwork. I just noticed how many dogs I've posted on my blog lately. Can't help it....one of my favorite animals to draw!!

Illustration Friday: Hollow

Illustration Friday: Worn

Kayla was over the top with happiness that her auntie's big 'ol red dog "Misty" was going to spend two weeks with her and her family while she went on vacation. However, Kayla's dog, Jax, was not so thrilled and decided that Misty had worn out her welcome fairly early on in week one......

Bluebird of Happiness

                                             ©Deborah Melmon

With all the work getting ready for Surtex, I missed 6 weeks of my watercolor class that I take on Tuesday nights. I'm finally back at it and here is my latest attempt that I finally finished last night. Initially it was just going to be a study as I wasn't painting on high-quality paper. But as I kept working it, it started to take shape and it seemed like a waste to repaint it. So I finally finished it! I like painting birds. May have to do another one. :o)

Illustration Friday: Craving

Buster knew he was not supposed to be anywhere near the cake, but he just couldn't help himself.....his craving for those little pink buttercream frosting rosettes was going to get him into heaps of trouble. 

Back from Surtex

It's been a long time since my last post, but I'm back from the Surtex show in NYC. Whew! What a trip. So much energy involved getting ready for it. We had a very successful show. Got to meet the clients I have been working with all year and lots of fabulous artists. So fun to see Jannie Ho who was just a couple of booths down from us. 

We had four artist in our booth this year. My banners are on the far right and far left of the photo. We had all the artwork pre-printed this year and it sure did make the set up easy. 

The National Stationery Show runs simultaneously with Surtex, so I got to see my artwork on actual products. Speaking of which, if you look closely in the bottom left hand corner of the photo, you'll see the ice-skating dog and kitty I painted last year. I'm so excited to announce that both images have been licensed as garden flags for Lowe's and will be coming out this winter!

So now back to following up on all the contacts I made and sending out samples of work that various companies requested. Almost as much work as getting ready for the show!

More Surtex

This is our third year at Surtex, and each year we have made buttons on Cafe Press and used them as promotional give-aways in our booth. Here are my buttons this year....well actually they are refrigerator magnets. Thought the magnets would be a little more user friendly. :o)

Oh, and my very creative sister is coming to town for the next few days to help me get ready. Woo hoo! Can really use the extra set of hands and some fresh eyes to look at everything. 

Surtex

Since Surtex is rapidly approaching (May 17th in NYC), I thought I'd post one of my banners that is going to be hung in the booth. I'm sharing our booth with three other talented artists, and we each get two panels to show our art. Can't tell you how complex it is to design your own panel and then also have it work with all the other panels in the booth. Each artist was allowed an "everyday" themed panel and a "winter holiday" panel. The panels are 38" wide and 85" tall. Always fun to see your artwork blown up really large! If you look closely at my panel you will see characters that I've posted in earlier blogs during their various stages of development. The panels are being printed and will be rolled up and shipped to New York, making our step up fairly easy. The panels are merely attention grabbers for the buyers to stop and look at our books full of designs available for licensing.....which is what I'm madly working on now!

A New Friend for Patch

Patch has a new friend to pal around with. Still working traditional, but have also turned these characters into digital art for Surtex. Will show you some of the stuff I've created later on in the week. Had fun today buying some new fonts to play with. Always inspires me create new stuff.

Character Study

Meet Patch. He's a new character I'm working on. I actually painted him traditionally rather than using my computer which was really fun for a change. Hoping he makes the trip to Surtex with me. Lot's to do before May 15th! 

They don't call it Spring for nothing....

Hope you're all having amazing Spring weather like we are having here in Northern California!

Unfortunately, I'm not getting to enjoy very much of it with all the work left to do for Surtex. 

I painted this little guy in Painter and am hoping to take him along with me on my trip in May.

