Delicate Arch in Watercolor

When you think of Utah, an image of Delicate Arch from Arches National Park might be one of the first that pops into your head. It’s easily one of Utah’s most famous and iconic landmarks. Heck, it’s even on our license plates!

I have painted Delicate Arch a couple of times as little, fun paintings. The first was when I tried out some watercolor markers on a scrap piece of paper. You can watch a time lapse video of that painting here.

Another time I painted Delicate Arch was when I made a 5x7 birthday card for a close friend. That little painting I made into stickers as well. You can buy one HERE or by clicking on the image.

A couple of months ago, my youngest son requested I make a “big” painting of Delicate Arch and I figured it was time. By big, that’s usually on 11x14 paper. I am still working on organizing my studio space to accommodate larger paper.

I had lots of fun with this one using white gouache paint for the stars instead of masking fluid and really loving the warm purples in the shadows of the arch. I never get tired of painting beautiful red rock.

I have this painting available for sale at prints in 5x7, 8x10, and 11x14. Click on either of the images to link to those listings. This one will be available as a vinyl sticker soon.

HERE you can watch the time lapse video of this latest painting of Delicate Arch.

What should I paint next?

Three New Stickers

I added three new stickers to my shop this week. Click here to buy, share, gawk, critique, you know the drill. My #NPSLover stickers are listed first with my I ♥ Public Lands sticker right below them.

Up first is the painting I did last summer of the Milky Way over Sand Dune Arch at Arches National Park. I painted this during the weekend I spent at Draper’s Art in the Barn. It was a 2-day art exhibition (my first ever!), and I found it impossible to just sit or stand while people milled about, so I brought supplies to paint and ended up doing 3 small paintings.

Sand Dune Arch was a favorite spot of my kids when they were younger and didn’t much care about the awe of the park. Hike for just a few minutes in between these giant fins of sandstone and there’s an arch in there; it’s super short. It’s a wonderful spot to let little ones play in the fine sand and, depending on when you get there, you could rest in the shade. This spot can be super popular in the summer months when it’s hot. We’ve been to Arches multiple times, but only in April and May; which I HIGHLY recommend. Spring Break is a wonderful time to visit Moab.

You can click on the image to purchase a sticker too.

Next up is a painting I did of Corona Arch, just outside of Moab. It’s one of my favorite places ever and I did this painting for a client a while back to be printed on neck gaiters some day. For this sticker, I went with a new-to-me website, Jukebox Print, for these stickers and I LOVE how they turned out.

This is one of my favorite paintings and I had SUCH a fun time painting it. It was one of those times where I felt like I was in a groove and paper and paint just cooperated and coordinated.

Last up is Sundial Peak in Big Cottonwood Canyon and part of the Wasatch National Forest. I had to do some research to find out if this peak was on National Park Service land or BLM Land. I’m still not 100% sure, because I also see it tagged in the Twin Peaks Wilderness. This spot is close to where we live and it’s a hike I hope to do this summer. If I can plan it right (depending on snow melt and weather, we’ve had a TON of snow this winter), I want to do a backpacking trip there. It’s a tough trail with a lot of elevation gain, but it’s supposed to be worth it… barring the mosquito situation.

I painted this one just last month to help pull me out of a funk I was in. Finishing it, and subsequently making a few changes in Photoshop, really helped pull me out of my Winter Blues and the funk that I was in. I will have this available as a giclée print in a couple of sizes in the coming months.

I actually made a mistake when ordering this one as stickers. I didn’t pay attention to the wording on a sale and I ended up ordering 2x2 inch stickers. These are a lot smaller than I usually order, so I may just make these freebies to anyone who places an order.

I will order this in a 3x3 inch sticker at some point.

I want to paint some places that are gorgeous and not in Utah next. I have a few spots on my list like South Falls in Oregon, and I have a photo that I took of a beach in Half Moon Bay, California that I may paint. Any suggestions??

