For me this was a no brainer, because you know, cooked crabs are orange! Im a Maryland girl born and raised, so crabs are a staple meal. They train you to pick crabs young here! Well, at least I was taught young. They are one of my favorite meals and I have loads of crab artwork and toys laying around the house.

I started by designing a basic repeat pattern for the umbrella itself. I started with the above sketch and went from there.

After I finished the umbrella, I felt like I should keep going. So of course I designed an entire line of crab fabric. I made sure to include some crab crackers and a mallet on some, then some Old Bay on others. Oh and I didn’t forget the uncooked blue crab in murky Chesapeake water! I made it all. Ha. I think this might be my new fabric line, I have plans to make an entire quilt using it!!!

You can find all of these prints in my Spoonflower shop, and maybe soon I’ll have some premade zipper pouches too, because “why not?”

Anyway, back to the Just Two Words Project…

I am still loving this and its been both challenging and fun each week. You should go check out Heidi’s post from this set, I love the direction she went.

I ordered a swatch from Spoonflower as usual, and I added it to my Society6 shop.

Now you can have all of my daily fashion essentials on a Mug, Pillow, Wall Clock, Phone Case and more!! How fun!

Anyway, now onto what the doodles below are all about…

A new friend I have met through IG, Lindsay of Em & Sprout (she makes super duper cute prints, clothes and accessories) has set up a daily doodle challenge. #animaldoodleaday . She put together a list of 31 different animals to doodle (I struggle saying draw, because I’m not sure where my art belongs. A rant for another day). One animal for each day of the month. I don’t normally take part in these type of challenges, but I’ve been feeling stuck lately and I did buy myself some new pens last month, so “why not?”.

Every night before bed, I sit down with a pencil and a brush pen and I quickly draw that days animal. I try not to put too much thought into each one, because if I did, I’d psych myself out. I guess I’m a nervous artist.

I’m falling in love with the process of art all over again. Apparently it was the right time to jump back in, and ignore my worst critic… me. To help with my “art anxiety” I am going to post some of my pieces each week for the next four weeks. They aren’t in any particular order, I just put them together in a way that was pleasing to my eye.

So here goes…

I am nowhere near a perfect artist, but I feel like sharing everything I do will help my anxiety and confidence. Maybe. Haha. One nice thing that has come out of this exercise is I’m opening my mind up to a lot of options. I want to create again, I’m not feeling AS lost.

Am I the only one who gets nervous about sharing the stuff they draw?