This illustration is from a post on Heather’s blog (of course we appreciated the paper boats)!
The first time I came in contact with something designed by Heather Ross was in Philadelphia while visiting with my good friend Chelsea at this amazingly beautiful shop called Spool (next to Loop) where I bought this whimsical octopus fabric. It was the cutest and most unique fabric I had ever seen in person! Heather Ross is one of many talented artists that keeps This Paper Ship inspired at full steam ahead. Sure we grumble about why we couldn’t have created something that good ourselves (don’t all artists at one point or another?), but really it keeps us motivated and ever-raising that proverbial bar. Looking into her story further you’ll find that not only is her work incredible and inspiring, but her story is too. As a kid she grew up in a rural life without a TV or phone, and was left to find creative ways to keep herself busy, including learning to sew and knit before age six! Read her whole story here on her about page of her website! It’s artists like Heather Ross that really make us want to never give up the dream of one day being children’s book illustrators and to not be afraid of embracing that whimsical and child-like style that we love! Take a stroll around her website and be inspired! Be sure and check out her blog too!
This week we watched the original 1951 Alice in Wonderland after seeing the new one in the theater. It was so inspiring! The rich, whimsical, and colorful imagery through-out the film left us wide-eyed and ready to paint. We can thank Mary Blair for much of that inspiration! Her talented concept art inspired the animation of the entire film (as well as a number of other classic Disney movies). Here are a few examples of her incredible work:
We recently stumbled upon this video on a photo blog and thought it was incredible enough to share with you! It’s an extremely creative engagement that will make your eyes well up with tears.
Today we’re featuring the amazing work of Luke Eshleman Photography who shared clients Amber and John with us, a couple we designed wedding invitations and programs for last Fall. As we’re sure Luke experienced, they were an incredible couple to work with! It made us feel like a million bucks when Amber told us about opening the programs in front of her whole family the day before the wedding and getting teary. It reminded us why we love doing invitations so much.
Luke did an incredible job capturing their festive Fall wedding day, so much so that we had a hard time choosing which photos to post! The colors are rich, warm, and have a vintage feel to them. We absolutely love it! It’s always a fun surprise when our wedding clients pass along their photographers’ photos, especially when the photos are this beautiful. We highly recommend taking a stroll around his website! We really appreciated the personal section of photography.
Now that Spring to Spring is officially over, this is an official announcement that I (Joel) have started my new yearlong solo project A Year of F! I’ll be drawing/designing/building a letter F every day for a whole year, in tribute to my favorite letter as a kid and to my love of typography. Here’s to a full year of letters!
Stay tuned for a similar announcement about Ashley’s new secret solo project!
To follow up with another photographer that had a client in common with us, here’s Melanie Mansfield’s photo of Tonya and Michael’s wedding map. Normally we get regional maps and city maps, but this one was unique because it was the first request for an entire U.S. map.
Their colors were black and white so we kept it simple, and we hand-drew it and highlighted all of the prominent places they have been together. Instead of ordering multiple smaller copies, they had us send them a 13 x 19 printed copy on French Paper (our favorite) for them to frame and display at their wedding.
They did an amazing job! It looks really great. The rest of their wedding was beautiful, as all of our client’s weddings have been. It’s always a pleasure looking through photos from the events that we design things for!
Here’s Melanie’s beautiful photo and our drawing below it:
Angel and Walter came to us for wedding invitations last year and we had a blast designing their rich jewel-toned, elegant, and patterned suite. Recently Angel followed up and kindly sent us a link to her photographer’s site, showcasing photos of their wedding and even a few shots of their rings on our invitations. It was fun seeing our work in context of the rest of the charming wedding. SO, we decided to contact the photographers for permission to do a blog post about it.
Pure 7 Studios is a husband and wife photography team, Erica and Ryan, with 3 adorable kids. They are based out of Destin, Florida and their work is beautiful and inspiring (especially for us since we’re photographers at heart when we’re not designing/drawing things). They have a real eye for capturing the mood and moment. We just love their photography!
When we wrote to them requesting usage of their photos, Erica immediately responded to us. Before we knew it she had edited and passed along the photos. The unexpected part was her follow-up, asking if we would be interested in collaborating on some illustration work for their website. Of course we couldn’t pass up the request! We always love connecting with other fellow creatives (especially husband-and-wife teams whom we feel akin to) and this was another amazing opportunity to do so. We’ll let the work we’re doing for them remain a secret until they complete everything on their end.
Here are a few of the invitation/ring shots they took for Angel and Walter:
If you live in the Destin area or dream of having a wedding there, definitely check them out!
We first met Jody at an early First Friday Indie Market in Greensboro when we had our booth parked right next to hers. We soon found out that not only was she an incredibly talented and professional artist (you can see it just by stepping into her amazingly neat and organized booth that feels more like a real-life clothing store on miniature scale), but she is down to earth, absolutely hilarious, and has a really big heart.
We’ve had the privilege of keeping in touch with her like little designer pen-pals over the last few months (hopefully we’ll eventually hang out more in person too) and did a trade a little while ago, two of her beautiful t-shirts from the Flytrap shop (for our wearing pleasure) for 50 of our ship postcards (for sending to her customers). It was so fun that we couldn’t help ourselves in following up on a collaboration request.
We’ve coveted the idea of having one of our illustrations on a t-shirt for a while, but since we don’t have the time, experience, or equipment to create our own, we immediately thought of Jody and her impeccable craftsmanship. Let’s face it, her screen printing skills make us drool. Well, not only did she agree to collaborate and hand screen print our illustration, but she sprung into action so quickly we couldn’t even say “Full steam ahead!” before we already had two beautiful sample shirts in our hands. It seriously made our week!
We are still beaming every time we look at them! And to make matters MUCH cooler, we’re going to be able to sell some in our shop soon so that you can reap the benefits as well. Hurray!
We hope to do more collaborations with Jody in the near future and highly encourage you to visit her shop and get some body candy!
March 2, 2010 - 10:01 pmpang - GIMME! GIMME!! love the stuff in her shop!
March 3, 2010 - 11:27 amjody - {blushing}
you are both wonderful! i am so pleased to see how excited you are about our collaboration and about my work! it couldn't be more mutual. relationships like this are the saving grace of tireless entrepreneurial activity--am i right, or am i right?
March 3, 2010 - 5:53 pmEmily - These are beautiful!
March 10, 2010 - 8:18 pmryan - awww cool!!! i love the shirts. you have to let me know when you have them for sale.
Check out this wicked blog post about typography we found courtesy of one of our favorite all-time design/illustration blogs, Drawn!
I just drooled all over the keyboard.
Also, please stay tuned, because the link to a new side project is going to be popping up on our website really soon. Hint: it’s brought to you by the letter “F.”
This illustration is from a post on Heather’s blog (of course we appreciated the paper boats)!
It’s artists like Heather Ross that really make us want to never give up the dream of one day being children’s book illustrators and to not be afraid of embracing that whimsical and child-like style that we love! Take a stroll around her website and be inspired! Be sure and check out her blog too!
by Joel and Ashley
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