leaping goat

Alternate idea with design lines on the figure (similar to the bull):

the original drawing (visible if you mouseover or click on the image) was a quick sketch done to entertain one of my kids when she was a toddler

unicorn rearing

mermaid in Westenschouwen

I very rarely get to see how the images I sell on stock sites are put to use. For example, I know by the type of license purchased, that a set of my dinosaur images must have been printed in a book, but I'll never see it. Even on the one occasion when a publisher contacted me for a last-minute contract to make an illustration for use in a French textbook (the story was about a bear chasing some hikers), I never saw the artwork in print.

This time is different. Several weeks ago, I was surprised and delighted to receive an email from a gentleman in Westenschouwen, a small coastal village in the Netherlands. Their village has a legend about a mermaid captured by a fisherman, and they had purchased rights to use one of my mermaid images for their village association. Now they wished to also use the image to make products to sell to their association members, to raise money for the organization. And to install a sculpture of the mermaid, about 6 feet tall, in their village square near the sea. (This is beyond the usual licensing permissions I opt into on stock sites).

Here is the mermaid sculpture in miniature (at 7.8" high):

When the contract was finalized, they sent to me this replica of the statue which is planned to be put into place on April 28. It is made with a 3D printer, as will be the actual statue, at just under one inch in width as you can see here. They are made from stainless steel, cut with laser technology.*

I also received from them several flags of Westenschouwen, and a book about the village history. My husband has promised to read it to me in stages, translating as he goes (so far he has read me the introduction). And now I see my mermaid figure in print, on an actual book- here on the cover she holds the coat of arms. They tell me she is protector of the village-

detail

also printed on the interior, both in the front and back of the book:

detail

It is quite something, to see my artwork in use on actual objects. I sincerely thank Martie Rovers and Hans van Hoek for contacting me, and for kindly sending me these copies. There is more information about Westenschouwen here on their website (google translate does a fairly good job, as far as I can tell). Even though it is a remote location, I do hope someday to go and visit. It would be a very proud moment, to stand next to a sculpture of my artwork in the village square.

* Edited for correction on 01/02/18

my other art: scrabble pictures

Nearly a year ago I wrote this post, and then didn't follow up because I was stuck on the process (and had computer issues). Well, I have now figured it out. After fifteen years of idly recording Scrabble games (and Words with Friends)- not to study anything for improving my play, but just because I found the shapes of a finished game board intriguing- I finally decided to paint some of them. I discovered a way to integrate the lettering into the artwork with the effect I've been envisioning. End result: I have re-opened my Etsy shop, with the hope that a few sales will enable me to buy more paint, and keep creating them.

For a long time I'd been making drawings of them on 4 x 5" cards, with colored pencil and permanent ink, just for the fun of it. All those are shown on my blog at jscrabbleart.blogspot.com. It's such a different thing from my vector illustrations I decided to keep that site separate from this one.

So I won't be creating vector illustrations quite as frequently now, although when I have down time between paintings, need a break into a different process, or am waiting for layers to dry (making the scrabble paintings takes ten different steps), I'll certainly come back to this- I do still love drawing.

A new venture for a new year!