[marisamidori]

Has anyone else been rewatching copious amounts of West Wing lately? If you've been seeking comfort in the Bartlet administration as of late, this year's free printable Valentines are for you! (I start talking about West Wing for one second and already I'm campaigning!) Some people think that Valentine's Day is cheesy, but sometimes we all just need a big block of cheese in our lives. No matter what side of the aisle you're on, everyone can enjoy these Valentines!

You can download the complete set on my blog and use them for your Supreme Courting needs.

Thank you as always to my awesome friends for helping me come up with great phrases for each of the characters. Special mention goes to my sister who is the majority leader of the puns.

[marisamidori]

Finished the third season of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries last week and am still in withdrawal. Seriously hoping that it gets renewed for another season.

[marisamidori]

Light Grey Art Lab’s Bower Bird show opens tonight! It features work from 90 artists about the things that we collect. I had such a great time illustrating the houseplants that fill my apartment. You can read a bit about my process (and my plants!) for this piece on my blog. Prints and limited edition postcards for the show are also available in the Light Grey shop! And if you live in the Minneapolis area, you can go check it out in person until January 16th. 

[marisamidori]

I’m 9 days into my 100 Day Project and having such a blast! I wrote a quick post about the genesis of this project on my blog.

[marisamidori]

As a love letter to one of my favourite television series, I thought it would be fun to make some Parks and Rec themed Valentines to say farewell for its final season. I had so much fun with the Arrested Development ones a few years ago and have been wanting to make another set so this was the perfect excuse.

You can download and print them from my website to give to your galentine or someone that you love and like. I also created these nifty square ones that you can share on instagram if that's your (Jeremy) jam. Feel free to tag me @marisamidori when you share! Thank you to all of my cool friends that helped me think of the perfect phrases to pair with each character!

True story: I was in the process of square-ifying these and went to save the Jerry one only to see that I had already done a Jerry one and actually said "Dammit Jerry!" out loud at my computer. 

[marisamidori]

Cleaning studio. Pieces of projects from 2014. Here's to new adventures in 2015!

[marisamidori]

Happy holidays!

[marisamidori]

Colour tests

[marisamidori]

I've been drawing a lot of inanimate objects lately so I wanted to draw a few humans. I started with Carl.

[marisamidori]

One of my favourite projects that I worked on last year for Kohl's is now available in stores and online! And since it is supposed to be 75 degrees here in MIlwaukee today (say what?) I thought it would be an appropriate time to tell everyone about them. I did the art for these fun polar bear flannel sheets and fleece throw. I want to squeeze their little faces and am so happy with how they turned out. I have the sheets on my bed right now.

Sheet set is available online only and the fleece throw is available in stores and online.

[the-essentials-project]

Mary, 30.

9:30 a.m.

Karo syrup

Chocolate syrup

peanut butter (smooth)

food colouring

Additional notes: This was our third attempt at making an edible blood that would please both the picky actor and the entire design team. If it didn’t work in the next five hours, we’d have to cut the whole bit.

[marisamidori]

Feeling inspired by ICON to make more time to work on side projects. This year's conference theme was "work and play" and the importance of play during your practice was such a key takeaway from so many of the presentations. Speakers from many creative disciplines (from film to animation to publishing to courtroom illustration) shared stories about how their passion projects have influenced their work and vice versa. I felt so reinvigorated after attending the conference spend a bit more time on fun personal projects. 

I'm so intrigued by the additional notes on this Essentials submission. I want to know if the third attempt worked out!

[marisamidori]

In lieu of a real trip recap (which I am in the process of creating) I have summed up my trip in ice cream form. Because that's the important part, amiright?

(And if you are ever in Vancouver make sure you stop at Bella Gelateria. I mean it. The owner went to gelato university. Gelato university. That's a thing!)

[marisamidori]

If you follow me on instagram, you'll likely have seen a few of the above images kickin' around. I worked on a super fun personal project over the weekend that turned out better than I could have ever imagined.

One of my coworkers owns a beautiful old printing press and was kind enough to let our team invade his garage last Friday to get our letterpress on. It was my first time letterpressing and I could not be more pleased with the results.

After a quick arm workout cranking the wheel on the old Chandler and Price it became almost zen just churning out print after print. All of the linework was letterpressed. I then hunkered down with a beer and my paints later that evening to add some colour. Because the ink we printed with is rubber based, it repelled the watercolour paint like I had hoped and I got to do a crafty Mr. Burns laugh as my plan unfolded perfectly. 

I am now 90% obessed with letterpressing everything and 10% afraid that this was a ridiculous bout of beginners luck.

[marisamidori]

One of the reasons that I love side projects so much is that they act as an opportunity for me to explore new processes and techniques that I wouldn't necessarily pull out for client work. I recently finished this illustration for Book Jamboree. The Iron Giant has so much fantastic imagery (I had about four quick sketches done within the first ten minutes of starting the book) and provided the perfect platform for me to try out a few things I've been wanting to experiment with: pushing traditional compositional sizes, working in a monochromatic colour scheme, playing with scale, and creating a piece with a bit more depth and environment as opposed to the usual flat subject on white that is typical in a lot of my illustrations.

Somehow, all of these techniques seemed to meld perfectly for this one sketch I had fired off with a tall linear composition. Contrasting the size of the Iron Giant with the tiny tanker was the jumping off point for this idea (or maybe it's just because I've had Pacific Rim on the brain....the scene where Gipsy Danger wails on that one kaiju with a cargo freighter is my favourite part of the entire movie). I wanted to play with the lighting as the water gradually becomes deeper and murkier and see what sort of depth I could achieve through this.

The illustration remained in the blue/green range until I was about 80% done with it. I always try a hue adjustment layer near the very end just to see how things look in a different colour scheme than what I had originally envisioned. Usually, I shift things slightly because of this just to get some better colour and value reads but the drastic change to the yellow/green was actually really appealing once I had run the gamut. I loved the nostalgic and melancholy slant it seemed to bring to the illustration. 

Super pleased with how this one turned out and can't wait to experiment some more!

[bookjamboree]

"Above and Below" by Marisa Seguin.

I loved imagining the Iron Giant wandering the depths of the ocean. It’s a place that we know so little about and the isolation experienced by the Iron Giant seemed well matched with the unexplored mysteries of the sea.

[marisamidori]

My full illustration for last month's Book Jamboree is up now along with the other great submissions. I put together a quick process post for that I'll probably throw up tomorrow.

[marisamidori]

Above and below. Pieces of my illustration for this month’s Book Jamboree. Can’t wait to share the full illustration next month!

[marisamidori]

Bangkok