raccoon nap

this cutie is for an upcoming Scholastic poster

October Cricket magazine

just because it's a beautiful day

One of my papers with the addition of
beautiful vintage butterflies.

the new Girl Scout book is at the printer

I've done another big project for one of my favorite clients-
(I think I should qualify for an honorary badge soon! or at least
some Girl Scout cookies.)
The AD, Sara Gillingham, made the brilliant suggestion to adapt
what I had already been doing for headlines for a font to be used for the
body copy too. It has a crude paper cut look to it which
suits the book well. We used fontgarden.com to generate the font.
I'm working on a couple others now too just for fun (one, a curly
cut paper kind of font which I've used on my new website www.susanswan.com -
along with the Girl Scout PaperDaisies font.)

The journey theme for the girls this time is 'It's Your Story--Tell It!'
and I got to show animals from around the world. And even got
to do some animal masks that the girls can download and put together
themselves.

what I've been doing

sneak peak of bits and pieces of a non-fiction picture book for Capstone
now on it's way to the printer

critters

I have just finished lots of really 

enjoyable projects-

many involving animals.

This one for AAA Traveler Magazine 

should be in mailboxes now.

Can't show this kid's mag cover yet but I can tell you

it's about George Washington and his dental, er, problems.

His happy horse is in the background...

Texas wildflowers

Indian paintbrush wildflowers are so much more beautiful 

(especially closeup) than the bluebonnets that everyone

makes so much of here in Texas. Originally they were going 

to play a bigger part in the kid's mag cover I just did but ended 

up getting overshadowed by a baby buffalo.

So-here's a few of them just because...

new work

just finished work for the October issue of Cricket Magazine...

here's just a tiny part- loved doing this project!

 I painted some papers and roughed up the textures in Photoshop
to give me interesting buffalo fur and scanned in some grass,
painted over it, and made a  pattern for the grassy plains.
I think that's a paper I'll find lots of uses for.
-And you'll have to wait until October to see the rest.

kid magazine

I slipped in a little illo for a kid's mag in the midst
of the Girl Scout project, and used some of my papers too.

sketches

I've been so busy with the Girl Scout book; I get to draw lots of animals this time...
here's part of a sketch and some patterns that I've been working on for the book and also my licensing website.

licensing art

I have been working hard to get some images put together to offer for licensing. I was trying to get several collections put together and a website up before my next Girl Scout book starts, but as that project begins Monday, and every moment will have to be dedicated to it, I'll have to wait until there is another lull to get back to this. Coming up with patterns is addictive- I'm more than slightly obsessed!


















(I have gotten a lot of extremely useful information from
Tara Reed's ArtLicensingInfo.com.  She has e-books,
videos and product mockup templates available. Very helpful!)

science project

here's the newest...
for a kid's science mag

Girl Scout project continues

just completed this promo piece
for book 3 of the Daisy Leadership series-
the ms for the actual book isn't ready for me yet
but I've heard a little about it and
it's going to be a lot of fun to do.

rose

this is part of an illo for a poem in another kid's magazine, there's more, and a funny spider, but I'm not to show it until publication

fireflies

just did this cutie for a kid's magazine article about fireflies

sketches

I don't tend to hang on to sketches but found
this one while cleaning up. I remember this
was a rush assignment and fortunately
no changes were asked for; it went from
sketch to finish in the matter
of three days or so.

another postcard

the art is from an English as second language reader completed a few months ago...

finally-a new postcard in the mail tomorrow....

ornaments

Finally finished up the ornaments I started last Christmas...

playing with papers again

in the middle of another craft book- I just love this paper- it's a combination of an old paste paper overprinted with a piece of lace, and digitally overlaid onto another of my papers using swirly fonts on a red background...I could play with these all day.
I used it as a background for cut paper Chanukah candles...

or may use this version... have the flu so am not making decisions easily.

 Through 'TRACKLE' found this lovely ref to my fall book. Thanks Elisse (http://elissestuart.wordpress.com) for using 'IT'S FALL' in your library's display!

