Christmas 2009

Each illustration was created using watercolour and pen and ink. They were then scanned into the computer where I took the time to fix any little flaws that may have been in the original.

“Killarney Lake Ice Skaters”

Of course now a days the lake doesn’t freeze enough to skate on which is why the skaters in this card are depicted wearing fashions from an earlier time.

“Reindeer in Snug Cove”

With no predators, you can imagine we have lots of deer on the Island.

It’s a quaint little cove leading from the ferry, with a library, Marina, General store, a few restaurants, a pub (of course), post office, pet store, Dr. office and more. Everything you really need.

“Santa is on his way”

The doll in Santa’s sack was inspired by one that I made to sell at the craft fair. It’s fun to add a little personalization to an illustration, it’s makes them much more original.

We are so lucky to live on the west coast. Close to down town Vancouver, but nuzzled in amongst other Islands. This is the view of Bowen from Cypress mountain, with the sunshine coast in the background.

Before I was an illustrator I spent ten years in the film and television industry as a VFX artist, specifically I was a compositor. Using Shake and Digital fusion to create a CGI (computer generated imagery) composites. However, photoshop works quite nicely for touching up a single image. It can also be used to composite and add to an illustration as you’ll see below. For these three cards I didn’t get too fancy, just a bit of colour correction through the levels and some digital snow, which is much easier to do in the computer than in the original watercolour illustration.

The final result

The first year I must have had a lot of time because I printed all the cards by hand on beautiful Schoellershammer German Watercolor paper made from tree free fiber “Spanish” grass

 Using spray glue to adhere them to coloured card stock. They looked beautiful, but it was too much work for a repeat performance.

Since then I have had the cards professionally printed locally in Vancouver . I’m still using tree free paper and soy based inks.

The cards were then packaged in an assortment of 6 cards, two of each design with colour corresponding envelopes.

Christmas 2010

When we moved here 8 years ago the Island didn’t have any bears, coyotes, skunks, or racoons. However, somehow they have arrived over here and the gray squirrel population also rose on the West side of the Island where you very rarely used to see any squirrels.   We also had a couple of bears roaming the Island that year, one with a tag in his ear.

I thought it would be fun to illustrate the bear, and his woodland friends in the 2010 Christmas card. This is the original illustration

Christmas 2011

I felt that my skills had improved since I had painted this card, and there were aspects of it that I wanted to change for the 2011 series of Christmas cards.

By painting the foreground Characters and tree as a separate painting, I was able to replace the furry friends that I didn’t like, as well as add a few using Photoshop.

The final result

I’m much happier with this final illustration!

Light Up the Cove has become a wonderful Bowen event to open the Christmas season. Lead by the black sheep Morris Dancers, children and families walk down the path with hand made lanterns, through the cove and down to the Bowen Heritage restored 1930s cottage decorated to represent Christmas past.

This is the original illustration

you can see I’ve painted the dog separately and composited him in after using photoshop for the final print 

The colour levels have been corrected to enhance their richness.

Snow was added digitally as well as the glow emanating from the lanterns.

The final print files had a colourful border added to the front. The back was adorned with a small part of the illustration, the title of the card, our local Island name, and my Bluebelle logo.

Like previous years, the cards were packaged in an assortment, this time there were 10 cards, two of each design with colourful corresponding envelopes.

All the labels are hand printed, and scored with information about the printing progress, as well as the Bluebelle logo wrapping around on the the back. The card packages were finished off with a round red sticker.

While Christmas cards are a delight to receive, as well as a good way of staying in touch and wishing warm holiday wishes to friends, they can be bad wasteful for the environment. I insist on keeping my cards GREEN by using tree free paper and soy inks. They are also locally printed to save on the fuel used for shipping .

It’s an amazing amount of work from start to finish. The design process for each new card starts towards the end of September to have enough time for the printing and packaging in order to be in stores by November.

I’ve been wanting to put this post together for a while, but never seemed to be able to find the window of time that it takes to sit down and compose. So … I asked myself why it is I have a blog, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s really just for myself. To look back on the path I took, when I get to where it is I’m going. Not the everyday ups and downs but the main events. However, if you were so kind as to take the time to read this post, then I thank you.

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye;
Four and twenty blackbirds
Backed in a pie.

When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing;
Wasn’t that a dainty dish
To set before the King?

The King was in the counting-house
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlor
Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird
And snapped of her nose.

I prefer “pecked at her nose” when reading this rhyme to children.

