flower heads and cake ladies

I did these sketches for what was maybe going to be a stationary set, but it didn't pan out.  What a bummer.  I hate it when that happens.  

The idea was that they would be black line art on white paper, and they would come with a little watercolor set and you could color them yourself.  

As far as the designs go, I was just having fun, really.  They are marker and pencil,sketches and they're not the best drawings, but they give you a pretty good idea.  I probably would have fancied them up with a brush pen if they it had been a go.  Brush pens are fun things. 

Things I like: flowers, fancy ladies, beautiful desserts, and the 18th century fashion.  If you couldn't tell.  

And then there was this weirdo one withe the octopus hair thrown in.  

I like markers a lot, even though my marker technique (if there is such a thing in the case of markers) is pretty 'whatever'.  

Frustrating days lately, you guys.  Really stupidly tough!!  I can't seem to get any projects off the ground, for reasons that are utterly mystifying (to me at least).  I don't wanna bitch out on my blog, because that's sort of yucky, but then again why not?  It's part of the deal when you're an artist that depends on other folks/institutions to put your work out there.  Your s#*% gets rejected sometimes!  

Anyway.  On to the next!

dresses which are not dresses + website

I forgot to mention this before, but I finally have a place you can find me in the internets with a name which is very easy to remember!  

It's brigetteb.com!

That's where my tumblr-based portfolio lives.  If you have a tumblr you can follow me and tumbl away! It feels very official and neat.  The only bummer is that you still have to remember to spell my name right (no D, two E's, two T's, yes I know it's a funny spelling, but I didn't choose it).

And here are some discarded ideas from a thing I'm working on, er, trying to be working on.  

I'm not going to explain too much because there isn't much to say.

Here's a birdcage dress lady!  Her hat is also a birdcage.  

I imagine that the weather girl is prone to mood swings.  

Pomegranates.

Yes I know they're very silly.  

stereo girl

I did this for my friend's zine!  I remember wanting to make zines when I was in high school and college, and then never doing it.   Sometimes I would even do a bunch of drawings and be like, "This is for the the ZINE!" And then the drawings would sit there forever and ever the end.

I'm not sure where this girl came from.  I did a super rough sketch of her a few years ago and I just liked the idea that her clothes (and maybe also her body?) are like a stereo, but a cool analog stereo, that plays how she feels.

In these drawings she's in a joyful dance-y kind of mood!

What's she dancing to?  Maybe THIS?  That song always makes me feel joyfully dance-y, even though it's not necessarily super dance-able.

Or THIS?  I mean, you can't really argue with that.

In other news, I've been around old CalArts a lot this week looking at student portfolios!  I have a workshop-stype situation going on.  SO MANY PORTFOLIOS!  It's great though.  I get to meet the students and hang around in the faculty lounge.  I'll be there next week too!   Busy busy!

prep and landing

Well, this is a couple years late but better late than never, right?  Right.  It's starting to get a little Christmas-y, so this seems an appropriate time to post this schnazz!

A few years ago I was working at Disney as an intern or apprentice or disciple or fellow or whatever thing they call it now.  I'm pretty sure I spent most of my time there working on Prep and Landing, and I have a big fat pile of elf drawings to back up that assumption.  I dug them up, dusted them off, and here they are!

One of the first cracks I took at designing for the project was this line-up of elves.  I was really shooting to be a character designer back then, and when I look at these I remember why: that s#!% is FUN!

Unfortunately for me, I only have the print outs of these guys and not the actual files.  Way to not plan ahead, me.  I had to scan them and past them back together in p-shop, which is why their background is all funky.  Ah well.  

I have it on good authority that this line up is also in THIS book.  I haven't yet seen it with my own eyes!

I took a crack at designing some of the main characters too.  I think these little doodles of Magee are my favorite out of all of this work.  Her design in the final was pretty close to this, except less angry, and they didn't use my idea to have her coffee cup say "SHUT UP", but it still makes me laugh anyway.  

