Pretty States

One of my bestselling designs for the past 6 years has been Oregon.

I thought it would be cool to do some other states in the same style, but just have never gotten around to it. 

One of the things I love about selling on Etsy - selling directly to customers rather than using a third party like I do with Redbubble - is the ability to hear from the people who are buying my art.  One customer asked me recently to create a Washington and Colorado sticker in the same style.  I thought that was a great idea, so I dove in.

First I started working on my neighbor state, Washington. Like I did with Oregon, I decided to include the state bird (Goldfinch) and an iconic mountain peak (Mount Rainer).  I also included the state flower (rhododendron) and other iconic things such as fir trees, ferns, and clouds -- all things that us Oregonians are also very familiar with.

Here are a couple of process pics followed by the finished design.

I'm really happy with how it turned out. The sticker isn't available yet, but will be soon.

Now I'm working on the Colorado design.  It's coming along a lot quicker, since I feel like I have somewhat of a formula down now with state bird + state flower +iconic mountains +doodles.

Here's my initial sketch.

And a peak of me working on it this morning at Jola Cafe while Ransom was in preschool.

And of course now I want to rework my original Oregon design, because I drew it 6 years ago and so now find parts of it cringe-worthy...

But Oregon is indeed such a beautiful state. Yesterday we saw a lovely waterfall, played at the beach and were home by bedtime.

Yeah it was windy.  And so lovely.