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My blog has moved to:

reneeleighstephenson.blogspot.com

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That is all.

Hometown U.S.A.

Whoa. Have you ever tried to create a map of the town you live in? And do it in less than a day?
Yeah. Me neither - that is until now.
Creating an illustrated map of your town was this week's Make Art That Sells project for the Editorial market. I sat down at my computer and before I knew it four hours had passed. My morning coffee was cold and past its prime. I could keep working and refining this piece but the assigned deadline intentionally prevented any revisions.

Baby Apparel

Who knew?
I would have never guessed that the Baby Apparel week of Make Art That Sells would include so many little, personal art break-throughs. I figured I would do my best to create art for baby clothes with little expectations, but I wound up learning quite a bit.
I figured out how to put my art on a template - with many thanks to the super talented Miriam Bos. I even used a little bit of Illustrator; enough to know that I am quite early in that learning curve.
That's a pretty cute onesie, right? You can get one for your little one or as a gift here!

Gratuitous siamese kitten shots

Olive in deep thought

Olive and Louie are pretty much inseparable

Here you can see Olive's kinky tail end

Lest you think she usually sits still, this is what most of the photos looked like

(more photos here)

Hick's Orchard

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anyone have some good apple recipes to share?

Project: Paper

Class is back in session - Make Art That Sells, that is. This week's adventure was the Paper market and we were assigned to create a holiday card using ornaments and/or candy.

I've been finding that I have a tendency to create artworks that are too busy when working on MATS class assignments. I haven't figured out if this is because of Lilla's great push to create "icons" in order to cross-market pieces or if it's just how the other artists in class are influencing me. When I think about what I would buy or prefer to have, simpler and cleaner compositions always win. I guess I need to follow my own instincts to pare down.