Three Little Trees For Someone Special - New Demo Video.

'Three Little Trees' design on a printable card.

Emails are nice and all, but don't you just love to get something in the snail mail once in a while?  I don't mean the sort of mail that starts with 'You owe us...', but one that is sealed in a fancy envelope, with beautiful handwriting on the front, addressed with your actual name, not just 'To the householder'. 

You open the envelope carefully, slide out a card with a happy image on the front which makes you smile, open it up, and read a message from someone you know.

Even though I am addicted to checking my email like most people, I still always find myself attracted to the card stand at the stationary shop, especially those sparkly ones with glitter on them, they are my favourite.

I love stationary in general and everything that goes with it...notebooks, writing paper, cards, envelopes...I remember receiving gifts of writing paper sets with matching envelopes, and never using them because they were just too beautiful to write on...did you do that too?

I have designed quite a few stationary related items which are available as printables in my shop.  One day I would like to offer them as physical items already printed and made for customers, but for now printables are more practical for me, living all the way down here in New Zealand it is a bit pricy for postage charges.  Printables are great, because people can print it out on the paper that they prefer, and can usethe design as many times as they like, and you don't have to pay for postage!  If you are anything like me, you perhaps wait till the last minute as you are ready to walk out the door to go and visit someone, that you wanted to give them a thank you card.  Perhaps it is a holiday and all the shops are closed...not to worry, just print off a card, fold, glue, write, seal, and Bob's your uncle!

Making the 'Three Little Trees' printable card is a pretty simple process, but I thought it would be fun to make a little video showing how to make it, and what it looks like at the end.  I also included a very teeny tiny surprise...make sure you watch the whole thing to see it!

Enjoy!
Regards,

In The Depths of the Earth - Underground Rock Pattern Drawing Tutorial

An enlarged section of 'Illuminated M' - Ink drawing.

Natural patterns can really add beauty to a design.  Organic shapes and textures bring your artwork to life, because they are not predictable.  A pattern which I use often in my own work is rocks, which can be used in many ways.  For example, an underground 'cut earth' look, or an old stone wall. 
On the left is an enlarged portion of an ink drawing I recently finished. If you want, you can read more about it here.  I have used the rock pattern to add a bit of interesting texture.

THE BASIC PATTERN

It is easy to draw your own rock pattern, if you follow these simple steps.

STEP ONE

Draw a general oval shape, but make sure you add a few flat sides.  You can make it as sharp or as smooth as you want, depending on what sort of rocks you want.

STEP TWO
Choose one of the flat sides of the first rock, and draw the next rock close against it.

 STEP THREE
 Continue to draw a few rocks in the same way.  Make sure you vary the shape and size of each rock...

 ...until you have an interesting pattern.

SHADING THE ROCKS

STEP FOUR
Now that we have the basic pattern done, we can begin to add the shading.  This is what makes the rocks look 3-Dimensional.

Choose a rock, and draw some lines on one side of it.  This is sometimes known as 'hatching'.  Try and follow the shape of the rock.

 STEP FIVE

Draw some more hatching lines in the same place, but change your direction slightly.  Do this a few times until you think it looks good...

 ... and don't be afraid to draw really dark close to the edge...now it's really beginning to look like a 3D rock!









STEP SIX

Now you're an expert!  Go ahead and shade all the rocks, making sure that your shading is on the same side on every one.  

Click on image above to enlarge.

DRAWING THE EARTH

Each rock will be surrounded by earth, so now we need to add a bit of cross-hatching in between.  The rocks need to look as though they are sitting on something, instead of just floating in mid-air.

Just like we did with the rock surface,  hatch in one direction, then in the other. Remember, it is dirt, so you can be as messy as you like with this bit!  Hatch in many different directions to show lots of texture.










Give your drawing a once-over with a bit more darkness, especially in the areas closer to the rocks.  This adds a bit more depth to your drawing, and helps make the rocks look more three-dimensional.

Add a few wiggly cracks here and there to make your rocks look authentic.  They have been underground for thousands of years, after all!














You are now ready to use your new rock drawing skills to create a bit of fancy artwork!  Add tree roots, fossils, insects, or even ant tunnels.  Experiment with pencil, pen, paint, colour.....have fun!

'Illuminated M', by Miraculous Mosquito, which features the rock pattern technique.  Go here to read more about it.  Go here to purchase a print of this artwork.

If you enjoyed this tutorial, don't forget to comment, share and subscribe.  More coming soon!

Did you use this tutorial in your artwork?  Please show me, I would love to see it:)
Have a suggestion for a drawing tutorial?  Let me know in the comments below.
Regards,

MM.

Let's Get Writing!

An example of one of the printable writing papers.  

Even with the convenience of emails, you would be surprised at how many people still like to use the old fashioned writing paper.  I have had many requests for different types of writing paper in my shop, so I designed a couple of new ones, and people are quite specific about what they want to write on when they request something special.  One of my customers used my writing paper to print off and write in her daily journal.  Other people like to use them the traditional way and send them in the snail mail.  It's kind of nice to think that someone is using my writing paper to write a personal note to a freind or loved one....ohhhhh :))

The example in the picture features a picture taken from my colouring in book.

You can see the whole range of writing papers here.  Stay tuned for more, I'm planning to do lots of these...maybe some more with envelopes too :)

Experimenting with Collage

Update:  This print is now available for purchase here.

This little tree proved to be quite popular in my Etsy shop, so I have been experimenting with different ways of using it.  I spent all last night experimenting with different types of old paper for the collage, and I am quite pleased with the result (even though I can hardly open my eyes this morning).  I chose the quote because I wanted something very simple to go with the image, I thought this one was just right.  I had previously drawn the tree in Art Rage (a great free drawing program with all sorts of drawing materials to choose from) but the colours looked a bit too pixelated, and not soft enough, so I reworked it again in Photoshop using my drawing tablet.

As well as printables, I would like to branch out a bit and offer prints of my work, and perhaps physical cards/stationary etc but I need to take the plunge and get a few examples printed down the road at the shops to see if they turn out ok.  It will be fun to see what they look like on the different types of paper.  Then I would have to check out the postage options if someone orders one and they live on the other side of the planet (the very reason I avoided this sort of thing in the first place...postage from New Zealand might turn people off a bit!) Perhaps this little guy could be a candidate for an A4 size print, what do you think?