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:)

New Sketchbook + Studies

Well, this sketchbook isn't all THAT new.


I've had this Fabriano for at least the last six months, but I haven't paid much attention to it. I still have a few pages left to fill in my Fabriano from last year and have been slacking on my figure drawing attendance which is the bulk of what I put in these babies. But today my new one got a shiny new cover/binding! Hooray! Fabrianos typically have pretty flimsy covers, so I took some scrap board and fabric and gave it a little extra protection and style.


And in honor of the new look of the outside of the book, I thought I should probably display a bit of the inside. Here is a little watercolor of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Having the opportunity to paint this remarkable place was really a dream come true.

And here is a teeny-tiny color study I did this evening for my next Hawaiian goddess painting. I would have liked to spend a bit more time on her this weekend, but I have been busy with a few other projects. More on her to come, but until then, have a happy week!

Dance!

The first mermaids of the New Year. Actually, I think I started sketching her way back in August, but I haven't had a chance to finish painting her until today. I would love to do two more in this series of flamenco-ish sirens, so stay tuned for that. These three, along with my other original mermaid paintings will be coming with me to Wondercon in February if anyone is interested. The goal is to have at least 20-25 of these small originals with me at Wondercon, wo we will see how that goes.

And what the heck, I'll post 'em to IF this week. These watercolors are pretty tiny (about 5x6 inches), so I'd say she is quite contained. Contained, perhaps, but not tame. This one has got some fire in her for sure.

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!

Hello 2009!

After slacking off during the last few weeks of '08, I am now back to the old grindstone. I apologize for my absence!
For the first post of 2009, here is my entry for this week's IF topic - "Resolve". I have a feeling that 2009 is going to be great, and I have lots of resolutions all ready to go, but the main one that pertains to this blog is that I just really want to be drawing and posting more. Lets say twice a week? Sound good? Okay, so this is #1. I've been working on a Can-can dancer at work, and now I just can't get them out of my head. It didn't help that I came home tonight and watched Moulin Rouge (twice) while working on this. Oh, what I would give to be in the chorus/dance team for just one of those numbers. If I had my pick, it would be "El Tango de Roxanne", but really anything would do.
Speaking of Moulin Rouge - did I mention that I was actually there? That I actually visited the Moulin Rouge in Paris? I did! As this new year starts to ramp up, I have to tip my hat to 2008. When all is said and done, I can't complain. I got to visit Las Vegas, London, Oxford, and Paris. I drove down to San Diego and had a blast at my first Comic Con. I spent two weeks at home on the lake. Dave and I adopted the most awesomest cat ever. I was able to be there for my good friends' autumn wedding and was also able to welcome a new commando into the world (yeah, Baby Joe!). I hosted my first convention table at APE and started and Etsy shop! I even embarrassed the heck out of myself at a pole dancing class. Geeze, no wonder I was tired.
There will surely be a lot happening in 2009 as well, and the first thing on my horizon is Wondercon! Yep, Bill and I will be hosting a table in the Small Press area. More details to follow, but I am extremely excited! 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!