A bunch of people have been asking me for a soccer addition to my Animals Playing Sports collection.  So without further ado, I present to you... Raccoon Playing Soccer!

 

My art is being featured at the East Lyme Public Library for the month of May!  Here's a photo:

Grizzly Bear Greetings was recently featured and reviewed by The Indie Tot! This wonderful website showcases exceptional products on the market for babies and kids. So needless to say, I was thrilled to have my shop included. Check out the review here >

Individual products from the shop have also been featured in recent months on the following blogs:
"Cute Finds" on Cuteable
"Fun Friday Finds: Pigs" on Itsy Bitsy Paper Blog

Here was my table display for the Winterfest Craft Show in North Stonington, CT. You can view all the items I have for sale at my online shop: Grizzly Bear Greetings.

Animal recipe cards are now available at my Etsy store, Grizzly Bear Greetings!

Sometimes I do stray from drawing strictly animals, but only on special occasions... like the opportunity to draw the Golden Girls!

Here's my latest addition to my Etsy store: Animals Playing Sports Notecards!



So far in the collection, I have:

• Gymnastics Fox Notecards / Thank You Cards
  
• Pole Vaulting Hippo Notecards / Thank You Cards
• Baseball Grizzly Bear Notecards / Thank You Cards
• Basketball Sheep Notecards / Thank You Cards
• Football Turtle Notecards / Thank You Cards

Ok, I kind of took a long break from this blog, but I'm back! And I've been doing a lot of drawing!

In August, I opened an Etsy store to sell greeting cards and nursery art. I do all the printing myself using a nice, professional Canon printer. It's been great having the flexibility to create whatever illustration I like and to be able to use whatever paper stock I like. Currently, I use a 100% post-consumer recycled cardstock for both cards and nursery art.

Here's a sampling of the illustrations available in my store:



Visit my full store, Grizzly Bear Greetings!

You can also follow me on Twitter at @GrizzlyBearArt to get updates on latest products, special deals, and giveaways!

Over the past few days, I've been having fun making custom gift labels for birthdays. Here are a few:


Birthday Boy


Birthday Girl


21st Birthday (Rum Label)

My latest illustration project was for my friend's bridal shower. I illustrated invitations, thank you cards, donation tags, and recipe cards, and it was a lot of fun.


Invitations with yellow tulips, a prominent flower in the wedding.


Recipe cards for guests to fill out for the bride, featuring the bride's dog Merlin.

Here are some photos of the finished painting, The Big E: Sheep, hanging at the Hygienic Art gallery until February 14. (Next to it is Pete's painting of Kerouac.)

I dropped off my painting to the Hygienic this morning for the show, Hygienic Art XXX: Salon des Independants. In its thirtieth year, the long-running annual exhibition embodies the following principles: One Piece Per Artist, No Judge, No Jury, No Fees, No Censorship.

For my piece, I painted two sheep I had photographed at the Big E. Here's a photo of the painting in progress. I had finished it up late last night. I'll take a photo of the finished painting at the show tonight.



The show opens tonight at 8pm. [Show info]

The American Library Association has selected Animal Fact Guide, the educational wildlife site I created, to be included in their Internet guide of Great Web Sites for Kids.

Websites selected for the honor must meet several standards put forth by a committee of children's librarians.

They must show commendable quality and encourage young people's interests.

According to Karen Lemmons, co-chair of the Great Web Sites for Kids committee, "Great Web Sites for Kids are those considered the best web sites for ages birth to 14, outstanding in both content and conception."

Animal Fact Guide will be posted to the ALA's Great Web Sites for Kids site in December or January.

I decided to venture away from my normal 2-dimensional artwork for a little bit to create some fun monkey Christmas ornaments. Before cutting this little guy out of felt and stitching him up, I first created a pattern in Illustrator.

Here is a t-shirt design for turkey trots (running races that take place on Thanksgiving Day) that I created in Illustrator.




(Front)


(Back)

Here is the final acrylic pet portrait of Bandit, a Doberman Pinscher from New London, CT.

If you're interested, you can view earlier stages of the portrait: the sketch and the initial blocking in of colors. As you can see, I decided to put his ears down in a more relaxed fashion. From the photos, his ears were pictured at various levels. I found with the ears down slightly, I could portray Bandit in a more stately pose, and I could fill the canvas space in a more dramatic way.

Here's an illustration I created to submit to kids' magazines like Ranger Rick. It's a panoramic view of a meerkat community done in Adobe Illustrator.



(Click image to enlarge.)

This is my entry for Illustration Friday's topic, Primitive. (Click image to enlarge.)

I'm currently working on portfolio pieces to send to children's magazines that show this style of digital illustration (See Meerkats post for another portfolio piece in this style). I wanted to do an Under the Sea illustration, and since octopuses may date back as far back as 140 million years ago, I decided it counted under the "Primitive" theme. I may add to other sea creatures to it and make it more of an ocean scene.

I'd like these portfolio pieces to make a strong impact on publishers, so any feedback on Octopus or Meerkats is welcome!

Here is the illustration I made for a baby shower invitation. The theme was "Building Baby's Library" which is why the little piggy is holding a book.

Here's the early stage of painting for the Doberman Pinscher portrait. I've blocked in the colors, so my next step will be to start adding detail.

I mentioned in my very first post that I was slowly working on a new site featuring animal facts, illustrations, and photos. It took quite a long time, but I finally launched the site: Animal Fact Guide!

Illustrations appear throughout the site, including the masthead which changes to a day or night scene depending on the user's time. The site also has desktop wallpapers, coloring pages, and Cafepress products featuring my animal art.

On Friday morning, I went to ESPN Studios in Bristol, CT to take part in a piece for Sunday NFL Countdown which airs this Sunday, September 7, from 11am - 1pm.

Shots of me creating a large painting of the Vince Lombardi Super Bowl Trophy will be interspersed with a segment where football players talk about how they envision this year's season. At the end, the finished painting will be dramatically revealed.

So this was something fun and different for me. Although it was certainly tempting to put dancing monkeys in the background, there are actually no animals in the painting!

Don't forget to watch:
ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown
Sunday, September 7, 11am - 1pm

Here is the final painting of the Vince Lombardi Superbowl Trophy that I created for ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown.