jewelwing designs...

Be Still, Life.

2010-08-10T13:18:00.004-04:00

I'm beyond happy to say that I have a new shirt up for sale at Threadless. I also want to say that I think this shirt is very much about who I am as an artist. I don't know why that is, but I just feel like it's true. Designing shirts is sometimes confusing because you want to make things people will like and maybe that means not doing exactly what you personally like all the time. I did that a bit when I was starting out. It can be hard to find you style, or at least it was for me. But the point is, this one looks the way I wanted it to look and I would stand up and say "This is what I'm about. Take it or leave it" What was amazing was that the Threadless community really supported it - so thank you so much to all of them. Long story short, I'm really proud of it.

The other awesome thing here is that it's available on a girly boatneck tee! So for all you girls that hate getting choked crew neck shirts, at last your neck can be free. It's always exciting to see new shirt styles come along. Maybe v-necks are next? Check it out at Threadless.

On the road again

2010-08-08T13:09:00.004-04:00

The theme for the derby this week was road trip so I absolutely could not to anything other than a montage for my beloved, albeit somewhat broken, Airstream. Actually, the Airstream in the drawing isn't the one I really travel in, it's another one that we're working on getting road ready, but it has a more retro shape, so that's why I used it here. I wanted to get all the fun and good times of being on the road into a shirt and I'm happy with how it turned out. VOTE HERE.

Thanks Shakespeare

2010-07-03T16:11:00.001-04:00

The Verona Apothecary made it into 2nd place in the derby, despite being one color and on a white shirt. Thank you very very much for the votes and support. Can't wait to see how it prints!

Buy it here while it lasts.

Where to find the things lovers need...

2010-06-28T09:24:00.003-04:00

At the Verona Apothecary of course. They carry all that kind of stuff. You know, like poison and daggers and such. My entry for the Shakespeare derby remembers this wonderful apothecary that helped out the 2 most famous star crossed lovers of all time.

A win I have made!

2010-06-02T09:17:00.005-04:00

My design Blocks Build You! got 3rd place in the derby. Lots of thanks to the voters. After watching other people do it over and over again, I'm happy to finally be able to capitalize on the little wooters love of video games myself. Haha! Great success! Now build that wall comrade - mother Russia thanks you.

Society 6

2010-05-27T17:47:00.003-04:00

This is really really cool and I'd never heard of it before. Society6 seems, and I say seems because it took me a while to figure it out, seem to be a place to share art and network and, hey, if you feel like it, even sell some work. I found out about it through Threadless. They're going to be launching a shop there. I'm quite impressed by the quality of the work here and happy to get involved. Check it out for yourself and see what I've uploaded so far in my studio.

Deja Vu

2010-05-21T19:12:00.004-04:00

Two weeks to work on the entries - YAY! Decided to go with something I hardly ever touch: video games. There's one for Tetris (my fav, hear the theme song now!) and one for Mario.

It was fun saying things with a Russian accent all week while working on the Tetris one. BTW, The shiny young commi in the front is my brother in law.

Double Take Derby Nine

2010-05-15T19:06:00.004-04:00

This week is the double take derby and I have 6 entries. Head on over to woot and check them out. I'm not posting photos of them because none of them are in the fog and I'm feeling grumpy about it. But feel free to look them up in the derby. A couple of my favorites were I Got Mooned, and Float On (now with improved steering power!)

The Last Bird in the Shop

2010-05-10T11:54:00.005-04:00

The Last Bird in the Shop has become my FIRST shirt in the shop - Threadless' shop, that is! It's been my goal since before I was really even involved with shirt design to have a print there, so I am beyond excited right now. Thank you SO SO MUCH to everyone who supported it and everyone who follows my work. This little bird has been hanging around my sketchbook for awhile now, and I'm so proud of him for getting out there in the world and grateful to everyone who enjoyed him. A giant THANK YOU to all of you!

Make me some tea!

2010-05-07T14:38:00.004-04:00

Here's my version of what happened right before what we all know as the Boston Tea Party. We owe it all to giant tea drinking sea-monsters, should have known. And he's also british AND his name is Brit. Amazing coincidences there. See it here: Grrrrr... Make me some tea!

I hope you like owls...

2010-05-01T11:28:00.000-04:00

Because I plan to draw a lot of them. Alright, I plan to draw even more of them, because I guess I already have done quite a few. They're just amazing. Something about their faces is just total perfection for a lot of the moods I want to create.