Typical of me, I got tea on one of my Magees.  Oerps.  

When this project started the things we were looking at for inspiration were old school stop-motion Christmas specials, you know the ones, Rudolph and such!  Paul Coker Jr.!  Which made me really excited because I LOVE that stuff!  So my ideas leaned towards simplicity and cuteness, even when the project began to sway in a direction that was, to my mind, fairly bland.  

The two main dudes were going to be very different.  You know: a tall goof and a short serious.  

The directors liked my little brown-haired elf girl from the line-up, and they thought she might make a good secretary for Santa.  So did a few drawings of her looking secretarial:

I still think she's cute.

I don't honestly completely remember what the deal was with these guys.  They are supposed to be mechanics or something.   Mechanic elves.  

This was my friend Erik's character styling suggestion:

Which I very much appreciated.  

Also, I had to draw reindeer.  As someone who has attempted animal drawing and found it to be excessively dull, this was a hard thing for me to tackle.  

When I found these in my drawing pile, I wasn't even sure that these drawings were MINE.  I had to look for telltale clues, like sloppy use of marker as underdrawing, to prove to myself that I ever drew this.  I've gone in such a different direction since then that these feel totally alien.  

The antlers were kinda fun.

Reindeers are like buff cows with big horns and skinny legs.  You guys, I drew so many reindeers.  This is really only the tip of the reindeer iceberg.  But that iceberg is kinda boring.  I got tired of scanning them.  

Long story short: I bailed out of Disney loooooooooong before Prep and Landing was finished (bout a year and half or so?).  I watched it, and I can still kinda see some how some of my design work had an effect on the final product, but I didn't get a credit or anything for it.  Near the end my heart was so totally NOT in being there that I was just happy to not ever have to draw another elf or reindeer ever again for the rest of my life.  And just not to have anyone tell me what, or how to draw at all.  

I managed to have some fun though.

The only thing I miss about working in a studio environment is having my buddies around me all day long.  It's pretty awesome when all your friends are super talented, and they like to come into your cube and interrupt your work flow by drawing you barfing into your own purse:

(I had very short hair back in the day!)

...or you as a child sitting on a giant dog and holding an avocado.  I don't get any caricature drawings anymore.  That makes me kinda sad.  I have a whole chunk of my life that is undocumented by other people's drawings of me!  I found LOTS of weirdy-weird drawings of me in that old Disney-drawing pile.  Those are probably the best things I saved.  

fairies

I am technically a grown up lady but some things I loved when I was just a sprout will just never become passe or uninteresting to me.  Like FAIRIES!

These designs are for a project I can't show you yet.  This is part of the bummer of working all the time: I'm always making stuff, but it's always for somebody else, so I can only show it off when they say it's okay.  Hm hmmn.  The point is, I get to make stuff all the time, and you'll see it eventually!

I could probably just keep drawing these forever.  They are marker on animation paper.  Markers are fun!

Got a lot of stuff coming up around the bend, guys.  BIG stuff.  Book stuff.  Stay tuned.  

CHEER!

I told you I had a lot of stuff to share, and I wasn't kidding!

About a year ago I was asked if I'd be interested in illustrating a series of books about a teenage girl.  That sounds kinda cool, right?  BUT, her primary interest in life, besides boys, and clothes, was cheerleading.  I know most of you don't know me personally, but perhaps you can tell by the overall impression of moi that you get from this blog,  that I could give a care about cheerleading, or school spirit, or anything remotely involved with liking high school at all.  I didn't enjoy high school one bit, myself, and I was about as far from a cheerleader as you could get.

It sounded like such an un-ME project that I almost said no.  But then I said yes.

And now those books exist, in the world, and my name is on them!

The first two books (in a series of five) are out now, and although they're chapter books they are riddled with illustrations.  I plucked a few of my favorites out to share with yous!

