JFlah's Blunders

Did a lot of these this year... I've got three for sale right now [Winter Birds, Christmas Morning Raggedy Ann, and Ornamental Reindeer] Still have a lot of uncompleted ones in a box if anyone wants to start a new tradition at their house next Christmas. I make them with a reinforced hang tag and often embellish or change a few things so they're not exactly like the kit requires. Super fun, but I think I'm done for a while. Going to focus on writing again. Depending on complexity, these take 15-25 hours to complete, but they're so special, they've been worth the time for family members.

Worked on some cover options for the book. When I release the next two volumes, I'm going to update the cover on the first book. Which one of these do you like? Or should I go back to the drawing board? I've gotten to a point where I figure only two people are sitting on the edge of their seat wondering when I'm finally going to get those last two books in the Curse of Royalty series done and one of those is my mamma LOL

A friend asked about whether or not I'd draw an idea for her that was inspired by lyrics from a popular song we've done in worship service. She sent me a sketch of the idea and so I got to thinking and doing some research. Went first to unsplash to study how water flows over things, found some great poses for reference and some hands in a pose that worked and then I composited the images in photoshop and went to town. This process took way longer than expected [as usual LOL]. She didn't hire me - after our back and forth discussions, she did another sketch and seemed happy with it. Here's the original sketch she sent. Here's my first version of the digital sketch. She said it was too dark and I agreed fully. It was a deluge of blood - little too freaky. This is the next sketch she sent. Much better than the first and certainly gets the idea across. This is the final version of my digital drawing and a peek at the under sketching. Could probably refi...

New sermon series is coming... Attempt 1: I knew it might be a bit too conceptual for Pastor, but I usually try that route first just to prime the pump and then I was hopeful that he'd go with it, so I showed it to him. He's like, "Uh, Jen, reign it in." One of the messages for the series will be on the 2nd coming of Christ and that made me think about how His grace transforms us from "goats" to "sheep" and... yeah, was too conceptual for Pastor since the focus for the series isn't literally on how Christ separates the Sheep and Goats. [background template from Igniter Media] He liked the title text layout/font choices and the dark background so here're the next few proofs: I didn't want to do butterfly imagery since it's so over done... so here's changing leaves... [leaves photo by Chris Lawton ] A moody landscape [image from unsplash by Michael Dam ] Just the text... kinda nice, actually. Mood...

This is the series we're in now - was fun to work on this. Doesn't look like much, but there are lots of layers. Removed original man from dune, added the new guy, fixed the levels and put shadows and highlights on him, added stars overlay and a gradient filter, adjusted more levels/curves again. [Photos: Man by Kian Chow, Dunes by Marko Zupan, Stars by Mark Gee all sourced from unsplash .]

Proofs with the two I liked most at the top... This is the one she chose - definitely my favorite - although she chose the one with the sewing machine for a larger sign she was going to do cut vinyl for. I'm looking forward to seeing these in action. A talented friend asked me to help her with some designs for craft bag tags. If you're interested in seeing some of her side-hustle goods, check out her facebook page .

Happy dude, no? Has an evil eyebrow... Last week I noodled around with some polymer clay. My sister gave me a whole lot of it a while back but it's been gathering dust in a closet. In a bag of scraps, I found a head someone had started. The colors were strange - but I could tell that they had put a lot of work into it. There were white eyeballs, brown hair, even ears, but the face and head looked more like a bowling ball than anything else and I just couldn't help myself. I wish I could show a before/after, but here's what I ended up with. Still need to bake it and decide if I'm going to make a body - I have trouble working over an armature, but I think that's what I'd have to do to make this work.

 Found this portrait in one of my impressionist books and loved the mystery and the negative space - wasn't bonkers about the yellow skin I saw in the photo of the painting - the one I found online is probably truer to form - but mine has yellow skin... oh well - it still turned out ok. Berthe Morisot with Fan. Oil on Canvas, Edouard Manet, 1872. My work in progress - oil pastels on watercolor paper - First basic beginning of color after sketch - what is that thing below her foot? Dropped in color mixes - was a challenge to decide what to mix with the black so it wasn't so boring. When I sat back to look at it, I decided I wasn't crazy about how the pigment was laying on the rough paper so... Smoothed the color with a metal palette knife - All that's left is to pull the tape off & add a frame.

Ok, so I didn't follow the rules this year. I did my sketches but didn't post them all. Here are ones I failed to post: Source: https://imgur.com/9fK6vcW Loved this one so much I did a digital painting too. Source: https://imgur.com/9fK6vcW Source Source Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/WecIqruEZfo Don't remember where this one came from. It's kinda wonky so probably an original - LOL I think it was inspired by RizzyFig's cute mermaid, but don't remember. Sources: https://unsplash.com/photos/DziZIYOGAHc https://unsplash.com/photos/oWTW-jNGl9I  

So... yeah - this... Resources:    Mouth: Photo by Dan Cook, offered freely on Unsplash here    Pear: Photo by Bence Balla Schottner, offered freely on Unsplash here

I really need to brush up on my digital painting skills - would really like to be able to grasp color a bit better and that means many more hours of practice. Not sure that's something I want to invest in, but I sure love it when something comes together. Green bottle - digital painting done in photoshop with a Wacom and some cool brush tools. I cheated and sampled colors from the source photo. Glass has always been a scary drawing/painting subject for me.

Finished up a fun photo collage poster in photoshop this week. Last week I started the design but even though I liked the copy for it, the overall design I'd started with wasn't working. I ran what I had by our Communication Director. He suggested a kinda rustic background that had some tech gadgets so I went looking. I found many wonderful options on unsplash, but settled on this one by Rawpixel : Then I had to figure out how to make it work in the 4'x3' format I needed for our frame and how to make it more "us" - here's a screenshot of the changes I made. Can't wait to see this one printed. Removed "dream," extended the wood at the top and added some vignetting, added title to the book from another image, and a screen shot to the computer and the phone... And the final image with text

The head of our PreK ministry asked me to help her make a craft for the story about Hannah praying for a baby in 1 Samuel 1:9-2 8 . She brought me a neat idea she found online where only the hands/torso change when the page is folded. Thankfully I had time to sketch up an original version of what she brought me. Click here to download this design for free. Finalized version created in Adobe Illustrator: Preliminary sketches:  Ideas she provided: