A Girl Who Creates - Holli Conger Illustration

there's a loodle in my doodle

2010-03-05T09:48:00.000-08:00

This week is read Across America week in celebration of Dr. Suess's birthday. The Woog had activities all week at school and today they were to come as one of his characters so, I sent her off with a wocket in her pocket. It was so cute to see little Cat in the Hats, Cindy Lou Who's, and Thing 1 and Thing 2 running around the Kindergarten hall.

We also worked on a Woogie Wednesday/Weekday/Weekend project of the Cat in the Hat. We made a Junk A Seuss-le:

As a creative person I have always loved Dr. Seuss and his weird and wacky world. I love the rhymes and his playful use of made up characters. When I was in Orlando once I saw one of his taxidermy pieces and thought they were awesome. I've always thought I would make my owe sometime with my art. I found another artist who did one here. I found a cool flickr stream with pictures from the Seuss exhibit at Fresno Metropolitan Museum:

photo via jentwo

My favorite book of his has to be The Shape of Me and Other Stuff. It was one of the books the Woog always wanted me to read her so I have it all memorized plus I love how Suess-like the simple shapes are. Amazing! What's your favorite Dr. Suess book?

Going all 50's

2010-02-27T18:10:00.000-08:00

The Woog had her first Daddy/Daughter Banquet tonight and it was a 50's theme. We treated her to a professional "up-do" and manicure. She was beyond excited when they left.

I'll be changing over my blog to Wordpress in the next few weeks since Blogger is no longer supporting FTP uploads. I've been testing getting everything moved over without hiccups, but they might just happen when I move it all over so if the site's offline any, you'll know what's happening.

teacher gifts

2010-02-02T06:55:00.000-08:00

First off, thank you so much for the nice emails and comments on my last post. I really appreciate it and feel so much better getting it all out.

Since the past couple of months have been crazy, I'm just now getting a chance to show teacher gifts from December. I didn't get a picture of it all packaged up (I did good just getting them out the door) but this is what we gave:

I took one of our countdown to school projects and made notecards for all the teachers along with their own rubber stamps. The cards were printed at Overnight Prints and the stamps made at Simon Stamps I highly recommend them both. Great prices, quality and fast shipping!

On another note, I've had to switch my comments over since Haloscan move to a new product. I'm still getting used to how it works and looks.

Completely Broken

2010-01-25T07:16:00.000-08:00

Today my grief ends. I've had a cloud of grief hanging over me for more than a month and just when I though I had gotten my groove back and felt so much better last week, I got another devastating blow. I make it a point to not post too much about my personal life, but maybe this is the only way I can flush it out of my system and start to feel normal again.

^this was a woogie wednesday project we did back in 2008 - a portrait of 4 generations of women

My grandmother passed away a few weeks before Christmas. Her death was something I knew would hurt me worst than anything and I remember a few years ago when my dad suddenly passed away I told my husband that when my grandmother passed away that is when I would be totally beside myself. And I think I was. I knew it was coming and had a week to, for lack of a better word, "prepare" for what was going to happen. That might have made it easier for me but it was still just as hard as I thought it would be. I not only lost a grandmother (my last living grandparent), but my daughter lost a great-grandmother and I think that was even harder to bear. It's so hard seeing a child grieve but also a blessing to have the comfort of that child when you're grieving. Her sweet words and tender heart have amazed me.

As I said I got my groove back last week and then got another devastating blow. Thursday night my grandparent's house, the house that my grandfather grew up in (he would have turned 101 this year), the house he raised his family in, the house where all my childhood memories seem to come from, the house where my daughter was creating her own memories at last summer, and I extending mine, was struck by lightening and destroyed. Burned to the ground. My mother came over early Friday morning and I knew something was up. She said she had news but it wasn't about anyone and everyone was fine, but it is devastating and I should sit down. At that moment I knew what it was. Weird that I knew, but I knew. That second I felt I had lost everything from my grandparents. I had lost them all over again, I had lost the feeling of being at the house, the sound of the screen door slamming, the porch swing that had rocked so many generations, but most importantly their legacy. I was completely broken.

