November? You were barely here...

November is one of those months that just zips in and out, or so it seems... So, did you vote? Of course you did. I did too. I always do. 

The polling place is about a mile from my house, and I have a history of showing up at the wrong times (when I don't have to stand in line for 20 minutes is when I consider it to be the right time)... so, instead of showing up:

 when it opens - people on their way to work are there then...

 9am-11am - people who run errands and shop are there then...

 noon - lunchtime - everyone is there then...

 after 3pm - school is out, workplaces begin to close...

So, sometime shortly after 1pm seemed like a safe option. Ha! I stood in line with 100+ other people for 45 minutes.

For the record: I'm a democrat, I've always been a democrat. So, you know, in the 3 whole minutes that it took me to actually vote — I filled in the circle next to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Would have taken less time if the lead in the #2 pencil hadn't been broken. Yes, we have scantron style ballots. No levers, no punches. Just a bunch of adults filling in circles on a piece of paper.

Anyway, that's done.

Are you still reading this? Good. Because that last paragraph wasn't the end of the world, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned my political leanings before... 

Anyway, November, I hardly know ye as a month, because you fly by every year while I'm trying to wrap up a bunch of illustrations. Yes, I have 6 illustrations to finish for the calendar — and I only managed to totally change my mind on a couple of them at the last minute and totally start over from scratch, ha!

So, in all honesty, there's nothing that looks super exciting about the sketch phase. Plus, my current sketchbook sat in the trunk of my car and I pulled it out because I ran out of sketchbooks, and well, the paper is kinda lumpy. It's usable, but warped... the usable part is the important part. So, yes, sketching and scanning and inking scan print-outs is what I have been doing fiendishly for the last 2-3 weeks, when not sleeping or cleaning.

I finished these back in June - for father's day.

male eastern bluebird

female eastern bluebird

It was interesting to take renderings that I had done at a certain scale and blow them up to fill in the details. Technically, it's something I do all the time, up until I started these - I hadn't drawn any birds that were quite that big.

I have some other bird portraits on the docket, but that's all on hold until I finish the calendar. So, I guess I should get to work finishing those pictures, and then maybe Christmas will be here and done and over with, and I can finally just relax, right? Until it snows and I have to drive to work in it...

Anyway, Thanksgiving is tomorrow — so HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

butterflies

I think everyone has a romanticized version of themselves. Like if you had to define yourself as a person - the words that you would choose are a projection of the qualities that you desire... and to some extent every person thinks: I defy labels. Really, we don't, but we all think that.

Labels, of course, are subjective.

So, what I know is that I probably have little use for "the rules," whatever those might be. If you've visited this blog semi-regularly, you may have noticed that there is a lack of format (which, unless you have OCD and you check here daily) is due largely to the fact that I do a blog entry when I actually have something to share, as opposed to having a format.

I don't desire to abide by a format in my free time, which I consider this blog to be. Formats are just like rules, and usually they're kind of arbitrary and eventually they get boring or feel like an obligation. Obligations come with expectations and guilt, particularly when expectations aren't met... and I like to avoid that. Formats also involve a time table and repetition. I'm not really a format kind of girl.

When I was a child I had a lot of toys, particularly Barbies and Cabbage Patch Kids. And one day I was downstairs playing in the Barbie Section (that was the name of the area in the basement that had been apportioned to me & my sister as a play area) and realized that I had no desire to be a doctor or a lawyer or an astronaut (or whatever the third rung of that analogy is supposed to be). My childhood ambition was either to be a princess or a hairdresser...

I mean, I styled a lot of doll hair, and I had all the latest dolls from Herself the Elf, Rose Petal, Hot Looks dolls, Strawberry Shortcake, She-Ra dolls, Golden Girls (not the sitcom), Barbies, Maxie dolls (like Barbie), Jem and the Holograms... some of those probably also account for my princess aspirations (besides the fact that princesses had pretty dresses)... Anyway, I am neither a princess or a hairdresser.

