Christmas Basics

A few weeks ago a board member gifted me and my coworkers with these beautiful tree ornaments. He made them himself with a laser cutter. I love the simplicity - not only of the design but of the concepts. Paring it down to the basics, really! Plus, they dress up my jar of branches and make them a bit more festive.

Daddy of the Bride Illustration

From December's Insights Magazine for an article called "Daddy of the Bride."

Re-Tree (my easy refurbishing project!)

Yesterday I underwent my easiest (and quickest) refurbishing project yet. This little christmas tree! I've had this little guy since elementary school, when I made it as a craft at a birthday party (sup Shena!). We glued buttons on and tied little bits of fabric around the branches. The result was cute and endearing, but rather country-crafty, a look I'm not super fond of anymore. So last night I decided to pull it all of and see where I ended up! I originally intended to re-decorate the tree, but honestly...once it was relieved of its tattered decor it just ... worked. I added the star ornament on top, and LOVE my new holiday decoration!

The lesson here? Don't write off those old decorations completely... maybe there's something left there after all!

Joel & Christina

This past weekend Joel and Christina celebrated their engagement with some photos near their home at the beautiful Lake Errock. We were joined by their precious daughter Jaima and boxer Juno, whose enthusiasm for visiting the park couldn't be dampened even by the rain! Thanks for inviting me to join in the celebration, I loved getting to know your family and can't wait to continue the party next summer!

A Christmas Favourite

This illustration for Phil Callaway's article in the November issue of Insights will go down as one of my favourites. Danny Brown had a great first Christmas.

I hope you're getting as ready for the holidays as I am! (my work brain has already moved past christmas into 2013, but my home brain is itching to get decorating!)

Dreams

I'm starting to grow dreams.

I've never been a dreamer. It is much safer to concentrate on the here and now than to hope for something bigger tomorrow. Its easier to be content with what's on my plate when I don't think about what could be on it tomorrow. Its much less frightening to look straight ahead than to look up or down and acknowledge the heights I could be climbing.

safer. easier. less frightening.
boring. stale. irresponsible.

We've been given many gifts, and I don't thing God gave me mine for me to keep clean and dress up on holidays. So, I'm starting to grow dreams. Its scary, and each opportunity that approaches makes me wince, shrivel up, and want to hide. But instead, I plug my nose, squeeze my eyes shut, and jump.

Working with // Pinterest

I have a confession: I am not the methodical type. I think it must be part of my creative process: I rarely approach a project the same way twice. I design a monthly magazine, so you'd think I'd be able to nail down some sort of process...but inspiration can come from anywhere! More often than not I find myself staring at my computer/sketch book with only a vague idea of where to begin.

On any given project I usually have an idea of what kind of feel I'd like to achieve. Sometimes its a feeling, sometimes its a certain crowd, and sometimes its simply the time of year - I am just beginning to work on our December issue, which needs to head in the winter direction.

I love having a colour palette nailed down before I even begin working on images to help the magazine become a cohesive whole. To start, I create a pinterest board and collect images that express what I hope to achieve. I did a quick gather of wintery images that suited, then I narrowed it down to three that nicely rounded out the colour palette.

I usually try to get a good neutral, a dark tone, and a pop or two of colour. I can't go too light, or I will end up trying to set type in beige that anyone over the age of 27 won't be able to read. Kinda a problem considering my target audience...

Step two is to visit one of my favourite (albiet ugly) website tools, CSS Drive Colors Palette Generator to turn my images into a big set of swatches. There are other sites that do this as well, but I just love how quickly this works for me so I've stuck with it. I usually take screenshots of the swatches and use the eyedropper tool to narrow them down in the next step.

Step three is to narrow it down! As I've gone through the process, my "colour vision" for this wintery issue is coming together. Its not too hard to narrow it down to a set of 5 or 6 colours that I plan to base my images on. Often it changes a bit as I work, and it usually ends up being 2 or 3 swatches that show up consistently, but having an established palette makes me feel like I've got paint on the canvas. Not so daunting anymore!

I usually drop these blocks of colour on the sides of my indesign document as I work through the articles to keep them fresh in my mind. I've used this same process when working on websites or logos, whenever I feel like a fresh or strong colour palette is especially important to the design.

I haven't even started on images yet for this magazine: and I can't predict what the end product will look like. I can't even promise that I'll remember to blog about it as a follow-up. No matter...I had fun, stretching creative muscles in a way that doesn't feel like work. Kinda like free-style dancing after a long day of yoga. Not that I've ever done that...! Happy day :)