Which is why I chose one as the subject for my Spring Owl, for woot's spring derby. I know, I know, owls don't scream spring, but this one is surrounded by hostas and spring flowers and I think he gets across the idea of renewal just fine. Plus, I was dreading a week of pastels and bright colors, so I tried to provide the antidote to all that with a monotone palette.

Celebrate the season somberly with the Spring Owl. :)

Absent Friends

2010-04-27T11:41:00.003-04:00

One of my most supported designs that didn't print (until now) is available at Tilteed for a short time. Absent Friends is being featured as a limited edition tee. I'm so happy to see it make it to cotton at last.

What Lies Beneath

2010-04-27T11:27:00.003-04:00

I'll start off by saying that this particular rant makes me feel really old. It's about moles and how they are destroying my garden. There, I said it. And now I'm a fuzzy grey haired woman in wellies running into her garden with a pitchfork screaming after the cursed things. But they killed my rose bushes and I loved those things. So I decided to take out my frustration in the woot design this week: How Moles Traps Work. And the answer is - they don't. Nothing gets rid of moles. Enjoy your lumpy lawn.

You'll watch out for us, won't you?

2010-04-20T15:37:00.004-04:00

I have to admit - I really enjoyed this one. I love to draw little animal characters, but most of the time that's all they ever are: Lonely little sketches. For this one, I went back thru my sketchbooks, took a bunch of those characters and compiled them into one design. It's good to set a few of these critters free in the shirt world. See it here.

3 Week Catchup

2010-04-09T13:27:00.005-04:00

Been a long time since listed my derby entries here. Time to play catchup. Let's start with the most current entry in the Classic Literature Mashup derby. Mine - A Tale of Two Cities mixed with War and Peace.

Skipped the comic book derby the week before. I was traveling, so no way to get to it, so on to the week before that one, Things That Start with the Letter S. I'd been down in Palm Beach for awhile and they're constantly advertising Spearmint Rhino on the radio. So it's not like I'm hanging out there or anything, but it was on my mind, leading to the idea for this entry - Strange Safari.

Whales of War

2010-03-25T09:24:00.006-04:00

One of my favorite designs, with some of my favorite characters, is printed today at woot!

The idea for this one came from way back during the TV Show Titles derby. I was watching Whale Wars because a guy from my town was in it, and I thought, how great if the whales turned and fought back instead of needing these hippies to do it for them in such a strange and misguided way. Or what if they started fighting everything because they were angry and just felt like a fight?

I wasn't able to get the whole thing together in time to put in the derby, but I liked the idea a lot and still wanted to make it. So after much time, here it be.

Madness

2010-03-25T08:55:00.003-04:00

What a crazy derby - literally. Here are my entries...

Try sailing by these things all the time and see if you don't want to draw them. I love to draw ships. This one was based on a quote from Van Gogh. "In my mental or nervous fever, or madness - I am not too sure how to put it or what to call it - my thoughts sailed over many seas. I even dreamed of the phantom Dutch ship and of Le Horla..." I call that a Ghost Ship Dream.

And this one was a little bit of office humor. The Cycle of Madness. Man, I hate getting up in the mornings. And you mean I have to get dressed too!?!

Are you like me?

2010-03-18T11:40:00.005-04:00

I was a little slow to write about this, but that doesn't mean I'm not totally psyched about it. "Are you like me?" was printed at good joe this past week!! It's been a really long wait for this one. Honestly, I was so happy with the design when I sub'd it that I thought it would print right away. So I've been taught a lesson in patience but I'm happy to see it up there at last.

Personally, I love a white t-shirt with bright colors on it and with spring just around the corner I think it's about time to start wearing something like this. I know I will be.

Band Names Reinterpreted

2010-03-12T21:12:00.004-05:00

After missing the derby last week (who cares about luck shirts anyways?) it was a little hard to get things rolling this week. So many bands to choose from! I finally settled on The Smiths, with a little bit of a different interpretation (hopefully!) than the obvious.

Thought I'd stop at one, but riding around in the car later in the day, The Teddybears came on and I just love their Punkrocker song. I was also in the mood to draw some funny critters, so I went for it. So one this week there's one that's a completely obvious interpretation and one that's maybe not so much.

The New Vintage

2010-02-27T09:33:00.005-05:00

My initial reaction to this derby was one of excitement, because who doesn't love a vintage t-shirt? But the more I thought about it, well... Isn't that trend a little bit past? There was a time when everyone was piling on the distress layers and it was the greatest thing ever, but now it feels a little bit "been done," to me at least. Don't get me wrong, it can still make for a good looking shirt, I just think this derby was a tad late in coming. It would have been more trendy say, a year ago, than it is right now.

