Cacti & Succulents Mini Book

Here it is! I'm so excited this is ready to share with you all. I think this is my favorite mini book yet, I did a small edition of 40 which allowed me to do a lot more hand done details on each one. I got a rubber stamp made for the cover and the shipping envelopes, so each cover is rubber stamped and has it's edition number written underneath. There are 2 screenprinted pages on vellum, and a vellum full photo centerfold. Each book has a sewn spine and 36 awesome black and white cacti & succulent drawings. I've separated them into 3 tribe classifications throughout, and labeled them with their common name and scientific name. I got to do a ton of fun research with this book, pulling from modern gardening encyclopedias and old school Time Life series books. Hope you all like it!
{etsy listing: Cacti & Succulent Mini Book}

**GRADUATED**

{image from the very lovely: Sophie Takes Pictures}

As of this week I've officially graduated! I finished up my accounting certificate at PCC and turned in the last of my assignments earlier this week, I couldn't feel better. I went to college the first go round for art and design but as life has changed, my original path had to bend a little too. For those of you who don't know, I work by day in an accounting department, and continue to freelance, make mini books, and draw things in my evenings. It's been nearly 2 years back in school, and it feels great to be done and officially certified.

I got the photo above from Sophie Takes Pictures, if you haven't checked out her tumblr, take a look, it's completely mesmerizing and full of beautiful images.

Cacti!

{my pre-potted cacti & succulent mini garden}

I'm working on the final print layout for the Cacti & Succulents mini book today, almost there! This week I finished screenprinting the insert pages and rubber stamping the covers, I'm getting more and more excited seeing everything come together. This is, I think, my favorite mini book yet. I had so much fun doing the research and learning all sorts of crazy facts about the plants. I'm making it a pretty small edition which allowed me to do a lot more with the book, like hand screen printing 2 vellum pages, and putting more hand work into each book. More updates soon.

Lovin'

I've been getting all sorts of things done over the long weekend, tons of drawing and working on the new mini book, a good long bike ride, plus, I finally switched my blog reader over to Bloglovin' which I am admittedly loving. It's great to be able to follow Tumblr and website blogs now too. I also signed up for Pinterest as "hellojackiebos" (which is also my Instagram name for those of you who have that too). Since it's rare to have a day off my grand plan for tomorrow morning is to make the slow cook oats, drink a ton of coffee, and take the whole morning to do all the dumb internet things I like to do in the morning but never really have time to do before work. Dreaming big!

Bike Ride

Over the weekend it was uncharacteristically nice out considering it's February in Portland. No rain, plenty of sunshine, and not too cold. I spent most of the weekend doing some drawings for the new mini book which I finally decided on a subject for..big reveal...Cacti & Succulents! I've been doing a crazy amount of research and drawing out different varieties. It seems to be coming together really well, I'm really excited about it! In between some drawing action, I went on a wonderful long bike ride around Portland, above are a few photos from the journey.

fresh stART

{fresh stART piece}
Here's a new piece I sent down to California for the "fresh stART" event, benefiting LA's Best after school arts program. I'm excited to see how the event turn out was, I wish I could have gone down to California to see it.

Heart Shaped Ice Cream Sandwiches

{heart shaped ice cream sandwiches}
Even though they got a bit melty in the re-freeze process I think they turned out pretty good! Let's hope they travel well, these goodies are coming with me to a superbowl party tomorrow.

Letterpress Print on Uncovet

{uncovet}
The letterpress print I did a while back with Rachael of Pistachio Press is up on the new site Uncovet at a huge discount. There are only a few up there, check them out if you're interested!

Prints up on Fab.com

{fab.com sale}

{my print}
This morning a sale goes live on Fab.com for artists who have prints with The Working Proof. My print above is one of the ones included in the sale. The Working Proof partners artists with charities. Have a look at our feature on Fab, there are some wonderful prints marked down, and the same cut still goes to the charity of the artist's choosing.

Art Day!

{Zebra in Space}
I had a wonderful shut in style art day this weekend, this is my favorite from the day.

Cacti

{cacti}
I'm working on ideas for a new mini book. I don't quite have it yet, but hopefully soon I'll figure out a good direction to go.

Sketchbooks

My mom got me a new sketchbook for Christmas, but I am so close to finishing up my old one which I started almost 3 years ago. I evidently gave it a break in the middle there. It's nice to get back to no stress drawings, it's been a great outlet. These are two new drawings from last weekend.

