IF: Hoard

And suddenly she's back from the dead!

Yes, I know I'm lame and haven't posted in 2 months, but I swear I have good reasons. I've been hard at work on several projects at once, none of which has been fit to post here. Yet. Hopefully I will be able to throw some of the work I've done up here in the near future, but I have other plans for the blog as well. So stay tuned and hopefully I will have more goodies to show shortly.

For my return to Illustration Friday, I decided to post about something that I am guilty of hoarding - fashion magazines and catalogs. This is a habit that I inherited from my mother, and one that I'm pretty sure I will never kick. I love looking at fashion, especially when it is photographed well. I very rarely have time to actually walk into any of the stores I receive catalogs from, and even when I do, I am usually either overwhelmed or intimidated within seconds and end up walking right back out the door. Having catalogs delivered right to my apartment allows me to enjoy all of the pretties from my favorite stores while sparing me the trip. Plus, they are full of so much drawing inspiration! Honestly, that's part of the reason I keep them....even though I hardly ever look through them more than once or twice. But today they are coming in handy! Today I am glad that I hoard them!

These two poses come courtesy of the"White House/Black Market" catalog. Um, I love this place so much. And that dress?! I would live in that dress if I had the money to buy it. And looked like the model. No, seriously, I would.

Daydreaming

Here is a very primitive self portrait sketch. I guess this is how I've been feeling lately - swamped with things to be working on but still finding time to daydream up new ideas. Now if I could only figure out how to finish something...

Have a great week everybody :)

Ladies and Gents, I present Whirled.com

This is what I have been working on for almost 2 years.

Whirled.com is a flash-based virtual whirled/social networking site that just went in to open beta about a week ago. You can chat, play games, make friends, decorate rooms, make stuff and all kinds of other things. I was one of the first artists on the game so it is really neat to see people actually playing in Whirled.I would have posted about it sooner, but one of the coolest features was not available. What is this cool feature? Why, the ability to embed Whirled right onto your blog, ofcourse! If you scroll down to the bottom of my blog (and have the latest flash player) you should see it. You will show up as a little ghost, but you can walk around the room and talk to people. You can even play bingo in the room I embedded below! just click on the tote with the "B" on it to play. If you like it, or if you want to learn more, please go to Whirled.com and sign up! And then come say hi - I'm on most of the time and my username is (big surprise) "Brittney". Hope to see you there!

*UPDATE* I now have a different room embedded below, but if you walk out the door on the left side of this new room, you will find yourself in the room with the bingo bag. You should explore and play! It is a lot of fun :)

Sketchcrawl 18

Some sketches from Saturday's Sketchcrawl:


My warmup: quick uniball sketches of everyone sketching. Most of the time I would look up and the person I was drawing would be drawing me! A fair trade, I suppose.

A sketch from the park at Fort Mason. Dave fell asleep on the grass while I worked on this. I think he had a nice nap.

This girl in Ghirardell Square knew she was being drawn. She was posing for us.
It was a bit chilly.
Inside Ghirardelli Cafe. I suspect she knew I was drawing her, hence the rather unpleasant look. Other than that, there really is no reason to look unpleasant inside the Ghirardelli Cafe. Ever.

Saturday was certainly a day full of drawing for me! Bill, Dave, and I met up with the San Francisco Sketchcrawlers at Ghirardelli Square at 11am, stayed there until sketchbook swapping was wrapping up at 6, and THEN Bill and I went directly to a single's mixer for the Berkeley Humane society where we volunteered as caricature artists. Neither one of us had ever really done caricatures for people before, so I hope we didn't disappoint. The event was a lot of fun because we were doing portraits of people AND their dogs! So thanks to Piper, Travis, Macgregor, Jack, Brutus, and Sassy Girl (and their owners ofcourse, because I can't possibly be expected to remember people's names) for making it such a fun evening. And thanks to Bill for inviting me to tag along.