Traveling Gingerbread Man 2

In 2019, our friend Jaxon had an assignment in his class where he asked friends and family to send postcards and notes claiming they met the Gingerbread Man on their road trips and travels. I leveled up on our adventures and had a TON of fun in Photoshop adding the Gingerbread Man to some photos and sending fun messages to Jaxon’s kindergarten class. You can view that post here.

Last fall, my niece Maddie’s kindergarten class was doing the same assignment and I was STOKED to get to create a few more images and also send the ones I made before. Below are the photos along with the letters we sent. For these, we actually printed everything out and sent them in cards. Apparently they were a HUGE hit in her class.

Hi Ms. Conti's Class,

It's Matthew and Tommy again, Madison's cousins. We've done a lot of road trips lately, and it seems like we share a lot of the same interests as the Gingerbread Person. This July, we bumped into them while exploring the Trail of Ten Falls at Silver Falls State Park in Oregon. This trail is so amazing as we hike through a lush forest and we can see ten different waterfalls over the 9 mile hiking trail. On many of the waterfalls, the trail goes behind them! Thankfully, the Gingerbread Person didn't get too soggy when we splashed in the water with them. Wouldn't want them to lose an arm! We also shared some s'mores with them at our campsite. What a beautiful place to visit!

Hope we'll bump into them again this summer.

Love, Matthew and Tommy

Hola Ms. Conti's Class!

It's the Wong Family again, saying hello to Madison and wanting to share that we had a fun afternoon with the Gingerbread Person at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Crater Lake is the DEEPEST lake in North America at 1,949 feet deep! Wow! It's a crazy deep shade of blue and was formed from a volcano, so there are no rivers or streams that flow into or out of it. Pretty cool, right? We hope you can visit one day because it's such a beautiful place.

Adios, the Wong Family

Hi Madison and Ms. Conti's Class!

We spent a day exploring Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The sandstone cliffs and canyons look a lot like many places we've explored in Utah, but it has its own geological history. We watched some kids do some rock climbing, they climbed so high! It was a pretty hot day, but that didn't stop us from enjoying a couple of short hikes with the Gingerbread Person. We shared some fruit snacks and trail mix and we chatted about where they were headed next. The views were gorgeous and it was a really amazing place to explore after being on the road for so long. We hope you can check it out one day.

See ya! Matthew & Tommy

Below are a few repeats from the previous iteration:

Hello, Ms. Conti's Class,

Madison's cousins, Tommy and Matthew saying hi and sharing yet another Gingerbread Person sighting. They must have had the same road trip plans as us this year. We ran into them at the north shore of Lake Tahoe, California and they joined us for a swim in the crystal-clear water. The water is so clear in Lake Tahoe that we can see more than 50 feet down and it's the 2nd deepest lake in North America. We bid farewell when we got wrinkly fingers and advised them to do the same. Since they're made of gingerbread, we didn't want them to get soggy!

I hope they had a great time on the rest of his road trip!
Adios, Tommy and Matthew

Hi Ms. Conti's Class,

It's Tommy and Matthew again, say hi to Madison for us, we miss her! We were on a road trip with our parents and we stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats in western Utah to see if we could watch some race cars break land speed records. Did you know that the Bonneville Salt Flats are left over from when most of Utah was a massive ancient lake?? Lo and behold, we saw The Gingerbread Person too! They were scoping out some rocket cars and enjoying the weather. Thankfully it wasn't too hot, but wow, it gets bright when the sun reflects off of the salt! Sunglasses are a must! Wonder where they were headed next?

Best, Tommy and Matthew

Hi Ms. Conti's Class!

We are the Wong Family: Alex, Bill, Tommy and Matthew. We're Madison's cousins and we live in Utah. We were exploring Arches National Park in Moab, Utah earlier this year and you wouldn't believe who we ran into: The Gingerbread Person! They must have been on vacation, exploring the beautiful sandstone desert. They were so nice by sharing some gumdrops with us and we shared granola bars with them on the trail. We were totally photobombed too! What a stinker!
Love, Tommy and Matthew

Hello, Ms Conti's Class,

It's the Wong Family again, Tommy and Matthew. We were hiking with some friends in Big Cottonwood Canyon in the snowy Wasatch Mountains of Utah this week and we ran into our old friend, The Gingerbread Person. He said he was hoping to get in some skiing before another snow storm came through, and we hope he found some slopes, because it's supposed to snow again tonight!