I'm not a goal-obsessed person. That's probably why I got that art degree.

So, every now and then an idea for a 'thing' will pop into my head. And I may write it down or draw it in the back of my sketchbook, or I might not. And if I just remember it - that's fine.

So, for a long long time I had this idea about a project with butterflies, and really, I didn't sit down and meticulously plan out the details... I just finally did it. So, one Saturday morning one of the showtime channels was playing "Ripple Effect" and I sat there and sketched out butterfly wings... and realized that I think that Forest Whitaker plays phenomenally annoying characters (yes, I've seen the Criminal Minds spin-off).

And eventually, I scanned those and inked them, and scanned those, and made a 'body' and then 'antenna'... and piece by piece, slowly, and perhaps organically the project finally came together. And I realize that I tend to think of my work in process terms - like I scanned that, inked that, etc — because generally, those are the givens. The colors, the shape, the composition — I think of those as simply being inherent and I suppose, beyond explanation...

And sometimes I think things have amusing and unintentional parallels and connections. Because to 'colorize' the butterflies — I used scans of my watercolor paintings. And perhaps, when you were a child you had a watercolor set and made a butterfly by painting half and then folding the paper in half and pressing it together. I don't remember ever having done that at home — I actually only remember doing it in the fourth grade...

But then, I paint watercolors that don't follow "the rules." According to the rules - if you use some sort of gimmick - like salt on watercolor - you should do it sparingly, just in an area or something. Oh, pfft to that thinking.

When I paint with watercolors, other than knowing that I will be using paint, salt, water, paper, and a brush — I don't plan my compositions — they happen. It is what it is, which must be very wrong to the people who will tell you that there are rules...

So, I finally finished* the butterfly project that I've been thinking about for about a year now.
*finished is a relative term.

morning dew fairywing

rose madder majestic

morning aurora swallowtail

You can see the rest of them at my sarahkdesigns shop as they trickle into the butterfly section.
I suppose if I had planned it and put it on a time table - it would have been done a long time ago. But, that's just not how I work.

Now, since this is the last day of my 'vacation' — let's see which new project gets my last day of vacation, so I'm relaxed and focused attention. Will it be the calendar graphics, the bird project, the dancers, the 'portraits,' the watercolor over photographs, or the girls? Or, maybe I'll finish cleaning the living room. Okay, yeah, the living room probably isn't going to win that one.

Have a lovely weekend, and do whatever is going to make you happy : )

sale at sarahkdesigns

8X10 Print Sale!
2-11-2011 to 2-13-2011

All 8X10 prints (regularly $15.00) are just $10.00 each this weekend only!

All orders placed during the sale will be shipped on Monday 2-14-2011.
come to SARAHKDESIGNS to view the inventory

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Yes, I'm having a sale. It's been one of those weeks. I blame the weather. It's been miserably cold here. So basically, every day was: get up just in time to eat dinner, eat dinner, feed the fish, get dressed, drive to work, work 8 hours, drive home, feed the fish, somehow spend 4 hours in front of the computer whilst 'watching' CSI reruns, feed the fish (they're well fed), get to bed an hour late in spite of not really doing anything... and get up to do it all over again... Lather, rinse, repeat.

Yes, it was one of those weeks.
This is my fish Ozzy essentially expressing the word "Meh." He's ready for the warm weather to commence as well...

Hopefully you had a busy (and yet well rested) & accomplishment-filled week.

New Snowflakes

September is when I'm supposed to get all the "Christmas stuff" done... and that never happens. I think I'm on year five of this pattern. So, it's mid-November, and I finally sat down on the couch and watched M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening." Yeah, clearly I'm a bit behind on my bad movies... that and it beckoned me from the cheap DVD bin at Walmart. The funny thing is, I generally like M. Night Shyamalan movies, but this one - I think I wanted a plant to reach out and strangle Mark Wahlburg by the end of the movie...

