Simply Terrible!

Last week I found out that I have the honor of being included in the upcoming " Terrible Yellow Eyes" show at Gallery Nucleus! I was so excited that I decided to create a second piece for the show. And here it is!

King Thing - 9"x20" Paper Sculpt

My original TYE contribution will be in the show as well. If you are in LA on September 19th, you should definitely stop by! It should be an awesome time:) Many, many thanks to the fantastic Cory Godbey for putting this project together.

After the Wild Rumpus - 12"x18" Digital Print and Paper collage

More posts to come soon! Have a great weekend everybody!

Lionfish

After spending last week unwinding from the whirlwind trip that was Comic Con, I spent the weekend working on a new piece for an upcoming Girls Drawing Girls gallery show at Meltdown in LA! Its been a while since I have 1. drawn mermaids and 2. made paper sculptures, so I decided to combine them here. Here is a bit of process:

The initial sketch in my sketchbook.

Early construction.

A few mermaid close-ups

Final (minus glass)

The show opens on August 15th and runs through the 30th. If you are in LA and get a chance, you should stop by! There will be plenty of goodies there from some very talented ladies.

I also just added my Girls of Summer print to the Etsy store, so if you couldn't make it to San Diego you can snag one there:) I have a few weeks of relative down-time before my annual trip home, so hopefully that means I will be posting regularly for a while. Have a great week everybody!

It's That Time Again!

For Comic Con!

This year I will actually be doing some work and helping the lovely ladies of Girls Drawing Girls with their table - booth #5428. I will be there Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning (from 10am to noon) as well as Thursday afternoon from 3 to 7pm. I will be helping them sell their brand-spankin' new pin up calendars, playing cards, and lots of other stuffs. I will also have my "Girls of Summer" print for sale at the booth, so stop by and say hello if you are there!

Here are some of the other booths of note that I will be tracking down when I am not hanging out with the GDG girls:

• Fleet Street Scandal - Chris and Kevin at booth #1316
• Ronnie Del Carmen, Scott Morse, Jeff Pidgeon, and Enrico Casarosa - #4800
• Imaginism Studios - #G6 and 7
• Corey Godbey and Justin Gerard - #1032
• Ghostbot - #4203
• Donnachada Daly - #C6
  

I hope to see you there! If you can't make it, don't worry - I will keep everyone posted on my Comic Con adventures via twitter. Have an awesome week, everybody, and I promise to be back with new artwork soon:)

Girls of Summer!

I love summer the best. In honor of sunny days, warm weather, and especially water sports, I made this poster. Sometimes I get a little bit homesick for days on the lake, and especially for skiing. There is nothing quite like early mornings on glassy water, and I'm counting down the days until my annual visit home :)

But before that...is Comic Con! This year I have the honor of being part of the Girls Drawin' Girls group and will be selling this print at their table. I'm not exactly sure what booth number it will be yet, but I do know that I will be hanging out there on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning of the Con, so if you are there you should stop by!

I will have more updates leading up to the Con, so stay tuned! And if you are in LA, go check out the opening of the Seductive Espionage Book Release on Friday! I'll be in vacation mode next week, but I promise to be back with plenty to post after the 11th.

Yuki 7 At Gallery Nucleus

Remember my little Yuki 7 fan-art painting from a couple weeks ago? Well, it turns out that she is going to be in the show at Gallery Nucleus next Friday! I am honored and humbled to be in such good company. The show is going to be great and I'm so sad that I won't be able to make it down there to see it:(

Here she is in her frame right before I sent her off to Nucleus. She seemed like she needed some pink paper fire, so I threw a little bit of that in there as a finishing touch. How will she escape? Tune in to find out:)

I'm busy working on a print for Comic Con, which should be done this weekend. As soon as I have something ready, I'll post a sneak peak. Have a lovely weekend!

After the Wild Rumpus!

All of that rumpusing can wear you out:)

This is my contribution to Cory Godbey's tribute blog to Maurice Sendak: Terrible Yellow Eyes. I have been inspired by Cory's work for years now, so I jumped at the chance when he invited me to be part of his project!
It was a lot of fun to rediscover Where the Wild Things Are. Picking up the actual hard-bound copy with the beautiful Caldecott Medal on the cover instantly took me back to story time on the carpet in kindergarten. At that age, no career could have been more glamorous than being a children's book author and illustrator. If you had that golden seal, however, it meant you were... well...a rockstar. So thank you to Mr. Sendak - we all hope you enjoy this project and that you keep on rockin'!


And just for kicks, here is my original sketch. Usually my sketches look like nothing but chicken-scratch, so the fact that this mildly resembles the finished painting is quite remarkable. So remarkable, in fact, that I decided it was both scan and blog worthy. Ball-point pen scribbles on scratch paper.

I will have more exciting things to share soon! Have a lovely weekend!

The Awesomeness that is Yuki 7

I couldn't help it, I had to join the fan-art wagon.

I try not to geek out too much about other artists on here, but I really must thank Kevin Dart for being such an inspiration. With the release of his new book, the trailer for the book (co-directed by Stephane Coedel), and planning the gallery show for the book's release, you would think that he has his hands full. Somehow, though, Kevin found time to write 3 fantastic blog posts on his process with Yuki 7 - from her first initial concepts to now. For someone like me who would like to tackle a book project in the future, these posts are pure gold!

For anyone who is interested, the show is happening at Gallery Nucleus in LA on July 3rd. I am really bummed that I cannot attend the show, but I thought I would use the blog to show my support instead. Way to go, Kevin!

New Love

I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that I have a new-found love in paper art. I mean, I have always been inspired by awesome folks like Megan Brain, Kevin Kidney, and Ben Butcher, but I haven't actually tried working with scissors and glue and construction paper since...4th grade? It has definitely been a while.

It all started as I was trying to prepare some things for Maker Fair. I had bought a few pretty lanterns and I wanted to make something neat with them. At first I tried painting on the glass, but that didn't work very well at all. Excited by the thought of trying something new, this is what happened:

The birdies from my new banner were good test subjects. And look how they glow in the dark!

So the bad news is this: In my attempt to learn how to create paper sculptures, I didn't leave time to make more than this one lantern before Maker Faire. While it is very tempting to take this one with me tomorrow, I think I will try to make a few more before officially presenting them to the world. I mean, in a "for sale" kinda way. I'm sure I will have more to show soon. And more paintings , too. I promise.

Lastly, I decided to try out this Twitter thing. Its all the rage, ya know? You can follow my adventures here. Have a wonderful weekend!

Up, Up and Away!

So, I saw this:


And then I was tempted to do this:



But then I decided that painting the picture was a safer choice. Much less chance that I would have my eyes clawed out by a certain orange cat who shall remain anonymous.

All joking aside, Up is absolutely wonderful. Congratulations to everyone at Pixar for doing such an amazing job! Go see it on Friday!

I know I have been slacking - I am trying to find the balance between work-work and personal-work (oh, and life, too) and I just haven't gotten it all figured out yet. The good news is that this weekend is all about getting ready for Maker Faire, so I should meet my 2 post quota for the first time in months! If you are in the Bay Area, you should stop by and say hello next weekend! After you go see Up, of course.

Quickie Sketch and Character Design!

A Saturday evening sketch for everyone out there. I saw a woman wearing a similar coat a few months ago, and I loved it because the ruffles in the back reminded me of flower petals.

In other news: Yours truly has an interview up on the Character Design blog! Woohoo! You should go check it out if you have the chance. Be sure to read some of the other incredible interviews as well. I am humbled to be in such good company :)

I will try to get something up tomorrow to make my quota for the week. Ta ta for now!