Friday, January 30, 2009

more yuki sketches + friday already? seriously?

I'm trying not to procrastinate. So far, so good!

I think this is what my Yuki poster is going to look like, roughly of course: pink skeletons, birthday cake hat villain, lots of roses and pink because I'm a girl and I like those things. Don't look for the pink yet cause it's not there.



I know my sketches are really rough and sometimes indecipherable, but it's all I got right now! Isn't there a movie or something with a skull that has jewels in its eyes? Where am I lifting this idea from?? I couldn't figure it out, but I know I've seen it somewhere.



Little thumbnail sketches...



At a CalArts Halloween party one year I saw some guys (more than one, like three I think) dressed in suits and sunglasses with hats shaped like birthday cakes with illuminated candles. Obviously, the image stuck with me. What kind of villian wears pastries as headgear? I leave that to your imagination.



This week went by really fast. I seriously am having a hard time believing that it's Friday. What have I been doing??

Friday, January 23, 2009

amyloid awareness film

Lots of people have asked me what I'm working on recently and I'm always kinda like "Errr...you know, like freelance stuff..." It just takes so much energy to explain what you're doing when you make a living off of obscure projects on the very outside perimeter of the animation world (which itself is already pretty obscure and hard to explain). Plus I usually can't show anybody what I've been doing, you know, non disclosure and all that jazz. So let me tell you what I've been doing, since I have a rare opportunity to actually do that for once: right now I'm working on illustrations for a short film to educate doctors and other highly edumacated medical peoples about a rare, hard to explain, obscure disease. Amyloidosis! I can't really tell you what it is because I don't really know! I'm only responsible for a little segment of images in the film, and my segment has no cells/amoebas/little squirmy things in it. Mostly it's just doctors and people standing around. And some grandmas and grandpas.





They're pretty straight forward. None of them is on the screen for very long so it has to be a quick read!




I like the colors in this lab the best. I think I did a pretty good job on that microscope too, if I do say so myself!








I just don't want you guys to think I'm hanging out eating bonbons all day in Los Feliz.

Did anyone else go to the Char Anim Show last night?? Soooo fun!

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

you're invited + valentine's day shop special + show

I'm not like, this awesome graphic design person or anything, but I did design this flier for an upcoming show that I'm in.



It reminded me of a graphic design class I took in high school, where we would be given a bunch of images in a folder and then would try to figure out how to put them together in a combination that didn't scream "high school graphic design assignment." It seems like only yesterday that I was making my first layer mask, and trading in my Brightness Contrast window for Levels. Le sigh.

Anyway, Valentine's Day is coming! And I know that because I have seen all the pink and red and white and lacy, fluffy, heart shaped items in every store I've walked into for the past week. I love Valentine's Day, not because I'm romantic at all, but just because I love the decor. It makes me happy to see "I Love You" posted up all over the place. So I'm having a little special over in the shop to celebrate. Go check it out!

ALSO, I just got myself a solo show at Pehrspace in Echo Park. It's not till mid May, but I'm excited! I've got my work cut out for me, and I'll be making a LOT of new work very, very soon, so stay tuned!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

der alter fuchs

Check out this amazing sweater I got!


It's got animals on it! I think they're supposed to be foxes, but their color kind of suggests coyote. In any case, WOW. Awesome score for me. Check out the eyeballs on the smaller fox...it looks like his papa fox just told him the facts of life or something equally awkward. Or maybe he's just a little retarded.

The trees wrap all the way around the back!



And surprisingly flattering for such a ridiculous garment, too.

Have a happy weekend everyone! Go frolic in your backyard like a happy fox!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

sketch book dribble

I have to resort to my sketchbook this week for blog content. How did it get to be Thursday already??

When I sketch it's usually not to make pretty pictures, and definitely not to impress anybody with my mad crazy drawing skills, which I think is why a lot of people keep sketch books. Perhaps that was my M.O. once upon a time, but these days it's just a catch-all for ideas. It's like a big old net for my thoughts, and the drawings in them are usually pretty subpar, scribbly garbage. But guess what? Scribble garbage is all you get today!

Speaker skirt girl.



Hey, Yuki sketches! Just generating some ideas...



My own personal version of Witch Baby from the Dangerous Angel books by Francesca Lia Block. I ate those books up when I was in high school. They're just written so lovingly. They fanned the flame of my enthusiasm for Los Angeles by making it seem like a magical, lyrical place, which I still think it is.


Roller skater...I see now that I forgot to give her a butt. Oops.



Sketch for a painting, and sketch of my beloved. He would not appreciated it if he knew I posted this drawing, so don't tell him, k?



Guess who these two fine fellows are!



It's a tiny, tiny doodle of little Pete and Artie, and Strongest Man in the World. Can't you tell?!

Okay, back to illustrating for me. I have a super awesome sweater to show you on Saturday, so stay tuned.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

tigers + galleries

I've been busy doing freelance stuff all week (and probably will be for the next while), so I had to dig around in the crusty archives of my tiny little computer to find something half way decent to show you. I found you some tigers and puppies. You love tigers and puppies!



