Two months until Don't Worry, Eat Cake!

Eeeeeee! Today marks exactly two months left until my coloring book Don't Worry, Eat Cake is released! I can't believe it! When I was working on the artwork for it last fall, June 7th seemed unbelievably far away. I can't even begin to describe how excited I am to finally see it in real life soon :) 

Now comes the busy, but super fun part of starting to promote the book on social media. In the next few weeks, I'll be announcing more official things about pre-ordering, giveaways and events. Stay tuned!

Birds of Springtime

Earlier this year, my friend started a weekly art challenge to help us all build our illustration portfolios. Each month has a theme, and then ideally each week you create a piece so that at the end of each month you have a little collection, and then at the end of the year you have 12 collections. This month's theme was "birds," so I wanted to create something inspired by springtime. I love this time of year when the birds are returning, grass is  getting greener, flowers are blooming and it smells like mud outside. I don't know a whole lot about birding, but a lot of my family is really into it. Sometimes it feels like a fun game to spot certain types of birds. In this piece, I drew my favorite birds that signal warmer weather to come.

Best part of all is that the hashtag for the challenge is #spankysartparty :D Best name ever, right? If you know me personally, then you know why that's the best name ever. This little guy's name is Spanky! 

You can search that hashtag on social media to follow along or see what other illustrators have created. Here are the pieces I created for February (houses) and January (houseplants).

Welcome!

Welcome to my new website! I'm so excited to finally be able to share it with you! I've been wanting to update it for so long now, and my to-do list always filled up with other things. I've learned that when you work for yourself, the to-do list never ends. NEVER. I don't remember the last time I was bored. Isn't that weird? Whenever I have downtime, there is always something I could be doing, whether it's working on new cards, working on new illustrations, watching tutorials, learning new skills, reading business books and blogs. It could go on and on. I love what I do, so it's not like I'm miserable to have to do those things. It's just exhausting! The hardest that I've been trying to learn over the last few years is how to step away and take a break, even when there are so many things left to do. I naturally want to cross off as many things as possible from my to-do list (because that feeling is like a drug), but soon enough something else gets added. Then, I find myself in this cycle of working like a mad woman to get things done, but that feeling of "done" never comes. It's very hard to try to relax with so many tasks looming over you. It definitely is a conscious effort to not get sucked into working all day every day, but at least I'm aware of it, right?

Upcoming Spring Salt Market

I have so much to fill you in on soon, but I just wanted to mention to my readers that I'll be in Syracuse this coming weekend (Friday night and Saturday during the day) for the springtime Salt Market event! Normally this craft show happens in the fall or winter (and it's amazing), but this year they have added a spring version! You should also know that I was asked to design the promotional materials for the event, which were super fun to create!

Hopefully see you there!

hand-lettering and illustration

Salt Market Syracuse New York

A Busy November!

Whew! Is it already almost Thanksgiving?? This month is seriously flying by. I've been pretty busy with craft shows, freelance work and prepping for the upcoming holiday shopping season!  So far, I've been to three craft shows already, and will head to one more this weekend. That will be 4 in one month! It's really hard to avoid being super busy at this time of year though. I keep reminding myself that come January, I'll be so bored once the rush is over. I complain when I'm busy, but I get depressed when I don't have much to do. That's what happened in the long, slow winter of last year once the Valentine's Day rush ended. I really shouldn't complain now anyways though, because I am doing what I love and my business is growing. We can sleep when we're dead! Just kidding. Naps feel so good. Anyways, here are some snippets of the shows I did already this month. First was Mayday! Underground in Rochester, NY. Then I did the Awesome Indie Art Market in Ithaca, NY. And then yesterday I did The Fab Flea in Newark Valley (a cute little pop-up sale with other local artists and vendors from my area).

Successful Salt Market

Thanks to everyone who visited me at the Syracuse Salt Market on October 18th. It was such a successful day and I met some of the friendliest customers ever!  The market was busy the ENTIRE day, and I heart that there was a line to get in at 10AM! Woo hoo! The only possible downside of a busy day like that is that I unfortunately didn't get to shop around myself. I know that if I was there not as a vendor, I would have spent all my money shopping!

Check out this delicious beet juice mocktail I had from the LOFO table at the market. It kind of looks like a sippy cup of blood yeah?