Valentine art

  

February is the month of love.  

So it seems fitting to make these illustrations Valentine related. 

Enjoy xoxo

Road Trip: The Science Behind PIXAR

 When Lianne and I were in art school, many moons ago by the way, we took lots of traditional art and drawing courses in addition to some computer graphic classes since that was a fairly new concept in the art and design world at the time. Now married with children we are a true card-carrying Disney/Pixar fan, so when we heard that a Pixar exhibit was going to be at the Boston Museum of Science we couldn’t be more excited to learn more!

Sure we loved the old school animation classics, but as artists and designers we looked forward to learning more about the magic behind Pixar and how the breathtaking films come to life.

So we thought we would take you along with us on a little road trip inside this magical exhibit

 The Science Behind PIXAR:

It starts with a funny and clever short intro film before you are ushered into the Pixar world 

through the glowing "purple doors", that really set a mood.

Upon entering you are immediately transplanted into the Pixar world. Human-sized statues of a few of the beloved characters greet you throughout the exhibit, like Buzz, Dory, Mike and Sulley.
It was great to see them that big and getting to take a selfie or two with them.

Then onto the different stations. This is really the meat of the exhibit; showing you how each film is made up of specific parts that all come together. The kids really found the interactive components in each section very and engaging.

There is so much in this exhibit, you really should see if for yourself! Not only is the art wonderful, the science and technology is really engaging. Each station is a part of Pixar’s production pipeline: modeling (creating virtual 3D models), rigging (making movement possible), surfaces (applying properties of light to control surface appearances), sets and cameras (using virtual cameras to create 3D scenes), animation, simulation (creating automated motion), lighting (manipulating light to enhance a scene’s mood or believability), and rendering.

 Above, Chloe was playing with lighting a scene from the movie UP.

Lianne and I found these clay sculptures extra striking! The detail on them was so impressive and 

we loved seeing the characters we know and love as clay figures.

WALL-E

The newly released  Inside/Out movie is also represented in this exhibit.

  Not only did each section have something interactive going on, but what we especially enjoyed the video profiles with different Pixar staff members(working at Pixar). 

We loved hearing about how these creatives think and work and what their roles are.

If you get a chance, we would highly recommend visiting The Science Behind Pixar at the Museum of Science in Boston. The exhibit is there until the January 2016.

Swirly Studio Rainbow...VIOLET

Studio Rainbow...
We are in day 7 our last day of the challenge, to see if we can gather a few objects around the studio matching the colors of the rainbow and share it here.
Thank you to everyone who join in on the fun on Instagram.
Today's final color is VIOLET. 🍇
Use the hashtag #studiorainbowsupplies
What Violet supplies do you own?

Swirly Studio Rainbow...INDIGO

Studio Rainbow...
YO YO INDIGO
We are in day 6 of the challenge, to see if we can gather a few objects around the studio matching the colors of the rainbow and share it here.
Today's color is INDIGO.
If you are a rainbow purist you know indigo which is a darker shade of blue comes next.
So what indigo supplies do you own?

Swirly Studio Rainbow...BLUE

Studio Rainbow..
BA BA BLUE
We are in day 4 of the challenge, to see if we can gather a few objects around the studio matching the colors of the rainbow and share it here.
Today's color is BLUE
Which seems to be very fitting being such a gloomy day today.
Visit our Instagram account and use the hashtag #‎studiorainbowsupplies‬
What blue supplies do you have?

Swirly Studio Rainbow...GREEN

Studio Rainbow...
It's not easy being GREEN
We are in day 4 of the challenge, to see if we can gather a few objects around the studio matching the colors of the rainbow and share it here.
Today's color is Green 
We tend to favor more Chartreuse vs Kelly green
Visit our Instagram account and
Use the hashtag ‪#‎studiorainbowsupplies‬
What shade of green are your supplies?

Swirly Studio Rainbow...YELLOW

Hello Yellow... We are in day 3 of the challenge, to see if we can gather a few objects around the studio matching the colors of the rainbow and share it here.
Today's color is YELLOW
Visit our Instagram account and use the hashtag ‪#‎studiorainbowsupplies‬
What happy yellow supplies do you have?

Swirly Studio Rainbow...ORANGE

Orange you glad it's Wednesday?
We are challenging ourselves and see if we can gather a few objects around the studio matching the colors of the rainbow and share it here and on Instagram.
And we want all of YOU to join in too!
Use the hashtag ‪#‎studiorainbowsupplies‬
What ORANGE supplies do you have in your studio today?

Swirly Studio Rainbow...

Studio Rainbow…

Our studio is full of a lot of stuff and lots of colorful supplies. When we open a drawer it looks like a rainbow exploded! That gave us an excellent idea just in time to brighten things up…We are going to challenge ourselves and see if we can gather a few objects around the studio matching the colors of the rainbow and share it here on Instagram. And we want all of YOU to join in too! 

Use the hashtag #studiorainbowsupplies 

What RED supplies do you have?

Heading back to the drawing board...

I don’t know how many of you knew this tidbit, but I was working as an illustrator for 10 years prior to collaborating with Lianne and starting our wonderful joint venture called Swirly Designs.

A big chunk my work was working with magazines on editorial illustrations. What I really enjoyed about working as an illustrator was collaborating with the art directors and working together. Every project was so different it was exciting to research and learn about unfamiliar topics.  

Jumping ahead 20+ years later… I have been getting the urge lately to revisit my illustration roots again. To what extent still not sure yet. My true joy and focus right now is with Swirly, but I love creating and designs with my hands. Here is a sampling of some of my earlier work.

