The Trees of November
I love months like this…where I reflect back and realize how much I did creatively. Sometimes, day to day, it never feels like I have that much going on. But as I continue to get more into this month’s blogpost, I see I have been busier than I thought. I have been painting with gouache, drawing with colored pencils, using digital brushes to draw digitally and making my tiny ceramic vases on my tiny wheel too. So between 2-d and 3-d work, I seem to be covering a lot of creative ground. Take a look:
My monthly calendar illustration using gouache and colored pencils
Making cards is one of my favorite pastimes. I have been making them weekly for years. I love to create artwork and then send it snail mail. It never gets old!
Here is this month’s card creation:
Trees! As I continue to create digital artwork for my screenshot Saturdays on social media, I started to focus on a theme to help keep the creative juices flowing. I have always loved trees and sometimes what I do in the classroom bleeds over into my personal work and vice versa. My students were creating a landscape project focusing on depth with at least one tree. Next thing I knew…I am drawing trees! I had to get in on the fun too. Enjoy these trees and some with decorative lights!
Anytime Pam (@potterybypammy), Betsy (@endeavor_pottery) and myself get together we have a grand time of selling our ceramic ware, laughing and celebrating each others’ creativity and art work! We are the Bees Knees Collective. Our recent show was November 1st at the Homespun Holiday Craft Fair at Garner UMC Church. A wonderful craft fair, we so enjoyed ourselves! Thank you Pam for making all the magic come together! Pam and Betsy are fantastic at set up and knowing all the details for being successful at selling their ceramic goods! Thank you both for encouraging me to get out there more with my work!
Next stop:
Christmas Craft Fair at Pace Family Farms
December 6th, 2025
9:00AM - 3:00PM
(12701 Buffalo Rd. Archer Lodge, NC 27527)
Check out a few pictures from our last craft fair:
A sketchbook page
and a haiku….
Love your art comes next
Drawing through the ugly stage
Loving yourself now.
Do you remember this?
I drew these and now they are becoming ceramic brooches!
Or do you remember this?
These 2 sketchbook pages were the start of me thinking and drawing through some ideas to make some very simple, but fun ceramic brooches.
Take a look at my first batch of ceramic brooches below:
I am SOOO excited about these! I took my drawing ideas and a slab of clay and went to work to see if this idea could work into something cool! I am in love with each of them! A coffee mug, a flower, a green leaf, a puddle, a wave, a swirl, a red feather and a piece of pumpkin pie. I can’t wait to make more!
Ideas continue to flow as I move further away from the summer of the vase. Currently, I am designing and creating unique tiny vases that I am calling winter tree vases. These tiny vases will include a wide variety of tree like ideas that may just be glazed green in fun patterns or have a cool texture similar to a tree and may include a branch! This drawing above is where I like to begin with my fresh ideas. Some work out, some are tweaked in real time.
The pictures below are where these vases began….a few stars added to the tops! Winter Tree Vases is born! Stay tuned as they are wheel thrown and created from scratch!
One last note….
I am continuing to stay strong on my tiny wheel and produce more tiny vases, continuing to draw and illustrate both digitally and traditionally when I can and trying really hard to keep the ideas flowing. Trees both realistic and abstract and all the branches in-between kept me inspired this month!
Stay creative out there, just one more month in 2025~
MY IDEAS UPCOMING FOR DECEMBER 2025:
Start planning out new creative goals for 2026
Create/design holiday and seasonally festive illustrations
Continue creating winter tree vases on my tiny wheel
Continue creating Screenshot Saturday drawings
Continue to create weekly cards to send snail mail
I wanted to list out some ideas very quickly about what I might be sharing in my final blogpost of 2025! Stay tuned to see where next month takes me~
Hannah