Mail Time!

Just got exciting mail this afternoon! Some stickers I drew finally came in and I can't wait to start selling art so I can slap these babies on the packages! I love making this kind of stuff and developing "my brand." 

Just trying to be make design funny and functional and I hope people get a kick outta it sometimes. 

PS. I can't even touch my toes so that yoga master back bend pose was clearly not inspired by my bodily ways. 

PPS. Hairy legs > Fishnet stockings. 

I'm Headed DOWNTOWN!

As you know, I work with StudioDIY to create some kick butt, totally cute graphics and printables for their cool and colorful blog! I love it, truly.

Here is one of the projects I finished in March that just got blogged about! (Side note: SO hard to keep an exciting project secret for so long! But I DID IT.)

Anyways, it's a Choose Your Own Adventure guide to how to successfully spend a day in Downtown L.A. and it looks like SO much fun! Road trip, anyone?... Like for serious. 

Number one reason it looks so AMAZING is all the yum snacks! Food is my most favorite expense and hobby. (StudioDIY, you have my heart.)

It involved a lot of lettering, which I am totally about! But I can be so picky about how my writing looks, so even though it looks cute and casual, I put in some major love perfecting it all!

Anywho, fun project and I made a cute little Instagram teaser too :) 

I painted a palm tree quick and made a pattern and laid the title of the piece on top!  (Funny story, I didn't have ANY palms in the original piece, but after making the teaser all about them... I had to add them at the top of the guide! Cohesion. Oops.)

The silly pattern.

The Instagram teaser!

Another version of a potential Instagram teaser- this one was unused but I still like it :)
(Rough texture of the letters is from actual gouache painting of words that were scanned in.)

Always looking forward to working with StudioDIY again! If you want to check the post out for yourself (you should!!!,) just click here!

And for the heck of it (and to pay homage to the title of this post...)

Ooooh, Mack is too real. 

Cryday the 13th

Any day in the life of Danielle could be considered Cryday (I'm emotional,) but today is actually Friday the 13th and it's time for my favorite tradition! Tattoo parlor around the world (probably, did not fact check) have Friday the 13th tattoo specials and looking at all the really bizarre, terrible gag ideas they come up with (and that people wait in line for!) is just... hilarious. Some places here ink people for $13 and it's really great. (Check out the tag #fridaythe13thtattoos and then thank me later.)

Clockwise from the top left: Rob McElchenny a la Always Sunny, dumb bone tattoo idea to show you're tough, a WAHHHbulance, a cool LL Cool J reference, sad toaster strudel, Kylie Jenner's lips and Sandlot reference.

Anyways, last year, I came up with my first flash sheet making fun of the idea of cheap, perfunctory tattoos, and I had time to dream up some new ones last night. (I'm honestly questioning why no one is questioning why I drew a sad toaster strudel...)

Side note: this is not directed at anyone in particular, I'm just having fun! I honestly don't care if you get cheap tattoos or expensive tattoos or if they do or don't have meaning. PLEASE consider getting Mac tattooed onto your neck though, I would really love to see someone appreciate my creativity. THX

Sneak Peek!

Sneak peek of one of my new patterns (I have two!)

I am testing out a new potential product and so far loving it! Super sturdy, tough phone case with vivid and clear printing. 

I got a couple other things in the mail this weekend that have my work printed on it too! Exciting! More soon. 

A (golden) Barrel of Fun!

For the past couple days I have been spending hours at my desk painting and listening to too many podcasts. 

I am trying to come up with a few cool things for an upcoming art show and I went to the local Saguaro National Park and hiked around and took a mizillion (made that word up to convey the extreme quantity of photos I took) reference/inspirational photos! 

Saguaros (and cacti in general) are often portrayed cartoon-y (hey, I draw them that way too!) but I wanted to try to get all the weird gritty, awkward stages of cacti growth too! If you go back in my archives, you can see I made a saguaro pattern in December 2015 (cartoon-y as HECK) and way back in June 2014 but I wanted to make a fresh interpretation since I'm no longer the same person I was back when I made those! Run on sentence. 

Anyways, I had a lot of fun and filled at least 19 pages of my 2 sketchbooks up with watercolor and gouache paintings of cacti. Here are a couple untouched scans! 

My main focus this time was to represent the saguaros with a ton of arms (meaning they are older cacti) and also get them to look more proportional and tall! After I painted my heart out and accumulated enough "okay" cacti, I moved onto scanning them, which is a whole production in itself. 

After I scanned them in at super high resolutions, I brought all the pages into my trusty photoshop and started to edit the backgrounds (the sketchbook paper) out so the cactus stood alone. Above is the SUPER messy file of a million layers of cacti that I drug (is that a word?) into one single file. The reason I do this is so I can proportion the drawings and shrink them to be all the same relative size. Since I was using two sketchbooks (when one was still wet, I could still continue to paint in the other and via versa) the paintings were not all the same size. Saguaros are obviously bigger than golden barrel cacti so I had to make them that way! 

Above are some of what I painted presented in a more organized fashion. This helps me so when I am making the patterns, I could see which ones I wanted to use that fit the color scheme/space/etc.

Long post! Hope you stayed with me. I finished up the patterns yesterday and started to order a couple products I'll be selling and (hopefully!) showcasing soon! You'll get the first sneak peek here! 

Pretend I posted this on Earth Day

Earth Day was a week ago and I never posted what I was up 'cause I was too busy celebrating this planet!

How did you celebrate the Earth on its special day (and everyday?) I like to walk to the grocery store when I can, use reusable bags and bottles, shower irregularly, use both sides of my sketchbook pages, paint by candlelight (LOL, to save electricity though!)and take long naps that slow down my breathing so I emit less CO2 into the atmosphere.

In all seriousness, I do try my best to love the earth and be good to it! Hope you guys are too!

The 3 P's

Popcorn. Pacey. Pattern making.

Spending my night watching Dawson's Creek, eating too much popcorn (as per usual,) and painting lots of patterns in my sketchbook. Not making anything serious, but I had fun playing around and mixing watercolors with my new set of gouaches.

The pattern to the left is inspired by a craving for some chocolate chip cookies. *Super serious artist*