Silly illustration of my cat who looks like an alien

My clients love their new logo and I am very proud of it! Rayah and Jessica are a joy to work for. They know what they want and always give me great directions to work from. I will post more info on their new company soon!

The Hedgehog design.... is complete! Files have been sent off for government approval for this fun design which will be screened directly onto the wine bottles. Red and white will be the ink colors used and the dark red wine ( which appears black) will fill in the rest of the design.

Just signed up for another year in the Directory of Illustration. Why does it have to be so expensive?!!!! Check out my DOI page click here

What a fun project for one of my wine maker clients who wanted something playful for their new red wine. The design will be screened directly onto bottles so, the red areas will actually be void of ink so the color of the wine can show through!

Had alot of fun taking photos of Keshia and Jake yesterday. They are such a beautiful couple and made it easy!

Clouds are rolling in and after staring at my computer unmotivated, I think I just call it a day.

Working up some logo ideas for a new group forming here in Santa Cruz!

My client Eco-Herbalista has a great blog on health, environment and more. Their current blog, they were kind to write a little about me and the local brewery who I've worked for designing some of their beer labels. eco-herbalista

Here are a few photos taken at Inter bike last week of the Light and Motion booth. Some of the artwork that I created for the brochure was used for backdrop and props.

Here's a logo I designed for a client who runs an art gallery in Los Angeles. I created this a few years ago and have been contacted to create a new logo for her second business. Love loyal clients!

I did have a nice time on vacation and took some pics while in Minnesota and Michigan. Here's a pic of some windmills in a farm field on a foggy day and another of the "yellow" room at the Guthrie Theater in downtown Minneapolis.

Here's one of 6 illustrations I'm working on for a California bicycle light company. These are fun to work on and I'm using more gradients than I normally use. I may drop the finals into Photoshop for some texture.

Spent a full day up in San Francisco learning photography, posing and some technical stuff on exposures and lighting. Here's a photo I took of the "Goth" bride and groom who were fun to photograph!

Here's the final art for the Freelance Camp event in Santa Cruz this October! If your interested in participating in the event go to their website freelancecamp.org/santacruz

Yeah a fun project to work on today! Been working on website and packaging for the past few months so more technical. This is a sneak peek of the art. When finalized, I'll post the full piece!

I created about 20 little saucer-eyed kids a few years ago. I call them Oggles and I used to sell kids tee's with them printed on the front. Need to do something with all these silly creations one day!

Getting very close to finishing up a clients website. 4 months and many, many hours of work!

Every year I happily donate my services to design ads, brochures, etc, for a local organization who supports women with cancer. WomanCARE offers a safe haven where women who are making the cancer journey will find mutual support, shared experience and open hearts. http://www.womencaresantacruz.org/

Spent a few hours learning more about lighting, depth of field and why flashes, when not used properly, can make peoples skin look like paste.

I was digging around in some old files and found this character design I did a few years ago for a client. Bookworm by day and Geisha superhero by night!

WOW! Check out this self calibrating monitor made by EIZO. I'm saving my pennies for one of these. Eizo self calibrating monitor

Designing my website today and will be trying out a program called Site Grinder that uses your photoshop files to build CSS style pages. We will see!

I had alot of fun the other eve learning more about photography and most of all, meeting a bunch of great new people! Still learning how to take that perfect photo on the best setting but, when a pic doesn't quite come out as expected, Photo-shop-it!

Had fun meeting some local photographers yesterday at the Studio SC workshop!

Heading out for a photo workshop about Portraits. Should be fun!

Vampires are everywhere these days with Twilight, True Blood and band Vampire Weekend so I thought I'd post a vampire illustration I created a few years ago.

3 of my logo designs are published in Logo Lounge, MASTER library, Animals and Mythology (Rockport Publishing). This book is now available at bookshops and online. ww.amazon.com I own a few Logo Lounge books which I often use for reference, so it's very exciting to have some of my work apart of their collection!

Made Creative of the week on http://www.illustrationpages.com/ ! Oh and here's a cute photo of my cat Rozwell I took today. She looks angry, but I can guarantee, she's not!

Need a Facebook, Twitter or any other social media icon for your website design? Check out www.iconspedia.com They have a great variety of pre-made FREEEEEEEE icons.

Maybe you already know about Mister Retro but if not, checkout these cool plug-ins for great textures and patterns to enhance your designs. I have a couple sets and they come in handy! MisterRetro.com

Why work when you can search endlessly online for useless stuff. Searched some vacation spots, downloaded a few new songs off of itunes, looked at some cute dresses (and shoes), checked out some cool bike sites and oh... I do have some photos that I took last week on http://www.pinkbike.com/news/fox-hot-wings-hot-laps-2010.html Will snap out of it soon and get back to work, really!

Thank you to everyone who enjoy my work and silly sense of humor! http://www.outliersolutions.com/thinktank/item/2010/3/25/top-5-female-graphic-designers

Working up package designs for a local bakery. I created "baker man" years ago for their coffee cups and now he's coming back to represent all the goodies they sell in stores and soon, online.

I like to go on youtube and watch tutorials now and then. I came across this one yesterday about how to use the content aware tool in Photoshop CS5. The instructor is pretty funny with his swearing and notice the instant messages that keep popping up on the bottom of the screen. Even with while chuckling, I did learn how to use the tool properly. youtube content aware tutorial

Every once in awhile, I get a new client who requests to have a rough mock up using clip art or a sketch they did, turned into a logo for their company. Some can be a great start and others, not so much. When I get a "not so much", I send them to this article on a blog I found What is a great logo? It explains what types of designs are effective and the principals that make a great logo.

Here's a quick sketch of a female character for a blog I'm working on. I love how in Illustrator CS5 you can paint with "bristle brushes" to get a watercolor or even a magic marker look!

Well... the Adobe support suggestions didn't work after all. I called Apple so to see if they had any suggestions. Perhaps it's conflicting with my OS so I'm going to update to Snow Leopard. Fingers crossed!

I've been having problems with photoshop when using the TYPE tool. Adobe suggests the following: Choose Photoshop > Preferences > Type (Mac OS), or Edit > Preferences > Type (Windows).Deselect Font Preview Size.Retest your issue to determine if this solved the problem. It seemed to help me and so far no crashing. Problematic fonts can also cause the program to freeze.

Want to go green with design? Check this blog that I stumbled upon which has great tips for a better designers green world! BLOG LINK

Check out The Die Line

Spent a few days in Moab this past weekend and took some photos in Arches National Park. After playing around in photoshop I gave the first pic some depth and gold tone colors to make it sorta vintage looking. Second one is one my husband took of me walking back. I desaturated it and then gave it a subtle greenish tone.

Here's a few ideas for a client that I worked on today. Need to tweak the leaf more!

I got runner up for artist of the year here in Santa Cruz! Thank you everyone who voted for me! Good Times Weekly

I won editors Choice on www.photoshopuser.com (NAPP National Association of Professional Photographers) earlier this month and just found out now!

Walked around downtown yesterday and took some pic's of the locals and downtown area. Here's two photos before and after some photoshop work and also used NIK software plug ins.

Photoshop is such an awesome program! A blurry shot of my cat sitting by the window went from bleh to dramatic after a few minutes in photoshop.

My client Carlotta Cellars is getting ready to bottle 3 varietals next month! Labels will be printed on 100% recycled paper!

Ran over to a friends house and spent about 30 minutes photographing her beautiful 2 month old baby girl. Practicing using natural lighting and here's a few after some post production work in Photoshop.