After a total freak out, I somehow got it together and went out to the house to see. The scene was heartbreaking. Still on fire that next morning and I left it that afternoon - still on fire. It was so surreal and still is. I sent Walker off to school that day without telling her why I was crying but let her know everything was ok and I would tell her about it after school. It was her 100 day celebration so I wanted her to enjoy her party. When I picked her up from school she immediately asked me why I was crying. We got in the car and I told her. She teared up a little but I don't think she knew what that really meant. We headed back to the house and when we pulled up, she knew exactly what it meant. Her little face scrunched up and filled with tears and started sobbing. Seeing her so hurt, hurt me worse. My husband took her around the house and I could hear that they had started making a game out of it and seeing if she recognized anything (which there was hardly anything) and that seemed to help her cope. She was very glad to see her tree swing was still there and that we would be bringing it home for the backyard. That night when I tucked her in she asked for a picture of the house to put in her room. I am thankful for the memories she has of it.

I had my husband email a few of my clients that were expecting work due to them on Friday and I thought his simple words, summed up the importance of the house to my family:

"Her grandparents' farm house (almost 100 years old) was struck by lightning and burned down last night. Thankfully nobody was living there at the time. She has a very tight-knit extended family and that home was the epicenter of their family. As you can imagine, the emotional connection to that home is huge."

And now for the pictures. I debated showing them but I am. I guess this post is pretty much about me healing so seeing a comparison would be good. The neighbor across the street took pictures as it was burning. We are so grateful she took them, but they are awful and I don't have those to show.

^fall 2009

^view from the front yard

^view from the garage - my granddaddy had a love/hate relationship with lawn movers - you can see 2 of them here

Thankfully a lot of things had been taken out of the house for safe keeping. There was still a lot of china, silver flatware, glassware that was lost among the other things that had no monetary value but did have sentimental value to us all, but the majority of it was not there. We are most thankful for not having to tell my grandparents that their house was no longer there. My grandmother would of taken it in stride and would have put her energy in comforting all of us, but my granddaddy would of never recovered from it.

So from this day forward my grieving will end. My body and mind can't take it anymore and I am done telling people about it all. My aunt summed it up the other day that she felt she had been living in a dream for the last two months and I think that's how we all feel. But I am ready to wake up. Through hard times come blessings and I can see and appreciate them and for that I am beyond grateful.

Thanks for sticking with me on this one guys. I just needed to put it all out there.

Ice Ornaments

2010-01-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

It's 19 degrees and snowing in Nashville so The Woog and I made ice ornaments. You can check them out here.

Valentines Placemats

2010-01-06T07:20:00.000-08:00

As I said yesterday, here is a detailed look at the Valentine's placemats avaiable through Oopsy Daisy. I love how they turned out - a combination of found objects and lettering - my two favorite things!

girl sketch:

for girls:

close-up:

for boys:

what's on the back:

These designs are available to license as a whole or each "section" as individual pieces - wouldn't they make a cute pack of Valentines?

New Licensee

2010-01-05T05:02:00.000-08:00

My new year started off great when I found my work up on Oopsy Daisy's site - even in cute styled shots (see the mermaid on the beach?). I licensed a few Junk A Doodles® with them and can't wait to get my hands on the actual canvases. They have been on my client wish list for quite a while and I'm glad my persistence and follow-up paid off. So excited about this new relationship!

Tomorrow I'll show you a detailed look at the Valentine's placemats I did for them - super cute! I blogged a sneaky peek here.

Custom Portfolio

2009-12-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

Target recently contacted me (via a contact made at SURTEX) to send them "my book" to share with their creative team. My 3-ring binder of samples or my black leather portfolio was not going to be good enough for them, no, no. I needed something that said "Hey, look at me!", showed off my style from the front to the back and incorporated my love for found objects, lettering & color, so I created an entire customize album (that I can use later) where the contents can be easily edited and expand to any size.

I mailed it off a few weeks ago and got it back today in the same condition I sent it. I had a professor in college who had made this really cool portfolio that turned into a house (as part of her application for a architectural graduate program) and when it came back to her, she said the person looking through it must have been eating a snickers bar. There was caramel & nugget stuck to most of the pages. So thank you Target creative team for taking such good care of it.

front:

inside:

back:

packaging:
(I'm pretty big on reusing packaging materials so that's what I did)

Podcast Interview

2009-12-01T05:10:00.000-08:00

I was recently interviewed by Thomas James of Escape From Illustration Island about how I promote my work. The podcast is now available so take a listen. Hopefully you'll get some ideas on how to market yourself as an illustrator. After my Surtex trip to NYC I became more aware of my southern accent so if you hear some "twang" in there, feel free to giggle. It apparently amuses those not from the south :)

And in other news, next year I will be relaunching Living The Creative Dream. After a year of examining what I've done (I've even written a book on marketing for illustrators - but no takers yet) and what my original plan was to do with the site - I've decided to stick with what I know best so I'm shifting the focus more on helping other illustrators with their marketing. So stay tuned for that.