Anyway, the point is that popping in a movie that I had paid for was incentive to actually sit there on the couch and fill in an entire snowflake template, which is what I did.

I now have at least 16 new snowflakes for this year — TA-DAH:

I think (actually — I know) I have now designed over 100 snowflakes in the span of 5 years.
You can see 94 of my designs in the listings in my "sarahknight" shop on etsy: snowflake prints
They're spread out in 3 'templates' — 1 | 2 | 3

Are you getting ready for Christmas? Eef, I still have 4 graphics to produce for the holiday calendar. I so need a clone, specifically one that likes to do work.

: )

Autumn & Artfire

I had planned to go out and wander around and take photos, so, of course, it rained. Perhaps this is why I so seldom make plans.

Anyway, instead, I sat down at the computer and opened up some of the thousands of digital photos I have hanging around here and there and everywhere, and decided to have some fun playing with Photoshop. Let's just say that in reality neither of these were photos of red leaves...

autumn glow

sublime maple alchemy

So, I'm taking the plunge, and I opened an account on Artfire called SunshineSight. There you can find these and eventually probably all of the rest of my work.

Artfire is offering a pretty cool deal on their accounts, which is valid if you sign up before 10-01-2010. Where a "pro" account is only $5.95 USD a month. It's the same basic price as listing an item a day on Etsy, except with an Artfire account, for the flat monthly fee you can list as many items as you want. Obviously, I encourage you to check it out.

Snowflakes in September

Dear blog: yes, I hope to update you more frequently.
Sincerely,
Sarah
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Okay, now that we have that out of the way, I got busy working and being exhausted last week. Part of that working was my full time job, which regularly consumes 50 hours of my week (between my actual presence there & my drive). The rest of the 'working' was spent at home in front of the imac and involved snowflakes. Yes, every September I start working on the snowflakes.

I started designing snowflakes about 5 years ago. I'm sure as a child I cut snowflakes out of paper, and in college I started decorating my dorm rooms or apartments with snowflakes (I have hundreds of those plastic snowflakes covered in glitter — every year I go out and buy new snowflake ornaments)... but it was about 5 years ago that I started to seriously design snowflakes. I decided I wanted them to have the traditional 6 arm symmetry. Thus I designed a template that I could design my snowflakes with 6-arm bilateral symmetry on. I use the same template to this day.

I began designing the snowflakes because I decided I was going to sell Christmas cards. And if I was going to sell Christmas cards — I would want them to look like something that I would want to send to people, thus snowflakes.

So, every year about this time it occurs to me that "it's time to make the snowflakes." And every year I design some new snowflakes... and they usually have some kind of general theme. The first year there were lots of peace signs in hearts. The next year there were more hearts and "words." After that it was more traditional themes — like old school Martha Stewart motifs... and last year my thing was swirls. This year may be the year of the deer, at least that what seems to be on my file so far... yeah, I'm not done with this year's crop of new snowflake quite yet. Hey, it's only September.

What I did accomplish last week was designing and consolidating the backgrounds for the snowflake prints I offer for sale on etsy. At the present moment I have 42 different background color choices available (they can be found here). I know, I know, it sounds excessive, but I aim to please. Of course, I also have 66 different snowflakes to choose from. Technically, I suppose that makes 2772 possible different prints...
although I do have at least 2 new snowflakes finished...

Anyway, this is one of the new backgrounds I calibrated this week:

This is "Julia" on seafoam pizzazz
which can be found at "sarahknight" on etsy.

Sunshine Sight at Big Cartel

"Sunshine Sight" is now open on Big Cartel.

I have been looking for a new, different, or alternate venue to sell online for some time now. I haven't stopped looking, but I've decided to throw down some roots at Big Cartel and see if it works out.

