The best laid plans

...are for suckers (aka me)

Jun 21, 2024

Hello hello!

How has your week been?

This week didn’t really go as I had planned, yay for over-estimating what I can get done in a week!

I did however get some client projects done, they are finished and clients happy. Today I even got a “Holy fuck that’s awesome!”
So made my day, heehee!

I finished a ton of licensed art requests done for a specific client, and they are stoked.
I can’t share what it’s for yet, but soon, and it’s going to be pretty awesome.
Hint: Swears for your feet.

And I worked on concepts for a new collection of puzzles for another licensing client.
They are going to be *really* fun, again I can’t share what they are yet, but will when I can.

Puzzles are a pretty massive art project, they take many, many, many hours to complete the art just for one design. I draw them all by hand, no ai around here.

I start with tight pencil sketches, showing the layout and elements, pretty much complete down to the teeniest details.

The client then reviews and if anything major needs to be changed, we do it at this stage.

Then I go ahead to finished colour art on my iPad.
This requires a lot of candy to keep me going, just sayin’ lol

One thing I always like to do is give licensing clients a good working layered file that they can then go in & quickly edit if they need to, mostly to save time on their end.

So that involves building a hefty, (sometimes with several hundred layers), layered/grouped file that’s organized so they can easily find what they’re looking for.

Good old graphic design training from a job eons ago- files must be built so somebody else can easily to jump in and take over if necessary. Remembering with no fondness the one designer who used to name their layers “Fred” and “George”, yeah, so funny I forgot to laugh.

Anyhoo, hopefully soon I will have some fun stuff to show you in this arena.

Here’s one that I did a while ago which is still a favourite, and is still available out there!
And I happen to know there is a new series of mine heading to production so I will share when they are out & available! (I’ve seen the boxes, they are cuuuute!).

So speaking of best laid plans, my own artwork time has been taking a hit. At the end of the week my brain is fried, my eyes need a break, and I am done (where’s the wine?).

So I was trying to stick to taking Friday-Monday as MY time to get my own projects done.

To name a few, I have a calendar to design & illustrate, a book to write & illustrate that’s been burning in my brain for years, and a ton of art to make! (You should see my to-do lists, it’s almost embarassing).

Time is ticking & dare I say it but the dreaded holiday shopping season is already rearing its stupid face.

There’s also a million website updates to do. Socials to post.

Plus life, and dogs, and getting some kind of exercise, the list goes on.

But, ingrained in me as a working artist & designer is that client work comes first, deadlines must be & always are met, which is a no-brainer. And that’s always first priority no matter what.

So planning out to take my ME work days hasn’t been working lately!
I am however always grateful to be busy!

And clients always come first, but now I need to make myself a client too. My projects are important too, mostly to get them out of my head and into the world, and to share my weirdoness with y’all…! I set goals for end of August to have them complete, wish me luck lol!

For real, I will have some new art n’ stuff in time for holiday shopping, putting my intentions out there so they will happen, so stay tuned for that!

Unfortunately, my brooch experiment I shared last week fizzled. The resin I got to finish them didn’t cure despite me carefully following the instructions to the letter. I’ve done resin before & it was no problem but this kind sucked. Actually sent a complaint to the company. So those are unusable, other than by me, I’ll probably glue magnets on the back & call them done. I haven’t given up tho’ and I think the next round will be made a bit differently and of course, a different brand of resin!

And lastly but not leastly, thank you to the 2 commenters who told us what makes them feel happy, I’m sending out some goodies to you both this coming week, you know who you are!

And ba dum dum dummmm! This week’s dad joke!

Thanks for reading & sticking around!

You are very appreciated, much good arty karma to you & have a happy weekend!

Want to work together? I’m always up for a fun project! Check out some of my current work here to see if we’re a good fit, and drop me a note & we can chat!

Looking for my sweary (and non) fabric? Find me on Spoonflower here!

And if you like my art n’ stuff, feel most welcome to Buy me a Coffee! With much good arty karma coming your way in return! Every bit helps to support me & my little family and is very appreciated! xo

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