An Ethical Card Company is born!

I forgot to pass on the news that I recently sold a hand-full of card designs to a brand new company called Blue Turtle Greetings(My designs are the first four on the homepage). It's truly a company with every bit of their heart in the right place. The owner is very environmentally conscious and I swear has a heart of solid gold. This is what the owner (Sandy) writes:

"Blue Turtle Greetings is a company committed to sound environmental practices, product quality and the values of peace, love & good fortune. All of our products are printed on Recycled Paper. All papers are processed clorine free and acid free. Paper suppliers commit to responsible forestry practices.Our products are manufactured in countries that abide with fair labor practices. We will not produce our products at a lower cost when it means a cost to Humanity."

I'm so so proud that there are companies are out there willing to take all of these steps in order to better our planet and human conditions around the planet. I know it takes months of hard work researching to find companies that fit the profiles above.

Good Luck Sandy and I hope to work with you for many years.
***image/logo © blue turtle greeings 2007***

Tid Bits

My work is featured in this month's issue of Mosaic Magazine (I believe I have four pieces in it) and when I finally located a bunch of copies I was stunned at the quality. Thanks Connie!

Also I have a few cards for sale at the Paint Spot on 124th Street (Christmas Cards). If you decide to check out this little art store branch (the bigger one is on Whyte Ave) you'll positively drool over the beautiful new moleskins they have (they're coloured!).

happy holidays.

Royal Bison Craft and Arts Fair

The countdown is on for Christmas! I'm growing more and more excited about being a part of the local & handmade business's that exist in our community. It's such a positive place to shop for Christmas presents. Support a local artist and share the skills and talents of your local community with those who would never think to shop in such places. It's a tremendous circle of support and I just can't thank my customers enough.

Here's the scoop:
Royal Bison Craft & Art Fair
DEC 1-2
10am - 5pm
8426 - Gateway Blvd (Cosmopolitan Music Society Building)
FEE: $2 each (little kids get in free)
Locally made: Jewelry, Magazines, Books, Art, Music, Photography, Amps, Soaps, Accessories, Posters and more.

Here's some fabulous people who will be joining me at the fair:
Raymond Biesinger (organizer of event and illustrator/image maker king)
Amanda Woodward (usual occupation is illustrator, however, I believe she's bringing some funky ornaments to the show...)
Michelle McBride (aka Miss Dishy, the creator of those oh so pretty magnet sets, plushies, and more)
and will be sharing a table with
Miss Sarah Jackson (those wee little jam books that are all the rage these days!)
Acorn Studios (those fabulous earrings I've been wearing lately!!... and the owner is so earth friendly it's nutts, in a good way)

Illustration Friday: The Zoo

moose, originally uploaded by crystal driedger.

Here's a little sketch of something quite Canadian (in some sort of iconic way anyway)! Although I've never seen a moose in the zoo I have seen many in the wild, which is really where they belong anyway.

Sketching with a friend

Here's a little doodle I did last night when I met with a friend to sketch. Everyone, in my opinon, needs a sketching buddy!

Thank you!

I just wanted to thank everyone involved in the Stop & Shop Arts and Craft fair. It was a divine pleasure to work alongside such wonderful vendors and was a tremendous sucsess for so many people. Thanks again to everyone who stopped by especially to those who bought some original art from me (my alien and one of my nudes now have a special place in someone's home)! For those of you interested, the next show will be the Royal Bison Arts and Crafts Fair on Dec 1 - 2 (I'll update you on location and times later).

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
-xoxo crystal

See me in person (this weekend)

I'll be at this years Stop & Shop with local illustrator & graphic designer Sarah Jackson and local illustrator, graphic designer & crafter Michelle McBride/aka Miss Dishy. It'd be a great place to get some handmade Christmas presents. Buy handmade, buy local and help out our environment (and keep our city unique by supporting local business!)

STOP & SHOP
TRANS ALTA ARTS BARN (10330 84ave, Edmonton AB, Canada)
$5 at the door
NOVEMBER 16 - 18
Friday 5pm - 9pm
Saturday 11am - 7pm
Sunday 11am - 5pm


NEW THINGS!
• New print available of my "Alien" Painting for only $15
• Selection of Originals (not available during the summmer markets)
• Three new bookmark designs
• Calendars

Robot Angel (In Progress)

This is for a demo I'm going to do in class this Thursday (it's an illustration techniques class, college level). I'm going to be talking about mixed media including Holli Conger's junkadoodles (see her junkadoodles samples here), collage & collage artists, 3D illustrators (such as Red Nose Studio and other artists that use clay, paper maché and models).... i've been looking forward to this lecture for quite some time because it's still new to me and so very very exciting!

Mr. Bateman how do you do?

Tonight I met the legendary wildlife conservationist and fine artist, Robert Bateman. He told my sister and I a story about being in a canoe when a caribou swam right up to it... if you meet me in person I'll give you the rest of the details (it's one worth hearing for sure). Not having enough money to buy a print (sigh) I instead got him to sign my sketchbook. He flipped through it and to my utter amazement says he really likes my cross hatching! Made my day ten million times over. Thanks Mr. Bateman... another childhood dream comes to reality.

Part Time Workin'

Well I'm back at the museum part time (the Royal Alberta Museum) helping out the old team with some graphics... and a little illustration. When they asked me to do a giant cheque to give to the museum school in the shape of a bus I added a little flare (the animals are all from the Wild Alberta Gallery, a permanent feature in the museum and the driver, Moe, is the museum's logo and mascot!). Enjoy.

Illustration Friday: Hats

This painting was completed earlier this year as a way to practice my technique on plywood. I have enjoyed selling quite a few prints of it at my local market.

Creatures of Silly:

St. Albert Christmas Market

I will be selling prints, cards and more at the St. Albert Christmas Market this weekend (located at the St. Albert Inn) with miss dishy.

Nov 2-4
FRIDAY: 4pm-9pm
SAT & SUN: 10am - 4pm

Pumpkin Junkin

This weekend I junked my pumpkin. See contest and entries here.

Paper Quilt Project

Paper Quilt Project, originally uploaded by crystal driedger.

I feel so fortunte to have been a part of
the paper quilt project this October. It's my first real attempt at a collage (darn! Wish I had documented the progress) and think I did alright considering I couldn't pick out the patterns myself.

The project worked as follows: You get a bunch of scrap pieces of (lovely) paper in the mail, have two weeks to develop a piece out of the scraps (without adding more of your own) in the theme: A day in my life. Send the package back within two weeks and then at the end of the year all artists involved will decide which charity they want the quilt to go to and they get auctioned off. I'll let you know which charity it is closer to the date!
See more samples from other artists here.

A day in my life:
As some of you may know, I've taken up knitting. Both my cat and I adore this new hobby of mine although I have to actually finish a single project yet (I keep tearing them out and restarting).

Figure Drawing

It's been nearly five months since I last went figure drawing
but with my sister in town it was great to make an excuse to go, soak in the talent of other local artists (& of course feel very, very humbled) and use some very lovely watercolor paper (sigh!). Yet with all this practicing of the human form I started wondering... why on earth do I make such an effort to go to figure drawing sessions and yet very rarely set up a still life to keep tabs on my perspective skills? I know there are so many challenges in perspective when drawing the human form but architecture and objects hold a different challenge (and can hold still for soooo much longer). You have more time to play with color & lighting and let's face it: still life "models" are practically free (just grab some things from your fridge, draw them then eat. Repeat!).

I have but a couple of days left with smaller projects before I start what I'm now calling a daunting November. I've just signed a contract to help the Royal Alberta Museum out for a month (part time graphic design work for their upcoming anniversary), will be teaching at college and have two large art/craft fairs to work. I've calculated and I've got five days off that month (which really means I have evenings and five weekend days to do my freelance work). This is a blessing as our family needs all the income we can get while my husband is in school but as for setting up still life paintings and going to life drawing sessions... it may be put on hold again!

What is stylization?

I've been planning for my upcoming classes and wanted to know how my readers would define stylization or personal style. As stylization is a fantastic illustration technique (my class is called illustration techniques) I'd like to briefly touch on the subject.

