March 2025 Procreate Designs

Looking back on the art I’ve been making for the past few months I’ve done quite a bit of digital work.  I started really delving into Procreate when we went on Vacation earlier this year, and I haven’t stopped exploring the possibilities since.  

While planning for our vacation in late February and early March of his year I opted to take only my camera and iPad.  No knitting, no sketch book, no art supplies.  This was the first time I’d ever taken only my iPad, with the intent of creating art while on a vacation.  I had a plan to limit my supplies and challenge myself to only using procreate.  My plan worked, I learned a lot about procreate and I enjoyed to process.  

The biggest thing I learned was how very freeing being able to sit on the couch or the porch at night with just an iPad and a pencil was.  There was no figuring out where to put supplies, or how to juggle a sketchbook on my lap, or being confined to the table.  The other bonus was how much it lightened my bag on the trip.

I was inspired by the textures at the beach and the colors of central California.  I also found myself relaxing and diving head first into mixed media without worrying about making a huge mess to clean up.  This was the reason I’d invested in Procreate and an Apple Pencil in the first place; to enjoy the freedom of making art anywhere I pleased.

Focusing mostly on digital artwork creation has been a bit out of my comfort zone, but I’ve really started to enjoy the freedom it’s given me to create more artwork.  

We’re Retired! What’s Next?

Hello!  Just in case there’s anyone still reading this very dusty creative space.  If not, then I’m probably talking to myself as I write this, but what else is new?

Let’s roll with a life update and set some intentions that I very well may not keep any better than the others I’ve set over the past three or four years.  The short story is that we’re officially retired!  

Hubby took an early retirement and after a 14 year sentence in Alaska we’re finally heading home!  No, we don’t hate it here, we just don’t love it here and we can’t wait to go home and be with family.  We’re rolling out the end of July, on a journey down the Alcan highway.  We’re returning to our home state of Wyoming.  We’ll be spending some time there and then the plan is to live the RV life before settling into a new home.

We’ve been living in our fifth wheel for a little over a month while we packed and purged 14 years of life out of our house.  I’ve packed a small amount of tangible art supplies into our home on wheels and am diving deeper into creating more art work using the Procreate app on my iPad.  

I’ve got intentions of writing in this space again, sharing artwork, building an online shop and returning to newsletter writing.  We’ll see if I stick with all, or any, of these things.  

Let’s start with you can find my stickers over in my Sticker Mule Shop and there are a few Printable PDFs over in my very quiet online shop.  

I’m focused on finding ways to sell that won’t include me shipping products.  I plan to explore some print on demand options and add fun printable things to my online shop.  Stickers will be staying with Sticker Mule.  My focus is to explore a range of techniques and build my art practice.  This space will sever as more of a gallery than a blog as I walk this new journey.  

While my true love will always be tangible paper, I really have learned to enjoy the anywhere ease of using Procreate to create a range of artwork.  I’ve designed a few of my stickers this way and have gone all in on mixed media art with this app.  I’ve even had some of the pieces printed on canvas and they now hang in a couple of business in Delta Junction.  This is something I absolutely love and would like to continue to do.  I never thought I’d be the girl who printed art on canvas and shared it with the community in this way, but here I am being brave and pushing myself out of my comfort zone and into the magic.  

I hope you’re all still here and reading.  Maybe your new and finding your way here for the first time.  Either way I hope you’ll enjoy the journey as I blow the dust off and sweep the cobwebs out of my online life and settle into the next chapter in my art journey.

New Name - New Branding

Hello - If you're new here, this post might seem a little odd, but if you've been with me a while here are a few things you might have noticed. The new colors, the new name, and a bit of a refreshed look. It has taken me some time to decide how I wanted to proceed with my art and my work.

In January of this year, I dropped a newsletter announcing I would be putting Inked Inspirations on the shelf.  I thoroughly enjoyed the journey I took with handmade cards, but it was time for me to start a new journey and open a new chapter in my creative life.  It took me a long time to settle into that decision, but now I’m very settled.  I tried on the idea of keeping the name and changing my focus, but that just didn’t feel right.

After making peace with my decision to close the card-making chapter, I settled into the joy of creating art.  While relishing in my newfound joy I also found myself pulling further and further away from social media.  In the early part of the summer, I made the decision to leave Instagram.  It no longer felt like a healthy place for me to be.  I wanted to create art, not content based on some algorithm.  So long Insta...

I found myself creating art and wanting to share it, but not on social.  I started driving my friends crazy texting my friends pics of the latest pieces or my works in progress, dubbing the random art text as art snacks.  Along the way, I accidentally built a little fanbase, that feeds my creative soul.  That got me thinking, pondering, and mulling over a few other ideas.  

I blew the dust off of the Inked Inspirations newsletter, revamped the look, gave it a new name, and started writing again.  I thought for sure several people would unsubscribe and I'd be back to a handful of people, but to my surprise, I only lost one subscriber with the new rollout.