We hope you're staying warm this winter, miss you Madison!
Cheers, Tommy and Matthew

Redbubble Store Merch

As much as I love being able to sell stickers of my artwork that I order and mail myself, I have been wanting to offer my artwork on a few different products. But I don’t want to have to buy the equipment to print on these items and then stress about shipping them. I already stress about the stickers and small prints I have, and they are pretty small!

So I have been looking for websites that will let me upload my artwork and sell fun items and I can make a few bucks when something sells. I sell a few t-shirt designs on Zazzle and I literally make $0.40-$0.60 on each shirt that gets sold. Yeah… that’s it. But it’s a place that people already know about to find fun t-shirt graphics.

So I’m giving Redbubble a try. I have set up a store with five paintings of my artwork. You can check it out HERE.

I’m just starting with a few right now. And once I have a handle on how it works, I may start adding new artwork that can also be printed on apparel. I love that you can get my paintings printed onto a coffee mug, magnet, water bottle, or a drawstring backpack or a throw pillow.

This artwork here on a drawstring backpack may be a new one for my fans. I made this painting of Delicate Arch from Arches National Park last year and gave it to a friend for her birthday. I am thinking of doing another sticker series like I did for “I heart Public Lands” and feature National Park Service sites and #npslover on them. I’m hoping to see more national park sites in the coming years so I can get more photo reference.

Anyone know of any other sites that work like this? I would like to sell prints through Redbubble, but they don’t let me pick and choose the print and poster sizes, and my images are too small for posters. I would like to sell greeting cards too, but they are grouped in with posters. I also would LOVE to find one site that does everything I want and not have multiple different websites where I sell merch…. someday.

New Look!

I mentioned a while back that it usually takes me a long time to design a logo for myself. I think I went six years once with the same logo simply because I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I made a new logo in 2018, and I felt ready for something new again in 2020.

Here’s my new logo; nice and simple. I’m kind of loving it.

The past few years have brought a little bit of a shift in the focus of my work; focusing more on contract work with companies and branding. I have reorganized the artwork on my website to focus much less on event invitations and party stuff. I am still happy to create that stuff, but it’s no longer my main focus. It turns out that creating a logo for myself kind of goes hand in hand with figuring out what the focus of my work is. I have been tremendously lucky to get to contract with a couple of amazing companies in the last few years and I really love the work.

I printed my business cards with Overnight Prints and I love how they turned out.

In addition to this refocus, I have always had watercolor as a part of my life, so it was fitting for it to still be prominent in my logo. With the Covid-19 pandemic forcing us to cancel travel plans, I took to my painting to virtually escape to the places I had hoped to visit and I built a little branch of my business with it.

I started with creating a YouTube channel (with some serious encouragement from my oldest son) and I started posted timelapse videos of some of my paintings. From there I started having these paintings printed as stickers and, as of last week, they are now for sale. Click HERE to see what I have for sale. I am going to try and get two more paintings done before the end of the year and then I’ll end my Utah’s Public Lands Series and look at starting a different series; or I may just paint some of my favorite outdoor spaces. I already have a finished painting of Delicate Arch from Arches National Park, but I’m not sure if I want to do a series on National Parks. We’ll see.

One thing I do know, I want to eventually have high-quality prints available of these paintings. In January, it’s on my to-do list to research printing options and find out what it’ll take to have a limited number of prints made, maybe I’ll sign them, and what will be involved with shipping them to customers and make sure they make it there in good shape.

If anyone has recommendations on a printer, please share in the comments! Even better if they can print on paper that feels like watercolor paper.