And the winner is......?

So yesterday I talked about how I wanted... needed... to come up with a new logo and avatar for my shop, Oddity Owl Art Store.  I discussed my ideas about wanting to do a simpler version of the Owl sketch I had already made.  It was too much detail and I needed something smaller and easier to read. I want to keep the hand drawn illustration look to the logo, since that best represents the majority of my work. So I came up with 2 sketches.

The top one, I really liked.  It had the olive trees and the owl both shown, which was what I originally had wanted to be in the logo.  The bottom one didn't have the olive branches.  The less cluttered design was nice.  Even though I really wanted the trees in the design, it seemed like that design might be too hard to read at small sizes. 

After deciding which logo I liked the best, I drew a bigger sized version.  Once it was inked, I uploaded it to photoshop to do a few small touch ups.  Nothing too big.  Mostly it was just touching up the lighting and image size.  After the touch ups were done, it was time to find a font that fit with the picture.  I ended up not being happy with anything I had on my computer already, so I went and found some new fonts to use.  Ended up finding some really fun ones.

Here is the finished logo!

So... am I happy with the final result? I'm not sure! Hmm... The beak is a little larger then I meant for it to be, I think it might look better a little smaller.   I will leave it for now and see how I feel about it in a few days. :)

New logo and avatar for Oddity Owl Art Store

My weekends are normally more relaxing then my weekdays.  I spend Saturday catching up on chores around the house and Sunday is usually my all day lazy day.   

This sunday I'm doing some yard work though.  Trying to get a bed of wildflowers to grow.  I'm not a very good gardener so I spend a lot of time fussing over the little garden.  I did some work this morning before the sun came out too much.  There was a nice breeze, it felt good to be outside.  

While picking up leaves and watering the future bed of flowers,  I thought about the Oddity Owl Art Store logo.   I need something to represent the stores idenity, and I needed something to be the stores avatar on sites such as twitter and facebook. 

A few weeks ago, I came up with a (mostly) full body owl in flight, carrying an olive twig, surrounded by a border. It is very pretty and I like it a lot.... but now I'm thinking it might be a little bit... too much.  Too big, too much detail. 

See, I think there is just too much going on with this one.  I want to make something much more simple, easy to see at a small avatar size.   I want to keep the frame around the owl, and I want to have enough room to have the name of the store in the picture as well. Keep the olive branch or take it out of the design? The bigger question is-  should it be simple, clean black and white lineart only, should there be a little bit of grayscale grunge added? I'm not sure which version I want.  I guess I can always try it both ways and then decide from there. 

It's always exciting and fun designing a logo.  There is a little bit nervousness in it too.  It's not just a picture, but it's the face of your store / brand / name.  It's what your fans are going to identify you with, so you want something awesome from the start.  I'm really looking forward to tossing around some ideas in my sketchbook. 

Color outside the lines

I grew up in the heart of New Orleans.  We only had one car, my dad mostly used it for work, leaving my mom and I to walk almost everywhere we went.  It's an old, beautiful city.  At the time, I didn't realize it, but the big city life left a mark on me.  A mark that later on in life would inspire and influence my art.  A mark that isn't exclusive to New Orleans, but to all big cities.  Urban decay.

Urban decay is when a previously functioning location- a city, part of a city, a building- falls in to disrepair and disuse.  I love the beauty and horror that coexist in urban decay.  So much emotion and personality in the ruin. So much history.  A wonder of what once lived here, and what creatures might still creep in the shadows. 

I am not an urban artist... I don't draw cities, buildings or other urban environments.   But I try to bring the feel of urban decay in to my work.  The strong emotions.  The cracks, the mess, the uneven.  I try to capture that look of  something old, worn and broken.  I don't want the perfect, spotless art.  I want the running ink, the paint falling outside the lines, the unintentional droplets of paint that fall on the paper. I want the messy lines and heavy shadows. There is nothing more beautiful then that. 

Yay! New blog!

Hello! I'm an artist and I run the online shop called Oddity Owl Art Store. I specialize in illustration work, but I love to do all kinds of other art as well, such as water color, inks, painting, print making, wire & bead jewelry, crochet plushies, book binding, resin & mold making. I could go on and on. Anything I can get my hands on, really. I am always searching for new things to try, new techniques to learn. I love reading books and magazines that inspire and teach new lessons. Brainstorming an artistic solution to a problem is so much fun!

While I've worked with promoting my art for a while now, I never had a blog about what I make and what I sell.  I thought it was about time to make one!

It's a little empty at the moment, but I plan to have lots of things to talk about!  The main purpose of this blog is, of course, to show what my projects and products are,  but that's not all! I also want to create dialogue with readers and customers, creating conversations that everyone can get involved with.  Maybe some how-tos, reviews, links, lists.  I would like to eventually come up with some sort of contests or giveaways. 

I'm really looking forward to getting things rolling with this.  It hopefully will be a lot of fun.