Come out, come out.......

Guess what Mr Whale had for his last meal.....?

....A long long time ago in a land far far away, lovely Ms Paula send me a sweet mail about how she was after a custom artwork for her soon to be lovely shop!

Well..... it was actually just a month ago, but I'm always inclined for a fairytale opening ehhe.... you know how it is :D Plus!  time runs so frantically irregular in my latest adventures that even a month ago seems like ages.

Anyway......

Lovely Paula from Baby Swan Desing Studio makes the cuddliest vintage-style mohair teddy bears!! Just toooooooo cute! How do i know you ask, since her shop has not opened yet? Well, one of the bonuses of doing custom projects!! :D

Hooray!! for special previews !!!

Can I share them with you ..??? Hmmm let me think...

....NOPE! You'll have to wait to get the first glimpses...all i can say is that they are worth all the waiting :D Her lovely shop will be open in the next couple of months. You might want to fave it now cause you're bound to get a teddy to cuddle :)

There are really few things as enjoyable and gratifying as working on commissioned projects!! And even fewer that are *more* enjoyable!! Like, ....guessing the content of old apothecary jars or playing thumb-wars or painting faces on aubergines, for instance! :D

But anyhow, the fulfilment of bringing your playmate's dreams into reality is indeed priceless!

We worked on it and sweated over it and had long discussions about it and here's the outcome just for you:

Lovely Ms Paula had kindly agreed for me to sell the finished artwork in Hide n Seek, but as i was putting the first pencil strokes on paper, i knew where my whim wanted to take me..... so i let my runaway creativity rest for a while and i focused on the project....

After it's conclusion, i did some drastic changes to it and created my new artwork "Dad, this is the friend i told you about" "...he brought the fish you like..."

Dad, this is the friend I told you about -- Print

I love, love, seriously LOVE whales, especially the antisocial ones!...and believe me,  Mr Whale here is quite the grumpy type. He also happens to be little cute girl's dad... *hungry* dad, might i add!

So let's hope he really likes the fish the little boy brought him..heh hhehehe lol!

You can find it now in my shop along with with many many new goodies :)

I'm currently working on tons of commissions that are very very exciting, but in between i'm working on some new artwork too!!!! hooZza!!!! lol !! So not long for some new surprises! ;)

xxxxEnjoy sweeties and many hugs to sweet  Paula for the lovely project!!!!!!! xxxx

My one month old "New" artwork

YAY!!! May is here and summer is around the corner!!!!
We might even see some sun here in England for a change..lol:D

So!! Where to start from..?? Hmmmmmm
....let's  see....Have you seen my new artwork???  hmmm....right! n when i say *new*,  i actually mean "almost a month old" new.....
!hah! Time flies SO quickly my lovelies....!
Anyway, i need to present you my -one month old- "new" artwork so that i can then show you my  "really new "new ones!!!
So! so!.. after your extremely positive response to my "Mom, this is the friend i've told you about" artwork, this cuty came:

He says he can hear the Forest whisper  -- Print

It's called, "He says he can hear the forest whisper" ..."I can only hear his big heart"
...nnnnn so the story goes.....After a long mushroom-picking forest stroll, the cute ebony hair girl and her friend Mr Bear, take some time to rest before they take the long n extra wavy road back home.
Wouldn't a simpl-er- short-er- n staight-er-- road to home do just fine ...you say? NOPE!! The wav-i-er- the bett-i-er- :D
Can such a small basket of mushrooms fill both a tiny stomach and a huge? .....NOPE!
Will Mr Bear fit through that tiny doorway...?!? NOPE! Unless there is a good dinner  waiting inside for him!
...but only Mom is waiting inside....
"I can hear his BIG growling stomach too....ohh you promised you'll behave Mr. Bear!!"

xxx Sending many many hugs everywhere around sweeties xxx

...Come!..I'll take you meet my parents!!

