HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

I want to say a big big thank you for supporting me and my art this past year. I accomplished a lot of new things this year from being in my first gallery shows to creating illustrations for a motion graphic (post to come!). I can't wait to see what 2013 has in store! Hope your holidays are crack-a-lackin' and I'll see you in the new year!

(This is the illustration for my Christmas card that I sent out this year. I've still got a few leftover so if you'd like a belated holiday card mailed to you just email me your mailing address!)

CHARITY EVENTS GUIDE COVER

I had a lot of fun creating this cover for the annual Milwaukee Magazine charity events guide. Unfortunately, this cover got killed. Ah well, that's how it goes sometimes. That's why it's important to love what you do! The 2013 guide is in the issue that's on newstands right now if you'd like to know the charitable happenin's around town next year.

PIPPILOTTA DELICATESSA WINDOWSHADE MACKRELMINT EPHRAIM'S DAUGHTER LONGSTOCKING

I didn't even have to look that up on wikipedia. I'm that good.

I was so excited when Light Grey Art Lab announced the call for art for their Girls: Fact + Fiction show a couple of months ago. This show features work from over 100 artists paying tribute to some of their favourite factual and fictional ladies. I had a hard time narrowing down my choices (Iris Apfel, Julia Child, and Matilda were all very close) but Pippi Longstocking is near and dear to my heart and I'm glad that the team at LGAL asked me to illustrate her for the show.

You can see the rest of the art from this show right here or if you live in the Twin Cities area, stop by and check out the show! It opens tomorrow night (Dec 7). Holiday madness at home is preventing me from driving out and I'm bummed I won't get to see this amazing show in person. It's going to be great!

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS UPDATE

I have been having so much fun creating these Home for the Holidays illustrations. The first round was sent off to my printer earlier this week and I asked a few of the owners if I could share some of them here. My favourite part is hearing the stories that people have shared with me along with their photos. Cabins where family vacations have been spent, first-time home owners, and other exciting memories tied to these buildings.

Want me to illustrate your home (or another building you love) in time for Christmas? You can find out more information right here!

GIRLS: FACT + FICTION—TEASER

The Girls: Fact + Fiction show is set to open in a couple of weeks at Light Grey Art Lab and I thought I'd share a little teaser from my piece that I contributed. The show opens December 7th and runs through January 4th so if you live in the Twin Cities area, why don't you swing by? You can find out details about the opening reception right here.

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS!—CUSTOM ILLUSTRATION PROJECT

I've had this project cooking in my brain for a little bit and thought now would be the perfect opportunity to give it a try. I love drawing buildings and would love to illustrate one that is meaningful to you or someone you know! Whether it be a home, a summer cottage, winter cabin, historical landmark, travel destination, garden shed, or whatever other structure your heart desires. Submit a photo and you will have an 8x10 illustration on your doorstep by Christmas!

HOW IT WORKS

There is a limited number of spaces available (50) for this so head on over to my shop to secure your spot. Once you have purchased your spot, you can email a photo of your desired building to me at seguin.marisa@gmail.com.

How much does it cost?
$40 + shipping.

What do I get?
You will receive an 8"x10" print that has been reproduced digitally on archival quality watercolour paper. If you want to see some examples you can see some of the homes I've illustrated for the project already right here.

What buildings will you draw?
House, condo, cabin, cottage, castle, Versailles.....as long as it has some semblance of a dwelling (i.e. I will not draw the Great Wall of China, Eiffel Tower, etc) then I would like to illustrate it for you!

When will I get my print?
I will be sending them out as I finish in the order that they are received. The last shipment will be made no later than December 14. If you need your print sooner than this please include a note in your email. I will do whatever possible to accommodate requests for prints to be mailed by a certain date but make no guarantees that they will be mailed earlier than December 14.

Do you ship internationally?
Yes! You can find a list of shipping prices right here in the shop when you order.

Can I see my illustration before you ship it?
Unfortunately not. The elimination of the usual back and forth makes it possible for me to offer these at a flat rate.

Can I request certain colours?
Unfortunately not. Again, for the same reason as above, the elimination of the usual back and forth allows me to offer these illustrations at a flat rate.

Can you ship it to someone else for me?
Yes I can! I'll even include a note if you'd like.

Do you offer refunds?
Once you have sent me your photo your sale will be considered final.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions!

WE ALL SCREAM

I finished this ice cream dish doodle last night. Not sure what I'll use it for yet.

