Lovey-Dovey Turtles

February is almost here! I'm not trying to rush you or anything but you realize that if we start celebrating February, pretty soon it will be March, yes, it will probably still be snowy and cold BUT the first day of Spring is March 20th.....and then it will be April and then....JUNE! Oh, the anticipation! In my opinion, God made winter to toughen me up and teach me to hope and wait for what I desire. And I always desire SUMMER!

In celebration of February I've been working on more Love Turtles for Valentine's Day. First, I finished the "Love is in Season" Turtle:

And then I made him into a card!

Then I drew some Tango-ing Turtles.

And made them into cards. I couldn't decide which design I liked best...they're all so cute!

Can you see...the caption says "It takes two...." Because of course, it takes two to tango! These designs are already listed over in my Etsy shop. I'm starting to get the hang of Etsy and am really amazed at all the artists and crafters on there. So much talent! I just made my first sale through Etsy this week! Hooray! Thank you, Maria!

I planned to attempt the deadline for Illustration Friday this week. The topic was "climbing" and I had an idea and a sketch drawn out but just couldn't get it done. I'm really hoping to start participating in that forum. It is very inspiring to look at other artists/illustrators submissions, they are SO beautiful! And it is very good practice for coming up with a concept, sketch and finished illustration quickly. Just look at some of my favorites this week....

Laura Zarrin

Carmen Keys

Kristin

Mike Desantis

Aren't they beautiful? I aspire to be as good as these artists! Some day....

Something old, something new...

You might recall the original sketch I posted of this guy a long time ago:

Done way "back in the day" when I first started the turtles...I had to put him aside as my first Craft Show approached and I didn't have time to finish ALL of the turtle ideas. Here he his all festive and bright, coming to help you celebrate!

Besides trying to work on a couple more Love Turtles, this past week we celebrated my mom and one of my sisters' birthdays. In honor of my mom I started a birthday card doodle that turned out way better than expected. Here it is for you to see, but mom gets the original!

Notice how different it looks from the others. Only two things changed here, I used a different paper and overlayed the colors. All of the other turtles I'm using a vellum bristol which is very rough. I'm not pressing down hard and covering up the whole paper which gives it a textured look. This smooooooooth paper makes the pencil lines look completely different, adding some colors on top of each other made it come alive and I was very happy with how it turned out. This is a little closer to children's book illustration in my opinion. Every once in a while everything just works! So Happy Birthday to Mom and Cristi, I'm so glad to have you in my life.

Family: Our treasure, heaven's gift

watch this!

Scrabble-Man (my husband) and I have been watching a lot of the Cosby Show lately. This is a Christmas gift that has been making the cold winter nights a little more bearable. We love the 80s sweaters, the clean situation comedy and the focus on a big, crazy, loving family. I grew up in a big, crazy, loving, crazy, funny, crazy, loud family...I had to share everything. Personal space was not an option. You could have the bathroom to yourself IF you were willing to get up before everyone else (so about 5:30) in the morning. Someone was always quarreling with someone else, we had a certain order we had to sit in the pew at church, which my mom decided...based on who was getting along with who and who would be a distraction! No matter what trouble we got into, we always knew we were loved. I wouldn't trade a day of it.

Maybe some of you didn't have such a great childhood. Maybe you weren't ever told you were loved. I'm sorry. I pray you'll know the Father who is unconditionally loving, righteously fair and gave what was most important to Him to ensure your adoption into His big, loving, crazy family. Our time on earth is only for a season...what will we do with it and who will we believe?

What the world needs now...

....is love, sweet love!

Valentine's Day is coming up next! So I've listed some lovey-dovey type turtles over on Etsy. I'm hoping to come up with some new illustrations in the upcoming weeks too. I'll put them up as I finish them. Leave me a comment and let me know what kind of L-O-V-E, Love Turtles you think would be cute.

Taking Requests

The latest turtles I've been drawing have been at the request of a couple of people who've caught the Turtle bug! Thanks to Jen and Heather for thinking up these ideas and ordering them....

Here you have:


Carpenter Turtle, Teacher Turtle and Sailor Turtle! The carpenter and teacher turtles are for a couple who are employed as, you guessed it, a carpenter and a teacher. They have the Singin' in the Rain turtle already for their baby, so the three turtles will be a little family portrait.


The Sailor or Navy turtle will hopefully be the start of a series of military-honoring turtles. I've got some sketches for an Army turtle already. What fun!

A Very Merry Christmas

Well, I have to say, Christmas of 2008 will go down in history as one of the best holidays I've ever had! For once I felt like there was time to celebrate, worship, relax and enjoy time with family and friends. It was wonderful.

Here's my recap for your viewing pleasure....

We had a wonderul Christmas potluck on my floor at work, lots of laughter, food and punch! Looks like Mike and Steve had a little too much!

At my parent's on Christmas day there was lots of food, presents and gaming!!! Oh, how we love to break out the boardgames! I'm sure the neighbors can hear us making such an animated raucous. Some people got kicked out for being "too good" (um, Joel), and other's stayed until the wee hours (the Adair duo sure knows how to play!). Kita chomped contentedly on her first big-girl bone!

The next day...we had some more time with Joel's family....

Some sibling snuggle time...

Some father/son time...Joel got to spend some more great time with his sister and father while he was on break. And there's Joel's mom with her snowman tree!

This Christmas I am very thankful for co-workers who make the day go by, family and friends whose love brightens our lives, my amazing husband who chooses to intertwine his life with mine and a Savior who gave up His life so that we could find ours!