I love tigers. Somewhere in the great gobs of stuff from my childhood that are gathering dust in my mom's garage there is a collection of stuffed tigers that I curated. I touched a baby tiger once. It wasn't soft...it was close in texture to dog hair. Not very baby-like at all.



I had to do these really fast, so they're not super immaculate in their presentation or anything. They're marker and colored pencil on animation paper.



Also, for everyone or anyone who has asked me when will you/have you ever/are you going to have your work in a gallery, I can finally say "Why yes, yes I will!"

I'm going to have a little show at the Occidental College Library this coming fall! A few quick facts about Occidental College, if you're curious: it's in Eagle Rock, Barack Obama went there for a while before transferring to Smart People Who Will Be President Someday College, and LOTS of movies and TV shows have been filmed there, including your secret favorite movies, Don't Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood and Clueless. I realize having a show in a library may seem a little hokey-pokey but I almost can't think of a place more appropriate for me to display my stuff. I really, really love libraries and books and my second best job ever was working in the library at CalArts because I got to look at cool stuff in books all day and smell that paper-slowly-decaying scent. It's nice that it's so far in advance too, since I have time really get together a big body of new work for it (plus more time to procrastinate).

But that's not for quite a while. In the mean time:

I'll be in participating in a gallery show and weekend sale at the Partow Gallery here in LA on January 31st-February 2nd. More details to come!

I've been asked to contribute to Kevin Dart's forthcoming book "Seductive Espionage: The Art of Yuki 7", which is like the biggest compliment ever. There's going to be a show at Gallery Nucleus in July when the book is released, too. I'm really determined to do a super good job on my piece so I've already started sketching stuff and gathering my ideas together.

So yeah, not too shabby a start to the New Year, I don't think.

I'll have some new drawings for you next week. Really!

Monday, January 05, 2009

new year's resolutions + black cats + store updates

Okay, time to end my holiday blog break. It was nice to get away from the keyboard but now it's time to get back into the swing of updating twice weekly again. It's been a pretty hectic couple of weeks, actually. Here are some cute spooky black cats!




They're kind of quick and sloppy but I did them in a rush right before Unique LA. They were in little frame ornaments hung from my pink tree. I don't know what it is about black cats, but people who have them just love them to pieces and are attracted to anything that has a black cat on it, so these sold most quick. I like all kinds of kitties, personally, but I'm probably most drawn to giant filthy three legged ginger tabbies if anything (my mom has a cat that fits that description to a tee: Zeus).

I usually make a resolution every year on New Year's and then totally forget what it was a week later. This year those resolutions will be archived right here, so I can't forget them! My 2009 life improvement plans are as follows (in no particular order):

-Get a dog! I work at home and it kinda sucks being alone all day while Sean is working. It would be ever so nice to have a little pooch around, although I think that might not happen until we move out of the apartment we're in now (no dogs, no cats). I'm quite partial to small dogs, cause you can take them everywhere with you. And while I love cats, I just can't picture having a cat without having a whole house and yard for that cat to rule, where as dogs don't really care where they are just as long as they're with you. I like daschunds and frizzy little terriers that look like they have sideburns.

-Be kind to myself...basically, treat myself the way I'd want to be treated by me if I wasn't me. Fancy words for "take better care of yourself" I guess. Not that I'm bad at it, I just think I could be better at it.

-Draw every day. I haven't drawn in a few, and it was a nice break, but I really just need to get into the habit of getting something down in my sketchbook everyday. It's really helpful when I do: it keeps ideas flowing and of course I discover things that I wasn't even looking for when I just doodle...also, it's fun! Drawing is way fun. It's one of the funnest things ever. It's easy to forget when you do it for a living, but it really is my preferred pass time.

-Join wardrobe remix on flickr. Why? Because it's FUN! I don't know how you, dear reader, may feel about clothes/fashion/getting dressed, but I think it's just plain interesting to look at what a whole bunch of other clothes obsessed people are wearing and then add your own concoction to the mix. Plus clothes have everything to do with your design, in a character design sense of the word. What you wear really affects your shapes and proportions, besides revealing a good deal about your personality. See? I just made clothes seem like art. My only reservation about it is having to take a picture of myself nearly every day, which seems like a lot of effort, even though I know it's totally not. But I'll do it! I will!

-Get married. Oh, what? Didn't you know? I'm going to be Brigette Jimenez come next fall. We have got soooooo much wedding planning to do, I can't even begin to think about it. BUT it will happen, and it will be great fun.

-Write. Not "write more" or "write my memoire" but just plain write. I really love writing, and reading, and I even went to CSSSA for two years for writing, and I think about writing all the time, but I barely ever put pen to paper. I write this blog, sure, but that doesn't count!

Also, in the shop now: little frame ornaments, new buttons, rainy day print, and bearded lady print. Go get 'em!