Diagon Alley, could there be a better place on earth?

photo taken from here

Even if you're not a huge Harry Potter fan, you might recognize this place.  Maybe not for it's content but for the name itself.  "Diagon Alley" is literally a magical place within the world of Harry Potter where wizards go to buy all things magical.  Be it wands, spellbooks, potion ingredients, owls, quills, parchment paper, school robes etc.  Every young wizard visits Diagon Alley to gather their things together for a year at Hogwarts, the Wizarding school.

My cousin is a huge fan of Harry Potter and normally, for Christmas or birthdays, we'd exchange something that had to do with owls, I'm not sure how we got started on owls specifically haha but we've found some pretty good gifts between the two of us.  Anyway, this Christmas I discovered a similar gift as the one I'm about to show you and I died when I realized I could replicate for her BUT BETTER!

I made her an actual street sign of DIAGON ALLEY!

This is an in-progress shot with blue tape around the border to keep myself from smudging it.  I apparently got so excited to wrap it up that I didn't take a final finished shot *facepalm*

I had a real street sign sans letters from a previous freelance job and it was just sitting in my room. It was fate!  First I spray painted the whole side a flat matte white and then I used sharpie and acrylic black paint for the lettering. (Next time if I do this, I'm using decal sticker letters.  It would just be so much easier)

It was a completely white sign with black typography and a black border around the edges

She couldn't believe it when she opened it. It was unexpected and completely epic. I'm actually kind of jealous.


Hope you guys have a fantastic rest of your week!!

Cute as a button!

Hi guys!!

I told you I had something else up my sleeve to show you :)


As I wrote in my last post, I went to a baby shower for my cousin (Sarah) this past weekend.  This is the gift I made for her little boy and my other cousin's (Michaela) little boy.  So many boys!!

I've been trying to think outside the box and do more things that are illustrations but are also things people can use. Not just a cute painting or a fun card, but something that can be worn, or used, or taken places etc. So here's my little attempt at making some cute shower gifts for my cousinses. :)

Two little onesies!

I made them matching onesies that say "Cute as a Button" along the side! I made them two different sizes as Sarah's peanut, Brody, is still cookin, haha! And Ephraim (I hope I spelled it right) has already been there, done that!  This way they can match :)

These were really easy to make, if any of you wanted to try it.  I bought the onesies at Hobby Lobby but you can get them anywhere.  I washed them first because they were 100% cotton and I didn't want things to be shrinking after I applied the iron on backing.
Next I took an extra blue kids t-shirt we had from a musical last summer, cut out the circle and painted the face on.  Next I cut out some Wonder Under (WU) that is slightly smaller than the blue circle; I want the edges of it to come up and curl to add a bit of texture instead of a flat image.  Last, I followed the directions to apply the WU by ironing it to the blue circle first, peeling off the back, and then ironing it on to the onesie.  That particular backing is supposed to be able to be washed and cleaned without separating.


Here's a close up for you ...

Hope you guys liked these, I sure had fun making them. I can't wait to see both matching babies!

Hope you all have a fantastic rest of the week!

Roll! Roll! Roll in ze Mud!

I'm so excited to show you all this illustration! It's finally finished and it was SO MUCH FUN! I found myself smiling and giggling out loud sometimes while painting and I'm not ashamed because I love doing this! THIS is what I do! It's what makes me happy :D

(so if anyone would like to donate to the Annie Hobbs Illustration fund... please see my contact information! hahaha jk :)

A little background on what this piece was done for, my cousin Jessica had her 2nd little munchkin, Ally, a few months ago and I told her I would do a couple paintings for her as a gift.  She has done up her kiddo's room as a sort of cowboy/farmyard theme and these are to go with her decor.  This is the first of the two! It was meant to be a surprise, but she's been dying to see it and since she wasn't at our other cousin's baby shower this weekend.... she missed out on getting to take it home! Technically, it's still a surprise because she will see it in it's final form today hopefully.  Jessica, you should have come!! I can't keep my fans waiting! ;P

Here's the final illustration!

(*click on the picture to view them larger*)

Acrylic on Canvas

I wanted you guys to know too, I took these with my camera phone so I know the clarity isn't perfect. To be honest, I've been hearing a lot about work getting ripped off of blog posts and it's made me a little worried about final illos like this one. I don't like watermarks, but I don't know if slightly blurry pictures are any less detrimental either. What do you guys think? I'll definitely include a professional photograph on my website portfolio, but I'm not so sure about putting it here. For now at least.

I also thought it would be fun to do some progression shots!

Here's some of the process so you can see how the canvas started and sort of what areas I focused on first.

I worked from the background with more subtle color choices to the foreground with a much brighter and bolder color range.

I utilized a lot of bright under painting with this and it worked really nice! I loved the warmth and tone it set while I built up the texture and rendering. 


Here's a shot of my poor desk! I have so many things on there that I'm trying to find space for haha

And here's one last shot of the momma pig... she's so fat and cute and silly! She makes me giggle :)

So there is the first of two in my "Barnyard Series" :) Again, I had so much fun painting this, although I have to confess, I'm really not a fan of acrylic paint! I've tried a few times with not a lot of success to use this type of paint and I really don't like it! I'd much rather use my watercolor and gouache instead.

Maybe it's because it dries super fast or the brushes I have aren't that good and go all wonky... I get frustrated because I can never get the amount of detail I want. I know that's probably weird to some of you... I dunno...

Until tomorrow!

I have another set of SUPER CUTE things to show you! get your "Awww-factor" on!