from passion project to art licensing

From the top 1). sketches along the way 2). Studio M catalog/web site photo 3 - 6). pages from my winter 2014/2015 100 days of sketchbook project 7 & 8). more sketches back and forth with my lovely clients Anne & Cathy 9). my final pdf presentation 10). from my front garden my art planters spilling with colourful annuals

I'm a big believer in passion projects because they have been so incredibly beneficial to my own creative growth and for my art licensing business. Our friend and colleague Jennifer Orkin Lewis and before her the fab Lisa Congdon were the first artists I can remember having daily passion projects that I was paying attention to. Then came the very popular #100days project which is when I think I officially hopped on this bandwagon. I had just joined Instagram (very late to the party) and having a 100 day project gave me something new I created to post each day - if you go way back in my susanblackdesign IG feed you'll see my first floral drawings (with collage) sketchbook project, an every night with Netflix winter habit and the project that lead to this great art planter project with Studio M (and others). Next I did 100 day project of line drawings which I turned into my own self published colouring book Cats & Flowers, Flowers & Cats which I sold in my Etsy shop, locally and sent out as a gift/promotional pice to all my favourite art licensing customers. It's been amazing how much NEW work came from that line drawing/colouring book passion project ... a new colour-it-yourself multi sku gift collection with Midwest/CBK, a colouring Art Heart with Demdaco, a colouring greeting card with Design House Greetings and sold at Trader Joe's and best of all 2 new full size colouring books with Andrew's McMeel - the first 126 page book Inspired Garden is available now for pre-order at Amazon - yay !!