The illustrations are meant to be doodles and sketches by the narrator/star of the book series, a teenage girl named Maddy.  She wants to be a cheerleader SO BAD which I SO CAN'T relate to, but she is also an artist, and I CAN relate to doing silly drawings of things!

            Like wishing your nerdy best friend would dress cuter...

...or your best friend making faces at you...

...and getting dagger eyeballs from mean girls!

  It's a trip to see my own handwriting in a book.

 Ultimately, I'm really happy that I decided to jump into this book series.  The sketches are fun I make a point of forcing them to be interesting by inking them with a brush pen.  That way I can't noodle them forever (like in photoshop) and you get little spontaneous surprises sometimes.

  Plus they are supposed to be kind of wiggly and sketchy.  It's hard for me to avoid making them all clean and nice sometimes, tho...

So that's what I've been up to.  I wish I knew more tween-age girls, cuz I love to know what the intended audience thinks of the books.  

Now, back to work!

simone and dottie and speck

Hey out there!  I'm super crazy bizzy with making books, going to weddings, painting paintings and stuff, but I had to stop and breath and update!!  A whole month went by.  Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

I'm in the Pee Wee Herman show at Gallery 1988 this month, and these are my pieces.  I seem to gravitate towards to peripheral characters when it comes to these themed shows.  Since Pee Wee's Big Adventure is one of my most favorite movies EVERRR, and because I don't think these ladies get enough credit for making that movie as great as it is (Dottie is adorable, and Simone is super soulful!) I dedicated them to paint.

PS, I've been to Cabazon, where those dinosaurs are, and it's actually much weirder than it is in the film.  Plus there's a stupid BBQ restaurant or Burger King or something right in front of them.  

Dottie!  I like you Dottie, LIKE you, LIKE!

Both of these gals are available on Gallery 1988's website now.  They are all framed and pretty.  Take them home and love them forever.  

Okay guys, there are lots of updates in the near future.  I actually have a lot of things to share, but not the time to post about them yet.  Soon!

dress shoppe stationary

Hello to you out there in the blog-o-sphere! I know I've been neglecting my blog, and that's not fair. My little bloggy blog has
done a lot for me, and yet I ignore it. No more!! I'm going to start posting more regularly now, I promise. I've even got a few ideas for regular/weekly/feature type blog updates so that even if I have nothing of my own to show you I can at least post something. Keeping it fresh is important, dontcha know.

In the mean time, just to prove that I have not just been sitting around my apartment eating bon bons and painting my nails (although I do so in moderation when the mood strikes), I'd like to present one of the projects that has kept me away from bloggin' as I should: my Dress Shoppe stationary set! I know I mentioned it before, but I got the thumbs up to do a more in-depth post on it, so here goes...


I wanted all the gals to look different but like they are from the same universe, too. This first lady in the suit might be my favorite. She's like the ultimate chic housewife of the decade. I imagine that she wears this outfit to the supermarket to buy 50lbs of meat to store in her giant freezer in her turquoise and pink kitchen. "Off to buy some haaaaam!"




This gal might look familiar because she is a re-incarnation of my Librarian Paper Doll. She was the inspiration for this set. (I still really want to do a straight up paper doll book or magnetic paper doll, by the by.)


I love this color combo: red orange, pink, minty green.



And one last sunny yellow dress! Actually, this might be my favorite. She's more 60's looking than the rest, but I love her flats and pink gloves. I pretty much gave her an outfit that I'd like to wear.

I made the set for Chronicle Books and I have to say, they really do a bang-up job on the graphic design end. The style of the set is super girly and very 50's, and I had the pleasure of working with folks who totally understood what I was going for and had a lot to add to it. Look at the little photo shoot they did for the back of the the box:

So perfect!!

It comes with stickers so you can stick accessories on the gals, like little glasses and purses and flower brooches and hats. And pink envelopes! Did I mention that they stand up? They do. (PS, please excuse the general crappishness of these photos.)


Anyhoo-a, you can pre-order them on Amazon
OR on the Chronicle Books website, but you wont be able to play with 'em til March. :)