...hhmmm...Don't you just love the first day of Spring when, after many long n sleepy months of cold n waiting, you dare to wear that pretty, apple-green, airy dress you bought and take a berry n merry stroll to the nearest park or forest, just to celebrate the coming of Spring, greet any new born squirrels you don't know already and above all prove to your self that indeed Spring is here to stay.... ??

....but then you passionately n whole-heartily regret it, since the chilling cold is here for a while longer, so you take the long way back with eyes pleading for a warm hug from any good Sir or Madam passing by, a kind offering of an over-sized woolly coat or a chance to fall upon

a) a friendly,

b) generously hairy,

and c) still slightly sedated from the long winter sleep,

Mr Bear to snuggle into his big arms and get thoroughly warmed ..? :)

I know, the last case would be a wee bit difficult to happen, as wonderful as it sounds, especially since the particular Mr Bear has some long term late-night bad habits so you can hardly ever find him awake during the day.
It would most probably be his poor third wife that you'd fall upon, the Misses Bear No 3, the one that fetches food for all the Bear family and does all the chores for Ms Bear No 2 and her little ones. ( Ms Bear No 1 has left with another male 2 summers ago...shhhh don't tell, Mr Bear is still quit sensitive about this)
...Anyway, it would be quite easy to fall upon Ms Bear No 3 and plead kindly for a warm hug so you can reach home without a terrible cold, but I'm not sure if you would really want that, since most of the times she runs frantically in the forest with a big trail of vengeful bees behind her.......yep!!...exactly! ...you guessed right, that's only for Ms Bear No 2 's  little n quite mischievous ones, to devour peacefully the golden honey!! Poor Ms Bear No 3...! she so deserves a hug herself such times....:)

I've always wanted a chestnut brown bear friend...yeah I know, didn't we all? :)
Inspired by this desire of mine, I made my new artwork, “....Mom..., this is the friend I told you about!..”

Mom, this is the friend I told you about  -- Print 8 1/2 x 11 inches --

Mom, this is the friend I told you about -- Print 5 x 7 inches --

It embodies many of my childhood fantasies for taking beautiful strolls and making new forest friends (however dangerous or huge claws they'd have) :)  However, it seldom happened except in my mind or my drawings.
                                          ♥ So enjoy ♥

♥The Book of Isabella♥

.........!!!!!!!!! Ta Da !!!!!!!!!.........

So here it is!
My super enjoyable commissioned new artwork:
♥The Book of Isabella♥

The Book of Isabella

I can finally break my silence about this one...
It was quite some time ago, when i received this intriguing   suggestion of being commissioned for a project that involved  the cutest 6 year old red head, Isabella, and her mommy's birthday.

Isabella's dad wanted to surprise his dear wife, by presenting her with a commissioned artwork of their sweet daughter as a birthday present.
"....How adorable!!" , i thought, and i didn't regret a single moment of it!

I'm so happy to be able to share this lovely artwork with you, since Isabella's dad also kindly agreed for the artwork to be sold in my Etsy shop so that it can be enjoyed by everyone around the world!

It took 2 and a half months of ideas and counter-ideas, proposals and counter-proposals, sketches and scribbles, disappointing defeats and glorious victories,   many cups of energising tea and quite a few pencil leads. Eventually here's where we are now! "The Book of Isabella".

Little Isabella's story book, the book of her life, still in its early pages with only 6 years worth of beautiful memories written in it. But she is not the kind of girl to let her destiny unravel uncontrolled, with her spirit as fiery as her hair she takes control of her life and fills her Book however she likes. She paints on and writes on and scribbles on and tears and crumples and straightens again and puts back in and pulls back out the pages of her Book. It is her own life and her own destiny!

But foremost in her thoughts is always her loving family that she loves painting in her book over and over again. You can see little Isabella's original masterpiece of her family on the bottom left corner, which her loving dad managed to sneak out of the home and scan and mail to me secretly so i could put it in the drawing :D

It was an honour to emulate Isabella's unique style as i drew her and her family jumping out of the book!! Little "crayon" Isabella can't wait to explore the world as she is climbing down from the Book, while big Isabella is putting the finishing touches on her "crayon" mommy's smile who is herself about to jump out of the book and give a big hug to her "crayon" husband for the wonderful birthday gift he gave her ;D

Oh, little Isabella likes Praying Mantises because  she says they always seem to be smiling. Well, it seems that the Praying Mantises also enjoy Isabella's beautiful smile because they have gathered around to stare at her!! Speaking of her beautiful smile, i could never be skilled enough to put on paper how lovely and cute Isabella is when smiling!!!

