Warm Weather Knits

It is finally getting really, predictably warm outside now, hooray! That apparently didn't stop me from doodling something that looked a little bit like a chunky cable knit sweater...

So I tried something new to add a little color.

I thought these would make some fun cards, etc.

I may end up printing and hanging them in our new basement. What do you think?

It's a Bug Eat Bug World

Many of my very favorite movies of all time are Pixar so I decided to do another quick series of movie quotes for fun (here's my Wes Anderson series from a few weeks back).

I love Toy Story now, but my first favorite Pixar movie was actually A Bug's Life. I re-watched it while I was doodling.

Having grown up with labradors and golden retrievers, Dug from Up pretty much speaks for all my favorite puppy dogs. Squirrel!

Oh Edna Mode, so wise, so fashionable, so short. Love The Incredibles. Speaking of The Incredibles... I ran my very first 10K last weekend (6.2 miles for anyone wondering). As I was running along Rockville Pike, some folks wearing Mr. and Mrs. Incredible costumes gave me a high five :o)

Hello Spring Wallpaper

Whenever my birthday comes around I know that Spring is soooo close. I can taste it. Last weekend was 60 degrees (it's 14 degrees right now but whatever).

Spring is by far my most productive time so I kicked it off with making myself some sweet new desktop wallpapers from some recent hand lettering doodles. 

 (download "Bonjour" here)

 (download "Howdy" here)

(download "Hey" here)

Right now I have all three rotating on my desk every 15 minutes. It's pretty much like a fun-Spring-wake-me-up-from-Winter-kick-in-the-pants thing. Anyways, feel free to download and enjoy if you are also feeling Spring-tastic!

In other news, I FINALLY installed the Adobe Creative Suite I've has packed away for 2.5 years which I bought at the end of grad school with my student discount. It has Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. I have a pretty good working knowledge of Photoshop (I've been using PSE for a few years), but am thinking about signing up for a membership for lynda.com to learn the other two. Anyone else have experience with it? Any other recommendations for learning?

Yay Spring!

Out of Context: Little of This, Little of That

I've been compiling new "Out of Context" doodles for the past few weeks waiting for a theme... since I keep promising you guys themes (sorry, I can be such a liar when it comes to blogging). But no such luck. So here's a smattering of various random things people have said, illustrated and (as always) taken completely out of context.

True. Story. But let us not discount those who order sheet cakes because cake is one of the most delightful things.

Don't judge. How many bars of soap have you eaten recently?

Speaking of things you shouldn't be eating. This quote came from my high school notebooks. Ah, teenagers.

Highschool Doodles & The (Claymation) Crucible

First of all, thanks to everyone who commented here and on Facebook/Twitter/G+ about our kitchen island. As I said, Kevin deserves a lot of the credit and we're just super excited to have more counterspace. Thanks for the love! Anyways, back to our regularly scheduled programming... sometime around 9th or 10th grade I started doodling madly in my classes instead of taking notes.

Like many a teenager, I dragged around countless composition notebooks and scribbled down my angst-y teenage thoughts. Gems I assure you. However on a recent trip home to Florida I riffled through to grab a few snapshots of blog-worthy doodles like the above.

Above are about half of the notebooks.

This makes me want to run out and buy graph paper. Not just good for plotting points!

Here's a happy looking crab. To be fair I think this actually was for my Marine Biology class. Oh yeah! Florida education!

An early one, full of angst-y symbolism.

In case you can't read this it says, "I saw Goody Gumby with the devil." Brought to you by Arthur Miller's The (Claymation) Crucible. That's probably not a thing but I wish it was. It would be almost as amazing at The Crucible: A One Woman Show in One Act. Yep, highschool was pretty silly.

Graph paper! Ok, so that's most of what I found but pretty much all I captured as I was rushing to bed before my 7 am flight the next day. In my next post (or a future post... I make no promises), I'll do a mash up of my Out of Context series with random thoughts I wrote down in one of the notebooks circa 2002. If you thought I said random things now, you didn't know me when I was 17.

V-V-Vroooooom

Today I was promised 70 degrees... its was a lie. I mean, I can't complain too much because it was up in the 50s but I had really been hoping for some warmth. It felt like this.

Anyways, the rainy/misty morning did give me an opportunity to do some doodling. Instead of Sharpies I used my Staedler skinnies. They bleed a little less and give a nice sharp line. My name is Liz and I'm a fan and a marker/pen addict.

Out of Context

It seems like the people around me are always saying semi-ridiculous things. I love to write down the strange things people say. Unfortunately for Kevin, I tend to really remember all the silly things he's said and quote them back to him on a regular basis. They are even funnier taken completely out of context. 

So I started a little series of doodles to illustrate some of these quotes that always make me laugh. Here are the first three. 

Me neither.

Well, what did you expect?

Nope. I don't

I married a pretty funny guy I guess :o)

Run! Succulent Fever Outbreak!

As I've been perusing the wild and sometimes overwhelming world of wedding blogs, one trend that I've really loved (but really doesn't fit our farm-y wedding) is the use of succulents. Those weird, kind of chubby little desert plants. Last summer I saw a bunch at the National Botanic Garden and they were pretty amazing inspiration.

