Don't Bee Afraid!

I was wet-my-pants, top-of-my-lungs-ugly-sobbing terrified of bees as a child.  A few of my cousins and I inadvertently disturbed a hornet's nest when we were very small, and I watched myself get stung in slow motion.  He got me right on the web between two fingers of my outstretched hand.  My grandma was with us, along with an uncle or two.  They dragged us screaming kids back up to the family cabin we were visiting and slathered our stings in baking soda.  A soul-wrenching phobia was born that day.

Some of my most embarrassing memories involve being at some kind of gathering in a park, a bee landing on my soda or near my paper plate, and mini-me breaking down into ridiculous hysterics until the little monster finally decided to move on.  I laugh at the memories now, but at the time I truly believed I was about to die.

By some slow-working miracle I completely overcame my fear as I grew up.  Today I love looking at bees, and am perfectly fine going about my business if one decides to investigate me.  They really are fascinating creatures, and they're so beautiful!  Their "culture" is extremely interesting, too.  I love watching them perform their dances in nature documentaries, telling other bees how to get to delicious, nectar-filled meadows they discovered in their wanderings.

Ants go marching

Life has gotten so busy!  With work and school, I sometimes feel I barely have time to breath, let alone draw.  The craziness of life has me feeling a bit nostalgic this morning.

I attended North Kindergarten in Heber City, UT.  It was a single-grade school that served all the kindergarteners in the little valley.  My time in Mrs. Tolley's class was wonderful, even if I was sadly missing a peach crayon and all drawings of family depicted orange or yellow skin.

My favorite memories of North involve spending time in the cafetorium with other classes to watch Doctor Seuss cartoons or sing at the top of our lungs.  One of the songs we learned was "The Ants Go Marching." That song marched through my mind as these three ants came into being.

As I have mentioned before, I was fascinated by bugs as a child.  I loved letting ants crawl around on my hands, rotating my wrist and elbow to keep them in view.  I would stare, entranced, at their investigation of the little hairs on my arm as they tickled their way across my skin, waving their tiny antennae.  I'm ashamed to admit that when I learned about the magical properties of magnifying glasses, I did fry a few of my little friends.  Thankfully, my now-overactive conscience kicked in as I got older and returned to watching, rather than torturing.

Today I seem to have lost a bit of that awed wonder, and am more annoyed than entranced by the little creatures when I discover them indoors.  It's good to time travel in daydreams to recapture the innocence (and sometimes mischievousness) of childhood.  It helps us realize that though we may have changed with age, the world around us holds just as much magic as it did when we were small.  We simply must slow down and re-learn how to see it.

Potato Bugs and "Insects"

School is keeping me quite busy, but in my spare moments I'm working away at a new set: Creepy Crawlies!  So far these two kids have come to life, soon to be followed by a ladybug and a potato bug.  The ladybug sketch morphed into being quite easily, but the sketch for the potato bug turned out to be challenging.  I turned to an image search for inspiration.  I knew the cute little creatures had many nicknames and "potato bug" wasn't the most common, but I was surprised when my screen was flooded with this creepy guy:

Image by Franco Folini
Wikipedia: Jerusalem Cricket

I got distracted reading about this fascinating, alien-looking creature, but eventually a search for "pill bug" turned up the familiar little armadillo of the insect world and the sketching resumed.  This image, in particular, has been a wonderful inspiration for his face!

Image by Peter J. Bryant
UCI: Pill Bug (Wood Louse)

Thanks to this experience, "potato bug" is definitely not in consideration for naming the image in the finished set!

I have always been mesmerized by (friendly) insects.  As a kid, I loved finding them under rocks and letting them crawl around on my hands.  Pill bugs were easily my favorite creepy crawly, and my love for them continued into adulthood.  I didn't think they could get any more fascinating, but recently I learned that while roly polies play the role of insects, they are actually crustaceans!  It's easy to see, now, thinking about their armor and that of a lobster, but at the time I was quite surprised.  That discovery lead me on a path through Wikipedia, following breadcrumbs and links through more and more distantly related species, until I discovered the giant isopod:

Image by unknown photographer
Wikipedia: Giant Isopod

Now, that thing is cool!  Look at those fantastic eyes.  It looks like he's smiling, too.  His face would be perfect on an alien.  I'm thinking future set?

Well, that tangent aside, keep an eye out for more posts as the Creepy Crawlies slowly find their way out of my imagination and into the next set!

"Bee" mine, Valentine!

My latest images have been Valentine's Day themed.  It's not my favorite holiday as an adult, but I do love the cute decorations!  Making this clip art is reminding me how much fun the day can be for my creative side.  I liked it much more as a kid, when teachers gave us supplies for creating little mail boxes or pockets for valentines.  Mine usually ended up covered in paper doilies.  I also loved picking out valentines and figuring out which ones to give to whom.  It was important to be careful that no card could possibly make the recipient think you "liked" them!

