Making Faces

Making (cute) faces today.

I miss Amsterdam

I love living in New York, but there are times i miss my old city. Maybe it has something to do with the holiday season that makes the missing even more. I miss Amsterdam with it's lovely canals and those gorgeous canal houses. I wish i could buzz myself over and have an afternoon with friends, drinking coffee, chatting away and walking through the city. Thinking about that gave me the inspiration to make some illustrations of those wonderful canal houses.

Baby Announcement Cards

I think i have talked about it before, i am working on setting up a little venue (probably through Etsy and my site) to offer custom and customized baby announcement cards. I design, you print. That type of thing. So i'm very busy getting some samples done. Like these here. I will obviously also make boy versions and set up a basic inside design for each card. I would love to hear what you think and which one is your favorite! So please share!

Winter on my mind

I should be working on designing patterns for a fun little project. I'm not sure what happened but all of a sudden i found myself creating this little winter wonderland. Little Red Ridinghood in the snow.

Kokeshi Patterns

Having fun with Kokeshi doll illustrations.
I love them all, what is your favorite?

New Plans and Patterns

It looks like i'm finding my groove again illustration wise. Spending time on a couple small custom design projects, freestyle pattern designing and long overdue promised illustrations brought some exciting new ideas to mind.

First of all, i'm going to set up an etsy shop for custom illustrations. I have already claimed ismoyoart.etsy.com, you can look, but there is nothing there yet. The whole idea needs to take shape first. I'm thinking of offering wedding (invitations and save the date cards) and baby announcement cards, standard designs that can be personalized with the appropriate names/dates and also custom designs of course. There will also be the option to order vector portraits, cute for newborn babies or wedding couples.

Another, totally different new idea, has to do with the upcoming release of my first craft book. Since my publisher is located in London, most of my friends are living in Amsterdam and my online supporters are all over the world, there won't be a real book release party. Unfortunately. But it is such a big event that i don't want to let it go by unnoticed. It deserves to get some of my special attention. So i'm thinking about hosting a virtual book release party! I've been seeing virtual baby showers on several blogs, so why not a virtual release? For now i have no idea what it will entail, except of course there will be a giveaway of a copy of my book. And maybe some virtual cocktails and cupcakes? It will be good. More info will follow in due time, since the US release is scheduled for December 9th, i still have a bit of time to think about it. Hope you all want to be a part of my party!

New business cards

My new businesscards arrived from the printer! My old cards are almost all gone and this new design matches my current website layout much better. I'm happy how they came out.

Working on packaging

Busy making tags for some sticker and magnet sets to go up in my soon to open shop!

loving you

This is what i do when my to-do list overwhelms me. I ignore it and spend my time creating illustrations.

Mini art with appliques

New pieces of mini fabric art i made.

These are two nature/environmental conscious pieces. Want expand on this idea a bit more, making notes in my idea journal as we speak. Both images are part of an illustration i did a while ago "I think Green". Transferred them onto white felt and turned them into appliques.

I also did two pieces with big eyed girl illustrations i made. I don't think i have showed those here before, they are from a series i did. Oh, a pink version of the girl on the left was featured here, on sort of cherry notepaper like illustration.

Gorgeous Book of Illustrations

My dear friend Hadar Kimchy has published this wonderful book. "Good Manners" It's a book of her gorgeous illustrations. Unfortunately i can't read anything in it, since it is completely in Hebrew. She told me it is about retro fifties manners. Oh, the images are so pretty! I don't care i can't read it, i cherish it nonetheless!

Ismoyo Stamp

My latest adventure in stampmaking. I wanted to make a stamp for the girl that is currently residing on my site layout. I know most people draw their stamp designs on paper first and then transfer those images to the rubberstamp, but i tend to like to skip certain parts of the process. I'm a big fan of saving time where ever i can. So i drew the girl right on the stamp.

This is how it turned out after a lot of careful carving. With the thin lines on the stamp i was a bit scared to put too much ink on, i didn't want it to bleed, but as you see, i should have put a tiny bit more on it. Wouldn't it be cute if i would stamp her on all packages i send out?

I am very happy with my new stamppads. I got the Palette Hybrid in a red tone and a green one. You can use the ink on any surface, Hybrid, so it works on paper and fabric! Haven't tested it on fabric yet, but soon will.

Edit: Tess had a good question, what size this stamp is. Sorry forgot to include that earlier. It's 3 inch high, like 7,5 cm.

Fabric mini art

I'm working on a bunch of these fabric mini art pieces. The base are 3"x3" canvasses with fabric wrapped neatly around them. I sewed on the appliques that i made from my own illustrations transferred to white wool felt.

The yellow deers i did for a pattern of which i wanted to have fabric printed from. (Maybe a great idea to go and try my Spoonflower account)

These deers come from the illustration i did some time ago for a birth announcement card for a friend of mine. I think used as appliques here they would make a sweet babyshower gift. Yes, did give my friend the first edition of these mini arts to put in her little girl's room.

New layout. Long overdue.

How many times haven't i thought i should really need to put up a new site layout, but just didn't seems to get it on top of the priority list? Too many times.

Now it's just long overdue and finally ready. (i even updated my gallery pages too) Hope you'll like it and enjoy your stay here even more.

Working on new layout

Working on a new entrypage and layout for my website. It has been so long overdue.
Think it's going to be something like this. Like it?

Sweet and shy

Working on a new girl illustration. I really want to update my website and blog layout in the near future. It has been the same for such a long time already. Allthough i have no idea when an update will actually happen, I'm thinking this girl will be the new star of the show.

Honored

I'm very honored. Got a very kind write up over at the Tigerprint blog. Tigerprint is the UK design studio who does all the designs for Marks & Spencer. They often have illustration competitions which i always keep an eye on. Currently there is a fashion illustration competition to design a fashion postcard. I'm definitely not thinking that i am a fashion illustrator, i wish. But i do make illustrations and some are fashionable. So i sent in something. Not with the illusion of winning, just to get the creative juices flowing. I used an illustration which i drafted awhile ago, thinking to use it for a new blog layout (that never happened..). I think it turned out pretty nice. And the people over at Tigerprint liked it enough to check out my site and write about it. Thank you! I really appreciate it!

Cherry on top

I'm working on a new personal project and finally taking some time again to work on some illustrating work too. Oh how i missed it.

Business Card Tags

Recently i had some new Ismoyo business cards printed.
I like how they came out, but unfortunately they all had a minor misprint. Every card has a small black mark on the hair area of the illustration. On some cards the mark is more visible than on others, but it's there on every single one. You don't see it on this picture, but up close and personal you can definitely see the black smudge. It did lead to a discount and a reason to get new cards printed sooner than planned.

But first, turn some in to tags. Used a holepuncher, embroidery thread and small safety pins.

Oh yeah, way to go issey with your 'daily blogging resolution'. sorry minor slipup. will make it up. maybe multiple posts. back on track now.

Foam Padding

I thought i had an idea to use some of this seating foam. It was on sale in the craft store, but now i changed my mind about the project and don't know what i will be using it for. But one day in the future i will think of something new to do with it.

Why am i showing it? 'Cause i LOVE the image on the packaging.

More babies

A while ago i did this baby illustration for a friend of mine. I got a lot of great responses to it and now i'm thinking i should offer vector baby illustrations as a design service. So i'm making a couple more to add to my portfolio and to use to promote the service. I'll probably have to print some promo-cards, maybe place them at babystores or something. This whole idea hasn't crystallized yet, but i think it could work. The most important thing is that i love doing these illustrations. Hope it shows!

Paper Gift Bags

i love paper gift bags. especially those with beautiful patterns on them or pretty illustrations like these. i found the lovelies in a 99 cents store and knew they would come in handy for something. One is now holding my paper magazine scraps, the other yarn and some unfinished projects.

they stand next to my new desk for easy access.

Think Green

New illustration. "Think Green"

New item on my to-do list: Update my gallery pages.

On another note, today i discovered there is a Save-a-thon fabric and craft store in walking distance of my new crib! Another reason to love my new home.