My new year started off great when I found my work up on Oopsy Daisy’s site – even in cute styled shots (see the mermaid on the beach?). I licensed a few Junk A Doodles® with them and can’t wait to get my hands on the actual canvases. They have been on my client wish list for quite a while and I’m glad my persistence and follow-up paid off. So excited about this new relationship!

Tomorrow I’ll show you a detailed look at the Valentine’s placemats I did for them – super cute! I blogged a sneaky peek here.

Target recently contacted me (via a contact made at SURTEX) to send them “my book” to share with their creative team. My 3-ring binder of samples or my black leather portfolio was not going to be good enough for them, no, no. I needed something that said “Hey, look at me!”, showed off my style from the front to the back and incorporated my love for found objects, lettering & color, so I created an entire customize album (that I can use later) where the contents can be easily edited and expand to any size.

I mailed it off a few weeks ago and got it back today in the same condition I sent it. I had a professor in college who had made this really cool portfolio that turned into a house (as part of her application for a architectural graduate program) and when it came back to her, she said the person looking through it must have been eating a snickers bar. There was caramel & nugget stuck to most of the pages. So thank you Target creative team for taking such good care of it.

I’ve been working recently on a ton of licensing and children’s illustration projects (guess people are back to spending money again before their budget year is up). So above is a sneaky peek of 2 projects. Yeah, I know you’d love to see the rest, but I think I need to hold off for a while.

Tara Reed has got some really great resources for Art Licensing! I’m a big fan of these and I was so excited to see her email newsletter this morning announcing her latest product: Product Mock-Up Magic. I can not begin to tell you how much time this will save me!! I’ve struggled with getting images together to mock up and honestly, I just don’t have time time. And my philosophy is if you don’t have time, get some one else to do it for you, and Tara has done that. I love her “teaching” technique. She is so thorough so anyone not totally familiar with Photoshop can easily follow her steps to help grow a licensing business. The product will ship on October 21st, but go ahead and pre-order it now because you’ll save $20. I just ordered my copy and can’t wait to get it and start mocking up products. I’m throwing out all my old mock-up because I never really liked how they turned out and these from Tara are so much better. Click here to learn more and purchase.

In the past I have also purchased Tara’s repeat pattern e-book to refresh my memory on how to make patterns (hadn’t done it since collage and I totally forgot how). I think it is a must-have and patterns are very addictive to make!!

She also has this cool affiliate program with all her products too so you can refer people to her products, get paid for it and use that money to buy more of her resources. So…I’d like to refer you- Go to the bottom of the page, click “affiliate program” and sign-up. Super easy!

Tara also agreed to be one of the judges for Pumpkin Junkin’ so she just all around ROCKS!

I haven’t posted to Illustration Friday for a while, but since this week’s topic is “pattern” I couldn’t resist. I love making repeat patterns and they are quite addictive. If you don’t know how, Tara Reed has a great e-book for it and you’ll be making patterns in no time!

I am determined to have an art filled weekend! I have a promo to do for the Illustration For Kids mailer, greeting card ideas to finalize, some product ideas to compile and send to a manufacturer, plus start junkin’ my pumpkin for my annual contest & exhibit (you can follow Pumpkin Junkin’ on twitter or facebook for updates)!

Just a sneak peek at what I’ll have at Surtex. I love this circus pattern and the little plush lion as a mock-up of what could be done with a character. My licensing manager made the lion and I love how it turned out!!

I’m going to try and post everyday until Surtex and plan on blogging and tweeting from there too! All my tweets will show up on facebook too in case you’re not on twitter.

Surtex is officially one month away and I still have a ways to go, but I;m feeling really good about my progress so far. I figured out my booth layout and what all I will show (the biggest stressor for me). I used my skills from my environmental design class in college to work up a to scale elevation of the booth:

The green areas are what I already have printed out, the pink areas are what I still need to print out, the blue areas are signage and the orange areas are things I need to mock-up (I’m still working on my last panel though). I spent Tuesday and Thursday this week printing. I am using someone’s large format printer by paying them per square foot. I like this better than sending it out somewhere and hoping it looks good when it’s all done. This way I can check progress as I go. Luckily I haven’t had any issues. I’ve cut everything out and will later mount it all on boards:

This week I also worked on some postcards for Surtex. I decided not to use the USPS postcards like i normally do because I’ll be writing small notes on some of the mailers and I couldn’t do that with the others. One is a mailer I plan to get out next week (we went through names yesterday and have about 220 people to send to), a bio postcard to hand out as giveaways and I had extras printed to include in any samples we mail, and thank you postcards (for Surtex and later). For the design I went with a design I originally went with
last year:

I still have to print my other giveaway goodies, so hopefully I’ll get to all that next week. Other things on the to-do list:

• Get everything printed and assembled for my press kit (everything is written, just need to print it all out)
• Mock up several physical products to show
• Mock up products to put in design book – I think I’ll get my designer to work on those next week
• Start packing my suitcase of of things I’ll need for the booth (scissors, stapler, tape, etc.) – just filling it up as I go so I won’t have to get it all together at once
• Chart out our road trip via Garmin
• Download audiobooks for the trip
• Shop for clothes and comfortable shoes

Now I’m off to spend the day preparing for the Woog’s 5th birthday party tomorrow!!

The above is a thank you postcard I designed last week to send to clients after I work with them (this is for my licensing clients – I have a different one I use for my children’s illustration clients). I am getting them printed through Overnight prints since they did an awesome job with my business cards. I hope to get them early next week and I’ll show the final product then (along with my Surtex postcards!).

Exactly one month from today I’ll be on my way to NY for Surtex. Things are coming along great and I have yet to freak out (but there’s still time). I finally figured out what I will show in my booth and how it will all look. That was the biggest stressor and now I feel like a load has been lifted off. I’ll be posting tomorrow or Friday on part 5 of my Surtex Planning.

I’ve been able to flush out my booth design in the last few days and I’m feeling pretty good about how I’ll have it organized. I do have to keep telling myself that it’s not a one-shot deal for me, they have Surtex every year and it’s not my last trip to New York, so don’t try and cram everything in while I’m there. So the first thing I wrote in my sketchbook when planning my booth was:

I need to ingrain this into my brain. I don’t have to show everything I have on the wall. I’ll have a book with all my designs in it, and I only need to show my best and most relevant work on the walls. I also realized that I may need to take things down after each show and keep them in the secure area of Surtex or take them back to my hotel room. Yesterday the need for that came to the forefront of my mind again when I read Ellen’s post on someone stealing her design book. I need to really plan out how many 3-D/removable objects I’ll have since I’m going to have to lug them in and out everyday! So keeping this in mind I started sketching and making notes:

Like I’ve said before I’ll have a corner booth and as of last week the local has been changed. I’m now at booth #349:

Seeing how my booth configuration is opposite than what I originally had, I sketched out the booth layout:

There are eight “categories” I want to show things in and this will work perfect the way the walls are physically set up.

I am also working out how to use the space on the vertical corner post I have. I want at least one dimensional element on each panel just some my booth is more dynamic and not too flat. I’m working on some easy shelving issues that will hopefully work.

Now onto tourism. This will be my first visit to New York and I would like to see a few things while I’m there but need to keep in mind that I will be back and I don’t have to see everything in a day. One thing I need to decide is do I go to the Met or MOMA? At the moment I’m torn. I could do both, but that cuts into other site seeing time. Any suggestions? Any must sees while I’m there?