Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS
&
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

To all my poor neglected blog pals I apologize for the lack of posting, but I have done precious little else other than create art for the past weeks...  Progress has been steady and I am pleased with the work, so that's a good thing, but I hate being so out of touch. I haven't visited blogs in I don't know how long...I miss you guys... (Can't WAIT to show you all the new art!!!)

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas weekend with your loved ones - we had a lovely time! I am SO excited about the New Year and the promise it holds for all of us! It's gonna be quite a ride!

Hugs and Blessings to each of you and may God's love and grace surround and fill you!


Wednesday, December 07, 2011

New Marketing Piece


Howdy! Just wanted to quickly share a new marketing image that I just completed in preparation for the CHA show in January. I am working non stop on new portfolio pieces and I am having a blast! You'll be a seeing a lot more of these girls and all their "accessories" in the coming weeks...

Oh, you can see my new logo too there in the middle of the marketing image. That, by the way, is the official name for my art licencing business:  
Becky Schultea Design & Illustration 
where whimsy meets inspiration

...that seems to sum it up pretty well I think...

Gotta run for now...lots more work to do! I'll try to pop in like this a bit more often in the coming days and weeks to share bits and pieces of what I'm up to. See you soon friends - I MISS YOU!!

Have a great week!!

Friday, November 18, 2011

Blessing(s) in Disguise

I'm here, I'm here!! I didn't fall off the face of the earth...although at times over the past month it seems as if I might.

A few weeks ago, with no warning, my hard drive on my 2 year old computer died...kaput...just like that. Since that happened earlier in the year on my previous much older computer, and since I was able to save my files that time, I wasn't too worried. Well, ignorance can be bliss...  After friends and family attempts to check it out failed, I brought it to a PC repair shop and waited for word... Word did come, and it was NOT the word I wanted to hear. The files were unrecoverable...totally gone. My art that I had been toiling over (if you can call doing art "toiling") was simply non-existent...

This is gone (the full version):

...and this one too...

...and another one from this cottage series that I was almost ready to preview. Plus a new logo, and files for Universal Designs, and photos and so on and so on... I was just sick...

You might be asking, "but Becky, don't you do back ups...?" To which I say, "NOW I do!!!!"  Truth is, after the last hard drive crash, we bought an external hard drive, put all the rescued files on it from the previous computer, and promptly set it on a shelf where it remained for months.... Oh how stupid can I be?

But, a funny thing happened while I was waiting the 10 days or so for my computer to be repaired...I rediscovered my sketchbook and colored pencils...

I typically do a bit of minimal sketching before I create an illustration, but I rarely do color studies in the sketchbook. I simply do all that on the computer on the fly as I draw. But having time away from the computer, and being determined not to lose momentum in my preparation for the CHA Trade Show in January, I worked through a whole new series of girls that have been in my head for a long time now. It was so therapeutic to draw and color old school. I developed all of their various accessories, borders, patterns, etc. and it was so fun! Those of you familiar with my cartooning style may have noticed that I rarely draw open eyes on my characters...
Basically, I've done that because I like the smiley, joyful look of it, but frankly, it's also because it's just plain easier to draw them that way...

But eyes are so important, and I knew I wanted these new characters to have really pretty, big eyes and more detail overall than I typically do. Plus, I wanted them, and their colors and accessories, to have a bit of a 70's retro vibe. I really had the time to sketch and sketch and get it just right...and here's a little snippet of how they are looking so far...

I am having a blast creating these girls and their stuff - there will be four girls for starters, representing each of the four seasons. (above are the girls for Autumn, Spring, and Winter - Summer is waiting her turn next). I'd love to make a whole calendar of them eventually. For now, the goal is to get them to the CHA show for their debut...I can't wait!

So, what are the "blessings in disguise"  that I alluded to in the blog title? Well, one obvious one is the time I was able to spend sketching and coloring my new series. Another one was a bit more subtle, but important... 