THE BENTO BESTIARY

I posted this on my other blog but it's been awhile since I've shared some of the art books on my shelf over here. This book caught my eye when I was browsing at Left Bank Books on my trip to St. Louis a little while ago. (And of course it came home with me). It is the latest incarnation of The Bento Bestiary produced by the fine folks at Nobrow. The book is full of clever descriptions by Scott Donaldson paired with fantastic illustrations by Ben Newman of some of the Yokai, an ancient race of Japanese demons.

Here's a short  video showing the printing process of the earlier edition of Bento Bestiary. I love watching printmaking in action.

EDMONTON FOR HARRY ROSEN

Canadian men's retailer Harry Rosen features a different city in their seasonal magazine with an illustrated map and some travel tips. I had fun illustrating the destination for their fall/winter 2012 magazine, Edmonton.

MIYAZAKI SWAP

You may or may not have heard because I think I sufficiently pimped out this swap enough on Twitter, but I guest curated a Miyazaki-themed swap for Ten Paces and Draw. It was pretty much an excuse for me to rally some of my favourite illustration peeps to nerd out together and draw some Studio Ghibli fanart.  I kept Chelsey Holeman's sketch of Kiki to finish up for myself! Here's how it turned out. You can check out the rest of the swap art right here.

PRO TIPS FOR MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE

I contributed another spot illustration to this month's Home section in Milwaukee Magazine. Had fun illustrating this little downtown neighbourhood. Great working again with art director Kathryn Lavey on this!

IMAGINARY MAP

I had the great pleasure of working with art director Laura Callaghan again in creating this map for the latest issue of Oh Comely magazine, a gorgeous British publication. The current issue has a feature about illustrated fictional maps.

I have to say that I struggled a bit coming up with a concept. I'm so used to doing hours of research about a city and plotting out all of the landmarks that when I was faced with the prospect of creating virtually anything, I found the freedom a bit paralyzing. Visions of pirate ships and mermaids and other cliché things like that kept running through my mind and I knew I wanted to push past these and create something quirky and weird.  This concept came to me at the eleventh hour and I had a ton of fun sketching it out once the idea popped into my brain.

I was thrilled to find my copy of the magazine waiting in my mailbox when I arrived home from work yesterday evening! Aside from Oh Comely being such an all-around beautiful publication, the feature included some fantastic maps by some amazing illustrators (including recent illustrator crush Charlotte Trounce). I'm honoured to be included amongst such great company.

ILLUSTRATION OLYMPIAD: DAY FOUR AND FIVE

Playing a bit of catch-up on the illustration a day concept. I enjoy drawing corgis is silly glasses. Watching women's vault now. It's nuts! Ladies sitting down and stepping out left and right. I feel like I'm jinxing them by watching somehow. Getting excited to watch mens 100m dash later! Bolllllt.

P.S. Speaking of adorable silly dressed up corgis, the summer Mini Boden catalogue had some great illustrations.

ILLUSTRATION OLYMPIAD: DAY THREE

Here we go, day three!  My eyes were a little bigger than my plate last night when I decided to draw St. Paul's Cathedral in a frenzy after failing at drawing corgis for a half hour. So here is your belated day three illustration. St. Paul's Cathedral was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and always reminds me of Mary Poppins.

For some reason I didn't go into St. Paul's on our whirlwind tour of London in high school. We went to St. Paul's but while the rest of the group was inside, Anna and I explored the square out front. I remember being fascinated by the simplicity and repetition of these buildings:

ILLUSTRATION OLYMPIAD DAY 2.5

Got a little overly ambitious with today's Illustration Olympiad drawing. It's about half done—can you guess what building it's going to be? Full illustration will be up tomorrow night! Goodnight everyone (or good morning London). 

ILLUSTRATION OLYMPIAD: DAY TWO

Is it sad that I'm impressed with myself for keeping this up for three whole days in a row?

I've visited London once for about six hours when I had a long layover at Heathrow on a trip to Italy in high school. Luckily, they let us out of the airport to do a bit of exploring. We managed to pack quite a bit of sight-seeing into one afternoon. One of the things I remember most is how interesting the pigeons looked, though. They just looked more beautiful than North American pigeons.

ILLUSTRATION OLYMPIAD

After watching hours of Olympics coverage this past weekend, I hatched a plan to create an illustration for every day of the games. Partially as motivation for finishing my London map, partially to justify the exorbitant amounts of time I am spending in front of the tv. I'm calling it the Illustration Olympiad. Here are my illustrations for Saturday and Sunday.

