April is Autism Awareness Month.

In honour of my good buddy Kristofer I am joining with the CafePress community in donating 10% of the retail profits from specially tagged items in my shop from today, April 1st, until April 30th. The monies will go to two Autism charities as chosen by the CafePress community.

THIS HAS BEEN UPDATED FOR AUTISM AWARENESS 2013 - the Monarch, anything Pink Cupcake, The Angel of Belfast and also Kaleidoscope HERE

have all been tagged for April 2013

All items in my shop carrying any variation of the following images have been tagged to be part of this effort. Thanks for shopping and helping make a difference - sincerely, Patricia

Available here

This design is available in a number of variations so please just go the main store HERE

Available here

Available here

Available here

Available here

Available here - near the bottom.

Thank you!!

A Gallimaufry of Autumn's Deliciousness in Maine

Autumn really is the most photogenic of seasons...I just can't stop taking pictures in Fall, especially here in beautiful Maine. The colours are delicious and luscious and so inviting, and the season itself makes me feel cozy and warm, looking forward to crackling log fires, toast with lashings of melted butter and steamed puddings galore!!
Above is Nepeta....the flowers turn a lovely pink and purple, and those colours against the green and yellow - isn't this a textile print waiting to be designed??

A perfect Pee Gee Hydrangea bloom...this year my Pee Gee is so laden with big, pendulous blossoms it is drooping to the ground....we will have some monumental bouquets this winter of the blooms which dry out to a lovely taupe and last seemingly forever.The apple trees bounty which will feed many a hungry deer and
turkey once the snow begins to fly.

A brave and tired Monarch...I have seen a few around whose wings are torn and broken but still they flit and fly around and about and look as beautiful as ever.

I don't even know what berries these are -I used them for a frozen ice wreath a couple of years and plan to do the same again this winter. Does anyone know what they are??

Another Monarch amidst the glowing goldenrod

...and a milkweed pod that has finally burst open...doesn't it look like a pine cone...
so neat and orderly..

Now here's a perfect Monarch, in more ways than one...before I found this particular butterfly I was running around the fields like a scalded hen and every time I was just about to get the perfect photograph the little rascal flew away...this good Monarch just sat and wafted his wings and allowed me to photograph as much as I wanted!! Thank you!!

Don't you love his polka dot body...I am assuming these are males but don't know for sure - they may be females for all my scientific knowledge on the subject...I do know there is a way to know but it escapes me right now. Sorry Monarch!!

and finally the surest sign of Fall...the Michaelmas Daisy or New England aster...this picture has not been enhanced in any way...I just cropped it a little but the colour is true to life right outside my window.

Michaelmas Day, September 29th, is the forgotten quarter-day. In medieval times the four quarter days were important, namely: Christmas, Lady Day, Midsummer Day and Michaelmas. It marks the end of the harvest, thus Michaelmas had special significance for agricultural societies in northern latitudes. Does this mean the aster is blooming early this year as so many other plants have done?

More illustrated logos by Yours Truly.

I love type and I love illustration so what better way to combine the two than in full colour illustrated logos. When I first left school I took a year off and decided to work in a commercial art studio before heading off to art college. I spent almost the whole year laying out Letraset and learning about the spacing, leading and kerning of many different typefaces. Thus my love for type began, although I have to admit the Letrasetting was amazingly time consuming and laborious compared to the ease with which one sets type today...still I enjoyed the challenge!!

Pictured here are three logos I was commissioned to create by different businesses and a sketch of the first draft of one of those logos. As you can see “Ambiance” started off quite differently than it ended but the seed of the idea, the typeface, remained. The concept was embellished with English Ivy and a more formal, decorative flourish.

The "Harmony" logo above was designed for a company in California who wanted to depict a combination of the Monarch butterfly and the California Poppy, both of which are indigenous to that companies geographic area, along with the name of the store "Harmony" in an elegantly flowing script.

“Panache” was designed for a store in the Temecula wine region of California.

“Created by Mother Nature” isn’t a logo per se but has the feel of one. I had so much fun with the type on this one, changing fonts and fading the colour from top to bottom. I added the type about 5 years after I had created the central motif and was pleased with the results. This design is now featured in my Cafe Press store and part of the profits from it are donated to Maine Farmland Trust whose offices are in downtown Belfast.

All of my logos are created with watercolour paints and my beloved Winsor Newton Series 7 brushes or colour pencils on watercolour blocks by Aquarelle. The type is hand drawn with design flourishes added to create a uniquely decorative word. The only time I use a computer is to scan the image, create digital files of the artwork, change any small imperfections and resize the logos to fit their end need.

I am looking forward to designing more logos in the future and hope I am lucky enough to be commissioned to create delicious ones like that in the post two back for The Sugar Shack Cupcakery. I love the look of desserts and enjoy making and EATING them too.

If you are a small business owner interested in having a logo designed for your business please feel free to get in touch (you can click on 'e-mail' under my profile pic when you click on View Profile above in the right hand column) and ask me about my concept for marketing on a small budget!!