Candy is one thing I still enjoy about the holiday.  I hate cheap, gross American-made chocolate, like the kind that takes over at Easter.  For some reason, though, I absolutely love those $1 heart boxes with four really cheap chocolates inside.  I buy several of them every year!  Conversation hearts, on the other hand, are absolutely disgusting.  If I wanted to eat chalk, I would go for a regular stick that wasn't pretending to be candy! ;)

Clipping in a Winter Wonderland!

Life has been quite crazy lately, but I've finally managed to squeeze in the creation of another set.  Check out the new Winter Clip Art pack in the shop, on sale for the first two days!

Winter is one of my favorite times of year.  I've lived in Los Angeles for the last few, which means I missed out on all the fun (and frustration) of snow.  I still love it, and the season just doesn't feel right without it.  I have so many memories of creating paper snowflakes in school and for fun at home, and I'm absolutely fascinated by photos of actual snowflakes taken with powerful microscopes.  Nature is full of such beautiful art!  As an adult I still love cutting little shapes out of folded paper, then opening it up to see what amazing patterns I unknowingly created.  I've discovered that the more I cut out, the more intricate and beautiful the snowflake becomes.  The trick is to leave as little paper behind as possible, while making sure you never cut all the way across.

For Christmas my mom surprised me with an Adonit Jot Touch with Pixelpoint, and I love it!  It allows me to use my iPad to create my clipart, and I then refine it on my computer.  I made paper snowflakes over the weekend and loaded photos of them into my favorite drawing app, ProCreate, then used my new "toy" to trace over them and create the four snowflakes in the set.  I hope I've done justice to these wonders of nature!

This is Halloween!

I absolutely love Halloween!  I have been swamped with homework and studying for exams, but I just couldn't let this month go by without creating an appropriately themed clipart pack!  As someone with a late October birthday, I always felt like the nearby holiday was an extension of my own celebration.  Nearly every single birthday party I had as a kid was costumed and full of witches, spiders, and creepy things.  Though I'm too old to go trick-or-treating, and don't yet have kids of my own to take around (in exchange for a modest candy-fee), I do enjoy answering the door and greeting all the cute little monsters begging for sweets.  

I still remember my 3rd or 4th Halloween, being carried around asking for candy, dressed as a parrot with green dye in my hair.  I have never been the typical trick-or-treat-then-binge-till-I'm-sick kind of a person.  Even as a kid I would eat a few candies at a time, and frequently have to empty a few pieces out of my bag every year from the previous haul.  I love candy, and I like it to last!

Not only do I love Halloween candy, but I just can't get enough of the cute decorations!  (I hate the creepy stuff.)  If I could, I would decorate with adorable pumpkins and grinning monsters all year long.  And, speaking of pumpkins, have you ever made a pie from a fresh one?!  There are no words...

There is so much to enjoy about this fun holiday, and so many great ideas and opportunities for creativity!  I can't wait until I finish school and someday have kids of my own to dress up as little mummies and Frankenstein's monsters.  I hope I'm able to help them love the holiday as much as I do!

Shoot for the stars!

The next pack is going to be stellar!  Full of stars, a rocket, and fun star-related phrases to inspire and praise the super stars in your class.  My favorite images in the pack, so far, are the cute star picture frames.  Kids will love seeing their faces shining in the stars with titles like "Math Star!" "Reading Star!" and "Super Star!" congratulating them on a job well done.

I've always been fascinated by stars and space.  As an adult I can't get enough of science and nature documentaries, and the majority of the ones I truly love are about space and animals.  As a kid I enjoyed looking up at the stars and identifying the handful of constellations I knew.  My favorite has always been Orion.  Every time I left home, seeing that same group of stars helped keep the homesickness at bay.  The sky was the same, no matter where I went.  On long drives I was fascinated by how the stars seemed to follow us.  I would lean as far as I could against the window and stare at them as we zipped down the highway.  I wished on them, too.  I had such a happy childhood, and I wanted every kid to be as happy as I was!

I'm a Bookworm, and I'm Proud!

Bookworms are coming, just in time for the big Back to School Boost sale tomorrow!  The price will be extra low, so tomorrow will be the time to buy!

This set will have several colors of these cute worms, stacks of books, and students excitedly reading.  Make lessons about reading colorful and fun!

I have always been an avid reader.  As a child I kept a huge stack of my favorites on a shelf over my bed, and I would stay up hours longer than I should have cycling through each one.  My favorite series growing up was J. K. Applegate's Animorphs.  Every month I used my allowance to get the latest book.  I wished with every beat of my little heart that I could gain the ability to morph into animals and join Jake, Cassie, Rachel, Marco, and Tobias in their fight against the evil Yerks.  The most memorable books always involved animals.  I absolutely loved disappearing into those worlds where anything was possible and talking animals could be my dear friends.

To this day science fiction and fantasy have a special place in my heart.  Nothing beats transporting myself into a fantastic world full of strange creatures and courageous heroes.  I no longer dream of the ability to morph into a guinea pig, but I do think it would be quite enjoyable to live as a hobbit in the Shire.  (Post Return of the King, of course!)

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Cats Rule!