The cauldron lighting was one of my favourite parts of the opening ceremonies on Friday. One of the coolest cauldrons I can remember. (Second favourite—making Lord of the Rings jokes during the forging of the ring).

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

I don't follow sports one bit but boy do I love the Olympics. Not even a hideous logo and terrifying mascots can dampen my Olympic spirit. For a couple weeks every two years I am glued to my tv from the opening to the closing ceremonies. My London map has been a little slow-going as I am working on continuing my Here & There series in between freelance work but here is a little sneak peek.

I've got a good list going of places to highlight on the map but if you are a Londoner please feel free to leave any suggestions in comments!

POSITIVE INKING

Alyssa Nassner has started a new collaborative project called Positive Inking (everyone loves a good pun) that features illustrated and hand-lettered affirmations from a bunch of cool artists. This was my first contribution to the project—a hat-tip to The Brothers Vlog. I love making simple animated gifs but they usually don't look the best with my illustrations because there is such a variety of colour with the watercolours which often gets pixel-y and simplified in order to be small enough for a gif. This was a fun opportunity to bust out one out. You can follow the project on tumblr here or on twitter here. 

MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE

Here's a little spot illustration I contributed to the current issue of Milwaukee Magazine. It accompanied an article about historical homes.  Great working with art director Kathryn Lavey on this project!

The issue also features a great cover illustrated by the wonderful Mary Kate McDevitt

YIP YIP!

I seem to have been bitten by the fanart bug lately, which I am ok with. Pokémon and Arrested Development, now Avatar! This was my contribution to the Avatar edition of the Character Redesign Project on the Ten Paces and Draw blog. This awesome series has been spearheaded by the wonderful Natalie Andrewson and has included so many great themes already (Kill Bill, Wes Anderson, The Avengers, Game of Thrones, to name a few). It is pretty much an opportunity for us illustrators to nerd out about our favourite pop culture characters.   

When I saw the Avatar redesign posted, I knew I had to participate. Truth be told, I really chose Aang just so I could draw Appa and Momo. You can see the rest of the Avatar redesigns right here. And be sure to keep your eyes on the blog for future redesigns! There are some kick ass themes coming up (seriously, it was very hard not to sign up for every single one).

BLOGS & BOOKS

I've been working with Sara and Colleen, two fantastic local bloggers in Milwaukee, to brand this fun new collaborative event they've been scheming about. Blogs & Books is going to be a seasonal book club and blogger meet-up. I'm excited for the first meeting in August! You can find out more details here (and don't be shy if you're not local! They've got fun stuff planned for out of towners, too!) It was great working with you Sara and Colleen!

MAKE GOOD ART: WORDS OF WISDOM FROM NEIL GAIMAN

"I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I'd be alright. And when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop and think about whether it was taking me towards or away from the mountain."

A few weeks ago I found this incredible commencement speech that Neil Gaiman gave to this year's graduating class from University of the Arts. I must have listened to it three times in a row and many times after that. I wanted to share it here because a) Neil Gaiman is awesome and, b) his words had a profound impact on the way I now think about the career I am trying to shape (especially after reflecting on them after Meg Hunt's Illustration Bootcamp that I attended a couple of weeks ago—there's a recap coming soon, I swear!) and I think it is definitely worth a listen for anyone working in a creative field.

SUMMER ADVENTURE THANK YOU

The artists who participated in this project received some thank you notes yesterday! Just wanted to share mine. The kids also sent us a picture of a summer adventure they'd like to go on. My buddy Ross wants to ride a shark!

I love that sting ray!

THE LATEST ADDITION TO MY BOOKSHELF

I've got quite the collection of illustrated children's books (when I signed up for a Barnes & Noble Kids Club card a little while ago, the woman at the desk seemed a little puzzled when I said I didn't actually have any kids) and I thought it might be fun to share my new additions every now and then. The Beetle Book by Steve Jenkins is my latest find. I have been enamoured with bug-forms ever since I made that beetle illustration for Oh Comely last year. Jenkins' beetle illustrations are stupendous. Both artful and scientific, they appear to be collaged of many different kinds of paper. My illustrations are usually built out of a bunch of digitally collaged segments of whatever I am depicting so I love looking at all of the pieces used to compose these beetles. Here are a few interior shots for you to oggle and the back cover (which is possibly my favourite part).