These two illustrations were created as a gift for twin Granddaughters, to adorn the walls of their bedroom. We decided to use animals to depict the King and Queen and chose a Lion, for he is the king of the animal kingdom, and the Lioness as his Queen. The maid is illustrated as a person, because anyone who has a cat knows, they rule the house, and we humans do all the work!

I love to add 3 dimensional elements to my illustrations, especially the commissions where the original is matted, framed and hung on the wall. The 3d flowers and leaves create shadows of their own, the chandelier shimmers in the light. It’s the extra little touches that make a piece of art come alive.

Stay tuned for more Illustrations, drawn from words.

Contact me at karen@karenwatson.com for your very own commission

I’d exhibited a piece here and there in galleries before, and contributed to a friend’s show with photography years ago, but I’d never really put together my own show, start to finish. Thankfully I was sharing the gallery walls with two other artists; Adrien Deggan, a very talented illustrator and Ron Woodall, a multi talented and extremely accomplished artist who happens to be our local cartoonist. Knowing I was going to be exhibiting with such talent made me nervous but also gave me the drive to push my own limits.

Recently I quite my day job as a VFX compositor for film and television in order to pursue my dream of being a childen’s book illustrator. I know my old job sounds glamorous, and it was! A well paying, creative job working with a great team of artists. It was was very hard to leave, but in the end I want to make a difference in the world. Being an illustrator, inspiring young minds, helping children learn to read is something I felt I needed and wanted to do.

The show was scheduled to run during the writter’s festival, which was a perfect venue to showcase my illustration style to authors. My goal has been to find that special story, something enchanting and magical. So, I decided to do 15 illustrations based on the classical children’s books that are out of copright, such as “The Princess and the Pea”, “James and the Giant Peach”, “Alice and Wonderland”, “The wizzard of Oz”, “Thumbelina”, “Wind in the Willows” and other nastalgic stories that everyone loves and remembers from their childhood.

It took me about a year to plan the show, and more that 6 months to create the artwork. I worked tierlessly, especially during the last month before the show. It’s not just the artwork, there is a lot of promotion involved. Website, blog, invitations, posters, business cards, I even went as far as to create a little book of my artwork. I made prints available from my website, and I also made cards from the original artwork so that there were a veriety of different price points for the veriety of visitors to the show. In order to get every thing done I made lists. Lists apon lists. Every day I gave myself goals. As a creative person I find deadlines nessesary, but I also find them to be creativity squashers. Any artist will tell you that they have good creative, artistic days, and days, where no matter how hard you try you end up spinning your wheels, so you have to give yourself a little room for those days, and anything else life might throw at you.

In the end it all came together, despite the mail strike and having all my invitations kiboshed by Canada Post. Like planing a wedding, you have to accept that at least one thing will not go as planed, and you just have to go with the flow.

We decided to do the Artists reception on a Friday evening to bring more of a party atmosphere to the openning. I went to the trouble of getting a liquor license, bought wine (I suggest getting beer too … next time) as well as an assortment of food; breads, cheese, fruit, veggies, cookies etc. I did the catering myself, with help from some fabulous friends in order to save money.

There was a fantastic turn out of people, and it went off better than I could have expected.

I priced my pieces to sell, not so low that I gave them away, but I did make them affordable, as I am not yet a well known artist. This is an important point for artists that are starting out, after all, it was my first art show. Out of 16 pieces I ended up selling 13 which ended up being a record for our little gallery. As well, I sold out of books and had to have more greeting cards printed. When I tallied up all the materials, framing supplies, promotional costs, 25% gallery commission and fees… never mind my time, I came out ahead, but not a whole lot. However, what I did get from the show was worth far more than money. I gained experience, exposure, several commissions and most importantly some great future possibilities, not to mention a visible progression in my work. For a little gallery, on a little Island, on the west coast I couldn’t have asked for more.

All in all it was a fabulous experience, that I would recomend for any artist, young or old, experienced or just starting out, submit to the call for artists. Even if you don’t sell a thing, the process will bring you much more that you ever thought possible.

I’m also now the new curator of our Art Gallery!

Poster design: Adrien Deggan

Drawn From Words an Illustrated show

The show features 3 Bowen Island Artists; Ron Woodall, Adrien Deggan, and myself, Karen Watson.

All of my illustrations were inspired by classical Children’s stories, such as Princess and the Pea, James and the Giant Peach and many more.

Click image to view book