Designs for Uppercase Living

2009-11-17T08:51:00.000-08:00

For the last year I've been doing some work for Uppercase Living. If you aren't familiar with them, they are a company from Utah that produces vinyl wall expressions. Their products are only available through company reps and are pretty popular all over the country and their Design Manger is one of the best people I've ever worked with!

I've done about 250 design for them so far and just a handful are in the current catalog. More will come out in Spring/Summer and next Fall/Winter. You may be able to point out a few of mine that involve some sort of illustration or hand lettering. I've also done several traditional looking ones. If you had a specific question as to which ones I've designed or want to know if I designed a particular one, just let me know. You can flip through their catalog here.

If you'd like to purchase some of my designs or others you can order them from my friend Rannie - and to comply with the new FTC disclosures, I receive NO compensation for referring you to her :) These do make great Christmas & Housewarming gifts!

Sneaky Peeks

2009-11-03T09:21:00.000-08:00

I've been working recently on a ton of licensing and children's illustration projects (guess people are back to spending money again before their budget year is up). So above is a sneaky peek of 2 projects. Yeah, I know you'd love to see the rest, but I think I need to hold off for a while.

flying

2009-10-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

This is an older Junk A Doodles® piece but thought of it when I saw this week's illustration Friday topic "flying."

Here are other "flying" pieces in this style:

Art Licensing Resources

2009-10-07T06:56:00.000-07:00

Tara Reed has got some really great resources for Art Licensing! I'm a big fan of these and I was so excited to see her email newsletter this morning announcing her latest product: Product Mock-Up Magic. I can not begin to tell you how much time this will save me!! I've struggled with getting images together to mock up and honestly, I just don't have time time. And my philosophy is if you don't have time, get some one else to do it for you, and Tara has done that. I love her "teaching" technique. She is so thorough so anyone not totally familiar with Photoshop can easily follow her steps to help grow a licensing business. The product will ship on October 21st, but go ahead and pre-order it now because you'll save $20. I just ordered my copy and can't wait to get it and start mocking up products. I'm throwing out all my old mock-up because I never really liked how they turned out and these from Tara are so much better. Click here to learn more and purchase.

In the past I have also purchased Tara's repeat pattern e-book to refresh my memory on how to make patterns (hadn't done it since collage and I totally forgot how). I think it is a must-have and patterns are very addictive to make!!

She also has this cool affiliate program with all her products too so you can refer people to her products, get paid for it and use that money to buy more of her resources. So...I'd like to refer you- Go to the bottom of the page, click "affiliate program" and sign-up. Super easy!

Tara also agreed to be one of the judges for Pumpkin Junkin' so she just all around ROCKS!

Junk Your Pumpkins!!

2009-10-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

Pumpkin Junkin' 2009 has officially begun!

i {heart} fall!

2009-09-30T11:02:00.000-07:00

Yep, I just love it!

Pattern

2009-09-29T07:19:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted to Illustration Friday for a while, but since this week's topic is "pattern" I couldn't resist. I love making repeat patterns and they are quite addictive. If you don't know how, Tara Reed has a great e-book for it and you'll be making patterns in no time!

Here's the piece I designed first:

And then a "pattern" made from it:

And just a reminder that Pumpkin Junkin' started Thursday!

Staring next week!!

2009-09-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

Miss Spider's Tea Party

2009-09-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

I signed up to organize a Miss Spider tea party for the Woog's class Friday. We'll have Miss Spider there to read her book, plus games & yummy tea party/spider themed food. I've hit about every store I know to find spider things in the Halloween sections and it's been a challenge to find things with "just" spiders :(

If you're not familiar with the Miss Spider character, she is from The Miss Spider/Sunny Patch books by author/illustrator David Kirk. His work is fantastic and he also has some cute outdoor things at target during the summer and then cute cups and plates.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find much of a portfolio online for him but did find this site. He works in oils and I love his color palette. And a cute tidbit, to go along with his nature themed work, all 3 of his daughter's are named after flowers.

His books have also been turned into a TV series which is very popular at our house. You can see it on Noggin:

art filled weekend

2009-09-11T15:02:00.000-07:00

I am determined to have an art filled weekend! I have a promo to do for the Illustration For Kids mailer, greeting card ideas to finalize, some product ideas to compile and send to a manufacturer, plus start junkin' my pumpkin for my annual contest & exhibit (you can follow Pumpkin Junkin' on twitter or facebook for updates)!