So! Have any of you found sticking to a specific style, engineering it and letting it grow to be helpful? Have you found a couple styles that you like to promote? Is it easier to have a broad range when you keep your illustrative efforts local?

Thanks for the comments!

Trying out a new art

My husband got me a photography club membership for my birthday and I can hardly wait to give this "new art" a fair shot. Lately I've been exploring different ways to use my artistic eyes and while so far illustration seems to be my strongest suit it has improved how I see the world already. Keeping yourself flexible and open to new compositions, techniques and abilities is healthy and above all fun. It keeps you refreshed and helps avoid that "creative block" that can happen when you work too much (which a fair chunk of us seem to do).

Here's a little taste of the photography we played with this weekend while in a local corn maze for my birthday (photography by my husband, lighting by my sister, model: Me!).

Two Great Halloween Contests

Holli Conger has a great contest going on right now called Junk your Pumpkin and there's another contest by Penelope Dullaghan called Monster Mash that looks so good! I only wish I had the time to work on these projects (i did have time this week as it turns out but decided to take up knitting instead... silly me!)

Why Sketch?

My first sketchbooks rarely filled more than half of their pages before I gave up sketching, lost it (temporarily) or just plum stopped sketching for months (ahem, sometimes years) at a time. Even in college, when I was required to complete sketchbooks I did so as though it was a chore. Perhaps restricted subject matter was always something akin to completing a math problem instead of seeing it as the root for a great idea? These college notebooks, while interesting to see the amazing progress and changes I went through as an artist, are rather dull. Blackened by millions of pen strokes there were tea kettles, forks and even a wheel chair. I wondered why I didn't try to develop my style back then, why I only bothered with still lifes that were improperly set up? I rarely go a day without sketching since I quit my last full time job. I can't sit in front of the tv without at least holding it, getting ready for the next big idea. Is it that I'm no longer afraid to draw something that might be perceived as silly, just plain weird or be rejected/disliked... a target for someone's rotten eggs? I'm also starting to not care if my sketchbooks have thumbnails, wording, or the beginning trickle of a story.

But why sketch at all? Does it matter, really, if you take some of your "free time" to put pen to paper?

Sketching is so freeing. You don't ever have to show your sketchbook to anyone, you don't have to show your clients (well, unless you sketch your client work in your sketchbook I suppose), your mom & dad, your pet rabbit... although I've found that the more often I share my sketchbook the more I enjoy drawing in it and the more confident I get. Any compliment is another gentle push towards the goals I have set for my career.

Sketching is a release. I have to draw cute little things all day (which I love, don't get me wrong) but sometimes you just don't feel happy or energetic. Sometimes I feel mad as a hornet. A safe place to get this out can be in my sketchbook. I'll draw someone with a really big mouth yelling. Then I laugh at it because it looks dumb and can move on.

Above all, sketching is a record of your progress. I'd never sell my sketchbooks. They're far better than my diaries ever will be and worth way more. Maybe in the coming entries I'll post sketches from my very first sketch books just to give you an idea on where I've come from and where I am now.

Happy Sketching!

Halloween Witch, originally uploaded by crystal driedger.

Blog Action Day

Be Kind to the Environment and It will be Kind to you!

Today is "Blog Action Day" (oct 15th) which focuses on the environment. You'd think there isn't much we can do as illustrators (our business's tend to be small, often in our own homes or small studios) but there are many little things that can make a big impact on the environment if you add them up!

1) Use scrap pieces of paper for spot illustrations
2) Research the type of paper that you use (or your printer uses) for postcard promotions. We send out hundreds every year and with all of the illustrators out there this one is much bigger than we think.
3) Do junkadoodles (invented by Holli Conger) with left over garbage bits. OR! Right now junk a pumpkin instead of carving one this halloween (then you can still turn it into a good pumpkin soup)
4) Make sculptures using your old pencil stubs
5) Do crafts with your kids using old paints and "no longer usable" art supplies (kids don't care if things don't work just right)
6) Recycle old print-offs (ummm, obvious, no?)
7) Make gum portraits (gross...? Take a look at the link, it's really cool)
8) Use common sense. Recycle what you can, fix what you can before buying new junk and always question consumption!