Anyhow, I had 2 entries this week. The first, The Vintage Truth, says "I'm not retro, I'm just poor" and pretty much makes fun of everybody. Except poor people. I don't condone that. And it hurts my feelings.

The second, I Got Mooned, was my husband's idea. I really like this one and I can say that because I didn't think of it so it's not like I'm congratulating myself. When you're in Florida you hear about space stuff all the time. We used to live in Indialantic, part of the "space coast," and on the news it's always shuttle this and launch that. It's cool, but I feel like everything associated with space has a retro feel to it, so it's a good subject for this derby. The design probably isn't going to make it, but I'm going to get it printed up for myself anyways. And then I'm going to wear it to Melbourne beach, get some Bizarro's, and, I don't know, have a fun day.

Big brother floats on in

2010-02-19T13:10:00.004-05:00

It's amazing to me that I've never done a blimp design, because they're so freakin' cool, but it's true. So now that's been fixed. Here he is, my big, hot air balloon crushing, blimp. He's in the Faster, Higher, Stronger derby. Everyone vote for the big boy.

Double Take Derby Eight

2010-02-12T16:28:00.007-05:00

I did in fact win a double take derby once upon a time. And then another time I got an editor's choice. I have a feeling that might condemn me to never do well in one again - or at least not for a long time. Of course I hope I'm wrong about that, but it is what I suspect, and so I share it.

Here's what I have up this time around...

The Keeper

The first time around someone suggested that this looked like Elton John. Not the intention, but now that's all I see. "You're a butterfly, and butterflies are free to fly. Fly Away...." Creepy coincidence there.

Honeysiiiickle

I didn't even know this one had gotten an HM. Cool.

This is going to be a shirt somewhere, someday, dang it! I am determined.

Vintage Vacation

Inspired by the fact that I'm currently roadtripping around in an airstream myself. I've been away from home since November and at some point you've just got to express something about living in a tin can.

The Analog to Digital Tie

I really think this would make a good looking shirt, were it ever to print. It's like one of those rad 80's style ties. The ones that say "Par-ty!" instead of "let's go to the board meeting."

Of Hair and Horns

2010-02-08T15:55:00.005-05:00

Sometimes when the derby theme is announced think about it a long time, trying to come up with the bet idea. Other times I go with the first thing that pops into my head. That's what happened here.

The theme was about the animals of the chinese zodiac. Ok. I like monkeys. Nah, don't want to draw a monkey. Rams are cool. Love those horns. I like the way they wrap around . What if they just kept on spiraling? That would be awesome. They'd look like Princess Leia's hairdo. Haha. That would be ridiculous. Ok, I'll draw that. Done.

And so it was.

Where the creepy things are

2010-02-04T09:50:00.007-05:00

This isn't really a sketch-a-day blog. I don't like deadlines and time constraints, so doing something like that would probably just stress me out. But when I do have something I've sketched to share, I'll put it up.

Here's one I did yesterday. It's a combination of all the animal parts I enjoy drawing, all stuck on one animal, to make a completely pleasurable drawing experience... And a fairly creepy little critter. Apparently he's celebrating something too. Or else he really likes fancy cakes.

I wonder if this kind of thing would work on a shirt.

If I gave you my heart...

2010-02-02T08:31:00.005-05:00

If I gave you my life, you would drop it, wouldn't you? That's one of my all time favorite quotes from one of my favorite plays, The Seagull. It just perfectly captures that moment when you realized that someone you like/love/admire doesn't really care that much for you after all and might not have all those wonderful qualities you'd been projecting on them.

When I heard the derby theme was Hearts, that's what I thought of, and decided to go for a simple, cutesy robot design with a little bit of a Chekhov twist. Hope you like my robot. Every t-shirt artist there is seems to have their own personal robot, so it's always a challenge coming up with one that doesn't make someone feel ripped off.

Are we not drawn onward, we few...

2010-01-31T14:25:00.004-05:00

A surprise win! My palindrome based design took 2nd place in the derby this weekend! I'm so psyched. Dude, it's nautical and it actually printed. What's up with that? It's not cute or funny or making fun of anything - it just won because, I don't know, people liked the way it looked or something. As an artist, that's a great accomplishment - having a bunch of people actually like your art. And even better, the other winners of this derby were art based designs as well. A very, very good weekend.

