Let's Eat Cake

There is only one thing I love more than Birthdays: Halloween. You just can't beat dressing up and eating large amounts of sugar in public, so Halloween wins. For my November 1st birthday, the two special days are often combined. In any case, there have been a lot of friends' Birthdays in my life to celebrate this month! It got me thinking, why am I still buying Birthday cards? I should hand-make my own to give to my friends!

I don't know if I've told you this, but I'm trying something new in my studio practice. I'm calling it One Good Idea a Day. I'm giving myself room to think and breathe and expand by taking the pressure off. All I need from myself each day is one do-able idea, and preferably to execute it that day before the vision rubs off. It gives me the room to get out all the other "bad" ideas, keep from freezing up, and get going (one such example of an idea i'm not going to run with is the children's book title Duck, Duck, Poo inspired by a rousing game of Duck, Duck, Goose played with the children I take care of).

Today my good idea was this illustration:

And its friend:

I'm going to muse on putting these up in my easy store as greeting cards, but I also think they have a kind of narrative charm that could be used in other formats. The style is something new for me - looser and gentler than I usually do. I'm pleased that my hand lettering is improving (if only my first grade teacher could see my handwriting now!).