Happy Weekend Inspiration Card 2

Wow, thank you everyone for emailing me your positive feedback, and for making suggestions! There's a lot of inspiration within all of us, I see!

As it happens, this inspiration card also fits very well with this week's illustration friday theme "enough". Enough is enough with feeling bad about ourselves!

I've decided to make this one for all us women out there. For the days when we think our hips are too wide, our nose is too long, our chest is too small, our feet too big... FORGET IT ALL! We're gorgeous like we are! :-)

Happy weekend everyone!
If you have a suggestion for next week, I'm happy to hear from you! astrid(at)PotatoMammaDesign.com

See you back here next weekend with the next inspiration card!
Astrid

New: Happy Weekend Inspirations by PotatoMammaDesign

Who doesn't need inspiration and motivation every now and then? I sure do! 2 days ago, I made my own screen saver with inspirational cards - each with one of my illustrations or patterns and a power-boosting message on it. I ended up really liking them, and suddenly thought that this may be interesting for others too.

This led me to start a motivational card series here on my blog. From now on, I'll post a new inspirational illustration card every weekend. The cards are for everyone out there who needs a cheer-up (geared towards women, because I'll use a lot of my fashion illustrations). The cards shall make everyone happy, and give you all power to reach for the stars!


My first inspirational card: reach for the stars!

This project is not just for me, it's for everyone who likes the cards! So I'm inviting everyone to give me feedback and make suggestions. Do you have a motivational quote or saying that you'd like me to use on a card? The words of wisdom can be sassy, fun, silly, or serious, whatever you like - they just have to be short, and they have to cheer people up. Send your suggestions to: astrid(at)PotatoMammaDesign.com

See you back here in a week!
Now have a happy weekend!
Happy Potato Greetings,
Astrid
PotatoMammaDesign.com

They want to take our copyrights!

Call for all artists and people who want to help us!

It looks like big companies are about to implement a new legal bill in the USA that would deprive artists of their copyrights!

The extremely successful artist Mark Simon wrote a detailed article on the subject, and tells us how we can help. Everyone tries to skip long articles. But this one is worth it. Please, everyone, read it and help us artists! On page 2 you'll see what we can do (write to Congressmen etc.).

Read his article here: You Will Lose All The Rights to Your Own Art!

Thanks!
Astrid

2008 PotatoMammaDesign Birthday Contest

Hello friends!

On April 1st, my company turned 2 years old. Celebrate with me, and take part in the 2008 PotatoMammaDesign Birthday Contest! Tempting prizes, and taking part will only take you 3 1/3 minutes. Precisely. Just go to:
www.PotatoMammaDesign.com/news , download the word document, and email it to me (instructions within)

Submit at the latest by April 30!
Good luck & Happy Potato Greetings,
Astrid

Windy voyage

This illustration is the result of me playing with a new kind of oil pastels I just came across. Pretty fun! They look like rouge make-up containers, and have make-up utensils within the same box: little smear sponges. Love those paints! And I kind of love the illustration too, I wonder what story it has behind it?

These are my first steps in children illustration, feedback welcome!

Pencil, oil pastel on cardboard

Scared Rabbit

Except for the paints (I accidentally got the cheap kind of gouache!), this was fun! I don't know how I came up with this illustration idea, but I sure feel bad for the scared rabbit now.

These are my first steps in children illustration! Comments are welcome! (As with all other posts too of course)

Pencil, Gouache, Ink.

IF - Garden

Here's my submission for this week's Illustration Friday theme "garden".
It's an older piece, but it fits the topic!

Oil Self-Portrait in Corel Painter

Corel Painter offers so many brushes, it's near endless. I've decided to try a new field: oil paints. Here are step-by-step visuals of a self-portrait I created. I don't do self-portraits commercially, there are artists specialized in that. But it was an interesting experiment, to familiarize myself with the oil paints in Corel Painter!

I used only 3 brushes: wet brush, dry brush, and grainy blender. If you hold the pen down while using wet or dry brush, you can use them for blending too.

Step 1:
Using a photo as reference (try quick clone, you can blend it in and out), I lay down the basics.


