Free Colour-in sheets

To keep you company during the quarantined weekend :)
Download here.

CARE 'Should you adopt a dog?' poster

CLICK HERE for the downloadable Adoption poster. This was created for Charlie's Animal Rescue Centre (where Henry-oats was adopted). Embarrassingly noticed it's been over an entire year since I've posted. Social Media is the new blog, or so I tell myself.

Freebie Secret Santa tags

Right click the image below > 'open image in new tab' > go to newly opened tab> right click image> ‘save image as’ and take it from there :)

It's sized to an A4, so you can print it out easily on your home/office printer, but I do recommend printing on thicker stock of paper. Merry Christmas to come! 

30 Habits of Super Happy People, illustrated.

I can't print these as posters commercially because I drew this off an article. (I tried mailing the author but didn't hear back)
So here you go...right click, save as and go ahead and print it for non-commercial use to remind yourself to be a little happier every day :)

What could I look forward to this New Year?

Every one talks about that one ‘best year ever’ and then reminisce about how everything in that year was just right! But what tends to enter my ear canal a lot more, I realise as I grow older, is the ‘I can’t wait for this crappy year to end’ conversations. Like every year, 2017 has had it’s share of ups and down and for some more downs than ups and vice versa. I’ve been told it’s my rose-coloured-glasses-wearing that makes me look at it this way, that is, even with more downs, how can one not look at all the wonderful things that happened in the year? Personally, the number of great people I got to meet, things I learnt about myself and my when-he-does-the-laundry-better half, the new foods I got to taste, the music that’s been around for ages but just discovered, the new places I got to see and the fact that I’m still in one piece, even through health hiccups, and wake up to see another day with the sun shining is enough for me to call it a great year. How can I not!



I must say I do have one bone to pick with new years and that is that it runs swiftly into my favourite time of the year, i.e., Christmas, bringing it to a halt almost instantly. ‘Merry Christmas’ turns to ‘What plans for New Year’s and that makes me want to eat all the plum cake received in one sitting trying to retain any Christmas feelings lost in hearing that sentence. Alternatively, if New year’s didn’t bump itself in where it does, I’ve been told and agree ever-so-unwillingly, my tree would be up till about March. So I comply.

So what does one get to look forward to in 2018? The same thing that one looks forward to the every new year; a new beginning, a trial of keeping up resolutions and setting them in optimism, making new friends who seem like they’ve been part of your life forever, tastes you never knew you loved, sights you can’t believe are real, the hardest laughter that bring you pain, pains that bring you lessons, and plain ol’ good hope that the year will be our ‘best year ever’.

Free Secret Santa tags and season-y stuff

This year seems to have been rather hard for a lot of my friends, and I hate to admit, me as well (on the health front). I cannot call it a crappy year because so many wonderful things happened, I met some beautiful people, and still got to do what I love, with the people I adore. And now that it’s the Christmas season, i.e., the time of the year I pretty much LIVE for and I can’t be more grateful! Ahh! This year is rather Christmas-y and it’s pulling on my happy strings. I get up with carols playing in my head (I know that sounds like torture for many, but I’m a sucker for them!) and end the day with the tree twinkling. Perrrfeecccttt!

Our studio is having our first Secret Santa and it’s adorable! I have nooooo idea who mine is but she/he’s a doll! So in the festive spirit, I made these Secret Santa tags for free download. 

Just right click the image below and ‘save image as..’ You know the drill… And do show me how you use them! I’d love to see:) 

Also there is a little sale on scarves at the store, so head on over to add some colour to the jackets we wait all year to wear :D

Have the most beautiful Christmas EVER!

Ask Alicia: Digitisations and drawings

There are few things I consider an extension of me, and if you asked me about a decade ago, Photoshop definitely wouldn’t have been one of them. I adore Photoshop and use it on a daily basis and (a few over-users of photoshop will understand me) I sometimes think in Photoshop. Like masking parts of my work or apple+e (merge) all weekdays into one day...you get the drift 😬.
Anyway, starting out on software was harder back then than it is now. I started transitioning because I needed to get my illustrations digital, be it for a college project or just to put on my blog I had then. So that’s where my first, and only, scanner came in. From there it just graduated from to using Photoshop to make scans look better, then to colour, then to use in projects and print, then for work and now for everything.

I truly think the amount of digitisation one wants for their drawings is purely personal but ultimately, it almost always HAS to end up as a soft copy if a drawing needs to be ‘used’ commercially. If not, then it’s your call! That’s the beauty. I never completely transitioned to digital because I adore hearing the sound a pencil makes on paper. That scratching sound is one of my living pleasures.

There are certain things I do only digitally. This happened only recently when I started using the iPad Pro and the Apple pencil. I love it and it's one of the few instances where I am completely digitally drawing.




That’s about it!
Thank you! and I hope I answered your question. This would be a very trail-y note with no purpose if not 😛

Alicia