I’m proud to be Irish and like to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day and decorate the house to celebrate. My new leprechaun illustration is available on hats, T-shirt’s, and pins in my Zazzle shop!
Create an Irish Blessing sign with a downloadable pdf in this blog post. The blog post includes tips on transferring the poem to a wooden surface.
It amazes me how different the weather in NY can be on St. Patrick’s Day. One St. Patrick’s Day years ago, before kids, it was a warm, blue sky, beautiful day in New York City. I said to myself, “I will never work on St. Patrick’s Day again. I should be at the parade.” The next year, I took off, and as I headed to the parade it was snowing. This year there are blue skies – but it is very cold!
These illustrations are from the year I did a 17 day St. Patrick’s Day countdown. I created an illustration each day. These days I’m working on my beach painting project.
Hope you have a great day!
Eileen
P.S. – The second issue of my new newsletter My Creative Collection went out today. It’s a collection of what is inspiring me – in hopes of inspiring you! Learn more here. Sign up here.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been creating illustrations for St. Patrick’s Day and posting to Instagram. For each idea I have, I draw/paint multiple versions to see which one I like the best. It dawned on me, the it isn’t just hand-lettering that takes “Practice, practice, practice.” I have to draw several “takes” before I create an illustration that I like. I also take pictures along the way to see how the illustration will look when it’s finished, and to make sure I like the background and how it fits in the shot.
This way of working is new to me. In the past, I’d sit down to create a painting, and try to make it work. I began working in this way since starting my themed postings (first Valentine’s Day, then St. Patrick’s Day). I doodle, I paint, I plan in pencil. I try again. I wouldn’t say it’s about getting it perfect, it’s more about warming up and trying different things.
I really enjoy following one theme. The first couple of days are easy. After that, there is the period where I’m like, “What am I going to do now?” In both cases, the more creative ideas came to me towards the end of the campaign. I guess it’s the time when I dig a little deeper. All the obvious ideas are out of the way, so I have to think harder.
This Valentine’s Day post was one of my favorites:
This grumpy guy is my favorite St. Patrick’s Day post so far:
I’m planning another Instagram art series and I’d like you to join in the fun! The theme is St. Patrick’s Day. Include #mcrstpatricksday in your Instagram post. Join me for a day or all 17 days (March 1 – 17th). It will be fun!
I had a great time last month posting Valentine’s Day art for 14 days. Working within the same theme was really interesting. You really explore the theme as the days go by, and you come up with different ideas. I used several different mediums: watercolor, watercolor and ink, scanned doodles from my sketchbook and painted them in Photoshop, created a pattern, and a linocut.
Hope to see you on Instagram! Look for me: mycreativeresolution 🙂
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I am so happy today (in honor of St. Patrick’s Day) to bring you the doll version of my Claddagh Fairy. All thanks to my niece, Ryan, my illustration has come to life – in doll form! Thank you Ryan!
See more illustrations from the Claddagh Fairy and my journey to develop a children’s book illustration style.
The Claddagh Fairy is copyrighted. Unauthorized use of this blog’s content, text and artwork is prohibited. Re-blogging and/or sharing links is allowed provided that http://www.mycreativeresolution.com is credited and a direct link to the original content is included. Thank you.
Ah it’s March. Spring will be here soon, and warm weather I hope! St. Patrick’s Day is also around the corner. I love decorating the mantle in my family room for the season/holiday. This year, I added to my mantle a couple of homemade projects. You may remember my Irish Blessing sign, created using a Citrasolv transfer technique. Recently, I created my first paper quilt, in a green “Irish” theme, which was a fun and easy project. I’m looking forward to creating a “beachy” themed one soon.
I also hung a couple of our family crests. I was inspired by “Game of Thrones.” In the books, each family has a banner representing their “house.” Symbols on the banners include a lion, wolf, fiery heart and even an onion. I found our crests online and wrote the family names on the back. I thought it would be fun for the kids to flip them over, to find out the names. Surprisingly the kids have never heard of the family names a few generations back.
In addition to these homemade elements, I grabbed every green candle I had! I also hung two leprechauns that I had with my Christmas ornaments. I hung a string of shamrocks with the family crests. I added my son’s school project – a rainbow over a pot of gold. I love including the kid’s projects with my decorations. I thought the Celtic cross and the Belleek vase were nice “authentic” additions. I used fake greenery, since I wasn’t able to find any shamrocks!
Cead míle fáilte!
(hundred thousand welcomes)
link to Irish phrases
When I saw a paper quilt on the Country Living magazine website (from Linda & Harriett – see links below), I knew I had to make one! I have always wanted to make a quilt, but I can’t sew! I wanted to go to the craft store and get paper, but it was pouring out, so I decided to use what I had, including pieces of a gift bag.
The Country Living quilt calls for 2″ squares of paper in 4 different styles (20 squares of 3 styles, 21 squares of 1 style). I have a 1″ square punch, so I decided to use that and make my quilt with 1″ squares. I drew out a grid of 9 rows and 9 columns, so I could plan my design and play with different paper options. Since I was unsure of which papers to use, I decided to follow the Country Living design. I wanted to use mostly greens, because St. Patrick’s Day is around the corner.
I selected 4 paper styles and punched out my squares. I also punched out shamrocks. I placed the squares on the grid, following the Country Living design. I took a photo and swapped out one of the papers. I tried a couple of options, taking photos of each one, so I could compare. I decided to go with the last option I had set up (without the gold).
Since the grid I drew wasn’t perfect, I got a new piece of paper to glue the squares on. Using a glue stick, I started in the corner, using the edges of the paper as a guide to keep everything as square as possible. After it was done, I trimmed off the unused paper. I mounted my quilt on a piece of card stock.
I couldn’t be happier with the results! It is going on my mantle! What a fun project. I plan on trying another one, in a different theme, maybe a beachy theme. Summer is around the corner, right?!
Links:
