Little Lina’s Lovelies Home

“How The West Was One”

A humorous illustration for the illustrationfriday.com theme of Subtract.

Women can conquer, the wild west wasn’t always fought over by men. Ladies can and have kicked ass.

I sketched this concept out in my sketchbook, which is filling out beautifully by the way, and scanned it in on my brand new/bought on craigslist.org, Epson Perfection 2480 PHOTO scanner. I then colored the entire thing in Photoshop. I kept the original sketch lines to add to the feeling of the piece. Now, I’d like to mention I am not a gun expert, so those of you who know your stuff, I do know that it’s not exactly right but give a girl some room eh? Thank you!

Hope the illustrationfriday audience likes this one. My sorta stupid, sorta silly, mostly sarcastic sense of humor comes through on this one like it did on Breezy, course that might not be a good thing, JK! (just kidding)

This week I’ve created this piece for illustrationfriday.com. The theme is “Legendary”.

The legendary shadow warrior, known as the Ninja, were a clan based society in which all children were trained in the art of the Ninja. Ninja were used more as spies than assassins, contrary to the popular mythology. Women were often employed to get into areas where men could not go.

I drew this in my sketchbook, just line art, then I scanned it into the computer and painted it in photoshop. I think I will do this kind of thing more often then trying to complete an actual hand painted piece, which takes much longer for me. If I like the image, then I will paint it, if not, then I won’t take the time to paint it, I have so much stuff going on, I have to pick my free time.

Just as I mail out the “Her Softest Heart” Dawn Doll to a new home, I bring you “Precious Prairie Pink”. You can read all about the inspiration for her on my special blog for this personal project, here at dawndolls.blogspot.com. And she is for sale on her etsy page – dawndolls.etsy.com.

Here’s her modeling for the camera…

This is her outdoors, enjoying the warm, spring weather!

I took full advantage of the gorgeous weather and friends popping into my neck of the woods from Florida to traipse around Asheville, NC again. I do have to say, Asheville is a must visit if you have even a hint of artistic ability in your bones.

My full time Asheville resident friend, Suzanne, took me to a place she had been wanting to show me since she found it, Origami Ink. And WOW the place floored me. She was so right, it is a gorgeous store, full of such cool finds! I totally almost fell over when I saw the display of rice paper on the wall. I wish I could get one of each for my necklaces!

I got the chance to meet the owner too, she seemed like a wonderful person. She mentioned her unique decoration and displays come from taking the time to refine the shop. She did a wonderful job, it’s bright, airy, sophisticated, vintage, yummy – all of the above! Look at the unique lighting fixture, wow, I just had to photograph it.

Not to mention, the stationary blows you away with it’s top-shelf quality, just look at the beautiful embossing on their own business cards!

So by now you are probably like, great picts but what does the store sell!? They basically say, “Origami Ink is an artisan stationer and gallery that honors the art of “handmade” and “unique”, and will take you back to a time when artists hand created the finer luxuries and were revered for their fine craftsmanship.”

If you walk in and take a look around you’ll see very unique gifts like handcrafted picture frames, amazing custom stationary, truly gorgeous I tell you, and lots of amazing treasures for anyone’s home office or life in general.

They opened Oragami Ink in November 2008 here in Asheville, I wish them the best (so I can keep going back hehe).

My first submission to Illustration Friday.

This illustration is actually inspired by the fact that Murphy’s Law always gets me when I wear a skirt, it’s inevitable that when I wear a skirt…I wind up flashing people, somehow! Some way! Let’s see, o filling up at gas stations is always fun, never fails a breeze comes along while I am trying to pump gas. Or I’ll be walking in a parking lot to my car at work…breeze comes and whoop! Flashed everyone! Walkin’ down the street, doesn’t matter, that breeze always finds me.