"Pet" Peeves

A few weeks ago I found a collection of Chuck Jones animated shorts at Target. The collection included a short about Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a mongoose who is adopted into a family and risks his life to protect them from two cobras living in the garden. I've loved this short as a little girl and still find it inspiring today.
I originally began this illustration for the IF topic "garden" a few weeks back. Since I've been swamped with all kinds of work lately, I haven't had much time to finish it. I hope it works for the IF topic "Pet Peeves". The way I see it, the cobras (especially Nagina, who is pictured here) are Rikki-Tikki's pet peeves. And he is the family pet. The Pet's Pet Peeves...
Anyhow, enjoy!

And as I mentioned before, stay tuned for some exciting developments later in the week! Have a great Wednesday!

Much too long...

It has been too long since my last post. Between taking a very short vacation, being extra busy at work, and having a couple freelance projects that are taking up the majority of my free time, I haven't had a lot of time to make fun things to post on my blog. I know, its no excuse, I apologize.
Now here is the good news: in a very, very short time, I will be able to reveal what I have been working on for the last year and a half! Exciting! And I suspect that the 12 of you who read my blog either A. already know what that is because you are Dave, Joe, Jed, Bill, or my sister, or B. will totally want to find out more once I spill the beans! Stay tuned for that...


In other good news, I have to let everybody know how proud I am of Dave for winning the Mytoons.com bumper contest!!!! If you haven't seen "Furnick", please do so now. You will not be disappointed.


And now I leave you with this: treasure I found at Wondercon several weeks ago. "Maile" is one of a limited edition of dolls that Chris Sanders (creator/director of "Lilo and Stitch") created for the 2007 Comic Con. "Maile" (in her skull and crossbones dress) fits right in on my desk at work, where we are all pirates. It was just meant to be.


Aloha for now. I'll be back with new things soon.

IF: Blanket.....of Snow!

My sister is a budding star snowboarder, so I painted this for her for Christmas. I have never snowboarded, and I think it has been about 14 years since the last time I snow skied (I much prefer warm weather and water skiing), but I'm pretty sure that I do remember that its the most fun when there is a nice thick blanket of powdery snow covering the slopes. I know its a stretch, but that's how I'm tying this one into Illlustration Friday this week. Enjoy!

Weekend Project: Fabriano Sketchbook Makeover

On January 19th, Dave, Bill, and I joined the SF Bay Area Sketchcrawlers for a day of sketching in Chinatown. At the end of the day everyone who was still around swapped sketchbooks for inspiration, and one thing became very obvious: Fabriano sketchbooks are very popular. So many of them looked so much alike (on the outside) that it was hard to tell them all apart from one another.

Last weekend, Dave suggested that I "customize" my Fabriano so that it would never get lost in a sea of look-a-likes again. Thus, I spent my Sunday afternoon having a grand 'ol time with my sketchbook, some decoupage glue, and a bunch of trader joe's paper bags that I have collected for whenever we happen to forget our canvas ones. Here is the end result!


The "Just Because I Can" part of me even found it necessary to add a little business card holder in the back. This part is probably completely unnecessary, but it is cute and it made me happy to do it nonetheless. The whole project was a lot of fun so I recommend it to anyone with a Fabriano (or any sketchbook or journal for that matter), some paper bags that need recyclin', and some time. Rainy sunday afternoons are probably the best time, but any extra time would probably suffice:)

I leave you with a watercolor figure drawing from last weekend's class. Have a nice weekend everyone!

IF: Tales and Legends

Rapunzel was one of my favorite fairy tales when I was little. I guess I thought she and I had a lot in common with the super long fair hair and all. Luckily I have never had anyone try to climb on mine. I imagine that would be quite painful.

I have some more wordy posts in the works, but it is late here and I am off to bed. Until next time, have a great Thursday everybody! Enjoy.

SketchCrawl and More Figure Drawings

Here is my one page of sketches from Saturday's Sketchcrawl through Chinatown. Slow start for me, but a good time none the less. Chinatown is so ornate and beautiful - it is so easy to get lost in all of the little details.


And here are a few more figure drawings! Hopefully I will have some more exciting things to post soon!