Then this week, it's like I contracted succulent fever (possibly contagious) when I saw this store on Etsy. I immediately scooped up the little guy above and named him Elvis Kiwi. Yes, I like to name my plants. Not going to lie, part of the appeal is that I don't have to water them often which is good because I have a certified black thumb.

Then I started doodling them. Watch out for the incoming glut of succulent doodles...

There are more but I will spare you. Anyways, I'm hoping to use these as a jumping off point for some more patterns in the near-ish future, ya know, after we finish our 348 wedding projects, oh, and manage to buy the house of my severely altered dreams. More to come on that... eventually. 

Anyone else been bitten by the succulent bug? 

From the Sketchbook

Wedgies and Wings

I love blank notebooks. I buy a ton of them... for no apparent reason. Same goes for sketchbooks. I keep one on the coffee table, one in my craft box and one in my office desk (just in case of a long telecon ;o) just incase the mood to doodle strikes. Which is does pretty often.

All of my patterns start as a doodle. Basically, I just start playing with shapes until I find something I love and can repeat. So, here are some recent sketches, some of which you will probably recognize because they became patterns later (they grow up so fast don't they?)

More wedges.

Yup, those started as pleated skirts.

I'm meeeellllting.

Does this look like a face to you? Kinda creepy right?

Even more wedges, a weird cat face
and a font I will eventually make. Love it.

So that's the quick round up. Some old stuff, some new stuff, but the bottom line is that doodling is basically my favorite thing. You know what Bailey Beagle's favorite thing is? I'll give you a hint... it's not this:

Hot Like the Weather

No shocker for anyone here in the D.C. area but it was ridiculously hot today. And that's saying something because I grew up in Florida where most summer days are pretty blazing. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time inside so I made some new patterns.

What do you think about the colors? I picked them with Adobe Kuler. Also, I drew the original flower shape with pen and paper before scanning. I think I'm learning that that's just easier for me than drawing straight onto the tablet.

Flowers have really been inspiring me lately so I've been doing a lot of flowers Snarky Beagle-style (since I honestly couldn't draw a flower that looked real to save my life). Have a great weekend everyone. Stay cool!

The Birth of a Doodle

This is a post about how a doodle is born. I promise it won't be gross or weird like most births are.  Right? I wouldn't actually know. Anyways... yeah sorry about the awkward detour.

I doodle A LOT during meetings, class, while waiting for the pizza guy and pretty much anytime I have a pen and paper in hand (actually paper isn't even required, I used to color the back of my hand pretty elaborately in high school). It's like I literally can't help it.

Most of the time I draw random things like flowers and stars and zigzags that are all pretty boring.

BUT soooometimes, I'll draw a shape or a pattern that I really like. I'm not sure where it comes from. It's pretty much like MAGIC. Then it becomes like "The Doodle of the Week" and I draw and re-draw it. It evolves and at some point I decide it's ready for the big time.

The next step used to be that I'd pull out my Big Black Book of Doodles and carefully draw until it covered a whole page (like this or this). But then I bought a smaller notebook when I started blogging so that maybe I'd have more motivation to draw new doodles (like this). But the thing is, unless the magic happens, I have nothing to draw but zig zags and flowers and stars. Now that I'm starting to use a tablet to draw digitally, it's even worse because the barrier is even lower.

I've sat down almost every day for the past 5-6 days to try and draw a new pattern... but Snarky Beagle designs just don't start on my computer. They have to start when I'm mind-numbingly bored and doodling in the margins of a notebook/meeting agenda. It's frustrating because I want to just spill a bunch of fabulous doodles out on command and I just can't. (I could bring this back to the birth metaphor now... but I'll spare you).

It's a creative process that dependent on boredom... or something. Anyone else have this problem or suggestions for sparking creativity on demand?

Response 5: Vacation Countdown

I've been a little (ok, a lot) on the stressed-out side lately. Here's how I feel depicted in a drawing that I did during a meeting today. Don't worry, I was also listening but I'm a habitual doodler.

This just looks stressful doesn't it? On one of my classmate's blogs, she has been asking for input on planning a cruise vacation which has launched me into a fit of daydreaming about lounging on beaches and the like. There's nothing like napping in the sun to relieve some pent up anxiety.

In fact, I am actually getting ready to take a vacation in June however lounging on a beach is not really on the agenda. I'll be headed over to the U.K. When I bought the plane ticket I was overwhelmed with a sense of relief and excitement. A full week away from the office and school will surely be grand. We're going up to Edinburgh, Scotland so if anyone has been there and has trip on what to see or do. Let me know!

I swear it's not because I'm bored

I don't always draw because I'm bored. In this case, I was actually pretty interested in the speaker who was speaking at a conference I was attending (sorry, I'm being purposely vague here not to offend anyone who was with me this week hah).

Hopefully there should be a lot more stuff coming soon. I have several works in progress from my big notebook (these two are both in my small notebook that also holds my grocery lists, random quotes, and thoughts).

Fluid Inspiration

It's amazing how quickly inspiration can strike after a long long time away. This is the first completed design since I've moved to Colorado.

Telecons

Wow, two posts in a row. It's a record! At work I sit on a lot of telecons. You can judge for yourself how much I get out of them.

Sneak peek

Here is a sneak peek at something I've been working on this week. I'm having a little trouble keeping this pattern constant so I haven't put it in my design book yet. Hopefully I'll get it figured out over the weekend.