Easter Book

Sorry I haven't posted in a while! I can't believe how fast time is going by. It's April already!! I'm getting ready for the Surtex Licensing Show in New York and it's really sucking up all my time but I thought I'd post another spread from my lastest board book. A perfect Easter basket stuffer for really young kids. You can buy them from Amazon here. I've been printing up personalized dedication cards from the illustrator to slip in the book for all my friends and thought I'd extend it to any of you reading this blog. Just email me with the first name of the child and your email address and I'll send you a jpg of this cute little ducky with his painted easter egg for you to print out! Happy Spring!

More Sheep

After seeing all the sheep in New Zealand, I'm obsessed. I didn't have time to prepare a new image to paint in my watercolor class tonight, so I decided to just play around and experiment using a drawing from my sketchbook.  I scanned the sketch and printed it out on watercolor paper. I modified the color of the line work so it wasn't black, but more of  a dark maroon color. I painted the image in watercolor which caused the line work to bleed a little bit, but I liked the effect. I then  added a little watercolor pencil for texture and rescanned the color version into Painter when I got home. I digitally added a few more details and a little more texture to the wool. I then opened the image in photoshop and tweeked the color of the grass which was much more green in the original. Added the butterfly which I cut and pasted from an old illustration. I love being able to do the finishing details on the computer. That way if it gets overworked, I can delete the stuff that isn't working and still have the original painting. 

Illustration Friday: Intricate

                                   ©Deborah Melmon

This illustration reminds me of one night at Lake Wanaka in New Zealand. A friend of mine and I were having dinner in an upstairs restaurant and we were seated near the window overlooking the courtyard below. A couple walked out of one of the courtyard restaurants and it was obvious that they were in an argument. We couldn't hear a word they were saying, but their body language said everything! 

My Latest Board Book

Here's a board book I did for Innovative Kids that is finally out. I started this book in October of 2007 and final artwork was submitted to the publisher in January of 2008 which was too late for Easter last year. So finally it is out! A cute concept.....a bag with the board book attached and dye-cut Easter eggs on the inside for kids to hide and collect. This spread is my favorite with the chick getting creative in his little farmhouse "art studio." 

The art director and I went round and round trying to create a rabbit for the cover of this book. Our first attempts, which we both liked, did not pass the muster when presented to the marketing and sales people. I think the original rabbit looked too edgy and marketing wanted a cute, white, cuddly rabbit. I spent one weekend coming up with 15 different rabbits which were reviewed and this version was finally selected. Art by committee! :o)

Illustration Friday: Breezy

With the wind in her wool, the sheep felt light and breezy. Ok, a stretch, but I just got back from New Zealand and have sheep on my mind. Decided to play around with Painter today and sketched the sheep using a crow quill pen. Then using layers, I painted the background using sponges and the blender tool. Fun!

Missing in Action

Yikes! I managed to sneak out of town without leaving a post that I would be gone for awhile. In case you've been wondering, I just got back from a three week trip to New Zealand. Wow! What an amazing trip. Toured mostly the south island this year with only a few days spent in Auckland.  The south island is much more spectacular in beauty than the north...which is saying a lot, as the north island is incredibly beautiful!  Millions of sheep everywhere. These lovely beauties live on the farm of my friend Kathryn Wills. Some of them are self-moulting sheep. Their wool just falls off, so they never have to be sheared. I had a blast wandering around the pasture taking their pictures.  More pics tomorrow!

How I Spent Last Weekend

                                            © Deborah Melmon

I started a new painting last week in my watercolor class with Guy Magallanes. Usually I don't have much time during the week to paint on stuff that is not work related, but this weekend I was puppy sitting for my girlfriend and since I had to keep one eye on a very curious and energetic puppy, I decided to sit at my kitchen table and paint on Friday. Well, Friday turned into Saturday and then into Sunday. I couldn't stop myself and ended up almost finishing the piece over the weekend. I learned so much just experimenting with the color. I took the painting to class last night and after a few minor finishing touches, I'm done!  Had a lot of fun with this one :o) Thanks Guy for being such an inspiring teacher!!