Man, I love this kid!

2009-09-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

Bear with me, but this is worth a read. My mom emailed this to me today and I kind of got all choked up!

The Price of Children:

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140.00 for a middle income family. Talk about price shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.

But $160,140.00 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:
- $8,896.66 a year
- $741.38 a month
- $171.08 a week
- A mere $24.24 a day!
- Just over a dollar an hour.

What do you get for your $160,140.00?
- Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
- Glimpses of God every day.
- Giggles under the covers every night.
- More love than your heart can hold.
- Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
- Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
- A hand to hold usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
- A partner for blowing bubbles and flying kites.
- Someone to laugh yourself silly with

You get to:
- finger-paint
- carve pumpkins,
- play hide-and-see
- catch lightning bugs
- never stop believing in Santa Claus.

Have an excuse to:
- keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
- watch Saturday morning cartoons,
- go to Disney movies
- wish on stars.

You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For a mere $24.24 a day, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:
- retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof
- taking the training wheels off a bike
- removing a splinter
- filling a wading pool
- coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and
- coaching a baseball team that never wins, but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat in history to witness the:
- First step
- First word
- First bra,
- First date
- First time behind the wheel

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match. In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren & great-grandchildren... It's the best investment you'll ever make!

farm shots

2009-08-30T19:39:00.000-07:00

We headed to the farm Saturday and spent the day. Amy turned me on the polaroid app for the iphone so I went around and took some pictures.

just another tool of the trade

2009-08-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

I've had an iPhone for the last couple of years and this summer upgraded to the 3GS. Yes it is quicker and you can do more with it and these are reasons I why I think every illustrator/designer needs an iPhone:

Email: The number one reason I got it and the feature I use most. Since I want to keep my flexible career, being reachable is key.

PDFs: This was the reason I switch from using a palm phone to and iPhone. iPhones can read PDF files and since a lot of my jobs specs come in as PDFs I really needed this feature. When I had my Palm phone, I would have to wait until I got back in the studio to respond to an email about a job, or while on vacation, I would have to call someone to log into my webmail and tell me what the PDF said. When you work in children's publishing, deadlines are tight so people usually want a answer that day.

Social Media: I stay connected through twitter and facebook through my phone while I'm out of the studio.

Mobile Portfolio: I have a collection of work pieces within my "photos" area that can be easily scrolled though if I need to show someone my work.

Apps: There is seriously a app for anything. The app store is chocked full of great apps and many of them are free.

The only downside I've found is that they are not able to view websites in flash, but I can live without that.

And personal reasons you should have an iPhone - especially if you have kids:

Video & Audio: You can record on the fly and have a record of cute voices forever:

Movies: It also comes in handy for watching movies during those long restaurant & doctor waits (I currently have Nemo, Cinderella, Dora, and various tv shows on it for just those occasions)!

HOW now brown cow?

2009-08-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Jeff Fisher, I'm quoted in the October Issue of HOW magazine which happens to be the Self-Promotion design Annual. If you are any kind of artist selling your work, this particular issue should be on your shopping list every year. This is a really great article about social networking for creatives and Jeff does a great job of it with his business. I met Jeff on the HOW forum around 8 years ago and he has always been so helpful to those newbies and veterans in the design field. Be sure to follow him on twitter and become a fan on facebook.

I thought I'd share my full interview so you could see how I use social networking:

1. Prior to your involvement in sites defined as "social networking" what
constituted the online presence/involvement of your business? Website? Forum
participation? Online portfolios? Blog?

I've always had an online portfolio and website, but when I first started out, I participated on a lot of forums. I read more than I commented or posted and then moved onto blogging that opened me up to other illustrators who were more on my level (career-wise) and I could connect to them better.

2. When and where did your business first venture into social networking?
LinkedIn? Facebook? MySpace? Twitter? Other?

I've been on LinkedIn for a good while now and have been able to find some good contacts that way. I've also found it to be a great place to update my mailing list. With everything going on in the economy, I've found that a lot of publishers have laid off their creatives so I've been able to see who all is where now.

I've never been on MySpace - it's always seemed so "high school" to me and most of the people I've seen on there have beer parties every weekend!

I joined Twitter in February of this year. It became an instant addiction, but in a good way. I've been able to network with a lot of other artists and it makes it feel like I'm working in the studios with other colleagues. I know a lot of people on twitter just like to have large following numbers and will follow anyone just so those will follow back - I follow people who I'm truly interested whether it be their art, a service or their personality. I don't have time to weed through people I'm not interested in.

