Strawberryluna

Happy Halloween!

Run!

Yay! It’s Halloween, my fav-o-rite! From current celebrations to Halloween’s incredibly rich pagan history across many cultures and groups of people and religions, the close of summer and the end of the harvest is an incredibly powerful and interesting time. Be a dork like me and learn more here: Halloween Wikipedia entry.

Here are a few vintage Halloween postcards that I’ve found around the web and really love. I’m just fascinated by how many postcards used to be produced to commemorate nearly every day. And as always with vintage postcards, the emotional and stylistic gamut they run is so interesting.

We’ve got your spooky (above) and your portraiture (below)

It's like a family photo.

A little classic witchery, complete with some amazing characters in the cauldron’s smoke.

Witch & kitty & friends.

A touch of what the…???

The traditional Pumpkinhead & Owl BFFship.

The traditional Pumpkinhead Baby & Owl BFFship.


Rad pumpkin cart!

Sage advice from the Greeks to us.

A little Victoriana is always found in postcard art:

Vintage Sexy Witch, omg!

Some things never change.

The Man In The Moon likes what he sees.

And this gem that has a lot more in common with Halloween’s ancient thematic roots of the harvest and fear of winter than most of things we see now:

Scary!

So, enjoy!

Happy Halloween scary blast from the past. Poor Pluto!

Sisters Red, by Jackson Pearce & my book cover design

My ARC jacket design for Jackson Pearce's awesome new book "Sisters Red"

Well, OK, this post was a LONG time coming. I’ve been working on a bunch of really fun designs since the summer and haven’t posted many of them here on my blog. In part because for a few, like this one that I am SUPER excited about, I had to wait until everything was final and a full on GO.

And here we go! I got the chance and had the supreme pleasure of working with Little, Brown, & Co. on the book jacket design for Jackson Pearce, and really lovely and talented writer, on her newest book Sisters Red, which will be published to the public in June 2010.  Jackson Pearce describes the plot best, so I won’t bother to butcher it for you:

Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris– the werewolves that took her eye when she was defending her sister Rosie from a brutal attack. Armed with a razor-sharp hatchet and blood-red cloak, Scarlett is an expert at luring and slaying the wolves. She’s determined to protect other young girls from a grisly death, and her raging heart will not rest until every single wolf is dead.

Rosie March once felt her bond with her sister was unbreakable. Owing Scarlett her life, Rosie hunts fiercely alongside her. Now Rosie dreams of a life beyond the wolves and finds herself drawn to Silas, a young woodsman who is deadly with an ax– but loving him means betraying her sister and has the potential to destroy all they’ve worked for.

A little publishing world insider information: What you see above is the final design for the ARC Cover, aka the Advanced Reading Copy, this is a near-final copy of a book that is sent out for reviews, but that may still have final revisions before the actual publication date. ARC covers are typically not the complete or final design, though sometimes they are very close. (As we think in this case…don’t you?)

Naturally having read a manuscript copy of Jackson’s book Sisters Red I can tell you that it’s super awesome and that you should certainly find a copy next year when it’s out (I’ll post a reminder, don’t worry) because it’s quite good. But, in the meantime Jackson is hosting a giveaway of a few of her personal copies of her ARCs on her website here with a super fun video of “Things You Can’t Have” (including her adorable puppy and some of my prints eeeee!) and then happily “Things You CAN Have” too, so check it out.

The main problem that this designed needed to solve was to be eye-catching and to be something that would attract you from across a room, say at a bookstore. Fun challenge for sure. So, I hope that you like it.

Double thanks to Tracy & Little, Brown & Co. and Jackson!

Book publishers, see anything you like 🙂 Feel free to contact us for book jacket design, we love doing them!

New puppy released, introducing: Sprite!

AF

Since we lost our best guy Jettson in early September it’s been a too quiet household here. We definitely started looking for a new 4-pawed friend about 2 weeks ago. Amazingly, we found this little bag of donuts at a fabulous local shelter  called Animal Friends here in Pittsburgh, PA and took her home this past Saturday. Meet Sprite! / Squee(gee) / Tank. 2 year-old Boston Terrier-Jack Russell mix. Fully housebroken and 125% sweetpea snuggler.

Here is a video of the spazz out all dogs do in the meet’n’greet room the night that we first met her. She was so sweet and funny with bat ears for days (click this link!)