I found the place when I was looking for a former fellow 'Etsian' a while back. There used to be a seller on etsy called "artandghosts." I remember 'hearting' her shop when I first set up shop there... and at some point I went back through my etsy favorites and discovered that she had disappeared from the site. Fortunately, as she is quite talented, she's not dead or anything horrible like that. She simply moved on. I found her on her blog: http://artandghosts.typepad.com/ which was where I found her Big Cartel shop. I was intrigued. And so, I decided to learn more about the site....

I also decided — around last October — that I wanted to come up with a different name to brand my artwork and products. "sarahkdesigns" is literally something I scrawled onto a piece of scrap paper in the breakroom at work one night when I was trying to come up with a name for a seller account on ebay. Remember when ebay seemed like a good place to give it a try? Yeah.

While sarahkdesigns is obvious — I am Sarah K, well, it's so obvious that other people use it too. It annoys me to google myself and find other people. That and my name is Sarah Knight, which is apparently like the "John Green" of female names. It's not quite "John Smith" common, but my — there are a lot of us Sarah Knights!

Besides that, I have looked around etsy at the successful print sellers usernames. While there are the folks who simply use their first name, there are more that don't. Creative folks like theeye, BirdNerd, strangefascination, arabbitgirl, ThisYearsGirl, mincingmockingbird, atwhim, and papermoth (to name a few) have more branded identities... So, I needed something more original, more arty, and less generic. I also decided to make this decision around Halloween, I'm not quite sure why.

I was going to pick "A moment's sunlight." Why? Because it's my favorite line in the Youngblood's song "Get Together" — which I had stuck in my head for weeks after having seen the movie "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" — which is one of my favorite books. It's a long name though.

So, I was brainstorming alternatives and through the process of elimination (again, while at work in the middle of the night) came up with Sunshine Sight. It's got that lyrical quality to it — not unlike "plastic acid" but apparently doesn't quite seem like such a stoner drug reference. Plus "Sunshine Sight: illustrations by Sarah Knight" conveniently rhymes with my name.

Sunshine was also apparently the runner-up to "Sarah" when my mother was deciding my name. Sunshine Knight - get it? Oh, Mom.
And, as someone with an openly sarcastic streak, Sunshine has always been the de facto sarcastic nickname bestowed upon me by co-workers. As someone who enjoys their sarcasm, I find that amusing.

So, I invite you to check out my Big Cartel shop: Sunshine Sight

I apparently also decided to open on "Earth Day" : )
So, go outside and wish the earth a beautiful day today!
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I also invite you to participate in my giveaway
The winner will receive a free Mother's Day card
You can read about it here: send some flowers giveaway

Hummingbirds!

Okay, so the hummingbirds should have all flown south to their winter range by now... and really, I should have taken the hummingbird feeders down from the backyard. But let's not dwell on factual stuff and chores. I sat down at the computer last night, and after several hours of playing and tinkering came up with these:






So, now, I suppose I have to come up with titles.

Anyway, I drew the hummingbirds first for my picture "nectar." And am using the birds in another picture I've been working on specifically for the calendar with hummingbirds and hollyhocks, which I have almost finished! It's November, and I'm halfway done. Who knows, maybe I'll get to relax on Christmas Eve this year? I hope so.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy these : ) they'll be in my shop shortly.

Thank you : )

you blogged about me...

THANKS!

you blogged about me...

Justine Miller Hernandez's "justnibbles.blogspot.com"
http://justnibbles.blogspot.com/2009/10/terrifying-tuesday-treasures_27.html

Lisa Orgler's "the lunch box project NEWSLETTER"
http://lbpnewsfoodart.blogspot.com/2009/10/2009-november-cranberry-delight.html

izile's oddities "izile.blogspot.com"
http://izile.blogspot.com/2009/11/veritas-equitas.html

Studio Haus www.studiohaus.blogspot.com
http://studiohaus.blogspot.com/2009/11/yellow-submarine.html

Voter!

My "pumpkin harvest" print is in the voter!

