Mary Richmond Design

New In My Shop

Every year since my kids were born I have sent a holiday card depicting my family, including the pets, in caricature. It started innocently enough but as people started to collect them and egg me on the later ones got more and more elaborate. These are from the middling period when the kids were big but not quite teenagers yet.

I am offering custom cards of people's own families on Etsy this year and have just posted these.

I also posted this little guy.

And this little guy....

They are one of a kind ceramic sculptures that are very small--just a few inches high.

You can find them all here.

Paintings and Valentines

A morning spent with students, drawing and painting flowers....I really like drawing flowers but I'm not a big fan of painting them. I don't know why that is. I love painting gardens, so go figure....

These are some little designs I'm working on for Valentine's Day. I always send lots of cards for Valentine's Day and like to have some for sale in the shop, too.

I played with my colored pencils this afternoon, always a fun way to spend some time.

Here's a close up of two little buddies....

Irisz Christmas Cards

Check out these cute little cards by Hungarian artist Irisz Agocs. She is an illustrator and artist and has a line of whimsical Christmas cards going on sale online later this week.

Creating Characters

These sketches are the first attempts at drawing the characters for a children's book I am working on. The story is a chapter book for children 8-11 and is about kids 11-12 years old who are friends and amateur sleuths in their neighborhood. The story is set in the 60's.

The main character is this young lady, seen here with her dog and her binoculars.

Her two buddies are a young man, seen here in two incarnations, and the young lady in the blond pigtails. They're all a little goofy, smart and individualistic.

The other girl is another character, more put together than our little trio, and one of the antagonists in the story.

My thought is to illustrate the book like the old Pippi Longstocking and Nancy Drew books.. They had plenty of pictures even though they were meant for older readers. The pictures were anecdotal and fun and helped move the story along.

If you've seen my holiday cards you know the type of drawing I'm aiming for. Fun, sort of charicaturish and descriptive all at the same time. Let me know what you think....