On the first day of Christmas...

Illustration Friday: Mail

This is Shirley the Christmas Elf. Her job is to help Santa sort through all of his mail. I'm sure she must know what she's doing, she was promoted to head mail elf after all. But I think maybe she needs to come up with a new system.... maybe a big wheely cart or some different bins or something. Just sayin.

Christmas Cards on Etsy

I've added a set of Holiday cards to my Etsy shop. Check it out here.

Its chilly on the front range of Colorado, but no snow. Sad. I like the snow. I think I'll go outside and do a little snow dance.

Randall the Christmas Elf

There weren't any monsters in my head today for Monster Thursday... just this little Christmas Elf, Randall. He's so very excited for the holiday season and so am I. Hip hip hooooray!

Illustration Friday: Sneaky

Mmmm... cake.

Holly

Monster Thursday...er...Friday

This is Jim. He likes visiting the art museum. And he likes soup.

Hooray for weddings!

A couple of weekends ago my good friends, Travis and Jenny, got married. Travis and I first met when we studied together in Italy over ten years ago. Travis loves Italy, Jenny's family is Italian, and the newlyweds will spend their honeymoon in Rome. This is the illustration I made for their wedding present. Hooray for Travis and Jenny!!

Coloring Book

Here's the front cover for an Animal Alphabet coloring book I did that should be out next year.

Come back soon for some works in progress as well as some new holiday cards in my Etsy shop! It's chilly here today. I hope that you're all staying warm. :)

Monster Thursday

This morning I woke up to find snow on the ground. Hooray!!

Winter is on the way

Miranda

Monster Thursday

This is Penny. She likes flying and eating pie.

Monster Thursday

This is Florence. She likes hats. And jellybeans.

Gladys

Irene

Illustration Friday: Transportation

Here's one from my portfolio for Illustration Friday. When I lived in New York I often took the bus to run errands for my boss. And let me tell ya, a New York City bus is always full of interesting characters. I think that maybe that's where the inspiration for this illustration came from. I miss New York. Mostly.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!!

Hip hip hooray! Its time to shop!! My new Etsy store, Brooke Bee Studio, is officially up and running. The inventory isn't too extensive at the moment, but it will grow... slowly but surely. You can find this "Trick or Treat" card there, along with a few other notecards. Please stop by and have a look around.

Click here to visit.

Illustration Friday: Beneath

Rose

A sketch of Rose, from the movie "I Capture the Castle".

Works in progress...

...sigh... Where did the summer go? I do very much love the fall, but I'm afraid it snuck up on me a wee bit too quickly this year. Although, I am looking forward to heading up to the mountains to see the leaves changing. And also looking forward to adding some more pieces to my portfolio. I'll add this illustration soon...



















And this is one of the cards that will be in my new Etsy shop.
























I hope that you're enjoying the changing of the seasons dear bloggers! Toodle-Loo for now!

Illustration Friday: Old Fashioned

An old fashioned wedding portrait for Illustration Friday.

Stay tuned for new card designs and a new Etsy shop in the next few days!

Emily

Happiest Friday to you!

Emily is going to spend her weekend drinking peppermint tea and reading a delightfully good book. Let's join her, shall we?

Monster Thursday

Happy Thursday to you!!

Illustration Friday: Acrobat

This week's word made me think of the acrobatics of kitty cats. Although, my cat seems to have been shorted in the acrobatics department. He tends to fall off of things, not in a graceful, twisty kind of way, but in an awkward, thump on the floor kind of way. But he's very good at snuggling. For snuggling he gets a 10.

Pinwheel hat

For some reason I couldn't come up with a monster for Monster Thursday.... instead, here's a little chap in a pinwheel hat. Its lovely in Colorado today. Blue skies. I hope its lovely where you are too.

Sprucing up...

I gave my website a bit of a sprucing up. Its very similar to what it was, but hopefully cleaner and a bit more fun. And soon I'll have some new portfolio pieces to add, as well as an Etsy shop! Just truckin' along.... See the new site here.