Btw, if you want it, I'd recommend getting it soon. Don't know that this one will survive too long in the reckoning. Also want to thank everyone who voted for this again. Thank you!

Love is Like an Anchor

2010-01-22T20:46:00.006-05:00

Ok, so I'll admit it. I have a short attention span. The idea of focusing on one thing for a long, long time is sort of unappealing to me. As a result, I tend to go for designs that I know aren't going to take days and days to finish. I want to see things finished. NOW.

It has occurred to me that this might be sort of limiting to me, as far as what I'm able to create, so I challenged myself to find one design idea that I was really into and work on it for as long as I possibly could. The plan was to work it and rework it and make sure nothing was left out. I wanted to make something that was "more" than anything I'd done before. Here's what came from that - it's called "Forsaking All Others" and it's a seriously extensive redo of a design that originally started in woot's derby.

This thing has been in the works for, I don't know, maybe 5 months. I'm hoping all the time will turn out to be worth it in the end. So please take a minute and give it a look, or even a vote if you can!

Getting Ript...again

2010-01-22T09:15:00.004-05:00

Ript (riptapparel.com) is offering my paper airplane design for sale today. This is my 2nd printing at ript and I'm happy the guys over there were willing to have me back. Head over and take a look if you like. I'm glad they decided to put it up on Friday - this might be a good one to get if you're planning on "taking off" for the weekend.

Nightmares

2010-01-15T17:16:00.008-05:00

The derby this week made me revisit one of my older designs that has always been a favorite of mine - Honeysickle. Basically, the teddy has eaten the little boy's snack (boy snacks aren't good for teddies) and is have crazy dreams as a result. Obviously, teddy bears dream about honey all the time but when the dreams go bad, this is what happens.

Getting to rework it was great. I was proud of the original, but I think this one is about a million times better. I fixed some things that had always bothered me about the 1st layout, added texture and line work, and tweaked the colors.

Cleaning house

2010-01-13T11:32:00.005-05:00

I'm in the process of updating my portfolio at jewelwing.com. If you've visited it previously, you might have been a little confused by it. That's because it was 2 separate looking sites, one for my graphic design work and one for shirt designs. It made no sense, but guess I wasn't ready to integrate the two prior to now. For some reason I felt like each portfolio needed it's own personality, the graphic design personality being the more serious of the two.

It was recently suggested to me that I am, in fact, one person and all of my work might be able to live happily together in a single portfolio. So that's what I'm up to creating now. If anyone has any suggestions, please share. I'm not good at this web design stuff so don't expect it to be cutting edge. It will hopefully, be a little bit cleaner though!

Some recent designs

2010-01-06T12:03:00.024-05:00

Here are the designs I've submitted to the woot derby since the last double take derby....

Things that start with the letter "V"

How else are old timey robots supposed to relax, but by kicking back in a retro travel trailer? It's a Vintage Vacation! This looks very much like a scene from my own life now! I've been on the road for the past 4 months. Supposedly it's for work, but it might also be because I secretly want to be the youngest snowbird ever.

Renew

I've been into collections lately... Random things grouped in unique ways. The first things I

thought of for this derby were butterflies, but wanting to avoid the obvious interpretation, I decided to portray them this way. I like to think he's protecting them during their vulnerable cocoon stage and as thanks they're sticking around after they emerge. It's called The Keeper and it got an honorable mention.

Events of 2009 Illustrated

This was such a hard theme! I'm not a current events kind of girl, but I somehow managed to get 2 entires in. One about the landing in the Hudson and one about the switch from analog to digital TV. The analog one even got an honorable mention.

Birds

This entry was inspired by my own experience with an owl. I was driving home late one night and something hit the side of my car. I thought

it was the grumpy old man down the street throwing rocks at me, but when I looked there was a tiny owl laying in the middle of the road. He was stunned and unable to fly, so I put him in a jar, trying to avoid the giant claws. 15 minutes later he was better and he flew off into the night, leaving me with a cool memory, some funny photos and the inspiration for this shirt, My Collection.

My grand & memorable blog

2010-01-01T11:16:00.003-05:00

A new year, a new blog. Actually my first blog. If anyone wants to know what I’ve been up to, this will be the place to come and find out. For the past year or so I’ve been spending way too much time constantly updating and rearranging my website to show what was going on, and it was getting to be too much info for one non-web designer to handle. This blog should do a much better job than I did. It’s just getting started now, so check back often for new things to come.