I heartily encourage you to go vote (for me)!
http://www.etsy.com/voter_list.php?ref=voter&room_id=75
:)

Thank you : )

you blogged about me...

THANKS!

you blogged about me...

All Strung Out
http://allstrungout1.blogspot.com/2009/09/help-with-your-christmas-shopping.html

Masha-Poppins.livejournal.com
http://masha-poppins.livejournal.com/102495.html

"From Victoria's desk..." the-moss-garden.blogspot.com
http://the-moss-garden.blogspot.com/2009/10/random-hearts.html

1happycorner.com
http://www.1happycorner.com/how-to-find-affordable-art-to-give-as-gifts

Yellow Warblers!

I've been doing a lot of work lately, a lot of sketching and drawing... because I want to be able to relax this Christmas. But every once in a while I like to just make something.
I did a series of "bird song" pictures a while back. And I decided to make some companion pieces.

This is one of the originals:






And these last two are the new ones. I hope you like them. They were a delight to create.

New Snowflakes!

I've been busy lately. Yes, it was the end of August, and it is the beginning of September — but it's snowflake season!

For the past several years I have been creating snowflakes. I believe I began doing it in 2005. I designed my first snowflakes for my Christmas cards — because I wanted to use something of my own — not glyphs from a wing-dings font.

Inevitably, I designed a template on which I could create my snowflakes. The template isn’t particularly eye catching, and I suppose it probably looks strange to anyone who happens to catch me drawing on it. It’s 4 rows of 60˚ angles, 3 per column; which yields 12 snowflakes per page.

I sketch the snowflake arms, and then fill them with black ink. I then scan the page into photoshop, where I do all the necessary editing (making sure that all I have is the black portions). And from there each arm is transferred to another file which is inevitably a template of new snowflakes. That new file is genially referred to as the snowflakenator, because that’s where the real snowflake magic happens.

Each snowflake has 6 arms. Some of the arms have bilateral symmetry, some don’t; it depends on what I was designing at the time…

Anyway, these are some of this year’s new snowflakes:



Look for them on prints at sarahkdesigns, and on my snowflake Christmas cards at sarahknight.etsy.com!

Picture Story: black-capped chickadee song — sarahkdesigns

black-capped chickadee song

I have a romanticized notion of birdsongs. Truth be told, I can very seldom actually tell what song belongs to what bird. I grew up the child of birdwatchers, so, this irritates my mother to no end. The only birdsong I can ever discern is robins (well, okay, and crows, and well, red-winged blackbirds), but that’s because they don’t sing so much as they scream…



Anyhow, this picture is the end result of some random comment from a forum thread.
It started with my etsy banner. As you may know, I have an etsy shop: sarahkdesigns. There I sell prints of my illustrations and digital collages, and the occasional watercolor. My work tends to be very colorful and usually incorporates flowers or birds, or both, or some aspect of nature…

So, I made myself a summer banner: something vivid, colorful, and with some summer birds and plants:



To make a long story short, I know the banner is obnoxiously full of bright saturated color, and is visually busy. Graphically, it is literally made out of a scan of one of my paintings and birds & flowers from a scan of another of my paintings. And every once in a while, I’m in need of some attention and post in those critique me threads in the critique forums — and the only thing that ever got any comments was, of course, my banner. I believe someone told me that it didn’t match the items in my shop (to which I thought, hey: click on page 2).

I’m not thin-skinned, or easily swayed, but eventually, as the days get shorter and slightly colder (we refer to that as free air conditioning) — it was time for a new banner.

And so, I sat down at the computer and pulled the chickadee layer out of chickadee love song, and the musical notes from bluebird song and played around until I had something that was whimsical and end of summery looking.



And then I thought, hey, that would look cool as a square print with a shadow border… And so, I sat down at the computer again and opened up all the files, and went searching for just the right photo of the sky… did some editing, added some layering effects, toggled some color, and voila: new print!

