Work In Progress...

Pretty Bird

Coming to a Wondercon near you!

I'm late (and lacking) in posts for the last week, but I promise to make it up to you even if I have to bake cookies for all of you. I'm in full prep mode for Wondercon, and I will have plenty of details to hand out in the next 24 hours, but right now all you need to know is that Bill and I will be at Small Press booth 13 (SP13), and you should stop by and say hi!

And for all of you IFers: Exotic birds are instinctively attracted to other pretty feathers. It was a no-brainer for this little guy:)

Sea Dragons!

Dave and I joined some friends last weekend at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and we had a blast! One of my favorite parts of the aquarium was the Sea Dragon tank. These things are crazy! So crazy, in fact, that they needed to be painted. So here they are. And wouldn't you know it? One of them has a crush on the mer-girl, so he's giving her a flower. Sea dragons are so sweet:)

I'm going to do something a little different with this and turn it into a limited edition print. I'm not sure how limited the run will be yet, but probably no more than 50. I will have this with me at Wondercon next weekend, and any left over will go up in the shop after that. I can't believe it is so soon! I certainly have my work cut out for me. There will be more updates on Wondercon things coming your way this week, but until then I leave you with this commercial that was stuck in my head throughout our trip to Monterey and also the entire time I was working on this painting. Enjoy!

Paris

Back in July, I was lucky enough to take my very first trip across the Atlantic to visit my brilliant friend, Sean, in Oxford. We spent a day in London, 3 days in Oxford, and 2 whirlwind days in Paris. The weather in the UK was surprisingly sunny and gorgeous, but our time in Paris was spent dodging sudden downpours. I didn't mind - the reflections from the rainwater made the city all the more gorgeous.

The IF topic this week is "Celebrate", and I felt this piece is appropriate because it is a celebration of my short time in Paris with my good friend. This is the second piece that I have made in honor of my trip, (this being the first) and I will be bringing both of them with me in print form to Wondercon. I may do a third of London, so stay tuned for that! Wondercon is two weeks away! Come by and say hi if you can!

Maui

Maui is a demi-god who is responsible for fishing the Hawaiian islands out of the sea. That makes him awesome.

He is also the last in my series of Hawaiian gods! Now I have to get busy on other exciting things. I missed my post last night, so expect at least two more posts from me before the end of the week. Happy Monday, everyone!

Girlhack Work In Progress

Girlhack Work in Progress from Brittney Lee on Vimeo.
I just realized that I never posted any of my artwork from this project. My good friend Meg came to me (nearly two years ago now!) with the idea of doing a video podcast for all things geeky, techie, and girlie. She asked me if I would like to animate the opening, and ofcourse I said yes. We have both been super busy since then, but I managed to get the opening for "Girlhack"near completion a while back. Since it is a Flash swf exported as a quicktime movie, there are some dropped frames and compression problems at the moment. But not to worry! I ran in to similar problems while creating the landing page video for Whirled and know what to do to fix these issues, but it is a pretty time consuming process and I just decided that it is fine as is for now. There is also one background missing, so when you see it just pretend that it is a huge shopping mall :)

On a bit of a sad note, I am no longer a Three Rings employee as of yesterday. Times are tough, and even totally awesome game studios are feeling the pinch. I wish all who are still aboard the Nautilus the very best. And hopefully this means that I will be posting more frequently, at least for the time being...

Happy Thursday everyone!

Not Easy Being Green

As I mentioned in the last post, I saw Wicked for the first time yesterday. I have so much to say about what I saw and how I felt that I just don't think I can do it justice yet. I need to process everything and put it into a well-written post, and I cannot do that this evening. What I can do is post this little sketch. Its not much, and it has its faults, but at least it is something. I think Elphaba is a fascinating character, both in the show and in Gregory Maguire's novel. I have been trying to draw her for years, and have never once come anywhere close to something that I like. This is not quite there yet, but it is a start. You can also expect more Wicked inspired artwork in the future. Have a great week everybody:)

Laka

Laka is the Hawaiian goddess of forest, plenty, song, and dance - namely the hula. The name "Laka" means gentle, docile, attracted to, and to attract, and thus she is also considered to be the goddess of love. I thought that was appropriate with Valentine's day coming up and all:) She is also the first of two new Hawaiian god prints that I will be bringing with me to Wondercon, so I hope to see you there! And if you can't make it, no worries - she will go up in the Etsy shop post-con as well.

