Illustrations by Dena

A Couple of New Greeting Card Designs

studiodena — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 03:46:08 +0000

One thing that I love to do is enter competitions. I don’t win as often as I enter, but it doesn’t seem to deter me. I created these two greeting card designs for a teen themed competition. The idea was to create an encouraging birthday card for a teen (the star card), and a sweet Valentine’s Day card for a teen (the floating mailbox card). The cards may have been a little too general for the theme, but I did like the way they turned out. One of the great things about competitions is that even if you don’t win, you have another great design to add to your portfolio and pummel potential publishers with.

Jewelry Postcard Design for Gold Adore

studiodena — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:20:15 +0000

I just finished these lovely little postcards for Gillian at Gold Adore. I love doing custom work. There is something extremely satisfying about filling a need or solving a problem that someone has.

Gold Adore is a beautiful Etsy shop full of unique vintage jewelry. I really encourage you to check it out. I always thought that vintage jewelry wasn’t for me until I saw Gillian’s shop. She has great taste and I fell in love with several of her items right away. Be sure to visit her Etsy Shop and her blog.

GOLD ADORE (Etsy)

BABES AND BLING (blog)

Front

Back

If you would like to meet Gillian in person, you can attend the Etsy wedding expo “To Have and To Hold”. It’s happening on April 28th in New York City. Find more details here: http://www.etsy.com/wedding-event

They Draw and Cook Kraft Competition

studiodena — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:06:10 +0000

They Draw and Cook hosted an illustrated recipe contest for Kraft Foods. The contest closed yesterday. This was my interpretation of their recipe for Rustic Grilled Cheese. I initially wanted the lumberjack to be Paul Bunion. I really wanted to put the blue bull in the design and everything. As I worked through the design, I decided that I liked this one the best. My husband (my ever vigilant and all-knowing critic) agreed that this was the best design. Personally, I love the way it turned out. My lumberjack is handsome, and obviously very happy to be eating a Rustic Grilled Cheese.

All of the recipes on this site are available for sale as prints and high-resolution downloads. Some of them are even included in a recipe book, calendar, and so forth. If you love to cook, this is a really fun website to browse and maybe even discover some unique artwork for your kitchen!

You can view the rest of the entries here: http://www.theydrawandcook.com/search/perform?keyword=kraftcontest

Whiteboard Process

studiodena — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 21:13:31 +0000

For a royalty free copy of this file (eps, ai, cdr, jpg), please visit my iStockphoto page.

Here is my latest stock illustration for iStockphoto. I realized lately that business illustrations are in high demand and silhouettes are always popular. Most other illustrators leave the silhouette as one big black blob, and that looks nice, but I like putting the white shirt and tie on my businessman. I feel like it adds that little something extra to make the illustration look classy and versatile. This is the first time that I have submitted anything with a gradient to iStockphoto. I was a little nervous to do it and I exported the file about 1000 times until was satisfied that it wouldn’t splice (break into pieces) when opened.

I included both an Adobe Illustrator file and a CorelDraw file in a zip folder just in case there are Corel users out there. Corel usually splices gradients, no matter how you import them, so I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t cutting off any designers at the knees. If you have any spectacular ideas or specific projects in mind, please send them my way!

Finished Business Card Design

studiodena — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 05:54:58 +0000

Front

Back

Here is the finished business card design for my sister-in-law. It is an expression of her and an extension of her products. If you haven’t already, you really should check out her blog and etsy shop. She is creative and crafty and a super fun person. Her energy really comes through.

http://www.vivileen.blogspot.com/

http://www.vivileen.etsy.com/

Updated Business Card Designs

studiodena — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 23:59:11 +0000

Here are the updated designs for my sister-in-law’s business cards. I am personally a huge fan of the brightly colored designs. I just love how they pop. Nobody would misplace your business card if it were this colorful! I also enjoy the more muted tones of the softer color palette. It is feminine and slightly romantic. I can’t wait to see which one she likes!

Business Card Designs

studiodena — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 03:03:45 +0000

My sister-in-law contacted me the other day about creating some business cards for her. She has a craft blog and Etsy shop and is super creative. I designed her cards with her personality in mind, developing three options that expressed her as well as her products. I’ll post the final business card design once she has decided on one.

My Illos on an iStock Ad

studiodena — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 03:06:26 +0000

Check it out! Two of my vector illustrations ended up on an iStockphoto advertisement on the popular “Team Twilight” blog.

Book App Title Page

studiodena — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:06:28 +0000

I have been making some good progress on my drawings for the children’s book app (for iPad and iPhone) I am working on. It is called “Sailing the Seven Sheets”. The only problem with posting artwork at this stage in the process is that my drawings are on multiple layers of tissue paper. It wouldn’t be too interesting for you to see one of the layers. There would be a random head, a dislocated arm, a floating lamp… you get the idea. I did want to upload the title page for the book app, though. I am really excited about this app. It has been a lot of fun to work on so far. In case anyone is curious, the website listed on the picture is not live. You can type it into your browser, but it doesn’t exist, so you won’t find anything.

Keep checking back because I will have finished artwork to post in the future!

Big Projects

studiodena — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:37:49 +0000

I have been completely swamped over here for the past couple of months. I must apologize for not posting anything, but I guess that is the consequence of having a full schedule.

Just to let you know what is going on in my little art world right now -

I spent the entire month of November writing books. I participated in the insane National Novel Writing Month challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. I finished my novel at 60,002 words, and then wrote a second book for young readers that was 5,010 words. December has been filled with lots of craft shows, chocolate making, and Christmas shopping.

Now that my Christmas shopping is mostly taken care of, I have started working on a project that I am super excited about. I am creating illustrations for an author of a children’s book app for the iPhone and iPad. It is going to be so much fun! I will post some of my drawings as I go along.

Merry Christmas!