When I look back at my journals from late Spring and into the Summer, I see one distraction/situation/problem after another that kept me from drawing time...my parents and my MIL each had a stint in the hospital, starting on Mother's Day...we were evacuated for a week due to wildfires...and so on. Plus, I noted several times in my journal that it seemed as if I were drawing in molasses - I was moving SO slow and wondering aloud what was wrong with me, why was I drawing so slow...? Well, as it turns out, if I had had an incredibly productive Summer, I would have lost that much more artwork! So my slowness and distractions and delays were all blessings in disguise! Even the original hard drive crash earlier this year was a blessing because when we got the external hard drive, we put all of the art files from the old computer onto it first, and even though I put those on my newer computer (and thus lost them), they were still safe and sound there in the external hard drive. Losing those completely would have truly been pretty hard to bear...all my Illustration Friday files, all my calendar files, all my photos, all my Aimee Asher artwork, all my Universal Designs artwork, etc. But they are all OK...overall my losses were fairly minimal...

BTW, I am going to re-do those illustrations that I shared at the beginning of this post...I just didn't have the heart to jump back into those first thing when I got my newly repaired computer back, but I plan to. They may not make it to the show in January, but they will be ready at the right time, whenever that happens to be...

Through all of this I have even more awe and admiration, and more understanding of this Scripture favorite:

"And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."
Romans 8:28 (NLT)


Oh, one more little blessing to share. I thought I had lost my coloring pages that I created back in July...like this one: 
...but I remembered that I had burned them onto a CD when I took them to Kinkos to make sample coloring books, so I still have them! That was a nice bonus...  Come to think of it, that Scripture is pretty applicable too!  :o)

Have a wonderful weekend dear friends...oh, and back up your files please!!


Saturday, October 15, 2011

Another Sample


Wow, another week has passed already! I just wanted to share another sneak peek at what I have been working on this week. This cottage porch scene sample is another image in a series of cottage-themed illustrations that I am creating for potential licensing. I will be taking it and many other new and recent images to the CHA Winter Conference in Anaheim in January. I am also in the process of re-designing my logo and planning my booth design. It's coming together pretty well, but it all seems too slow for comfort with the show just being 3 months away (yikes!). 

In other news, we had a blast at my Youth Group reunion last weekend! It was wonderful to reconnect with dear old friends. It was a special time that I will treasure forever! Oh, and I'd be hard pressed to forget the details because the photographers and videographer that were there captured every last detail of the humidity and then rain-soaked bad-hair affair. Oh yes, and there were skits too...and now they are videos... Good grief. Oh well, it was still a blast - I would highly recommend such a reunion if you were close to your youth group friends. It all came together through the magic of Facebook.

Well, back to the drawing board...the illustration I'm working on now is a still life within a cottage studio/craft room. It's sure to be super-cute, so stay tuned!

Have a great weekend friends!!


Saturday, October 08, 2011

A Birthday and a Reunion!

Happy Birthday to my Sweetie!!!  
I love you so much - God blessed me more than I can express when He brought our hearts together!! I hope your day is wonderful, and that the next year is full of adventure and blessings!

We are headed to the south part of Houston for a very special reunion this evening - my youth group from church when I was in High School is having a reunion for all the kids who were part of the youth group from roughly 1975 - 1985! I spent a lot of quality time with these old friends and I am really looking forward to reconnecting!! Here's a photo of a small group of us from one of our youth trips to Tennessee in 1978 - that's me with the red and blue rugby shirt in the middle (mercy me...so young)

Should be a lot of fun...

Hope you have a wonderful weekend with those you love!! Can't wait to show you more of the art I'm working on...coming up this week!  Hugs y'all - we'll chat again soon....



Thursday, September 29, 2011

Sneak Peek: New Series


Hello folks!! I wanted to take a quick break from my virtual drawing board and give you a sneak peek at my latest design project. I am creating a new collection of vintage cottage-themed illustrations that will be part of the work I will be bringing to the Craft & Hobby Association 2012 Winter Conference in January! Did I previously mention that I am going to exhibit at that show? Anyways, I am (in the Licensing and Design section), and I am so excited/nervous/crazy about it all. But I always feel good when I get into the groove with a new set of designs, because then the work flows much more freely. Now that I have this design done, the others in the series should roll out a bit quicker because I have figured out all the basic layout questions, style decisions, color palettes, themes, etc...

