Happy Holi!

Holi (or Phagwah) is a joyous Hindu festival of springtime and color. People celebrate it by flinging large amounts of brightly colored powders at each other until everyone is covered completely! The almighty Wikipedia has a good description of its history and how it is celebrated around the world today.

I have always wanted to go to a Holi/Phagwah festival, especially the big parade in Richmond Hill, Queens. Unfortunately, I won’t have a chance this year, but I was inspired to make this little greeting from a character sketch I had lying around. The watercolor splotches were already there, but I added more, because as you can see from these photos, you can never have too much color on Holi!

Time for some timely updates!

Hello friends, future friends, friendly foes, and the fairly indifferent,

It feels like forever since I’ve updated here. I miss keeping up with Illustration Friday each week, but at least it’s been lots of work that has kept me away from here for now. Besides the illustration above, which I developed from an old IF sketch, here’s what I’ve been up to this year:

-Working on a couple of new commissions.

-Completing many new posters and greeting cards for my Etsy and Society6 shops.

-Writing and sketching my first children’s picture book proposal.

-Learning and practicing with new software! This is the first year I’ve subscribed to Adobe’s Creative Cloud, so now I’m overwhelmed with this new access to all of their programs. My goal this year is to learn After Effects and Muse… and everything else if there’s time!

But there is still plenty of time, so if you’d like to work with me, please write to elizasteindesigns [at] gmail.com, or send me a quick note on Twitter @MsElizaStein.

A long overdue Happy 2013 to all!

~Eliza

 

Illustration Friday: “Snow”

I’ve wanted to illustrate The Snow Queen for years, so I’ve been working on some concept sketches that grasp the overall look and feel I’ve held inside my head for so long.

This scene is from the end of the story, when Gerda reaches the Snow Queen’s castle and finds Kai playing with pieces of ice on a frozen lake.

Illustration Friday: “Stretch”

This is my daily exercise routine, except for letter “C” which I’m just not limber enough for yet!

Illustration Friday: “Whiskers”

Christmas whiskers! I wanted to make sure this was ready to post by tonight, but it’s far from finished. I’m going to add a colored background and a greeting, so that it’ll be ready for next year’s Christmas cards.

An Early Xmas GIFt from Eliza Stein Illustration!

Hi everyone! I developed my last post into a GIF animation. Feel free to share it with as many people as you like, as an e-card of sorts. I really missed animation and I hope to do much more of it in 2013!

Illustration Friday: “Tree”

After I finished this, I only wanted to go and play Asteroids! It would be pretty easy to make a Christmas version of it.

ETA: Heyyy, Post #100!

Illustration Friday: “Sky”

 

They may look happy, but they’re only full of hot air!

I’m pretty happy with the composition and colors, so I might make this available as a poster, after tweaking the colors so they look better on paper.

Typing Bug Says… Back to Work!

While I was working on this, my husband came over and asked me if it was a self-portrait. Why yes, how did he know? I am a little worker bug, happy that I’m no longer stuck in a cubicle.

I don’t miss typewriters, but there’s a pretty mint green one that keeps showing up on Etsy. Maybe I’ll buy it for one of my writer friends that still use them.

Here’s a little extra glimpse of how I made this drawing, with the line art and colors separated:

Illustration Friday: “Teacher”

Beeeeeeeeee creative! (Argh.)