I'm late again this week, but I will definitely have another post later this evening. Yesterday was a landmark day for me, because I FINALLY got myself to a performance of Wicked. Because my collective self is currently a jumbled soup of Wicked geek-outery, all I can say is if you happen to be in the Bay Area, do yourself a favor. Go see it. Now. More to come later.

Sketch

I'm working hard on my next Hawaiian goddess, but she isn't quite ready yet. I hit a bit of a wall with her this evening, so I took a break and did this quick sketch. Loosely based on Liv Tyler. Loosely:)

I promise to have more exciting posts this week, and Wondercon is coming up! Yay!

Love.

A little something I worked on this week for a wedding save-the-date. I have been super busy, and thus slacked on getting my first post out. But no worries, I'll get the second one in later today. Happy weekend:)

Sketchcrawl #21!

Dave and I joined a small group in Golden Gate Park yesterday for Sketchcrawl #21 and we had such a great time. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but it really was the first time in over two years of living in the Bay Area that I have been able to spend any time in the Haight/Golden Gate Park at all. Such an great area! We spent a good amount of time sketching at "Hippie Hill" before meeting all of the other crawlers at the De Young Museum, and boy were there some fantastic characters to be seen there. Alex (hackey-sacking above and below) was one of us, but everyone else was spotted either on Hippie Hill or the immediately surrounding area and hastily scribbled in my sketchbook:

the original sketchbook drawing of Alex

Hardcore biker dude.
Hippie girl with awesome hair.
Hula hooping chick who was not pleased when she caught me drawing her.I loooved her cut-out shirt.

Well, I just made it for my first week of "two posts a week", and I'm a bit worn out. Tune sometime in the next seven days for two more exciting posts! Until then, have a great week everybody!

Action Shots!

Caught in the act! Back in late July or early August, David was a bit sneaky and took some pictures of me while I was working. Cheeky monkey. Anyway, the paintings I am seen working on are a series of five watercolors featuring a pink-tailed, anemone-headed mermaid. My goal was to have between 20 and 30 of these little paintings (all of different mermaids) ready for APE, but the Hawaiian Gods and goddesses ended up taking priority. I have still have my list of different themed mermaids that I will get around to sometime in the near future, but for now I will just post these. I realized that I had only posted two of the five when I finished them, so now here are the rest. I hope you enjoy them! And I promise, promise, promise to post new artwork soon.


Oh - I have also posted these in the Etsy shop for anyone interested! Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Party Girl

Just a doodle I did today to get back into the swing of things after a few days of vacation. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and ate lots of different goodies with wonderful company! Now that Thanksgiving has passed, it is Christmas party time! This gal is all dressed up and ready to go to her first holiday party. Eggnog anyone?

Also, since it is the holiday season and all, I thought it might be a good time to add a few more items to the ol' Etsy shop. I just added a "Multitasking" print (see previous post) as well as a series of 5 small original mermaid paintings to the shop. Check 'em out! They all need good homes. I will be adding some more items throughout the week, so you might want to check back for updates! Happy December, everybody!

"Multitasking"

This is the second piece I made for this year's Purrr-casso art auction to benefit the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society. It is ink, watercolor, and collage on Canson paper, and measures about 12"x 6".The auction was held last Sunday in Emeryville and was a great success! So many artists donated so many beautiful pieces - it was a really fantastic time. Thanks so much to all of the artists who donated and all of the people who came out to support the Humane Society!

