Lovely at Wonderground Gallery: Part 2

The queen.

In order to stay inspired as an artist, I find that it is best for me to constantly have multiple ideas and projects brewing. Every once in a while, though, I will have one project that I am just dying to work on. It brews and builds and eventually becomes an all consuming monster that absolutely has to get out or it will wreck me.

Enter this familiar face/hairdo/dress combo.

Ever since I worked on the Maleficent piece for the Sleeping Beauty Blu-Ray (which I realize I've never posted about….more on that later) I've been intrigued by creating fully sculptural paper pieces. They are so much more labor intensive and harder to plan than my usual relief fare, but part of what I find inspiring about creating any artwork is what I don't know...and subsequently learn in the process. And these pieces involve lots of learning. And failing. And learning some more. Sometimes (aka a lot of times) tears.

I learned A LOT while working on this piece, and I considered starting over from scratch quite often. In fact, as I went to photograph her to get final approval from Disney, I very nearly scrapped her altogether. It took my much more sane, balanced husband saying "What?! What are you talking about?!" to draw me back from the edge. I suppose the closer a project is to you, the harder it is to see clearly with objective eyes. Elsa means a lot to me - I wanted to be able to do her justice.

This piece is titled "One with the Wind and Sky", and it is my love note to her. It is my love note to Frozen - to the people who let me be a part of this wonderful film and for the two years that I was allowed to help craft it.  To Idina for lending her perfect voice, and for all of it for making pretty much all of my dreams come true. Geeze - we are in danger of having more Frozen gush sessions than mermaid posts around here.

This post is several weeks late - I had initially intended on posting her the day that she would debut at the Wonderground Gallery in Downtown Disneyland, but unfortunately a stomach flu put a wrench in all of my grand-master plans. I'm on the mend, though, and thought that she would be worth posting anyway. Thank you to everyone who has already made the trip to see her in Disneyland, and for all of your kind words of support. Happy Holidays to all!

2016 Calendar Girl Release Schedule

What a week.

First and foremost - I'm so sorry to anyone I missed at the Wonderground Gallery. A stomach flu hit me last Friday morning, so I spent 24 of the unhappiest hours of my life in a hotel room at the happiest-place-on-earth. Thankfully, I'm on the mend, but I'm so sad to have missed the event! I've got a second Wonderground post ready to go, so that those of you who weren't able to come to Anaheim can get a closer look at my second piece for the show - that should be up tomorrow…

But first! I had hoped to release this schedule earlier in the week, but sickness put a wrench in those plans. Sickness also halted production a bit, so I wanted to make sure that I would be able to hit this release schedule before putting it out there for all of you. So here goes!

2016 Calendar Girl Release Schedule

Sunday, December 13th at 10am PST

Sunday, December 13th at 9pm PST

Monday, December 14th at 5pm PST

Tuesday, December 15th at 2pm PST

Wednesday, December 16th at 10am PST

(all calendars will be listed in the shop right here)

I'm hoping that there will be about 50 girls released in each batch, and all orders placed up to and including Wednesday, December 16th will ship before Christmas. (Please note: this is the cut-off date for all orders before Christmas.) 

Somewhat like last year, I have received some comments and concerns about the purchasing process, so I wanted to spell out a few Etsy troubleshooting tips for making the whole experience go a little more smoothly:

• Check out quickly - Etsy does not hold items for you in your cart. I had many people complaining that they had calendars in their cart that were removed before they could check out. If you know that you would like to purchase a calendar, pick one and check out as quickly as possible to avoid losing out to another customer.
• One at a time, please. I can't set a limit on the number of calendars that an individual customer can purchase through Etsy, but if I could I would request that you purchase one at a time. This helps to make sure that the checkout process goes more smoothly, and also allows for more customers to get calendars!
• Try a few times. I'm trying to spread out the release schedule over a few dates and times to allow more people all over the world to have access to the calendars when the arrive in the shop. If you can't get a girl in the first round, please try again at one of the later times.
• Refill Clarity! A new issue that customers seem to be running into this year is confusion about the Wardrobe Refill Packs, so I wanted to take a second to clarify exactly what they are.  The refill packs are intended to replace previous-years' pages for customers who already own a Calendar Girl. Every new Calendar Girl comes with her own set of pages, so if you are looking to buy a full calendar there is no need to purchase a refill pack. Conversely, buying refill packs will not reserve full calendars. Basically, if you don't already own a calendar from a previous year, I don't recommend buying a refill pack (unless you are just looking to have a pretty set of dresses in your life :)

So that's it! Again, I want to sincerely thank you all for your patience and continued support. I'm so grateful to be able to create the things that make me happy and just hope that they can make others happy as well!.


Have a wonderful week, and cheers to a magical Holiday Season!

Lovely at Wonderground Gallery: Part 1

As I mentioned in the last post, this coming Saturday (December 5th) the Wonderground Gallery in Downtown Disneyland will be hosting all six of the Lovely girls for an artwork release and book signing! It will be the first time in a long time that Lisa, Lorelay, Helen, Vicky, Claire, and I will all be together, and we are all very excited!

I was asked to create some new artwork to be released at the event, and while I had quite a few initial ideas, top priority went to this young lady. Have I mentioned that I'm a fan? No? Huh. Well, I am.  It may be to the point of unhealthy obsession, but I try to channel that energy in the most productive ways possible. Thus, very large paper-cut artworks are born.

This piece is titled What's a Fire?, and stands at about 36 x 16 inches, making it one of the larges pieces I have worked on in some time.  I fear that I may sound like a broken record for those of you who have been around for a while, but Part of Your World was my introduction to pure magic, and remains the standard that I compare all movie moments to.  I could go on and on about why it is just perfection, but the bottom line is that it makes me feel. And I love that.

The original piece will make its debut on Saturday at 11am, and I believe that prints and possibly a few other items featuring the artwork will be produced through the gallery as well. I'm sure that the six of us will be taking pictures the day of, so stay tuned on instagram and twitter (and who knows, maybe even Periscope?) for real-time updates. 

And as you may be able to tell from the title of this post, this is just Part 1 of what I have in store for Wonderground. I'm really excited about Part 2 , and am hoping to share with you tomorrow:) 

Have a lovely evening everyone!