Heal's Hollow Studios

Today was a day for designing and making stickers.  The end of summer means the beginning of the festivities in my world.  Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s are all quickly approaching.  And with that comes the possibilities of creating fun and whimsical items in our studio. 

The fall weather seems crazily warm, but the golden sunlight and colourful leaves are just the motivation I need to get this season’s artistic adventures into high gear. 

And with that in mind I began experimenting in the wonderful open source program called Inkscape. 

I am an old dog but with the many tutorials available online I am slowly learning how to take my pencil sketches to the computer screen using this amazing program.

Creating these simple designs and then transferring the files to my cutting machine took a few hours but the end result was very satisfying. The art is simple – quick sketching, not much in the way of refinement and then adding layers of colour. Traditional imagery of leaves, pumpkins, skulls, spiders and bats seemed appropriate for the start of October. Even if the temperature is trying to tell me summer isn’t done with us yet.