I am most definitely a cat person.  I've loved cats since I was too small to hold them properly.  I have a very vivid memory from when I was three or four of picking up and snuggling a Siamese cat in my grandparents' front yard.  That is when I discovered I had an allergy to the breed.  My arms were covered with hives!  I remember sitting in our kitchen just sobbing my little heart out because I was so itchy.  No contact with any other breed ever caused such a strong reaction, so for years I avoided Siamese cats.  I've grown out of the allergy, thank goodness, and I still attempt to pet and snuggle every cat I see.

Of the big cats, tigers are my favorite.  Their beauty and graceful movements are almost hypnotic.  I could watch them all day.  I drew this one based on a frame from a video I took at the zoo.  It was a hot day, so this gorgeous feline meandered over to the pond in the enclosure for a nice soak.  I love how his mid-stride legs turned out.  I almost expect him to finish taking his step!

The first zoo animals pack should be ready to upload this weekend.  I'm so excited to share this one!

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Otterly Adorable!

The zoo themed clip art is coming along, slowly but surely.  The images are a little more detailed than those in my previous sets, so it may take me two weeks to finish, rather than one.  I want to make sure each image is perfect before I release them.  I finished this North American River Otter yesterday, and I love the way his cute face turned out!

I can't get enough of otters; they are beyond adorable!  The picture is from a video I took at the LA Zoo of this cutie and his friend chasing each other from one pool to another, bouncing and rolling around like a couple of playful puppies.  My husband had to drag me away because I could easily have watched otter antics the rest of the afternoon.  Any animal that still goofs off and keeps their youthful silliness on into adulthood is automatically on my list of favorites!

My earliest memories of otters are from camping and fishing trips to various lakes in Utah.  I loved sitting in the canoe with my family, holding my kid-sized yellow fishing pole, waiting for the telltale nibble on the line and the excitement that would follow.  My favorite parts of those trips always involved the animals I saw.  I rarely saw an entire otter, but my little heart would race and I would squeal with delight when I saw one of their cute noses gliding across the surface in the shallows.  My deepest wish in those moments was to be able to get close enough to stroke their fur and even to join in their tumbling otter games.  Now I'm old enough to realize that any attempt to follow my dream would have ended in bloodshed and tears, but I still daydream about having some sort of Garden-of-Eden-like of relationship with every animal I see.  Perhaps in the next life I'll be able to participate in some giggly otter wrestling.

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Wanna Play a Game?

I finally finished and uploaded my Game Pieces Mega Clip Art Pack last night!  It includes everything pictured here in addition to the line art, bringing the total to a whopping 183 images.  Check it out in my shop for more details!

I truly enjoyed every minute I spent creating these images.  There was a long list of possible things to include and less than half of them made it in before the set was bursting at the seams.  I'll just have to make another game pack or two in the future!

Working on the chess pieces took me right back to my teenage years when my six-year-old brother would wipe the floor with me every time I agreed to play chess with him.  He was part of the chess club at school and he became quite the little strategizer!  It got to the point where I wouldn't even play with him anymore because, as a slightly angsty teen, I couldn't take the humiliation.  As I got older I was able to get over myself and my annoyance shifted to amazement at his talent.  He could beat anybody, and he loved it!  Then he became an angsty teen, himself, and his interests shifted to "cooler" things.  He may not play chess much anymore, but he remains just as talented at everything else he does!  You should hear him play in his steel drum band, Bram Brata!  Though I am incredibly proud of him and his abilities, and love him to crumbs, I still refuse to play him at chess.

Summer Things

Every summer for as long as I can remember my mom, my sister and I have come up with "summer things" to occupy our time until school started up again in the fall.  I've done painting, sewing, drawing, baking, and a myriad of other things, but my "thing" this year is, by far, the coolest.  I rarely kept up with my projects once my summers ended, but this time I hope to keep it up for years to come.  Creating clipart has been a fantastic experience!

The main thing I've learned throughout my clip art "summer thing" is how amazing Photoshop can be!  For quite a while I have loved using it to retouch photos, but I had no idea what other cool things I could accomplish with its wide array of tools and effects.  My latest new ability: marble!  YouTube tutorials have become my best friends as I make my clip art as fun as possible.  In addition to marble I've learned how to create tie dye, camouflage, glossy shine, and glitter.  I have yet to think of a texture or pattern I couldn't find a tutorial for.  I'm excited to see what I learn next!

I'm working hard to finish up my game pieces set by Saturday.  Keep your eyes peeled!

Family Game Night!

My mom was working on one of her TpT products the other day and she asked me to make her a simple game piece. (Check out her store for some awesome spanish teaching resources!)  She then suggested I create a clip art game pack full of dice and other common game pieces.

I love games!  Some of my favorite memories from childhood involve playing games with my family.  My mom, sister and I enjoyed games like Apples to Apples and Blokus.  Every visit to my Grandma's house still involves a good two hours playing her latest new game.  Mexican train and Ticket to Ride have been some of my favorites.  She's got quite the competitive spirit, and is so wonderful to be around.  I didn't inherit that competitive side, but I definitely got her love for spending time having fun with family.

I've moved this set to the top of my list, so feel free to put piece suggestions in the comments and keep your eyes peeled for a set packed full of gaming fun!