But, there is SO much more to do than just design new work and revamp existing work - there are press kits to design and prepare, a booth to design and create, marketing materials to finalize and print, and the list goes on and on...mercy!!

I'll be sharing more and more about my preparations for the show as I go along. Since this is my first time to exhibit, I hope to be able to take my experiences and help future new exhibitors to avoid the mistakes I am sure to make and to be encouraged by the wonderful things I am sure to see and learn. I hope you'll follow along the journey with me!

We'll talk again soon! Have a fabulous day and a fun weekend upcoming! HUGS y'all!

Friday, September 23, 2011

Wildfire Aftermath

I finally took the time to download and process all my photos from the wildfire and its aftermath here in the Magnolia, Texas area, so I thought I would tell the story through pictures...

The following photo if from my front porch facing East. It was about 3:15 in the afternoon on Labor Day and I had looked out of the window in our home office and noticed the dark black "clouds" near the horizon, and I thought, "it's not supposed to rain today, what are those clouds?" But in a split-second after I had that thought, I realized that those were not clouds - that was smoke - thick black and brown smoke! (the photos don't do it justice -the second photo captures the blackness at the horizon a bit better)



Well as you can see, the fire appeared to be fairly close by, and it wasn't just a small brush fire. About this time the police drove through our neighborhood informing us that we needed to evacuate. Within ten minutes, my husband and I and our dog Maddie were in two vehicles, carrying as much as we could think to grab from the house. It would be six long days before we were able to return, not sure what we would return to...

As I explained in a previous post, our entire neighborhood, with the exception of one house was spared from the fire damage. Strong NE winds blew the worst of the fire South and West of us on that first day, and the firefighters, who are true heroes, made fire breaks and managed to keep the fire from reentering our neighborhood! However, the fire went on to do incredible damage not far from us - 75 people lost their homes and the pretty countryside here is marred where huge swaths of pasture and forest lands were destroyed. Here are a few photos I took after we were allowed to return home. All of these photos are within a mile or two from our home, so it gives you a perspective of just how blessed we really are to come out with no damage...

Burned pastureland...

Charred underbrush...


Melted resin fence...



Torched trees and shrubs...



Destroyed abandoned brick house...

I am still amazed that we were spared...thank you Lord!

A few days after we returned, we got a heaven-sent blessing...RAIN! (though it was only a shower here)...this is our front porch...
(thanks for all your prayers for rain!)

But you can see beyond the fence that the drought has really taken its toll on our area. Here's a closeup of what the "grass" looks like in our yard and all around the region...

Those leaves are not Fall leaves, they are dead Summer leaves that have simply fallen from our trees from the drought. So, we are still in dire need of extended periods of measurable rain...
______________________________

OK, enough about fires and drought! It's the first official day of Fall! I love this time of year!

And I am happy about all the good things coming up! If you don't see me around here very often or if I'm slow in visiting your blogs, it's just because I am very busy with a number of projects that I am very excited about! More about all the upcoming goodies very soon I promise! Oh, and I've managed to do some fun thrifting and I've found some awesome stuff...photos coming!

Have a blessed weekend friends and thank you sincerely for checking in on me from time to time!
We'll talk again soon!


Thursday, September 15, 2011

"The Cat's Pajamas" are in the Shop!


I've been working to complete a new product set in my Just Bee 'n Me online shop, and it's all ready! It's called "The Cat's Pajamas" and it has lots of fun products to help you throw an amazing slumber party! From coordinating flip-flops
 ...and pajamas...


...and matching pins for favors...
There's even a large wall-cling sign with the Cat's Pajamas design for decorating!

These products would also be great for the the cat lover in your life - there's lot's of sweet kitty-goodness to go around!