(Actually, new print series… check out sarahkdesigns this week for other birdsongs)

Picture Story: lightshine — sarahkdesigns

"lightshine" available at sarahkdesigns



I finished this picture a short while ago (literally, this last Wednesday). I think it will inevitably end up being the “June” graphic for the calendar that I make next year. Unlike all previous years, this time I really am striving to not be manufacturing 10 pictures (because somehow, I always do get 2 of them done on schedule) in the 10 days before Christmas. The calendar, incidentally, is what I give out to my relatives as a Christmas gift.

Anyway, I think this picture nicely encapsulates the month of June. It is a landscape featuring irises, sunshine, American goldfinches, and a colorful summer sunrise. This picture started with those irises. I have them in my garden. They’re called “lightshine” and are from Schreiners (which is a famous grower of irises). The original rhizome actually came as a free gift because I had made such a substantial order. It has since reproduced, so now I get a couple stalks every year. They always have a good amount of blooms, and they’re always full and gorgeous. So, I cropped the blossoms out of my photos, and combined them with stems that I literally cut out of the garden after the bloom season ended. I scanned the stems & some leaves, and combined them through the magic of photoshop.

Obviously, they needed a background, and I wanted something that would coordinate with the colors of the blooms. Conveniently, I have scans of my abstract acrylic paintings on file, and I found the perfect fit. And for a while, the picture sat there on my computer as just irises & a background. I experimented to frustration with the idea of superimposing a photo of a cloudy sky over the background, but nothing was making me happy… and then it occurred to me that I used to make pictures of landscapes all the time with the sun, and it had been like forever since I had done that. So, a plucked a shade of yellow out of the irises and made myself a sun, with rays of light radiating out to compliment my lightshine irises.

And, of course, I need some animal life. I had originally considered doing butterflies, but just couldn’t bring myself to draw them. I apparently just wasn’t in the mood. So, I decided on the goldfinches instead. Many of them flit through our yard on a regular basis. I always see them in flight. So, having them fly over my irises was apt. That, and they’re yellow, so they coordinate with the color scheme of the picture.

All in all, I think it’s a cheerful encapsulation of summer.

Outside: eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis)

sarahkdesigns

♥ Most-Hearted 8 X 10 Print Sale ♥ (June 14 thru June 20, 2009) ♥ Any open edition 8X10 print with 7 hearts or more will be just $10.00! See something you like? See something you want? Heart it into the sale!♥
♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ • ♥ * ♥ •


this is in the sale : )

and these are some photos of the male of the pair of Eastern Bluebirds who are currently nesting in the box in my yard.

upcoming sale at sarahkdesigns!

From June 14 to June 20, 2009
sarahkdesigns will be having a "most hearted print sale!"
All open edition 8 X10 prints with 7 "hearts" or more will be just $10.00!

These prints are so close to being included in the sale...

evening iris ________ june blooms


bluebirds and tulips ______________ spa


summer sunset _____ chickadee love song


violet night _______ dragonfly love


sublime spring skies ___ spring sing

if you heart them, then they will be discounted : )

Upcoming sale at sarahkdesigns!

Next week sarahkdesigns is having a sale!
My most-hearted 8X10 prints will be just $10.00!
So, I invite you to check out my shop: sarahkdesigns
and "heart" to your heart's content!

All 8X10 prints with 7 hearts or more will be on sale : )

here are some examples of what will be on sale:


calla lilies and tree swallows


bunnies and puzzles


greener pasture


3 sheets in the wind


eastern bluebirds on a wire


purple martins & purple irises

Picture Story: 2 bunnies on a hill -- sarahkdesigns

"2 bunnies on a hill" available at sarahkdesigns

I draw, so I tend to think that the picture stands on its own. I'm just adroit like that. I suppose if I was in the business of using words to illustrate, then I would be a writer...

"2 bunnies on a hill" was made for one of my calendars. Every year I spend three weeks before Christmas putting together the calendar that I had vowed would already be done. (This happens every year: I get everything done at the last minute and vow that won’t happen next year… it always does, no matter how early I start).

