The Licensing Nook

Posted by: Lesley

©Oxford University Press

Here’s a snippet from a piece of art I’m working on. Gotta love drawing colorful bugs!

Posted by: Lesley

©Gartner Greetings

I illustrated and planned the subject matter for this religious greeting card collection called ‘Sharing the Faith’ from Gartner Greetings (an imprint of Gartner Studios ). It’s a beautiful collection that has a soft natural look, lots of textures and patterns and art that ties in nicely with its up-lifting verses. It’s a 40 card collection that I shared with another fabulous illustrator and was a joy to work on.

posted by: Lesley

©Lesley Breen Withrow

Today I woke up to a ton of snow on the ground. What a surprise it was! Unfortunately, it turned over to rain and now it is a slushy mess. But, the snow has helped to put me in the holiday mood. Well, the snow and the Christmas tree we just put up! There are no gifts under it right now and I’m not sure if we’ll ever has as many gifts as those under the tree I illustrated. Ha! But that’s okay.

Posted by: Lesley

In this post I thought I would show you a bit how I work from sketch to finished art.1. Here’s my sketch

2. Next I lay down the foundation colors and start to fill in different elements of the art.

3. Once the initial art colors and characters are painted, I like to bring the art into Photoshop where I add lots of the details, textures and patterns. I have a large library of textures and patterns that I have created on paper using paints and scratchboard and pen and ink, etc. I have also been known to scan fabrics, newspapers, buttons, really what ever I think I can use in my art. It’s a lot of fun creating those different textures and patterns and once I scan it into the computer I can use it multiple times because it’s now a computer file.

4. And here is the final art with all the details, textures and patterns added in in place. But wait, there’s one more addition to this piece!

5. I decided to add a border all around it. This was a border I created by hand and scanned/manipulated in the computer. Hope you had fun seeing a bit of my working process!

Posted by Mary Beth

Every art studio should have at least one cool chair, preferably bought at an antique store or flee market. Check out this beauty I purchased last week on Wickenden St. in Providence, RI. I love that my studio furniture now inspires me.

The pattern and cat are from my “Meow” collection and are available for licensing.

Posted By: Lesley

Today is my daughter’s 4th birthday! We had a wonderful birthday party for her yesterday and she got all the Smurfs and My Little Ponies that she had been dreaming of! (Including Papa Smurf and Smurfette). It’s funny, because those are the same gifts I dreamed of getting back in the day. Gotta love retro!

©Lesley Breen Withrow

Posted By Lesley

I’ve been busy creating greeting cards and so I thought I’d show a sampling of them. They are filled with my painterly textures and patterns. So much fun to make! (To see a close-up please visit Lesley’s blog)

©Lesley Breen Withrow

Posted by Lesley

Hey, I recently saw a note card set that I illustrated of these cute little snails at my local Papyrus store! It was great to see it along with all of the other fabulous gift products they have. I love the boutique quality of their stores and products. So beautiful and inspirational.