one double wide post this week + ape is coming! + trees

Ok, I was doing really good with two a week, but this week has just been toooooo crazy! So I'm just giving you one large-ish post instead. I've been getting my stuff together for APE and let me tell you something about getting organized: it's HARD, and it takes a LOT of energy. I'm in CalArts-crunchtime mode right now, with a wackadoo sleep schedule and I've been fueled mostly by big cups of tea (with the occasional soy latte for emergencies) and packets of Emergen-C. But enough about me. I know why you come here and it's not for the jibber jabber!

I made a little series of family tree paintings for these crazy, kitschy frames I found.

First, an awesome frame shaped like a house! I can't take credit for the creation of the frame, but I can take credit for filling it with art.




This frame was really, really hard to photograph. It has a shiny finish on it, but the pic makes it look super glossy, which it's not!



The little paintings are digital, and I printed them out, cut them out, and put them inside of this awesome frame. I've never seen one like it...I wish I could find more. I'd do a whole series.


I got some of these "family tree" frames, too. They were really, really horrible looking when I got them. They're made out of some awful fake pewter stuff, and they looked like something your grandma would have on top of her TV, but not like a cool old school grandma. Like a REAL grandma who likes things that are made from pewter and filled with embarrassing photos.

I turned the first one into a librarian tree, complete with Miss Lib herself, and her owl friend, a fox taking in some new fiction.



These frames are double sided, so on the back I filled the frames with pages cut from an antique book (which, in all respect to books everywhere, was an awful book and kind of deserved to be used as decoration).



Here's the actual little paintings, since they're kinda hard to see in the photograph. Taking good photos is HARD!





This tree is smaller, but it's the runaway hit so far.

On the front: a handsome, 1920's-esque family...




...on the back, cut outs from a vintage National Geographic.





And here are the subjects themselves! Sean said that they seemed to be from New England, and that they instantly implied a story to him. He asked me what the story was, but I leave that up to the viewer. I didn't have a really clear idea of who they were when I made them, I just know that I like them a whole lot.




These, along with quite a few other one of a kind framed prints, are going to be on sale at APE this weekend! If you're going to be there then you should stop by, get your button, and check them out in person. I'm really really reeeeaaaally curious to see what kind of reaction they get...they're kinda artsy, but kinda crafty, but quite character design-y. Oh yeah, and there's more pics of them on my flickr!

So, I've still got some printing to do, but I will take LOTS of pictures on my little San Francisco journey and let you all know how it goes.

See ya next week!

the lovely couple + there's buttons!

I finished the dog face man too, so it only seemed fair to put him and her in the same post together so you can see them side by side.







Also, I had some buttons made! Here they are sitting in their little button box. They have to wait until APE to be set free into the world. I'm planning on giving one away to anybody who stops by my little table to say "Hey, I've seen your blog before" or "Don't you have an etsy store or something?" So if you're going to APE, come by and claim your button!




Here's a closer look at the actual designs on the buttons...some are little tid bits of paintings, and some I just made up cause I thought they'd look cool on a button. Sean is a fan of the close-up coyote face from the coyote car painting, but my favorite is the little baby coyote on the pink ground. I love how it says "hello coyote", like you're saying hi to the little guy every time you read it. He looks so smug hanging out there, sniffing the flowers. Do you have a favorite?




I've got to give myself a little pat on the back, cause I've totally been updating twice a week for like, six weeks! That's lots of weeks, in blog time. ALSO! I put a little counter at the bottom of my page about a week and half ago...I think it was Monday? Just out of curiosity, to see how many folks clicked past the old blog. I was pretty sure it was a ghost town, since I don't get like a bazillion comments on each post, but man, was I ever surprised! In a little under two weeks I've got almost 2000 views! That's a LOT more than I thought! So thanks to all you silent blog viewers who pass through and look but keep your two cents to yourself...it's nice to know that you're there, and that I'm not just typing away like a moron into the ether.


Halloween is sooo close! If you're in LA, you should go watch Carrie in the Cemetery!

tattooed lady...

...now with color!

mocking bird + tea party + five years

Little Update: Jason Anders posted his interview with yours truly on his blog, right here. If you're interested in hearing about what I did at Pixar or Disney or CalArts or what cartoons I like, then you should read it!

I realized that although I took a horrible photo of this painting several months ago (before I even went to Austria, which feels like a bajillion years ago) I never scanned it! It's been lingering above my desk for all this time. Now it gets the luv it deserves:


That's real for real paint: acrylic and gouache. I had to cut the cardboard into an oval shape to make it fit into its frame, and it is HARD to cut cardboard into a circular shape of any kind, let me tell you. I've thought about putting in the shop, but I'm hesitating. It's kind of a personal work.

Also, here is a coyote and a crow having a tea party. They are eating rabbit sandwiches with fancy mustard:


This one is digital, all photoshop. There are prints of this in the old shop right now!

