May 2008 – Dabbled

Birthday Party Invite & Thank You Note

Dot — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:47:00 +0000

The Boy’s birthday is coming up and i’m not really much for themes… but he loves robots and such so I decided to do a Robot Spaceman theme on his invitation and thank you notes. And then, figuring I’d gone to all that trouble, and it’s so hard to find fun invitations–so I thought I’d share these with the world, and offer them for free download for anyone who might want to use them for there own parties.

The Robo-Spaceman Thank You Note:

The Robo-Spaceman Invitation (I genericized it for download-mine had the details typed in):

To download, click through to flickr, choose All Sizes, and there’s a download button. they are jpegs so you can insert them into a Word doc or whatever. The technically impaired can let me know if you have questions! It’s creative commons licensed, so feel free to use for personal use–if you want them for anything else, just contact me at dot(at) dabbled.org.

Stay tuned, because depending on whether i have time, i’ll color the other Robot Spacemen for party favor bags or something else — just depends on how martha I end up getting. I think it would be a really cool idea to print one of these sans text(or maybe this one, once i color it) out on shrinky dink plastic and make keychain party favors for the party too. If you do anything fun with these, let me know!

Illustration Friday – "Worry" (plus scans of the contest prizes)

Dot — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:55:00 +0000

My excuse for being late this week – we were gone all weekend: Pics!

So I was coloring another pic for Illo Friday, and photoshop crashed. So I took it as a sign, and did this one instead! Which I think is actually better.
Poor lil bots, I’m not sure who is more worried!

Ink drawing, colored in Photoshop.

This is actually one of the drawings I did as prizes for the last dabbled contest, but I scanned the original before sending it off to the winner…
Hopefully all have been received, so if you’re interested in seeing the scans of other prizes, here they are (click through, obviously)

If you missed it: Last Week’s Illo Friday – A faux vintage advertising poster for Limoncello (Theme: Wide)

Other recent Illustration Fridays: Electricity, Seed, Wrinkle, & Primitive. Keeping up my goal of doing an illo friday every week this year! Go me!

Long Weekend of Fun..

Dot — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:46:00 +0000

edit: More pics here

We went to a wedding this weekend in St. Simons Island, Ga, and we’re finally back after a long road trip and much busyness. Just got around to looking at the illo friday topic for this week, so no drawing yet, but here’s last week’s if you missed it.

Here’s the weekend, in Three Pictures of The Boy(I’ll upload more later)
Went to a wedding:

It rained!

And then we went to the beach the next day..

Illustration Friday – "Wide"

Dot — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:48:00 +0000

Here is my Illo Friday from last week… sketch is here.
I wanted to do something inspired by vintage advertising posters, plus i figured this would be a cool label for when i got around to making Limoncello (Kinda like the Bacon Vodka label from prior!)

Pencil, colored in photoshop

Suggestions welcome.. i’m not totally thrilled with the coloring job…

Also, if you have a topic for another label, i might do it next :)

Preview of this week's Illo Friday

Dot — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:55:00 +0000

This week’s illustration friday topic is Wide. I thought this little guy, in the style of those ubiquitous Italian/French vintage ad posters would be perfect! Plus I want to try making limoncello so i figured i’d draw a label. (to go with our porker friend–Drunken Pig Bacon Vodka)

Stop the Orphan Works Act

Dot — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:24:00 +0000

If you haven’t seen it, check out this write up on Drawn on the Orphan Works Act.
http://drawn.ca/2008/05/13/oppose-the-orphan-works-act-of-2008/

If you are an artist (or like artists!), please take a sec and check out the link above.… [ KEEP READING ]

Illustration Friday – "Electricity"

Dot — Sun, 11 May 2008 19:20:00 +0000

The Power Plant generates Electricity, but this hard working bot gets his energy from WD-40 Cola!
Click thru to see the full image – blogger cuts off the side.

Oh, and since I posted it pretty late last week, be sure to check out last week’s (Bad) Seed.

Bacon Vodka Label

Dot — Sun, 11 May 2008 19:00:00 +0000

We went to a friend’s 40th birthday party last night, and he’s an interesting person who likes to make homemade liqueurs. So for a gift I made him a Bacon Vodka Kit (inspiration and recipe via Brownie Points)–i know it sounds odd, but picture it in a Bloody Mary or something!. I included instructions on how to make and the ingredients (Bacon and Vodka!) and drew him some custom labels. Cute, eh?

If anyone else want’s to attempt it, you can download the graphic from flickr — it’s Creative Commons licensed.. And let me know if you do!

Illustration Friday – "Seed"

Dot — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:16:00 +0000

For the Seed theme, my mind went immediately dark and evil. I present to you “The Bad Seed”. No, no resemblance to my darling son. No, really. Nothing like that ;)
Original pencil sketch at the bottom of the post.

Pencil sketch, colored in Photoshop.

This is actually modeled on the original drawing that I use for the Dabbled logo. It’s of a little girl all cute and victorian, in a similar pose, holding a bloody knife. Yeah, a little creepy, but don’t we all have a dark side? :)

Here’s the original little murder-girl. Which do you like better, her or the bad seed brother? The style is, of course, very different.

And here is the original sketch, sketched on the deck of the cabin in the mountains this weekend!

Proto-dabble Monster Magnets

Dot — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:38:00 +0000

I was browsing through my flickr account and found this, from the days before my blog.
It’s two cute little monster magnets I (with hubby help) made from sculpey clay for a “artist swap” (similar to what I propose we do in the previous post!).

Click through for a larger look – the photo is not the best.