.......There are two more fun fall books for children that we’ve found over the years that I want to share with you. I think they are unique and fabulous because of their illustration styles.
The first book is called It’s Fall! written by Linda Glaser, the cut-paper illustrations by Susan Swan.
                                 photo credit:http://hotlibrarytechnician.wordpress.com
It was the was the three dimensional cut-paper artwork that really grabbed my attention. Being a scrapbooker, I was fascinated by her designs. The illustrator layered hand painted papers. When she hand painted the paper, she was able to give the effect of depth and dimension, not to mention the gorgeous colors of autumn.
Paper layering is a scrapbooking technique that I have used several times on my pages, but not with the fabulous results that the illustrator had here. She featured Canadian geese, Monarch butterflies, and squirrels, all fabulously detailed with layered paper. My favorites were the tiny nesting owls.
The author and illustrator have also teamed up to produce books for the other three seasons. I plan to purchase them just for the amazing illustrations alone.

girl scout map up on web

The Daisy Journey interactive map is now online and last night UPS delivered the poster version. I always love seeing the stuff I do out in the world. It is possible that a couple of the flowers may be turned into a 3-d version which would be loads of fun to see. Some of the flower characters didn't get much use in the final story; I'll show the whole bunch here so they can share in a couple of seconds of fame....

aackh...out of work...

....for the first time in a long time- but frankly glad to have a couple of days/weeks (no longer or I panic) to breathe, work on 'the site/the blog'!... the garden (though after so much rain it's mostly too wet, play housewife (that remark was for the husband)...
and... must send out mailers to drum up work. Here's one that will go out next week to school book clients... typical freelancers lament- too busy, not busy enough. I don't think it matters how long you've been in business; you never get used to it.

texas snowman

I think I will actually get a holiday card out to clients this year... I cheated and used an image I was fooling with last Christmas and the letterforms were adapted from an alphabet I did for a book.

cleaning up files

Here's a slide show of Poloroid transfers done several years ago (and some 'fake' transfers using new photos and old transfer borders done recently). Poloroid has stopped making the film I used for the process but I understand that Fuji has put out a similar film that I can try... I've heard that the colors are even more muted. I was always trying to brighten them up. The part that is peeled away when you make the transfer is often very mysterious and interesting too. The last slide of the birdhouse on the fence (orange hue) is an example.

more paper

I've got a million of 'em

What will I do with all these?

hearts

We went to a wedding this weekend and I wrapped the gift in one of the more elegant of my spotty papers ( not the yellow and red spotty one here!) with a big lace rose on top with some chiffon wrapped around the box- kind of over the top but fun, and I made an pop-open heart card adapted from one at www.origami-fun.com. You hold the top sides of the heart (which I had glued together with tiny dots of Elmer's- cheating, I know, but it looked better that way and made it so you couldn't see the message inside) and pull it open- the message inside pops up. Kind of hard to get the idea from these scans.

turpentine experiments

using the pages of National Geographic. Makes for some interesting collage backgrounds.

slideshow

playing with the slide show again- pointless photoshop variations of the butterfly teabag paper

talented family

This was done for my step daughter who has become a fine photographer of children; after so many requests from friends to take pics of their kids she decided she had better go into business. We considered several concepts for her logo but decided on the first, simple was best. Her website/blog. Our grandson, is also a wonderful photographer and is attending school in Dallas. His blog.

was pleased to get a mention

on Anastasia Suen's blog.

The series (written by Linda Glaser, happily illustrated by me) is a few year's old now so I'm especially thrilled that it's holding up well.

http://5greatbooks.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/5-great-books-for-fall/

cleaning up files

These were done with real and digital collage using my stash of Poloroid transfers, family photos, and ephemera for last year's GREAT CARDS AND TAGS book. Fun to do.

WOW

I sent this email thank you to the client at Happy House- they did such a great job!

cutting paper

I was thinking more about what I said last time about enjoying the little craft projects that I'm doing for Arena... I don't think I realized how much I missed the hands on- the feel of paper- even just punching or tearing out shapes of my papers- using my favorite purple handled exacto knife- making little origami pockets, or clasps for envelopes, or hearts- feels good. Think it may be getting time to do some real cut paper work again.

crafty stuff

Another fun project for a book packager finished and out of here- I get to be crafty and come up with cards, tags, wrapping papers and make them different by cutting, folding, tearing...Who knew I would love teabag folding? Or punching... It's mostly because I love designing the papers- the projects look amazingly different depending on the papers I use. I have to reign myself in because I tend to come up with ideas too complicated and time consuming for the average crafter to want to tackle. And because I love pattern I can make every thing much too busy. I throw in some very clean simple things every once in a while to give everyone a breather. I have now have a huge store of paper designs that I've got to do something with...
Here are a couple of images that may or may not have made it into the books, not sure.

There are other variations of this '2' card in another post I think.