THE FIRST BOOK OF CONGRESS

If vintage children's books were a drug, Mallory would be my dealer. Her etsy shop, Elwood & Eloise, is a frequent internet stop of mine and I always find something good. One of my more recent purchases was this book. Written by Harold Coy and illustrated by Helen Borten, it was published in 1956. I love the simple colour palette of the illustrations as well as reading through and finding all of the anachronistic sentences....because I'm a nerd ("The Senate, or upper house, consists of 96 Senators, two from each state.") It's kind of the same joy I get from listening to people speculating in old podcasts and thinking, "You have no idea! That's a real thing now!"

Mallory also shares illustrations from her vintage book collection (including the ones for sale in her shop) on her aptly named blog My Vintage Book Collection (in Blog Form).

WHAT MAKES AN ORCHESTRA

This book was an amazing find that I picked up at Bay View Books & Music a couple of weeks ago. Published in 1951, it was written and illustrated by Jan Balet. It walks through all of the instruments in an orchestra with fantastic sonic descriptions of the different tones elicited from each. I love the mix of line vs. shape in these illustrations as well as the patternwork in the various musicians suits. The expressions in each of the characters' body language and faces is also great (with the tambourine player being my personal favourite. He means business). Also has great endpapers to boot.

LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN

It's musicals week on Ten Paces and Draw! I got to bring Karina Rehrbehn's Rocky Horror sketch to completion. I've had the Time Warp stuck in my head all week as a result. You can check out the rest of the illustrations right here.

For my own sketch, I had a really tough time narrowing down what musical (or even aspect of musicals) I wanted to pay tribute to. I decide to go with Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (brilliant suggestion from Lilly). Every time I watch it I notice something new. (An American in Paris was my runner-up choice).

HOT PARTY

The wonderful Light Grey Art Lab is celebrating their one year anniversary this month! I was happy to contribute some little cake illustrations to their show Hot Party (because what's a party without cake?). I first became involved with Light Grey last year for their gigantic Pokémon: Battle Royale exhibition and am so glad to be a part of the incredible community of artists that they have brought together. Lindsay, Chris, Francesca, and Jenny are such talented, creative, all-around cool people and I can't wait to see what they have planned for the coming year. Happy birthday, Light Grey Art Lab! Prints of my cakes are available in the Light Grey Art Lab shop right here! If you live in the Twin Cities area be sure to stop by this Friday for the opening reception and plenty of birthday festivities

I LOVE YOU ALL, MARTA!

You. Guys.

The response to my Bluth family Valentines. I can't even. What.

Thank you!

I had so much fun creating these so it makes me so happy that all of you are enjoying sharing them just as much. It's been crazy seeing them criss-crossing the internet and popping up in various places I just happen to be browsing. My twitter has also been blowin' out with all of the great feedback. You helped make them so popular that Buzzfeed picked them up and they even made it to the front page! (Which, admittedly, I didn't fully comprehend what an enormous deal this was until all of my friends started sending it to me on facebook). Check out my thumbnail chillin' at the top between Star Wars and Melissa McCarthy!

I had been planning to create a few extras (a booster pack if you will) because a) it just seemed sad that Michael didn't get one, and b) there were too many other characters that I wanted to illustrate. Please accept a few more Valentines as my humble thank you!

And an extra one at the request of my friend Chris.

YOU CAN SINK YOUR ARROW INTO MY BUTTOCKS ANY TIME

Valentine's Day provides the perfect opportunity to combine two things I love: fan art and wordplay/puns. Yes please. So I thought it would be fun to make a set of downloadable Valentines for you to give to your sweet baboo or your cousin or whathaveyou. I may have a few more for you next week depending on how much time I have this weekend....

Just save and print on 8.5x11 paper. Cut into quarters and you're good to go!

(And thank you to my coworkers for helping me think of phrases!)

If you're feeling adventurous with the double-sided print settings, I also made some borders for the back of your Valentines.

MIX IT UP

Here's a quick illustration I did for my other blog. Every month, I post a mix of some of the songs I've been listening to lately. A lot of them I have on while I'm working. What do you like to listen to while you work? Lately, I've been obsessed with The Nerdist podcast.