New Work: New Momma

A new piece in my series of new mommas. Can you tell where I pulled inspiration for the setting of this one? More pieces to come!

Political Food Fight

A piece about New York City’s, City Council Speaker, Christine Quinn’s recent stand on having the city require a free daily breakfast in each classroom for all public schools. Quinn's stance is against Mayor Bloomberg, who does not want to make it mandatory for free breakfasts in the classroom, but have it left in the cafeteria. See more here.

Jackson 5 ABC

I contributed an illustration to Ten Paces and Draw Mixed Tape section. Check it out here!

I couldn't make up my mind between these two colorways, this first one is what I submitted to TP&D, but I also liked the intense reds in the one below. What do you like better?

And gotta include a detail shot of this guy, right side up... He seemed super cool in his pink blazer.

GIVEAWAY! Closed

I'm happy to announce a giveaway here on my blog! I'm so thankful for all my reader's support and wanted to show how much that means to me. I am giving away a free "Love What You Do" print to a special reader.

To enter to win simply visit my Etsy shop, That'll Be Fine to see my new prints and do either, or both, of the following:

Answer the question, "What do you Love to do?" by: 1. Posting your answer as a comment to this blog post 2. Tweeting with my twitter handle @lindseybalbierz answering about what you love to do with hash tag #LWYD

I will pick a random winner next week and announce him or her at the bottom of this post. Good luck to you all and thank you for your support! Good luck!

terms: Giveaway will be open until Tuesday August 7th 12am EST. I will post the winner on Wednesday August 8th. Thisgiveaway is open to followers in the United States. After I post winner, winner will need to email me within 48 hours with their mailing address. Please do not put your contact information directly into your comment, winners will be posted publicly. Winner will be chosen randomly.

Update: Winner is Bret Berkey who loves to fish for walleye on his Ranger 621 ! Thanks for entering!

Love What You Do

Last Tuesday I took a screen printing intensive class at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn. The class was taught by the wonderful and ever-cheerful, Amy Fierro. Amy is a master screenprinter, runs this etsy shop, brightbeige, and is a regular seller at the Brooklyn Flea. I've got my eye on that black t with the moon on it in her etsy shop.

But back to the class, I wanted to make sure I printed a piece that I really loved. So I took an initial quick doodle and expanded upon it to make this final piece.

After we had our artwork printed out on transparencies, Amy set up our artwork on our screens, ready to be exposed.

Lights are turned on and ready to burn, baby, burn our screens.

After washing out our images, we are drying and ready to go!

And the end product! Ta-da!

Stacks of prints and some kids t-shirts printed as well.

All in all, I really had a great time and enjoyed being able to physically print something after being a tshirt designer at AE for over 3.5 years. I would really recommend taking this class if you want to learn or need a refresher. Thanks Amy for being a great teacher! If you are interested in purchasing, please check out my listings here and here!

Stay tuned tomorrow for an awesome giveaway!

Bridal Shower Invite

I'm happy to see that the work I did for Petit Alma, Manhattan-based stationary line, is now available online. I worked on the illustrated part and hand-drawn type for this bridal shower invite. This design can be purchased and personalized on Wedding Paper Divas. This is the online design that has been formatted with customizable type for personalization.

This is the final artwork I sent to Petit Alma. I'm really happy with how it turned out! I have one design in Petit Alma's Holiday assortment, so I will be sure to share when it is up on their site! Thanks to the great ladies at Petit Alma for this great project!

Featured on 'Look at These Gems' blog

My illustration for Positive Inking was posted on Gems yesterday. Thanks again Alyssa for the opportunity to collaborate.

Positive Inking

A piece for Positive Inking, a blog of positivity started by Alyssa Nassner.

It's never too late to start something you love. Julia Child started to cook when she was 32 years old and entered Le Cordon Bleu at age 37. Colonel Harland Sanders started his chicken franchise business KFC at the age of 65. It’s really never too late to try something if you really love it.

Best in Show

This illustration was inspired by the Westminster Dog show.

To get my brain in dog mode, I took screen shots while watching the Westminster Dog Show online. (all images copyright of Westminster Kennel Club). These were a few of my favorites that I thought I would share here.

And some sketches from my notebook. The handlers always crack me up. And what's up with female handlers always having to wear flats? Can they not wear heels? Just looks a bit frumpy to me.

ICON7

Two weekends ago, I went to ICON 7 in Providence, RI. This was my second ICON. I really felt that this year I was more comfortable and confident with myself. Last ICON was really intimidating, especially going to it all by myself in LA. So, in turn, I felt that this subtle boost of confidence made it easier to strike up conversations with super talented illustrators and art directors.

There are some great recaps out there from my fellow illustrators. I'll link to them here: Mark Kaufman The Top 20 Things I Learned at ICON7 Sam Washburn Icon7 Recap Claire Manning ICON7: Part 1 Alice Young ICON: Part 1

I laid out all the great cards, prints, items, etc. that I acquired that weekend. Really, my peers are so talented! So here they are!

On Thursday, I attended a workshop moderated by illustrator Jen Corace. I've been a fan of her for a long time. She talked about crafting your own shop and selling directly to people. She spoke about her own online shop on Big Cartel as well as the ins and outs of selling on etsy and big cartel. Our group went to Craftland and I thought I died and went to heaven. So many items all made by individual people. Here are my favorites...

eggplant from feltlikeit

my obsession with the small object continues

I recently discovered Pinecone & Chickadee tshirts, and had to pick up one for myself and an onesie for a soon-to-be-mom.

