Alphabet project

For years I've followed many hand lettering artists. Something has always drawn my attention to it but never fully dove in and explored. So at the beginning of 2018 I decided to give this a try. Between January and February of this year the project to illustrate each letter will be complete. I'm excited to see, at the end of the project, if I feel comfortable and if my interest grows.

more coming soon...

Pushed and Pulled

Wow! What a rough week this one has been. When I look back on the week and recognize how burnt out I feel, I recognize this feeling of being pulled here with one responsibility, Pushed that way by another. Pulled this way by passion projects. Pushed that way by the day job. If it wasn't one thing it was another. This sounds like I'm complaining. I'm not. What I also recognized is that this was all a result of choices I made. It is also my muscles growing. Stretching and growing my capacity. This, as much as it may suck, will also one day be the reason that I push through and keep my dreams of illustrating alive. It's what I love to do and the day job is how I'm going to make that happen. For now. 

Adam Gonzalez Make Moves

Make Moves is a phrase that hand lettering artist and designer, Adam Gonzalez, lives his life by. He recently created stickers from that design and I was able to get my hands on one, when I met him at Creative South.  So naturally the sticker made it into my sketchbook for the I See You, I Hear You project. 

I met Adam Gonzalez at Creative South too and he handed me his 'Make Moves sticker, but when I got home I realized that amongst the many conversations we had, I never asked him why he created a piece with that phrase. I remember really being interested in finding out what it meant to him.  Why were those words important? This was a conversation I wanted to have.  I texted him on Sunday and we set up a phone call date for last Monday and chatted for a little while. What a story! What a dude! What an inspiration!

I mean, he wanted to call me and tell me his story. How cool is that? That was so humbling and now I have so much respect for him.

Adam Gonzalez has been dabbling in design and lettering for the last three years. He mentioned that he was blessed with people who reached out to him and brought him under their wings to train and teach him.  But he struggled with a couple things such as a tendency to always look for shortcuts and hoping that someone else would just show him how different processes were done.  This caused his work to just fall short of where it could have been as it drove him to not spend as much time creating, iterating and practicing. 

Friends, here's where it gets interesting and amazing, In the last 7 to 8 months he's felt an unexplainable push from God to make things happen. To not put this gift he has to waste.  Make moves in the right direction, if you will. He started to feel like if design and lettering was something he wanted to do, he needed to show up daily and put in the work necessary to grow his creative muscle. 

Chatting with him on the phone, I was awe struck. I could feel the passion he has now. The urge to keep making, keep growing and the conviction to not waste this gift he's been given.

He in that one phone conversation has motivated me to continue this project past the people I met at Creative South and to keep looking for new connections. He's also taught me that this gift I have for illustrative papercutting is not permanent. So I need to MAKE MOVES while I can. 

Thanks for checking in friends! :)

Diane Gibbs - Design Recharge

Diane Gibbs (of @designrecharge podcast) is an awesome woman I met at @creativesouthga seconds before I was leaving on Sunday. The minute or two we chatted has lead to so many conversations and a lunchtime skype call to connect more and learn more about each other.

Diane, for those of you who do not know her is a designer, creative, host of the podcast called 'The Design Recharge Show'. But out of all of these skills and attributes, the thing that stood out to me the most was her ability to connect with me (and others), connect others with each other, her readiness to meet the next person on their journey and her overall energy to be a cheerleader and motivator on your side.

I am so very grateful I mustered up the courage to say "hello" even though I had to leave and was nervous (maybe even scared], it has already proven to be such a fruitful decision. I cannot wait to learn more from her and grow more because of her.

Thank you Diane Gibbs!

[also 🎂🍰🎉Happy Belated Diane Day🎉🍰🎂]
Also it was around her birthday when I initially wrote this post.

Scotty Russell - Perspective Collective

Scotty Russell [ @prspctv_cllctv / Perspective Collective ] has been an amazing mentor and coach to have (one of many) on my creative journey.  Prior to Creative South Scotty was someone I could only describe to others as internet creative mentor or internet friend.  Thankfully I can now call him family. 

This dude has been eating, breathing and living everything he teaches and is such an inspiration to me. His story and life journey is amazing. He is a creative coach, mentor, fighter and friend. He is someone you'd want to have on your side. 

One of the biggest lessons I have learnt from him is that in order to succeed and be happy at what you're doing you have to find where your greatest passion and greatest strength intersect. Then step into it and live there. This process may cause you to step into a place of fear but from this place of fear will come great things.

Thank you so much for all you've shared with me freely, brother!

“[F]ind where your greatest passion and greatest strength intersect. Then step into it and live there. This process may cause you to step into a place of fear but from this place of fear will come great things.”

— Scotty Russell at Creative South

Fred Rodriguez - Aesthetic Supply Co

I met Fred Rodriguez (Aesthetic Supply Co.) at Creative South and we had a conversation that I will never forget. We talked about family, faith and creativity. His passion for all of these things (and in that exact order) was so obvious it was as if it was the essence of his life. Let's talk about motivating. I've come back much more motivated to tackle being a husband, christian and a creative than I felt like I was before I left. I felt stuck two weeks ago and this conversation, one of the first conversations I had that evening, started me on my journey of re-fueling, learning, gaining energy and becoming motivated to pursue my passion. 

Fred creates amazing typography and illustrations. In this spread of the book you see the camera sticker along with some branding that I've incorporated into my illustrative papercutting.

If you guys have a minute, I would recommend checking Aesthetic Supply Co. out at www.aestheticsupply.co . You won't be disappointed.

Tools I use

Hey friends,

Some housekeeping:

Apologies for the delayed newsletter. We were experiencing a few technical difficulties with the the website. Everything is resolved and functioning properly now after a few days, and late nights, of troubleshooting. Phew!  This newsletter is what should've gone out last Thursday.  You will still be receiving this Thursday's email right on schedule. 

Thank you for your kindness and patience.

... onto more important things.

 

The Cuttink-y Tools

A question I am asked often is “what type of tools do you use?” So I figured it is time I wrote about the tools that are part of my arsenal. 

Pocket sized sketchbook

One of my first products created were Cuttink mini-books. I use them all the time and am alway carrying them in my pocket. It is great item to have on me at all times. Especially when it is sized perfectly to fit in my pocket. They are perfect to jot down ideas or do a quick sketch whenever inspiration or ideas hit me. This allows me to not forget awesome ideas that come to me at times where I cannot sit down and create.

Now, any pocket sized sketchbook or notebook will work, I just happen to love the Cuttink ones a lot ;).

You can read more about the mini-books here.
 

Paper

I find myself usuing watercolor paper for mostly all of the paper cutting pieces and ink drawing work I do. I normally purchase the different size pads depending on the size of the work I am creating at that time. I enjoy the thickness and rigidity of the paper as it holds up well even after it has been cut. It holds the ink well too and has an amazing texture to it. The thickness of the paper also allows for light to cast a shadow onto the wall behind it without allowing light to go through the acutal paper itself.

Lead holder

The Clutch Lead holder contains 5.6mm lead. It is definitely much thicker than a traditional pencil but I enjoy the bold weight for the free hand sketching part of my process. The aluminum body and tapered shape of it make it comfortable to hold. It even has an integrated sharpener in the cap.

Pencil

Other than the lead holder (see above) that I use, I find myself using a 0.5 BIC Mechanical pencil, No.2 lead. 

Pen

It should come as no surprise to any of you that I solely use Micron pens for all of my inking work. I love them and treasure them. I own a set from 005(.20mm) to 08(.50mm) tips. However I find myself using the 005, 01 and 02 the most. I own these microns in black (mainly), blue, green, red and brown. 

Occasionaly I find myself having to fill in a larger area with black ink. If this is the case I use a fine tip Sharpie marker. 

Knife

The Knife itself: To cut the paper I use a rubber grip X-acto knife. I choose the rubber coated knife over the metal one as it feels better in my hand. I find that the metal ones last a lot longer than the rubber coated ones. So it is definitely a personal preference. 

The Blades: For the longest time I was using the ‘normal’ X-acto blades for all of my cuts, the ones that everyone recognizes. I noticed that these blades were not the best for cutting more intricate curved lines. So after a little bit of research I came across the #12 small and curved blades that I use now for pieces that have a lot of curves. I switch between the blades depending on the cuts that I need to make. This also allows me to prolong the life of the blade by not forcing it to bend and turn in a way that it is not designed to. 

NOTE: Change blades when they become dull. If you don’t it will only hurt you and your work. You will use more force and strength to cut the paper than necessary. 

Cutting mat

I have three Alvin and Co. self healing cutting mats. 

1] A 24x36 inch mat which is permanently on my workspace desk. 2] The second is a 12x18 inch mat and will occasionally travel with me if I’m working on a medium size piece away from my studio.

3] The last one is a 8.5x11 inch mat which travels with me most of the time. 

Watercolor pencils

I occasionally find myself using color, a very recent step as I am not very sure of my color choices. But when I do I use a set of Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils as it works best with the watercolor paper that I draw on. 

If you have any other questions that you would like me to answer, click on the ‘reply’ button.

Recap

Hey Friends,

I am sorry for leaving you guys newsletter-less for the past couple weeks without any notice. I'm not happy that I allowed myself to do that and am working towards not allowing that to ever happen again. That said, let us get back on track.

What's happened during the last couple weeks?
It has been a busy couple of weeks here at Cuttink and on the personal side too. Many things have happened and there are a few exciting things that are in the works.

On May 9th and 10th Cuttink was at the largest craft fair, Art Star Craft Bazaar, we've been at.  Both days were awesome, filled with old friends, new friends, new connections and a lot more sales than I had anticipated.

Any new products?
I released a new t-shirt.  The 'Weather Through the Storm' tee. Each t-shirt is made with love and care. Waterbased ink -- so soft to the touch and no "thick ink" feel -- printed on Royal Heather Blue American Apparel tees. Each shirt has a hand sewn tag at the bottom and is packaged in a beautiful white box. 

The image on the t-shirt is very important to me as it reminds me that I need to always keep looking forward no matter how tough the 'now' is. The turbulent waves represent whatever hardships that you or I may be facing at this time. The moon, as all of you may know, is something that I consider to be beautiful and peaceful. Having the turbulent time set to a back drop of the moon serves as a reminder for me to 'ride the waves' and 'go with the flow'.  No matter how tough what I'm facing currently is, if I can weather through the turbulent waves, I will come out stronger and tougher.  

Check out the images below to see a few pictures of the t-shirt.

Below: The 'Weather Through the Storm' tee 

Thank you guys, once again, for being fantastic people and staying interested in what I write to you. 

Is there are any questions about ink drawing, paper cutting, t-shirt printing, packaging or design in general that you would like answered? please send me an email by hitting the 'reply' button.  I'd love to know what you guys would like to hear about. 

Accountability Matters

Hello Friends,

I have said this before and will say it again, I am very blessed to be surrounded by talented, passionate, knowledgable and good people. This has been monumentally helpful for me and I hope that you have this in your lives too. 

Accountability:

A few friends and I meet weekly to keep each other on track with our creative pursuits. I remember a few months before I decided to make this a regular action in my life thinking to myself that I did not need another person's help. I can keep myself on track and achieve all the goals I made for myself.

The problem with this was I never spent time checking in with myself about where I was going, was I hitting all of the goal I set or even did the direction and the steps I was taking make sense. I would keep moving deadlines simply because I did not complete tasks in time. I would round about steps simply because I did not see the effective option. Don't get me wrong. I was making forward progress, but just not at a pace I would have liked. So the current plan and trajectory was awfully ineffective and started to become frustrating

Having these meetings have helped me to stay focused. We have created a safe space at each meeting to catch up, talk about whether we've hit our goals, future direction, what we are creating, etc. Having these meetings with consistent regularity has made it possible for all of us to plug away at the work ahead of us and also see new directions or processes we may not have seen. 

I urge you to check in with yourself and with other people consistently. I really do feel this is a very important way in which we can all grow no matter what we are trying to do. Whether it is growing in your faith, creativity or business, we all need to be surrounded by people who are willing to be part of that journey with you and keep you focused. 

I would love to hear back from you about the processes that you have in place to keep you focused? Also, if you have any questions that you'd like me to tackle in my future posts, simply hit the 'reply' button. I love hearing from you. 
 

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Did you know that I have pocket sized sketchbooks, notebooks and checklists?

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