This has been such an enjoyable and fulfilling project. I'm very thankful and excited with how everything turned out and i decided to take the big step to start putting big prints on my Etsy shop with this lovely illustration. So you can find "The Book of Isabella" in three sizes: A3 (a full 11 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches!), 8 1/2 x 11 inches and 5 x 7 inches!!

You can also find tags inspired by this cute illustration, with buttons, magnets and a pocket mirror coming soon!

The Book of Isabella  -- Tags --

The Book of Isabella  --Pocket Mirror --

Following a mouse tail...

How about your first kiss? As random, unexpected, wanted or totally embarrassing it was....you must remember this one!?!

I sure can remember mine! I got it while following the curly tail of a grey mouse...

I was in 6^th grade or so, during those endless hours of playing at my school, when I spotted a cute n paradoxical intruder!

My elementary school was surrounded by an infinite to my mind, pine forest, so not rarely we had all sorts of very welcome intruders....Chubby red belly birdies, wild stripy squirrels, little hedgehogs from time to time and of course the ever dreadful colourful caterpillars! This time though it was a quite different case. A lethally cute and very small, furry, baby grey mouse, with curly tail and long whiskers was anxiously running for it's life among the numerous children's screams and laughs n stampings n hands n feet that were trying to capture it or....basically “flatten” it!

I instantly felt as it's destined protector...I had to save it!!

I always found that poor little mice were very much misunderstood and gravely wrongly accused for so many “sins”but it was particularly surprising to me that their charms were usually going unnoticed. So I ran n ran behind it, with my eyes “pinned” on it in order to manage to follow it's wild n erratic path, while pushing or shouting to anyone who was close to successfully harm it.

After only a few minutes and while leaving the school's grounds behind and entering the pine forest, most children had given up gasping for air. I kept going and soon I had the lead with only a few footsteps following me. I could feel my body and lungs desperately urging me to stop, but I wasn't yet sure if the little mouse was out of danger. I kept following it's curly tail for a while until I realised that I was probably the only one hunting it and scaring it to death. I stopped, falling onto my knees, while inside me I was shouting “go little mouse!! run..!! you are safe now...!”

Suddenly, another voice came to shatter what I thought I had achieved...”Don't worry!!!” the voice shouted “I'll kill it for you..!!!!! ”. Fast footsteps passed in front of me and hastily manoeuvred behind the little mouse, until I could see them no more. By now we were well inside the pine forest. I wanted to shout but my childish lungs weren't co-operating any longer. A sharp and high pitched squeak later, my whole body jumped by itself and run towards the noise. My most hated classmate, a boy I was dreading to sit close by or even look at, loud, temperamental and usually smelly was holding violently the little mouse upside down from it's curly tail. The cute mouse looked desperate and continued squeaking and running on thin air. “I'll kill it for you!” he said once more. “let it go! I don't want it killed!!” I said.  “NO! I caught it, I'll kill it!! It's a stinky mouse! ” he laughed. I SO wanted to shout how stinky he was, but I feared he'd harm the poor mouse. With his empty hand he grabbed a big stone from the ground “Don't!!!!” I screamed “Why you wanna kill it?!?!” “Because I want to!”he said “Please don't kill it!!” “Then I won't! But only if you give me something else that I want!!” he said calmly. He usually asked to copy other's homework or bullied us until he got what he wanted, so I thought he'd ask again for something similar. “OK!OK!” I said....”so what do you want?”