On Friday night, ICON had their first public roadshow. My hotel roommate, Shannon Freshwater had some fancy pieces of original art, prints, and books for sale. I picked up 2 original pieces of artwork.

Also, at the roadshow was Sam Washburn. I met Sam last ICON, so it's been great to see him transition to freelance over the last two years since ICON. I picked up a print of all the House of Representatives from the midwest/north region as an early gift for my step-dad.

Some wonderful promos that infiltrated my purse, my suitcase, and my name tag by the end of the conference.

And to give some shoutouts to just a handful of new friends I made:

Natalie Andrewson (I met at the roadshow) Mario Zucca Sounion Hong Alice Young Lauren Simkin Berke Muddyum Choudhury Jeremy Leung

And to conclude, I made a list of quotations or paraphrased blurbs that resonated with me.

-"A lot of people set their prices in retail at the wholesale price. It should be double." -Jen Corace. I gotta rethink my pricing - Daniel Fishel paraphrased, I think from Marshall Arisman originally (correct me if I'm wrong), "You're always going to be broke, so spend the money you have on stuff you can write off" -"Be nimble" -Bob Staake -"Don't always accept the brief as they (art directors) present it" -Chris Silas Neal -The term Procrastiworking coined by Jessica Hische. Means to work on side projects/research while working for clients. -"Make things you wished existed"- Jessica Hische -Copyright your work, you'll have more of a backbone if someone rips you off. -"Don't wait for approval from others, just do it!" -Idiot Books

And last, for your viewing pleasure from the opening night...

Sun Smarts

I had started this personal piece before Memorial Day because I was inspired by the National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention's "Don't Fry Day." (You may have seen a snap earlier on my instagram from this one). Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to finish it until today, which is weird, because it is a dark and gloomy day here in Brooklyn.

Don't Fry Day is the Friday before Memorial Day and meant to "...encourage sun safety awareness and to remind everyone to protect their skin while enjoying the outdoors." I think that's perfect. As someone who has learned to embrace their pale skin and has a family history of skin cancer, I am really passionate about spreading awareness of skin cancer prevention and just simply being smart.

So, here, I took some doodles from my sketchbook and added some fun neon pops to it. I hope you can be inspired to adopt some sun safe habits.

I would love to do some sort of collaboration/PSA with The Skin Cancer Foundation. :) I mean, you gotta put your heart in what you are passionate about, right?

Ps if you would like to follow the Skin Cancer Foundation on fb, you can follow them here.

Summer Camping

A new piece to kick off summer!

This piece was inspired by a summer road trip my family made to Niagara-on-the-Lake to ArtPark sometime when I was in grade school. My mom always thought of fun trips to make that were in driving distance from Cleveland. I guess I remember more of the driving aspect, or maybe our many interstate driving adventures are all blurring together in this one.

Regardless, I was able to incorporate my love of drawing cars into this piece.

Here's to a great start of summer!

Happy Memorial Day!

Thank you to all those who lost their lives to protect our freedom.

See last year's memorial day post here.

Mini Ava

A mini avatar project I did for an old college friend from Parsons, Ava.

Follow Ava on twitter @avaherceg.

Mr. Fox Photographer in a Bow Tie

Mr. Fox Photographer in a Bow Tie- Thank You Cards, set of 10 cardsNow available here in my etsy shop. 10 Cards for $18.

Thank you cards!

Mr. Fox Photographer in a Bow Tie Thank you cards are up now in the Etsy shop here!

Reverie Magazine feature

My past client's wedding was featured in UK magazine, Reverie.The table placards that I worked on last year are included in this article.

See my full blog post here. See this project here on my site.

Fischer Clothing Branding

Before the holidays, I worked on a great project for Fischer Clothing.
Kristina Angelozzi is the lady behind this really great clothing line.

Together we worked on an additional branding element that would work with the company's existing typographic logo. Kristina wanted to incorporate the fischer animal in their branding, as it is the company's namesake.

I proposed a few sketches and we went forward with one pose, but worked out the tail positioning to be more animated.

And here is what the final looked like.

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And here is the final logo all together.

It was really great to work on this project, especially because it was outside of the normal illustration scope.

Check out Fischer on Facebook and their site. Thanks Kristina!

Seasons Greetings

Tom and I sent out a holiday card this year. We picked our paper from Paper Presentation on 18th street in the city. They have so many paper options to pick from. We settled on a off-white/cream paper with a brown craft paper envelope.

I illustrated the card. Tom designed the return address and helped print them out.

We still have some left over, so if you would like a card, please email me your address at lindseybalbierz (at) gmail (dot) com.

Have a safe and happy New Year's tonight! xo

Smalltown Traffic

I finally pushed myself to finish this piece. I have had it living in limbo between my sketchbook, a rough illustrator file and in my head for a few months now. I love taking childhood memories, especially my brief schooling at safety town. I loved safety town! Meeting the firemen, riding in little cars, looking both ways before crossing the street, pulling over to the right for ambulances. (funny because all those things, looking both ways and pulling over for ambulances don't really happen in the city).

The little cars, the little houses, traffic lights and safety equipment are really things that I am drawn to when I get down to sketching late at night. I really wanted to challenge myself by making a true environment that receded into space. I think that is why it took me a bit to tackle this piece. And so here it is: