Back into my Illustration Groove

Good morning!

It's a short and tiny tree but it will do for our first married Christmas 

We most definitely put up our Christmas tree last night! We decided to just put the lights on it because we might be moving it to the top of our staircase since Andy has a tree that we still need to pick up from his parents house. Nevertheless, it was still super exciting to see the tree all lit up in our living room! I'll share another picture when we get the ornaments up!

The red cups are back!

Let's back up a little now. Yesterday afternoon was spent sipping coffee at Starbucks with Krystine while working on a project for work. We just learned earlier this week that we will be doing a collaboration design for our annual holiday gift for our clients. Each of the designers chose a month on Friday and then will design a calendar header for that particular month.

The end result will look something like this:

(source)

She chose October, while I went with the month of September, since it's my favorite month of them all. After chatting away while designing from opposite ends of the table, I came up with this. I'm still working on refining my tree and will add more leaves and branches, but this is the just of it! 

The apples/leaves signify Fall, while the cut-out letters reference the whole "back to school" craze that ensues the month of September. Do you think the picnic table needs something on top of it? Krystine and I were stumped by this and couldn't come up with a logical object to place on top. It's too early for pumpkins, and if I put a picnic basket, then I would need to add people to the scene.

Thoughts/suggestions are welcome!

While we were plugging away on our MacBooks, I mentioned to Krystine that sometimes I forget that I really enjoy design. I sit at my computer 40 hours a week designing all sorts of things but it is easy to forget what made you love it in the first place. For me, illustration is what gets me excited, inspired, and motivated and getting back into the groove of it all was a great reminder of this!

Alright, I'm off to wrap up some loose ends before hopefully heading over to the gym before 10am! Here's to being productive!

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Do you get excited for the red holiday cups at Starbucks? 
Is your Christmas tree usually real or artificial? 
Favorite holiday drink at Starbucks? I love the gingerbread one, only coming in second to the Pumpkin Spice latte!