Illustration for Rhode Island Monthly Magazine

{© Rhode Island Monthly Communications, Inc. 2012}
{do not use image without consent of the above party}

Back with some new work, this illustration was published in December 2011 in Rhode Island Monthly Magazine. A little late to share but better than never!

A Couple of New Pieces

a couple of new pieces to kick off the new year...

N E W Y E A R

It's a new year! I've been pretty absent on here for a while, but hopefully in the coming weeks I'll be able to share with you a few projects I've been working on in the past few months. In any case, today bring a fresh start and a new year, hopefully one filled with art making, day trips, and laughter all around.
I hope you are all having a wonderful start to 2012 as well!

And on that note...it's waffle time!

TOMS Event at Zumiez

Another successful TOMS Style Your Sole Event! Last weekend I got to customize TOMS shoes with a handful of very talented artists for the day. Above are some of my favorites. If you're in the Portland area, the next event I'll be working at is on December 2nd at the Whole Foods on 42nd and NE Sandy Blvd. Hope to see you there!

Holiday Cards

{ cards with RED envelopes }

{ cards with CREAM envelopes }

I finished printing a bunch of holiday cards this weekend. They're 5x7, printed with metallic copper ink, and come in sets of 4 with either red or cream envelopes.
{etsy shop}

It's Custom Holiday Illustration Time

It's custom holiday illustration time again! It felt like that came up so fast, and though it still seems early, it does take a few weeks, so I wanted to get this posted in case, you, like me, are trying to not panic and do everything last minute this holiday season. Fingers crossed, this year is smooth sailing and stress free. I'm getting ready to screenprint my holiday cards this afternoon!
Last year and the year before, I started doing custom holiday illustrations for families and they've been so much fun, I'd love to continue on this year. I've made an etsy listing for this with all the details, be sure to send me your contact email if it's different than your paypal one so I can get in touch to get your source photos you'd like used, and so we can chat about what you'd like in your illustration. New this year, I'm putting in both the paper and digital copies, which means you'll have an A3 size finished illustration as well as the digital copies for you to do with what you please. Most people have turned these into their holiday cards, and I can size things down for the printer for you so you're ready to go.

Feel free to email or message with any questions, let's get this holiday season started out right with some fun!

~ good morning ~

Eugene Weekly Illustration

a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to work with the Eugene Weekly on the cover of their Sept 21st issue. Still waiting on a copy to photo the real deal, but in the meantime...
The article is about gold mining in the Oregon waterways and how it is destroying the habitats that naturally exist there by essentially dredging up the sea floor.

HELLO!

new things! It's been awhile as I've been out and about enjoying the last bits of Portland summer, hiking mountains, riding bikes, outdoor markets and a lot of walking around in the sunshine. I have a few more new projects to post as soon as I finish photographing them. In the meantime, see my new posts over at Beautiful Decay.

BOLO Magazine

A copy of the debut issue of BOLO Magazine showed up in my mailbox this week. It's chock full of talented artists work, pieced together to make the first issue "Stars Are Indispensable" awesome. I'm honored to be in here with such talented people.

Sleepwalking

{new drawing}
{up on Society6 as a print}

From The Universe

{from the universe}
{promote on Society6}
{flickr}

Dinosaurs

Here's a dinosaur I drew.

It seems a group of dinosaurs is called a herd for herbivores and a pack for carnivores. I was hoping for something more along the lines of a murder of crows or an unkindness of ravens. Tame no?

NEWS! Beautiful / Decay & Stereohype

{Beautiful/Decay Blog}

Some exciting news: I'm newly a weekly guest blogger on the fantastic site, Beautiful/Decay. See my first 2 posts here: {B/D} and keep checking back for regular posts! I have an interview and some killer artists lined up for the next few posts.

In other news...the deadline is coming up for submission to Stereohype's 2011 button/badge design competition. I'm incredibly excited to be one of this year's judges and I'm eager to see all the designs submitted this year! {submit here}

Lions!

{Lions in my sketchbook}

There are some great things coming down the pipeline, which I'll be able to share shortly. Once I get on some scanning there will be new images too!

Sheepless.org Illustrations

{lochness}

{sharks}
The next 2 segments in the "A Few Things About Communication" series on Sheepless are up! There are 4 more goodies coming up soon.