“A kiss” he said with a big grin on his dirty face. I thought he was joking and that he just wanted me to give up.  “Who would ask for a kiss?!? ” I thought. It was totally beyond me....especially when coming from HIM! “What?!!???” I said. “a kiss or I'll kill it” he screamed. “Well, you can kiss it all you want! What do you threaten me for?!!!!” I said back!

His eyes went huge, his face red and just for a moment I thought he'd cry. Instead, he waved his hand with the stone towards the mouse, ready to crush it! “OK! OK! STOP IT!” I screamed scared to death. He made a move towards me but I stopped him shouting “Let it go first!!!” He threw both stone and little mouse on the ground and instantly with a big jump he came in front of me and gave me a light-speed kiss somewhere between my nose, my cheek and my chin...Triangulating those three spots, I suppose he originally targeted my lips, but to my great luck he was very bad at maths! :D

He then run back giggling like a little boy. It was the most innocent thing he'd ever done, that kiss....although with the vilest of means. The little mouse had disappeared as quickly as he did.

Since that day he was even more annoying with me, but I had found his weakness...he was a big softy after all... so I didn't mind him.

So how could I ever forget?!? This incident stayed with me as a pleasant memory, especially because of the unharmed little mouse, which by the way never came back!

My “Playing in love” series is inspired by a sort of unwanted first kiss. Don't get me wrong, mine was totally unwanted and ...Carter,  if you are reading this... your breath smelled  worse than a rat' s and by the way, if you still don't know, we were calling you Carter the Farter!  LOL !!

Anyway, hope you've enjoyed all your Valentine's kisses and every one was sweet and wanted ... ;)

Playing in love  Part 1 of 3  -- Print 8 1/2 x 11 inches --

Playing in love  Part 1 of 3  -- Print 5 x 7 inches --

Playing in love Part 2 of 3 -- Print 8 1/2 x 11 inches --

Playing in love Part 2 of 3  -- Print 5 x 7 inches --

Playing in love Part 3 of 3 -- Print 8 1/2 x 11 inches --

Playing in love Part 3 of 3  -- Print 5 x 7 inches --

 

How to make. . . love ;)

Putting love on paper.

This is my first ever video!

The making of my "I love u" illustration.

Enjoy :)

I think i'm wearing it again...

Do you remember your first love?

The one you swore would be the only one you'd ever stop the time for? The one that suddenly made you look at your “eternal enemies”, the smelly boys, as something more than to only kick n push n shout at...?...

....yeah....I knew it.... Don't we all....??

Mine was polka dotty light blue and smelled of light and summer sea.

Innocent and fragile as my age, was blown away with the first light breeze like the sand where it was born on...

...ohh how many of those love letters, I've written, with red cheeks or red eyes and then thrown away torn on the floor, year after year.....I think as numerous as the  times i've fallen in love. I've always been  shy n sensitive to love. Easy to feel and painful to forget.

This girl reminds me of me in my girly days.
Her red dress is full of hopes n expectations of the love she's drawing about.
I've worn a same dress some times myself. Light at first, carrying only my carefree n feather-light happiness, but later heavy with memories and many “if”, “if only if...”

Those smiles and tears felt so real everytime.

My new artwork, celebrates all those memories of innocent first love n' hope n' tears of joy n' tears of bitter waiting. Cause all these are part of what love is and make it true and make it strong.

 
"I Love U" Print 8 1/2" x 11"

"I Love U" Print 5" x 7"

* hint*  There are 2 hidden initials on her paper ...lol * hint*

"I really really do" Card 4" x 6"

"I really really do" Card 4" x 6"  with ivory matching envelope

..and this is a super cute Card version of it ....with matching envelopes! I just couldn't resist showing those bright red hearts  she's thinking off :D

 

"I Love U" Heart Gift Tags

!!  How can you resist on these adorable heart tags...!!!
I've bought all shapes of punches as I opened my etsy shop, but i was waiting to find the perfect artwork in order to use the heart shape espesially!!and THIS one was exactly what I had in mind!!!  Aren't they just adorable??

You can find all my new love-ly items   in my playground of a shop Hide n  Seek !

SO Happy Valentines sweeties!!!!!!