We walked her around outside the shelter to get her some fresh air. I’m pretty sure Sprite! just thought we were random volunteers taking her for a walk. But then, when she hopped in the car, she busted out this huge smile:

And then fell asleep in my lap while Craig drove us all home:

Sprite! (yes, the ! is a part of her name’s spelling) is settling in well. She has since defeated The Candy Corn:

And moved onto The Carrot:

Thanks for reading and meeting Sprite!

Please always consider adopting a new pet rather than buying one. Many cats, dogs, bunnies, and other pets from pet stores DO NOT come from reputable breeders. Please don’t support irresponsible breeding and abuse of animals. And now more than ever, there are literally millions of fantastic, ready-to-go-home-with-you pets in shelters all over the country. Breed specific rescue groups are also a fantastic way to find a new best friend too.

For more information and resources nationally and in your area, check out these links below:

The American Human Association (US)

The Humane Society (US)

The SPCA (International)

Petfinder

Best Friends Animal Society

And as one of pets’ best friends in the US ever, Bob Barker, always closed The Price Is Right with these important words: “Please always spay & neuter your pets.”

Quick Crafty Bastards reminder –> It’s tomorrow!

Just a super quick reminder that I will be at one of the country’s premiere craft and DIY handmade art shows in the country tomorrow in Washington, DC –> at Crafty Bastards! If you are in the area, definitely come check it out. I’m booth #50, but trust me there will be an overload of awesome. Get your holiday shopping started bright, right & early or treat yourself with some incredible handamde work.

A full sized and easily readable Vendor Map is here for you, and yeah like, um, come on over to #50 and say hi! 🙂

50

That's right! The strawberryluna booth is at #50. Click for a larger image.

The awesome crew of Crafty Bastards have set up some extra cool things on their blog here from highlights of some of the hand selected talent showing this year, to The Art of the Snark, a cool little roundup of sharp wits, and a great article for booth monkeys, AKA craft show helpers.

DETAILS: Saturday, October 3, 2009, 10am-5pm at the Marie Reed Learning Center at 18th & Wyoming (Google Maps) in the hip Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC.

And! Follow Crafty Bastards on Twitter to receive awesome of-the-moment special deals and AT the show! Just check out @CraftyBastards and have at it.

Other friends of mine that I love and who’s work you should check out are Bossanova Baby at #45, right next to Berkley Illustration at #44 , El Jefe Design at booth #20, Giant Dwarf at #112, girlscantell over at booth #23, Mogo at booth #33, and Squidfire at #29. Yay! Can’t wait.

Plus, lookit this cool illustration by Ben Claassen III that you can color and flip forward to make your own Crafty Bastards cover. He’ll be at booth #103.

For more information about the location and time, please check out my previous blog post here!

And, here is a sweet little preview of some of the artists at Crafty Bastards, via a fabulous Crafty Bastards Gift Guide put together at Etsy, so cool. (Look for my Set Of Any 3 Alphabet Prints!) Thanks guys!

Picture 7

Click to see the Crafty Bastards Gift Guide!

New art print released: Fall 2009, in 2 colorways!

Hand screenprinted, 4-color love letter to fall. Clock for more details or to purchase.

Hand screenprinted, 4-color love letter to fall. Click for more details or to purchase.

Fall & Autumn, my favorite 2 seasons. So, I’m not at all surprised that while in the process of hand printing this art print, I decided to do two colorways of the same print. This is the fourth print in series of seasonal, limited edition prints that I’ve been doing all year. That’s right, they fit the number of seasons, crazy right?!

Anyhoo, here you see both colorways, the above as planned 4-color design with metallic gold leaves, (edition of 75) and the below with frosty, nay, ghostly white negative space leaves. A harbinger of things to come (a smaller edition of just 25). The leaf shapes are from leaves that I gathered on a dog walk and scanned in at home a couple of years ago. I love their shape and definition.

Click either image for more details or to purchase, cause those clicks will take you right to my website.

Hand screenprinted, 3-color love letter to fall. Click for more details or to purchase.

Hand screenprinted, 3-color love letter to fall. Click for more details or to purchase.

And, here are a few cruddy phone-photographs of the print in progress while on press:

First color, orange, being printed.

First color, orange, being printed.

2 colors completed, things are shaping up!

2 colors completed, things are shaping up!

3rd color, the brown of the tree. This is where I started thinking about splitting the edition in two.

3rd color, the brown of the tree. This is where I started thinking about splitting the edition in two.

The final 4-color print, on press and all done.

The final 4-color print, on press and all done.

Side by sidesies.

Side by sidesies.