The top tow editorial illustrations were created early 2000 when I did everything by hand. When you made a mistake or a bad color choice you had to start all over again.  I used a Rapidograph technical pen for the line work, adding a base painting of watercolor then added rich color and shading with colored pencils.  The two small images are digital. It made sense to embrace the digital age and start taking my illustrations onto the computer.

The process of working with the art director from copy to sketches to mock-up cover layouts to color to printed piece. Trade magazine cover The Pet Aisle June 2004

This is another digital editorial piece I created back in the day.

So when I heard about this MATS (Making Art That Sells) Bootcamp online course that artist rep Lilla Rogers was offering, I could not miss this opportunity to help me get back in the game. I've never taken an online course before, so I had my concerns. Would I have the time to really focus on the class assignments? Would my rusty computer skills work against me? The course runs for 6 months (Feb-July) and so far I’m very happy to say it’s been a fantastic, rejuvenating, eye opening experience for me and it’s only been one month. 

The course works something like this: The first Monday of the month you get a “mini” assignment and then the following Monday you get your “big” assignment, which you have two weeks to complete and then post to a gallery where everyone can view it. Week three, Lilla shares a surprise tip or advice. You  also get access to a private Facebook group where you can share and connect with your classmates. I really had to force myself to stay away from the group until I had all my ideas /concepts/finish pieces ready so I would not be influenced or swayed by the talented pool of work already growing in the group.

The mini assignment was to research/sketch cuckoo clocks. Not knowing the big assignment yet, you are able to just have fun and play and experiment with your style. As soon as I started sketching my cuckoo clocks they took a holiday theme...hmm how did that happen!

The "big" assignment was now to take your cuckoo clock sketches and incorporate them onto a cell phone case. I was a little torn about the direction I wanted to go in. Do I treat it like another Swirly and create it and sculpt it out of clay? Or do I revisit my illustration roots that I haven’t worked on, in about 8+ years? Reminding myself ....this should be fun..fun..fun! And plus Lianne seeing me start to stress over this, helped me put things into perspective and realize why I’m doing this again.

Once I settled on a style, I decided to create a Merry Time Cuckoo Clock. Going back to working on the computer again actually is not that different than working in clay for me. I found out very quickly that if you don’t have good sketches of your ideas, with color break downs, you end up wasting a lot of time working in circles and getting very frustrated. So I had to step back, figure out  my direction, then I started to enjoy the process again... even though it was taking me longer. Every time Lianne would check in on me she would roll her eyes and bite her tongue about how I do everything on the computer the wrong way and should really use the more keyboard shortcuts!      

After working into the wee hours (I think I was up til 3:30am) here is my finished piece that was submitted:

Lilla's tip in this round was about using color. She challenged us to try incorporate a particular color palette into our illustration. To my surprise my illustration palette was very close to hers. (great minds think alike!) So I decided to challenge myself again and work on a second version playing with color. I like the yellow version, but ultimately I decided that  blue would be more marketable for this assignment.

 Go check out mine and see 350+ other artists who participated in this Cuckoo Clock Cell phone assignment at Lilla Rogers website here. 

Thanks for letting me share and taking you on my creative journey.

~ Paul 

Our American Made story

Hello!
Happy August! Can't believe how fast summer is flying by!

We received an email this week about Martha Stewart honoring 10 American Makers at an upcoming event they are hosting this fall.

If you are Creative Entrepreneurs who is making products that are innovative, inspiring and beautiful you should enter! We thought we would enter our little Swirlies into the mix and see what happens.  We will let you know how it goes. There might be some kind of voting come September that we might need some help on as well. 

Here is our page on the Martha Stewart site. We did notice that some of our profile text was cut off as well as weird cropping with some of our photos... so we thought we would re-post them again here:

Here is the full text that we uploaded:
Our American made story:

Welcome to Swirly Designs studio where we create holiday cheer all year!

We are Lianne & Paul Stoddard the artist and creators behind Swirly Designs where our passion for decorating for the holidays inspired us to combine our artistic skills to create our own collection of original handmade polymer clay ornaments.

Our story began in art school in Boston. I studied graphic design, while Paul majored in Illustration. In school, I dabbled in polymer clay. I made jewelry and pins for family and friends. I loved the way the clay was easy to use and I could create unique pieces.

After graduating, we both pursued work in our field but we were always drawn back to working with our hands. Going back to the medium that I discovered in school, we started to experiment with creating pieces in polymer clay.

We launched Swirly Designs right around the time we got married, in 2000. Being artists and designers we tend to be a little picky when searching for holiday ornaments for our own tree. Not finding exactly what were we looking, we decided to create our own ornaments using polymer clay.

Combining my graphic design sensibility and Paul’s illustrative talent we created whimsical pieces and started giving them as gifts to family and friends who then encouraged us to start selling them. We produced a small catalog one holiday season, taking our own pictures and designing the catalog ourselves. That proved to be a success, and the following year we got a booth at a local holiday craft show here in Boston. The response to our ornaments was so great! We sold lots of ornaments during that show plus heard lots of positive feedback from customers. This was enough encouragement for to us do this full time.

Each and every ornament is hand-sculpted, hand-painted and beautifully embellished by us as we interpret traditional holiday images through a contemporary lens all while juggling our growing family.

Our studio is always swirling with new and interesting holiday festivities and we are so blessed our ornaments have become part of so many people’s holiday traditions.  

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 Wish us luck!