All of these new products also coordinate with my Cat's Pajamas digital clip art kit too...

 That kit could provide even more slumber party fun for craft projects, favors, decorations, plus all you need to scrap about the party after it's done!
______________________________

I'm still creating more new products non-stop, so please stay tuned! Next up, a line of cute Fall products for kids and adults, everything from t-shirts to notecards to art journals! Can't wait to show you!!

Now, I gotta get back to work... Thanks again for all your prayers and well wishes during our flight from the wildfire. We are so very grateful! HUGS to all!!

"I thank my God every time I remember you." 
Philippians 1:3


Sunday, September 11, 2011

Home Again - and Grateful


I am happy to report that we are home again - safe and sound! Though 22,000 acres have burned all around us, our neighborhood of 70 homes, with the exception of one, was spared. It was amazing to drive in late last night after the evacuation notice was lifted and see that not only were we spared, it's as if nothing had ever happened. Our house didn't even smell of smoke! 

I am just so very grateful for all the prayers prayed by family, friends, and strangers, all the sacrifice and hard work of first responders, all the generosity and kindness of neighbors, all the hospitality and care of my parents, and the all the goodness and grace of our Father God! May God shed His grace on thee! 

Blessings to you and yours and to this great land of ours on this day of 9/11 remembrance..it will now and forever have an additional significance for me. May I never take for grated the incredible blessings we have and the love that has been shown to us by so many. And may our prayers continue to be with those who lost so much 10 years ago on this infamous day, and with those around here today who are without a home....may God bless them all and bring them comfort...


Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Wildfire!

Viewer photo from iwitness.abc13.com - taken about 1/2 mile from our home 9/5/11

Hello friends. I wanted to let you know what's happening in our little corner of the world. We were evacuated from our Lake Holly Hills neighborhood near Magnolia, TX Monday yesterday afternoon as a large wildfire threatened our area. We had about 10 minutes to evacuate and we grabbed as many things as we could think of and got out. Hubby, our dog Maddie and I headed to my Mom's house about 30 miles away and we are safe and sound. The fire is still burning over several thousand acres and our neighborhood and many others are still under mandatory evacuation orders, so there is no going in to check on things at this time... 

SO, we wait and pray. And we know God is in control...

Ours is just one of over 63 wildfires raging in Texas right now. The massive wildfire near Austin (about 150 miles from here) has already burned 500 homes and it is not contained. The severe drought here coupled with high winds has made all of Texas one huge tinderbox. We would appreciate your prayers for our region...

I will keep you updated as often as I have news...Hugs to you all!


Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Create!


Oh yes, I am a huge fan of Pinterest, no doubt. LOTs of great inspiration to be found. But when I find myself doing more pinning than creating, that's when I have to step back a bit. Somebody has to create that next awesome 5 ingredient casserole recipe, or try that fabulous art journaling technique, or crochet a granny square garland....and it should be, us! We were created by the Creator to be creative!!

So, what's on your creative plate today? I encourage you (and me) to step out and do it, try it, experiment with it, enjoy it! It's what you were made to do...

...and oh yeah, I'll be sure to pin it once you're done!


Friday, August 26, 2011

She's Always our Biggest Fan!

Well with school back in full swing and Friday night football starting again, I thought it would be a good time to debut a fresh new version of "Sports Mom" in my CafePress shop. I wanted to honor those Moms who tirelessly (and loudly) cheer their kids on at every game (in any weather), taxi the team to get ice cream, put up with muddy cleats and grass stains and finger sprains, all to support their kids. I thought she deserved a design that celebrated her dedication and enthusiasm!

I've added this design to a wide variety of Sports Mom gear in the shop - everything from baseball jerseys...
...and even laptop skins!

...and just about everything in between!

I hope you'll go check out the new gear - I had a lot of fun putting it all together! I think our Sports Moms deserve some fun gear to coordinate with their enthusiasm!

This is just the first of many, many new products and updates coming to my CafePress shop - stay tuned for more fun cute goodies to come...