i've gotta do what i've gotta do...

warning: this post will be pure and shameless self-promotion (well, the whole concept of a personal blog is self-promotion in a way, but you know what i mean).

if, unlike me, you're the proud owner of a member of  the iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Galaxy families, (or know someone who is), and would like to dress them up for the holidays (or would simply like to know what i am so excited about), you can now check out my collection for the amazing Keka cases.

here are my favorites (all images courtesy of Keka):

do you have a favorite?

i am currently working on new designs, is there something you would like to see?

and in case my designs are not your style, you can check out the collections of fellow designers Esther Cox, Kathryn Pledger, Simi Gauba, Nicole Tamarin, Onneke, Zoe Attwell, among many, many others. it's such a diverse group of designers, there is something for everyone!

end of self-promotion. done.

other than pasta

it's been so long that i thought i wouldn't be able to log in. so, what do i have to say for myself? not much, except that i have been absent online, only because i have been present 24/7 offline. i hope you would agree that cultivating my real self (and its little dependents) is more important than embellishing the virtual one. even if "cultivating" means mainly "feeding". somebody's got to do it, and doing it right is a full-time job. having said that, i always try to make some time to make something other than supper. here's what i did lately: my submissions to the bologna children's book fair illustrators' exhibition which i enter every year hoping this will be the year when someone thinks my work is worth showing.

the series is called "rainy days" and it had been on my mind for a while.

car

house

turtle

tree

pear

are they any good? i like them, otherwise i wouldn't submit and share them, obviously.

i am not sure when i will be back online. hopefully soon. when i make something i like. other than pasta. 

the piece of paper that traveled far and wide

dinner is almost ready (leftovers and rice), babies are napping(still), i made coffee (decaf is a poor substitute, but otherwise my baby will go nuts), and i can finally write about what i did earlier today.

years ago, when i was going through yet another "creatively challenged" period, i decided to try painting on paper grocery bags. i cut a piece out and sewed a border around it. i am not sure why i did that, i remember enjoying the meditative state trying to sew a straight line put me in. i made only one of those and had no idea what to paint on it. so my useless exercise in trying something new made me creatively stuck, a level or two below that of being challenged. but i liked the look and feel of that small brown rectangle, and didn't have the heart to throw it away. and i always kept it near me just in case inspiration struck. so the piece of paper was in one of the many boxes that waited with us for my husband's student visa before moving to england. it was in my carry-on bag on the plane to london. it stayed in my sketchbook for a year and a half, returned with us to boston, still in the sketchbook until our daughter was born. it moved from one sketchbook to the next, from one apartment to the other. it's been on my desk between pieces of scrap paper since our son was born. and today as i was getting ready to take a mini-brain-vacation and paint, it stuck its tiny corner out, as if saying "hey!". luckily for the recycled piece of paper, my daughter had hidden my ruler, and i wasn't able to measure and cut the usual small rectangular piece from my bristol pad, so i thought "whatever", and painted this.

bag painting - front

bag painting - back

now the paper is on my wall. i would say that's a few levels above being stuck on my desk.

on a negative note...

hmmm...where do i start? i have been feeling overwhelmed and a little stuck and all that stuff. busy, exhausted, and very behind on my to-do list. i feel like i need a vacation. i want to be away from this laptop, inbox, blog, pinterest, facebook, all those virtual accessories that clog my life. i need to reboot my mind. so today i decided to take a break and paint a little.

to watch the paint flow, mix in a drop of water with my brush, look at the paint breathe through those little bubbles, spread the gouache on the soft piece of paper, all of these never fail to clear up my busy brain. i even enjoyed picking up the normally annoying pieces of lint that seem to appear from nowhere. it's not that i am not happy when i work digitally (i need to write about how much i like that some other time), but the lack of physical contact with what i am making feels toxic after a while, and painting acts like detox. it's like reading the news online for months, and then picking up a newspaper at a café and realizing how time slows down when you touch a piece of paper.

anyway, above is a snapshot from this morning. it's the concept for the second pattern in fresh!, a collection i had started a few weeks ago and which was still where i had left it, until today.

to end on a negative note (why not?), the surface pattern design project for the kids products i was working on fell through (blogged about it here and here), so that didn't feel very good. on the flip side, i am free now to use those designs anyway and anywhere i want. they are now on my website. there's a positive to every negative.

the truth about watermelons

i will try not to apologize for not blogging. i usually apologize for anything, being 2 minutes late, being 2 minutes early, even for being on time! but not today. i have been busy busy busy and something had got to give, and it wasn't going to be feeding my baby, so...

speaking of food, for some obscure reason i have been receiving Rachael Ray cooking magazines i haven't subscribed to, and although i find nothing in there that inspires me to cook,  the other day i saw these beautiful photos in the latest issue:

"get fresh with watermelon", photos by Plamen Petkov

they now live on my wall and have inspired me to start a new collection: fresh! here's the first pattern.

fresh!

so this week's first lesson is: never underestimate the usefulness of a useless cooking magazine.

lesson two: it turns out watermelon is a vegetable and not a fruit.

at least you did not read this post in vain... (can you discern the subtle apology? i can't help myself, can i?)

in which she naps and i dream

the other day when my daughter woke up from her afternoon nap, and i asked her, as usual, "did you have a good nap?", she said "yes", and added, "what did you do?" i told her i worked. but it really didn't feel like work.

i did this:

and next time you napped i did this:

and then you napped many more times, and  i made many more of those, and came up with this, which is still a work in progress, so please keep up the nice and long naps!

so while you were napping, my lovely, and having sweet dreams, i was trying to make my dreams come true. little by little. but sometimes, like now, i wish i could just nap as sweetly as you do.

MOYO 4 is here!

...and i am in it! this was such great news to come home to. my ankles hurt  and my eyelids are drooping, so unfortunately i can't read the issue right now (what do ankles have to do with reading, you ask? i say, don't ask) - but i can proudly share the fact that my design (remember the time i thought i was lucky?) was the first runner-up in the MOYO Floral Twist Design Brief. congrats to the winner, Antonija M, second runner-up, fellow designer friend Majo BV, and third runner-up, Rebecca Beck.

below are my entries:

flower bed 

flower people

flower stems

these are from my flower power collection, and they are the first florals i have ever designed. i am glad the judges thought they are "simple and effective". i always strive for simple, bold and playful.

ok, this was old work. next time i will share new work. i am working on it.