Dog + Letterpress

I'm so excited to announce two of my favorite things brought together this month! My art print collab with Natalia of Design Lab Creative Studio is now up on my etsy just in time for the holidays. A portion of the sales will benefit The National Disaster Search Dog Foundation. Nat also has the print up on her online store, buying from either place will benefit the same cause. We're all about sharing the love :)

In more dog+letterpress news, the current issue of Bark Magazine features a great article about my two favorite topics of convo. I was lucky enough to be brought into the mix as my shop was the backdrop for the photos in the article (how cool is that?). Nat and I were serendipitously brought together as she and her husband Bill took the photos and designed the article. This small creative world keeps getting smaller. Max even makes a cameo (that's him in the center on the right page)!

More info of the process can be read on her blog post here.

This is a really special tribute to our four-legged-friends, I'm so proud to be a part of the print and the article. Thanks for your support! xo

Prints + Jewelry

Join me and Hillary Huffard next Friday Oct 7th as we show off our latest collaboration being held at Marisa Haskell's Oakland boutique. Deets here:

To Japan with Love

I donated a few special edition prints that I published here at Olive-Route to bluemoon letterpress in Japan. They are putting together an exhibit called Letterpress of Pray to help raise awareness and funds to aid tsunami and earthquake relief efforts.

The exhibit site is up, I know it's mostly in Japanese! But please take a moment to check out my artists as well as the other exhibitors in the show. Thank you Nat, Jane & Hillary for the inspiration!

On Press: Animal art prints

Hot off the presses...These are some process pics of some art collaborations I have coming up!

This 3-piece set of animal prints were illustrated by good friend Hillary Huffard who has been part of the Olive-Route team for the past couple of years. I'm producing these prints to help promote her as the amazing artist that she is :) Hillary will be watercoloring each print by hand and we're hoping to show and sell them locally soon. Details to come!

Hello Lauren

Just wanted to write a post formally introducing Ms. Lauren Aczon. She's been an intern at my shop since the beginning of summer and came to my rescue during peak wedding season when I was in over my head with production work. She started out doing some assembly work and was up for some non-glamorous tasks at the shop--organizing samples, trimming paper, archiving, and even spray painting!

But since then, her internship evolved into something closer to an artist in residence so-to-speak but without the living in my shop part :) Lauren expressed interest in letterpress from the get go, and had some previous Vandercook experience in college which always helps. She's also a fantastic artist and after perusing through her sketchbook, I could easily see how her style of linework would translate well into letterpress. I harnessed my inner mother-hen and encouraged her to print her own work and see where it takes her...

Charmaine & Jack Website

Over the summer I posted about an Italy wedding that I'll be working on for the next few months. I already made the Save the Dates which were sent out this month--the wedding is in July of next year. My client Charmaine loved the save the dates and asked if I can design their wedding website and give it the same look.



























Here's a little look into the process...

Design + Print: Kristen & Erik invite

Fun and sweet invites to match equally sweet and adorable friend of mine, Kristen and her fiancé Erik! She stopped by my shop over a year ago to introduce herself when they used to live closeby in Berkeley. They've recently relocated to the eastcoast and before she left a couple of months ago, we agreed to work together on her wedding invites.

Lovely Peanut!

Just shipped out another set of Save the Dates today that featured this beautiful bird illustration done by my client's sister, Hillary. Aniko (my client) came to me wanting to integrate Hillary's artwork into the wedding stationery. I LOVE collaborations and when I met with Hillary, I instantly grew fond of her and her artwork!

Aniko and her fiance Ben will wed in Santa Barbara this August and so far, I'm thrilled with how the designs are coming together. Here's Hillary's drawing of Peanut (their beloved family pet) who will be making a debut on their Save the Dates :) I'll post pictures soon...

Off the Press: Eyeball Art Print

These were SUPER fun to print. It was love at first sight when I first laid eyes on these...er...eyeballs! LOL. I just knew they needed to get published somehow instead of existing as mere doodles on a sketchbook. Thanks Marcelo Viana for such a fun illustration! These are available as prints and notecards in limited quantity through my etsy.

Galya on Etsy!

One of my recent artists on press, portrait artist Galina Yakovenko, just opened an Etsy site for her custom work! Her one-of-a-kind pieces makes for great gift-giving and comes in easy to frame sizes.

Make sure to check out galya.etsy.com and pass it along...

Lumadessa Collection, Birds Edition

Delightful giclée art prints by illustrator Josh Brill--this Flora & Fauna collection is a field guide of discovery, beginning with birds. I love how simple and boiled down these drawings are, and can pretty much function like individual logos. Exquisite!

Off the Press: Journal Covers

Just finished printing this fun collabo project with good friend and portrait artist, Galina Yakovenko. She came by and helped print the covers which will be bound into notebooks and mini-folders.

Noma Bar Illustrations

How clever are these?!















































Check out more here, via pixelelement.

Science Illustrators

Thought I'd include a quick post on naturalist drawings after spending the day with Jane. This style always leaves me in awe--the amount of detail that goes into making a science illustration is mind boggling!

Here are a couple of Walton Ford's paintings. Jane introduced me to his work today--his art is filled with hidden symbols and usually make references on culture and politics.
















































And there's Ernst Heckel--German biologist, naturalist, artist (among many other talents). His illustrations will stop you dead in your tracks, I could spend hours staring at them! I've had his stuff bookmarked for a while waiting for the right time to post about it:







































































You can find more of his work on this flickr stream here. And another great post about Hackel can be seen on F'eld.