Then I started pondering starting a new blog space, but why?  I'd have to start all over with new followers when this space already has followers.  I tumbled to the idea that a rebranding wouldn't be a bad thing, people do it all the time.  

All of this to say... Welcome to...

The rebranded space to share and showcase my artwork.  If you dig into the archives of this blog you'll find past passions, but moving forward I'll be sharing my personal journey as I dive deeper and deeper into watercolor, pull out my pens to create new ink drawings, and explore other mediums.  I hope you’ll stick around for the art snacks and the journey as I continue to grow my passionately curious art practice.

Drawing The Red Winged Black Bird

It's been a while since I busted out the colored pencils and created a bird.  In 2017, I had a little venture into drawing birds.  I drew a cardinal, a blue jay, and a mountain bluebird. After drawing three birds, I ventured on to the next thing. Then a few weeks ago I dusted off my bird art and created stickers to sell at the local gift shop. 

Kind of unexpectedly, this inspired me to pick up my colored pencils and create a new bird piece. Settle in and let me tell you a little story about the decision to draw a mostly black bird, the red-winged blackbird.  

Before my Dad passed away, passed away 19 years ago, he had a conversation with my oldest brother about red-winged blackbirds. After all these years I don't remember the details and the memory can play tricks.  In the cloudy memory, there is something about my brother seeing a flock of them take flight the day Dad passed.  The details have been lost to time, but the meaning and symbolism of the red-winged blackbird became a memorial of sorts and a reminder of my dad.

Fast forward to April of this year when we made a trip home for my Mom's memorial. The day we were driving to my brother's ranch, I received a text from my best friend.  Photos he'd taken of red-winged blackbirds during a field survey, having no knowledge of its symbolism to our family. That same day, when we arrived at the ranch red-winged blackbirds were everywhere. I watched them, I listened to them, I was drawn into my memories with them.

One evening, after Mom's memorial, we were talking about Mom passing and reminiscing, my brother told the story of the day Mom died. He was holding mom's hand and they saw a flock of red-winged blackbirds out the window. Mom took her last breath and let go. My brother teared up a bit and smiled. We knew the birds came to guide her home.

 

In Wyoming, these are fairly common birds, but where I live in Alaska I've never seen them. If I was going to draw this bird would need a reference photo.  I searched my texts, only to discover I'd deleted the original message with the photo he sent me in April. I had him resend them, which I somehow deleted a second time.  Rather than ask him to resend them a third time I went in search of a reference photo. When I found one perched on a cattail I knew I'd found the right one.

When I was a kid we lived by the river and the cattails seemed to always be filled with red-winged blackbirds and yellow-headed blackbirds.  I have fond childhood memories of red-winged blackbirds perched on cattails and walking by the river with my dad.  

With a reference photo found, I started my piece by opening the reference photo in Procreate and outlining the big basic shapes.  This helped me get a feel for how to lay out my outline, to get the angle and the proportions correct.  

Once my outline was drawn, I pulled colors from my Derwent Colour-Soft pencils.  This was my first large project with these pencils, and I can say that while they are a lovely smooth pencil to color with.  They are very soft, layer extremely well, and lay down color beautifully.  Because they layer so well it was easy to add in details with lighter colors.

Colored pencil isn't usually a medium I'm drawn to using, but for some reason, I love drawing and coloring birds with them.  Maybe it has to do with a deep-seated memory of a bird I drew in Eight Grade Art Class.  

I'm happy with the results.  I see room for growth and improvement, but it's a beautiful piece of art for my current skill level.  

I'll be turning this gem into a sticker to go with my other three. Let me know if you'd like to see stickers for sale in my online shop?  Drop me a note below and let me know what kind of stickers or artwork you'd like to see in the future.  I'm experimenting with several styles with various mediums, including digital with the Procreate app on my iPad.

Happy Creating!

August 2023 Update

 

Hello Inky Admirer, Where has our summer started to run off to?  We’re into the final month of summer here in Alaskan.  All though the leaves are starting to tell us Fall is moving in quickly.  June was a bit more rainy than I’d liked, but the true summer days have been beautiful.  The end of July was a hot one for this part of the country and as we move into August we seem to be approaching the rainy season.

In May I signed up for two curated monthly art boxes - Paletteful and Sketchbox.   I opted to sign up for a couple of boxes in lieu of having access to an art supply store.  The closest supply store is in Anchorage, roughly five hours from where we live.  While there is both a Michael’s and JoAnns two hours away, their art supply selection is more limited, and in some cases, the store brand is the only option.

Recent Projects:

From the Sketchbook Pages:

This month, I signed up for Skillshare and have been taking several of the art classes they offer.  The above sketch was created during a few lessons from Botanical Drawing for Beginners: How to Draw Simple Flowers taught by Sharone Stevens.