In more personal newses, it's me and Sean's 5 year anniversary today! Huzzah! I can't believe it's been that long. It doesn't feel like it. We're going to see "Nightmare Before Christmas" at the El Capitan here in ridiculous, hot as heck Los Angeles because that's what we did on our first date: we saw Nightmare at the El Capitan. Here's a little pic of us in the Mirabell Gardens in Salzburg, Austria. Sean looks grumpy because he couldn't get his cigarette lit. I have a series of photos of him after this where he is just standing about in the background of each photo trying to get the stupid thing combusted. Court has some amazing pics of us arguing in Vienna and I WISH I could show you those, because this picture is so nicey-nice, it doesn't really tell you anything about us except that we both look alright.



One more thing! I started a flickr! So if you flickr and I flickr, then we should be flickr friends. You can peruse my artwork and photos and stuff, too, and look at more pics of my stupid face if you want.

Miss Lib + it's almost Halloween!

Here is Miss Librarian. I think I've still got some finishing touches to do, but you get the idear.



ALSO, please watch this cartoon. It's almost Halloween, and nothing gets me in the spirit more than watching a nice seasonal cartoon. I particularly like the part when Donald's feet get hexed and go crazy. Oh YouTube, how you enrich our lives...




Last year I didn't get a chance to dress up on Halloween. BOO to that! This year I think I'll just play it safe with a nice low-key kinda costume, like a bearded lady. That way I can wear a preposterous false beard but also have an excuse to get extra prettied up. This was always the conundrum of Halloween costumes for a little girl: be something pretty, which is fun but not very effective, or be something gross/shocking/gooey, which is VERY effective but not at all pretty. I think my all time favorite costume is still the big yellow bird I made a couple years ago. It was fun to be something so friendly looking and pointless.

Plus I got a few compliments on my legs. I also thought about being a librarian, but that seems a little obvious, doesn't it?

Tattooed Lady

Drawings for a couple of new pieces:




The tattooed lady...




...and the Dog Face Man.

These drawings aren't entirely accurate to their subjects. The tatted lady is kinda 40's pin up styled, and as far as I know the "dog face men" never bared it all the way mine is doing. They usually wore suits, I suppose in a dignified contrast to their very hairy faces. But they were fun to draw and so far everybody who I've shown them to has a kind of mad giggling reaction to Mr. Dog Face...I guess cause he looks so smug, like "Yes I have long hair completely covering my face, and yes I'm a side show attraction...but I'm rockin' it."

While I was searching for images of bearded ladies and the like, I found The Human Marvels, which is awesome! Lots of pics of sideshow folks and little biographies about the performers. It's worth spending some time with if you're fascinated by anomalies and weirdness (which I am).

As far as Miss Librarian is concerned, it would seem that green won the vote after all! I'm about half way through her painting right now so you'll see her soon. Thanks everybody who put their two cents in!

I'm going to go pick apples this weekend and hang out in Northern California, with my dad, where it is actually FALL, and the leaves have changed color. I'm going to wear a sweater and drink tea and make apple crisp, and in commemoration of that I give you Mr. Fox:



Have a loverly weekend!

The Glamorous Librarian

Here is an image that seems so obvious for me to have conjured up that I'm surprised I haven't before. There is only one problem: I can't settle on what colors I'm going to paint her up in. I was really smitten with the blue-grey and pink scheme, because a librarian with pink hair was just so charming and cool, but Sean said he liked the green and red better because it just works better for the subject matter, and I think he may be right.

So folks, it comes down to a VOTE!


Make it blue n pink...


Or!


Make it green n red...



Well??

New Painting Time!

That little drawing down there got upgraded to full blown painting.




Basically, I liked the color scheme from my business card so much that I thought I should exhaust it completely. So here she is! Miss Sleepy-pigeon-head-teapot-floating-among-the-flowers-dreamy girl. Digital. She's over my my little etsy store widget, too (to the right...see it? yeah)!

UPDATE: I finished off Mr. Fox last night.



I don't know anything about music, so the notes (which to me are just a bunch of d's and b's floating around) are random. I apologize to all the musicians out there.

It is SOOOOOOO nice outside today! Earlier this week it was 98-degrees outside, which is a disgusting temperature for what is now, officially, fall. But today it really FEELS like autumn, finally: it's drizzly and overcast and I may just need a sweater when I go out! Heavens! It's about time.

You fell asleep with all the secrets you keep in your head...

Oh, Saturday Looks Good to Me, I sure do love you. You make me feel all GREAT about life! That's what I was listening to when I drew these drawings...a song I'd particularly endorse is THIS one, if you've got a few minutes to spare (what else are you going to do with three minutes? Check your myspace/facebook/e-mail? This song will be infinitely more fulfilling than an empty inbox, I promise). Ahh, soooooo Brigette-y, isn't it? Now here are some drawings...

Foxy Music:



Sleeping:



Rabbit Sandwiches with Fancy Mustard (idea compliments of Alex Hirsch):


They're all very right brain ideas: they're surreal, and absurd, and I really can't explain where they came from, and they serve no purpose other than tickling your eyeballs.

These will all be paintings soon! Hopefully at least one of them will be a painting before the end of this week (which is very near) so that I can keep up with my 'Updating Twice a Week' thing.