Step 2:
In this case, I decided to change the colors, and I worked out the color areas some more.


Step 3:
Starting to add a backround with a large brush.


Step 4:
I made the background more loose, making sure I keep large hand movements. This gives the image more movement and makes it more interesting. I also added more details: the eye had much more subtlety than the rest of the image. I therefore decided to add some fine brush strokes of similar quality on other areas of the painting, to make it more harmonious and interesting. I also adjusted the color areas in the neck and face, adding more rose-pink tones. This not only picked up the background color (which would be a natural light-reflection, and making the overall image more harmonious), but it gave the skin a warmer, softer color.


Step 5:
Usually I use Photoshop to adjust colors. It has a wider and more professional choice of adjustment tools. In this case, I tried using a tool from painter to make the colors more vibrant. Effect - equalize gave me a stronger saturation, so I think I'm happy with this result.
This would be my final painting.

how to keep projects coming

I found this inspiring link on BODO (business of design online). For anyone who is bored and doesn't have client requests coming in... here's inspiration that will get you going again!

Posted by: Neil Tortorella
Staying Afloat In A Tanked Economy

I got interviewed

The graphicdesignblog.co.uk asked me to contribute tips and tricks on freelancing. You can check out my interview here:

graphicdesignblog.co.uk/freelancer-focus-25th-january-2008/

It's a pretty cool site, it contains many more useful resources for designers. Have fun!

I've been tagged...

Frizz from Illustrator Group Soup tagged me! She asks me to tell 5 things about myself here, and then to tag another person in another blog. Hmmmmmm.

ONE
I loooove potatoes – for anyone who doesn't know yet. I could live off just veggies, cheese and potatoes. Actually I have, over longer periods of time. THAT's the original reason for my business and blog name – no fancy deep meaning behind the name "PotatoMammaDesign.com". Sorry to disappoint you :-)

TWO
My friends know me a mile away by my laugh. At one of my last jobs, the cleaning woman would hear me laugh all the way down to the parking garage, and that's when I had my office in the second floor. Second floor in the European sense, meaning we don't count the exit level as a floor, you walk up 2 levels and THAT'S the second floor. That's either impressive or embarrassing, HAHA.

THREE
Yes I'm Swiss, but no, I don't ski very well. When I was a teenager it grew too embarrassing for me to ski because I never got the sexy hip swing down and remained scared I'd cross the tips of the skis and fall. I can snowboard, but not very well either, grin.

FOUR
No, I'm not a lesbian, even though I do prefer to illustrate women. Women are just cool and elegant – so easy to draw them in style. How do you do that with a guy? Lol.

FIVE
One of my dreams is to become rich and live in a house with my sweetie pie with view on the ocean, a great window front, and a porch with a jacuzzi with sea view! Very modest, I know.

Let's see... I'll tag Michelle Lana!

PotatoMammaDesign in custom52 contest

Custom52.com is featuring a card deck contest for illustrators. The illustrators who get the most votes for their card submission(s) will be published, plus they'll win a set for themselves!

Winners are evaluated by voting right now. I also submitted for this round.
If you like my designs, I'll appreciate your vote! :-)


Retro Beauty
by: Astrid Mueller, PotatoMammaDesign



Zoe
by: Astrid Mueller, PotatoMammaDesign

See all custom52 designs in the contest here

For all you illustrators out there who will participate, I wish you best of luck!

found a christmas card contest, win 2000 $

Check this out: submit an illustration or holiday photo, and win 2000$. Just saw this when browsing the really cool moo products.

Got stickers?!! Yess!

Details on the holiday contest here.

Good luck!
Astrid

PS: I have nothing to do with the contest, I'm just forwarding the information to anyone interested.

Illustration Friday "Halloween"

This is a Halloween picture I started for the german magazine LAURA, then played with it on my own time and added the watercolor mood and touch. Happy Halloween!

new illustration technique

Here's a new technique I developed for a customer in Sweden, with a classy hat and purse business for the woman with style. Check it out, done all-digital, but it looks like watercolor on paper with ink! Or do you see the difference? Tips and feedback welcome :-)