Mushroom Hat

Monster Thursday

Hooray for babies!!

My oldest friend is having a baby! We went to preschool together. We played barbies and swam in the lake and made forts out of couch cushions. And now she's having a baby! I can't wait to meet him.

Here's the invitation that I designed for her baby shower.

Mushrooms, Gnomes, and works in progress...

A few weekends ago we went on a hike to American Lakes (also called Michigan Lakes) in Colorado State Park. Here's the view from the top....



















And here's what we saw along the trail...








































Mushrooms like this always make me think of one of my very favorite books....



































"Gnomes" by Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet. This book has delightful illustrations and is full of everything you ever wanted to know about gnomes.





















I'm working on some new portfolio pieces and the mushrooms will make a cameo in one of them...























Hopefully I'll have the finished versions up on my website soon. I'm also working on an illustration for my friend's baby shower invitation, so I'll post that in the next day or two. I hope you enjoy the holiday weekend and that you get to have some end-of-summer fun! Cheers!

Monster Thursday

This is Big Kitty Monster. He's taking a trip to Atlanta to visit my cousin, Julie. Julie made an exceptionally lovely bride last month when she got married at the Atlanta Aquarium. (And I got to be a bridesmaid and wear a fabulous dress!!) And, she likes kitties. A lot. And I like her. Hi Cousin!

Monster Thursday

Holy cow! Its already Thursday again. I like Thursdays.

Its rainy in Colorado today. Rainy and gray and cool and lovely. I hope its lovely where you are too. And I hope you like this monster. His name is Bip and he's bringing you a present and a basket of oranges.

Jelly serves tea...

Here's a character sketch for an idea I have for a picture book dummy.

Monster Thursday

Illustration Friday: Caged

Phew!!

Last Tuesday I made it home, safe and sound and utterly exhausted, from the SCBWI Summer Conference in L.A. I'm finally caught up on sleep now, and have had a few days to process my thoughts and digest what I took in. Here are a few pages of the drawings... I mean, er... notes... that I took....































And here are a few of my favorite conference moments...

1.Portfolio critique with Marla Frazee

During the three years that I lived in New York City I saw lots of celebrities. I'd see someone famous and think, "oh look, there's Moby, pushing a baby stroller. huh." or "oh look, there goes Minnie Driver, eating some frozen yogurt. anywho..." But when it came time to sit down with illustrator Marla Frazee I found myself a bit nervous and twitchy and befuddled. And when, during the last few minutes of the critique, she looked at me with raised eyebrows and a smile and asked if I had any questions, I found myself staring back at her, mouth open, stupefied. Of course I had questions! I had the ear of Marla Frazee!! But alas, I only sat there and stared and mumbled something about how many images I should have in my portfolio (a question that I already knew the answer to). sigh. Oh well, despite my awkwardness and lack of question asking, Ms. Frazee was thoughtful and encouraging and left me with lots of things to think about and clear ideas about the direction in which I should head.

2. Mac McCool's Master Class on creating graphic novels for kids.

This was a wonderful class in which I met many wonderful new friends. Mr. McCool was so enthusiastic and explained things with such clarity, specificity, and humor! I can't wait to go check out all of the great graphic novels that I learned about!

3. Loren Long

I loved all of the presentations that illustrator Loren Long gave, especially the session in which he explained his process of working. And he signed a book for me!! :)




















4. The Portfolio showcase

I loved looking through all of the portfolios in the portfolio showcase! Now my bulletin board is covered with postcards from all of the illustrators I met or whose portfolios I admired.
















Phew! So, there's what I did at the conference in a nutshell. I should also mention the wonderful keynote speakers, including Carolyn Mackler, Marion Dane Bauer, and Ashley Bryan... all of them were delightful and inspiring. And here's my new and improved website. I'll be making some more changes in the next few weeks, but you'll get the idea. :)