Anyway, I make the calendar for my family: parents, grandparents, sister, aunts, uncle, etc. So, while I may be a slacker twenty-something who wears black t-shirts and maryjanes and listens to Pink Floyd… well, that’s not my Grandma. So, the calendar has to be family friendly, because I expect my relatives to hang this up somewhere and show it off.

I also like the calendar to be seasonally appropriate. We all live in the Midwest, so we have all 4 seasons. “2 bunnies on a hill” was originally created for the April slot of my 2006 calendar. And it did not look the way it does now when I had originally finished it.



This was one of my early digital collages. Digital collage was a technique that I fell into way back when I was working on a comic book. Since the comic I was working on was supposed to be black and white and I knew it would be printed digitally, I wanted to do something anathema to comics: incorporate texture! So, I spent a lot of time back then scanning pen & ink drawings and filling them with scans of photos or magazine clippings or scans of objects… Anyway, the 2006 calendar was my first to feature digital collages instead of just reproductions of my drawings or paintings. Ah, modern technology.

So, the “drawn” portion of the image literally actually is just the 2 bunnies and the silhouette of the hill. Everything else is present due to the magic of photoshop. The grass was created in a series of layers using the “grass” brush in photoshop. I just kept changing the size of the brush. I started small at the top of the hill and got progressively larger by the bottom of the page. Then I think I ran the layer through a filter.

The sky was created from a scan of one of my older salt on watercolor paintings. It was back in 2000 or 2001 when I started doing abstract salt on watercolor paintings. I did a series of them for an aqueous media class, this was one of them. Anyway, I scanned the painting and flipped it over on itself with layer styles. So, if you look closely you might notice that one side kind of mirrors the other. I think I also put a color layer over the altered scan of the painting.

The stars were created using the shape tool. They are also “filled” with portions of a scan of salt on watercolor, although it reads more faintly. I wanted the coloration of the stars to be like those glow in the dark stars that they sell in toy stores. I always thought those were nifty. I had a few of them as a teenager.

The fill of the bunnies was recycled from a comic book project. And that fill has been used in many of my digital collages. The original file for the fill was created from a scan of a picture in a magazine. It was actually a rug on the floor in the picture. Anyway, I scanned it, and copied and pasted and rotated parts of it, and used the clone stamp tool until I had what amounted to a much larger sampling of “rug” (or curlyfur.jpeg as it is known in my files). It’s original purpose as a fill was supposed to be (ironically) for a demonic rabbit.

Anyhow, when I was deciding what I wanted in my etsy shop I decided to go back and revisit what was originally known simply as “April.psd”. I think I wanted something purple. As it turns out, violet is my favorite color. So, I decided to liven up the sky with a wash of purple and periwinkle that mirrored the shape of the hill. And for consistency and color relationships, I decided to change up the color of the grass; making it a more olive shade of green and lighter at the top of the hill.

I’ve certainly been surprised at how many prints of this image that I have sold : )

to be updated periodically: you blogged about me...

and I appreciate that.

Images are made to be seen. Yes, I’m sure there’s a conceptual artist out there who can work to prove otherwise; I illustrate to have people look at my images. So, thank you to everyone who has ever done me the enormous privilege of blogging about my work which can be viewed on etsy at sarahkdesigns or sarahknight.

Handmade by Angie:
http://jangiesetsyshop.blogspot.com/2008/12/sarahkdesigns-and-curbsidetreasure.hatml

TiLT Treasures:
http://tilttreasures.blogspot.com/2009/01/sky-of-blue.html

the Plasticity of Happiness:
http://plasticityofhappiness.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

MoxieFabWorld:
http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2009/03/five-x5-for-friday-lets-go-fly-kite.html

Etsy Stalker:
http://etsystalker.com/?m=20090317

Etsy Stalker:
http://etsystalker.com/?p=386