Revision to the red door

I wasn't too pleased with the version I did of this piece in a previous post. And since this was another barter piece I wanted it to be something that I would be proud to sell.

I will barter you my taxes for two chickens

Or a portrait of your grandchildren. My sisters father in law generously offered to do my taxes this year. As a little thank you I drew this picture of his grand-girls.

Playing around

What?! An illustration not based around a figure? Unheard of! I wrote that and then realized only one is not based on a figure. Eh. I'm trying.

Pourquoi Pas? - A Journal of Fashion Illustration

If I had roughly 60 dollars right now to spare, I would be buying Issue 2 of Pourquoi Pas?, a magazine devoted purely to fashion illustration published in the UK. I love the idea that there is a magazine that illustrates its subjects, such as Dita Von Teese, with a series of illustrations rather the a glitzy airbrushed photo shoot. It gives me hope. My college had this crotchety weasel of an agent come in to review our portfolios senior year. Mine went something like " Your book illustrations suck. ( true. I'll give him that) But your fashion illustrations are great... To bad fashion illustration is dead!". Nice guy. I thought he was wrong then and I still do.

What I think it's TIME for

I'm a cheater this week. I wanted to enter Illustration Friday and get a Valentines illustration done too. Here is what I think it's time for this Valentines. Better then flowers and chocolates.

"25 things about me" why won't you leave me alone?

As we all know, Facebook's "25 things about me" is sweeping us all with an infectious rate.
It hits all the trigger points which are-

1) Being a time waster. Don't we need more of those in our lives.
2) A reason for introspection. What topic do we all love more the ourselves?
and 3) What do we love even more then ourselves?
Telling other people about ourselves of course!

I've read a bunch of 25s ( see reason #1) and they range from fun and light
to the really, really personal.
I like to think mine was that happy medium between
"My favorite food is Thai" and "My last blood test revealed that....".
But regardless, "25" inspired a new piece I plan on continuing.
My #7 was- " My mother doomed me to dorky interests. You think the woman that cringed at the pictures of herself with an accordion would know better."
It got me thinking off all the interests I inherited from Mom. She never told me about any of them growing up, I just happened to fall into them on my own.
Well, not the subject of this first piece. This first one is all her!
Her parents decided that she would play the accordion. I can't believe even in 1962 it was remotely cool thing to do. In turn, she repaid them by sentencing me to,
wait for it... the church organ.
Hearing me play the theme song from Cheers must not have been a treat for her so in that I had my revenge. Luckily for all of us, musical talent and I have manage to avoid each other to this day. My stint at the organ was brief but, oh does the memory of it live on...
in countless jokes told by friends.

New Prints

My favorite part of any "corporate" job I've had has definitely been print design. I remember my friend Lara and I sitting in a Starbucks years ago during our lunch break. I had told my new job I knew how to do full repeats in Illustrator. At that time I barely could use illustrator in general! Best way to learn, something new fast? Shear panic. By the end of that lunch mapped out on napkins, I learned how to do repeats.

I'm working on a new collection of prints. Here are two I did yesterday.

Part 1

Research, research, research

I can research a project to death. Before I know it, it's been 4 hours on the computer or in a library. I needed picture of 80s clothing for children for a new piece. And boy did I get some. I actually love the reinterpretation of 80s fashion that are out right now, the bright colors, the bold prints. And I forget that it sooooooooo was not like that. This is what I remember. Eek.
I totally remember rocking the "collegiate" matching sweat pants look. And the zip up neon number? Oh, yeah. I believe I had a summer spent in those. Thank god there aren't any photos.

Need a St. Pats T-Shirt?

buy unique gifts at Zazzle

For all your St. Patrick's Day needs. Why not a t-shirt designed by moi, as my childhood roll model Miss Piggy would say? More in the works.

It's most wonderful time of the year....

I cannot believe that I am preparing for St. Pats day already! I also can't believe that this will be my fourth annual St. Pats day brunch. I just finished the illustration for this years invite. Let the count down begin to the one day a year I drink a Guinness.

True Blood Montage

Sometimes you just have to leave a piece alone. I forgot that I can tweak something to death. I'm pretty happy with the end result.

True Blood- Sketch Phase

So I now have a website....which I haven't told anyone about yet. But I will soon! This is besides the point. While building the site I had plenty of time to repeatedly look at my portfolio and noticed some blaring holes. The list being as long as my arm. At the top of the list is MEN. I have two in my whole portfolio. Yeah. Not good.
Another hole I want fill is my pop culture illustration void. I like pop culture. I have a few pieces from the past but my caricature of Helena Bonham Carter holding puppets of Kenneth Brannagh and Tim Burton is more then a little dated at this point.
Oh and just for the hell of it I decided to throw in my past nemesis- the montage.
Here are my beginning sketches for my MONTAGE, involving LOTS OF MEN, and my newest POP CULTURE obsession, True Blood.
Oh and please allow me to geek out for a moment. I really wanted to do a Charlaine Harris book version of this but I thought sticking with the TV show would be more relevant. Thus Eric and Pam get put in the background. Which stinks because my portrait of Alexander Skarsgard came out pretty damn good.

By the way, Stephen Moyer... Really hard to draw! There's this whithered quality to his face that is driving me nuts trying to capture.

trying to embrace my natural inclinations

I've spent most of my artistic career fighting against my natural inclinations. Art teachers can be wonderful people in your life but they can knock you off your path too. I've spent years trying to be a "serious illustrator" my teachers loved. Norman Rockwell! NC Wyatt! Leynedecker! I don't know what I thought that meant but all I did was doubt every thing I did. I was starting to annoy myself. This week I spent kicking my own butt trying to figure out what I like and don't. My friends cat totally awed me last night. One, because I truly dislike cats ( if you make me sneeze, I don't like you) and two, because of his personality. As he looked down at my from his throne/ top of the refrigerator, he glared right into my eyes and crossed his legs. Thats it. I was sold.
The whole Alice thing is a little tired for me but you have to start somewhere. And this is the first piece this week where I think I might be getting somewhere.