I joined facebook a month or so after twitter. I've been resistant to joining facebook because I didn't want to mix business with personal. I didn't want to hook up with old friends (there's a reason they are "old" friends!) and didn't necessarily want to mix my personal conversations with business. I've been able to keep it pretty professional by automatically posting my tweet to my facebook status*.

*Note: since this interview, personal was bleeding over to professional a little more than I liked, so I've started a fan page that is business related. To get all my business "friends" to meet me over there, I posted this status:

"Attn: FB art/design friends: I'm switching business things over to a fan page to separate personal from biz here on FB. Please, don't take it personal if I unfriend you, I just need to redirect your friendship over there -... we can still talk:) To get my updates "fan" me over here: http://www.facebook.com/HOLLiCONGERstudios and "follow" me on twitter. Thanks for understanding guys!!"

Almost everyone has fanned me over there now.

3.What business benefit did you initially see with your initial social
networking experience?

In a way it makes me more accountable. I usually let people know what I'm working on or what I have coming up and since I've publicly mentioned it, I feel like I really need to follow through on it. It also make me feel like I'm working with others in the studio.

4. What social networking sites or tools are you currently utilizing to
market and promote your business efforts?

Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn

5. How do you specifically make use of these resources as a self-promotion
tool?

I mention what I'm working on and link to what I've been working on (usually housed on my blog agirlwhocreates.com). I've mentioned my online shop some (typographyphotography.com) to generate business - but overall I use it for networking.

6. Which social networking resources is currently the most effective in
bringing business to your firm?

I haven't been on twitter long enough to see how it's bringing business my way. LinkedIn lead to a pretty lucrative design/illustration contract that feeds me work monthly. I found the company through another contact and noticed in their profile that they were hiring in-house positions. I emailed them to see if they would be interested in working with me on a freelance basis. They said yes and they have been one of the best clients I've ever had!

7. Have you recently moved away from using certain social networking sites
that you used more in the past?

I don't participate or read many forums anymore. I started finding them less and less helpful to me professionally and there tended to be a lot of nay-sayers and know-it-alls that I just didn't like to be mixed with.

8. What social networking resources do you see your firm making greater use
of in the future?

I love twitter and see myself using that more and more. I like the real-time aspect of it.

9. How do you balance the expression your company brand and your own
personality in your social networking efforts?

I think it's important to show your personality, but I've chosen to have a more professional appearance on the internet as a whole. Everything is searchable and what you say could come back to haunt you! I mention my family, etc. every now and then and talk about by daughter a good bit (she's my studio assistant and I will miss her terribly when she starts kindergarten in the fall!) but don't discuss my beliefs or political views. I have gotten a little more personal on twitter & facebook only because it's more real-time and I tweet on this-and-that that's happening right then.

10: What one piece of advice would you give other creatives as they consider
the possible use of social networking opportunities for marketing and
promotion of their business?

If you're using twitter for your business, keep things professional. Make sure you don't say anything you wouldn't want your client or potential clients to read. Personalize your twitter background. I'm surprised how many creatives I follow that use one of twitters unattractive backgrounds. Take the time to add your style to it. Make sure you link to your portfolio or blog in your profile. I have several artist who follow me and I don't follow them back because they haven't included a link in their profile. i want to know who they are and see their work. Also, take your client list and promo mailing list and see who all is on LinkedIn and Twitter. Maximize your marketing efforts that way, plus it's free!

today's THE day!

2009-08-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

Today's the day!! When I got up this morning I saw that my husband had tweeted some of the lyrics to Martina McBride's "In My Daughter's Eyes." Which was so not cool - trying to make me cry. If you haven't heard it you can here. Prepare for boo-hooing! I kept it together though. She was raring to go this morning and couldn't wait to leave wearing her cute little uniform.

I made her note and packed her lunch (today's ice cream day!):

And off we went to school. Once we turned down the Kindergarten hall, she started getting apprehensive. When we left she started crying and had to leave her that way but we've already heard that the tears dried up when we left. I didn't cry a bit! She's been too excited for me to be sad.

And here's a shot that every parent can get on the new day of school:

Bright white new shoes! Today is the last day they will ever be clean :( To celebrate tonight, we're going to the Rainforest Cafe (her choice)! Thanks for all the well wishes via comments, facebook & twitter. I appreciate it!!

1 day to go!

2009-08-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

One last piece of art to wrap up the countdown. This has been in my sketchbook for a while and thought it was a perfect piece for this little series.

Tomorrow is THE day!!