I am still in the process of winding down after APE and last week's auction, but I hope to get some new artwork up in the next week or so. In the meantime, I just added the two mini-prints I had at APE ( "Shhhh" and "The Flower of Lanai") to my Etsy shop. I also added my mermaid Holiday cards sometime last week, so check them out! Thanks for stopping by, and have a happy Monday, everybody!

Whirled Open for Business!

Whirled Landing Page Video from Brittney Lee on Vimeo.

According to the press releases that went out yesterday, Whirled.com is officially open for business! I have worked on this site for just over two years, and am pretty excited about it. In honor of Whirled being presented to the, uh.....world, I finally decided to get my act together and post this landing page video I made for the site a couple months ago. I directed and animated this little movie in Flash, and the characters are all avatars that you can wear in Whirled. The characters were designed by the talented artists who work here at Three Rings, including my partner in crime Bill Robinson, Jon Demos, Ian McConville, Sean Keaton, and Rick Keagy.

Some animation for a change! Yay! Enjoy!

Ku and All Things APE

Ku is the god of the East and the rising sun, while Hina is the god of the West and the setting sun. It is said that they pass the sun to one another as it makes its way through the sky. Ku completes my series of six Hawaiian gods and goddesses. Just in time!

APE starts tomorrow! Bill Robinson and I will be at table #283 with all sorts of goodies. Here is a map of the hall so you can get an idea of our location:


I will have 13x19 prints of all of the following:



and possibly even a few of this one:

I will also be selling these two mini-prints:


And all of the proceeds from the kitty min-print will go to the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society!

I will have ten small original mermaid paintings available, and two different sets of mermaid greeting cards (see previous posts). On top of all of that, I have bookmarks and buttons, so come by and say hello and grab some stuff!

Oh, and Bill and I will also have some books by the oh-so-talented Stephanie Laberis, so now there is just absolutely no excuse not to stop at our table. Hope to see you all there!

Hina

Hina is the Hawaiian goddess of the moon, death, and rebirth. One particular legend that I enjoy is that Hina lived in the sea and was tired of her toilsome underwater existence, so she left the water and escaped to the moon. Another interesting story about Hina is that she is linked to the God Ku by the sun. Ku is in charge of the rising of the sun and the early hours of the day, and then he passes the sun on to Hina who sets it in the West. Pretty neat, huh?

Print #5 of 6 that will be available at APE next weekend. Ohmygoshihavesomuchtodo! Until next time, enjoy!

Kanaloa

Kanaloa is the Hawaiian god of the sea, and is a complimentary power to Kane. He is also the god of death and the Underworld, and teacher of magic. Fisherman pray to him for protection, but he cannot always be trusted.

This is #4 of my six Hawaiian gods and goddesses that will be available in print-form at APE next weekend. That's right, November 1st and 2nd... and I still have two more to go! I am most definitely running late...

Purrr-casso

This is my first piece for Purr-casso - gouche and collage on Canson paper. Artwork is due on Saturday, so I don't know how many more (if any) I will be able to get done before then. I do, however plan to sell mini prints of this piece at APE, and 100% of the proceeds from this print will be donated to the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society! So, you can either get a print at APE or hold out for the original which will go up for auction a week later. Take your pick - its all for a good cause!

Also, I'm posting this to IF this week because it is pretty late for me to be JUST STARTING with this stuff. I was way ahead of the game last year. I have a feeling that I will probably be posting quite a bit to Illustration Friday this week because I feel like everything I am working on right now is late, late, late. More to come soon...

A Few of My Favorite Things...

Mermaids, small happy fish, and blue paper packages tied up with strings :)

Since this illustration features a present wrapped in strings, and since it is a Holiday card and holidays are some of my favorite things, I think it is an appropriate entry for this week's Illustration Friday. It really is much too early to be thinking about Christmas, but after working on these cards for a week I just can't help it. Now that they are finished, though, I need to focus on more pressing matters...

like what to be for Halloween?!

This is my second and final Holiday card for APE! Off to the printer they go! Have a great week!