wednesday weirdos

Watching TV and doodling is a thing I like to do. It's nice to turn off your brain and draw stuff that pertains to nothing. I remember doing a great deal of that before I went to art school, and especially during school, but once I began to draw things for a living somehow drawing becomes a chore! Probably because it's very cerebral when you are doing it for a specific purpose, or person, or job. You have to think hard.

When you don't think hard, or barely at all, because you are watching Ghost Hunters (again?), so half your brian is distracted by ghost evidence, you end up with a lot of weird stuff. Here are my weirdoes!

Have a nice weekend you!

mythological

I have a show at Occidental College later this month. Can you guess the theme? Did you say "mythological creatures"? If you did then you're right!


I don't usually put up rough, ugly, crazy sketches like this, but I feel guilty for not updating in forever, so you get a sneak peak at my process...whatever that may be.



Right now I'm focused on creatures of the mostly Greek in origin. Later there will be fairies! I like to delight and indulge my inner seven year old with the skills of my outer 24 year old sometimes.



There's a lot of mental static on these pages. I do a lot of thinking/drawing/scribbling when I figure stuff out for pieces. I know a lot of it probably doesn't make sense to you, but that's okay. I'm the only one who sees it most of the time anyway.



I've had a lot of these guys rattling around in my brains for a while. Like Mr. Poseidon.



Mermaids! Yes!



More soon.

drawings that I did from the balcony in the dark

I saw Camera Obscura last night at the Henry Fonda in Hollywood. They are sooooo great! The not great thing was that we had balcony seats. They are good for seeing the stage, but not so good for dancing around like you are supposed to do at a show. I tried to make the best of the situation by busting out my brush pen to doodle...but the only surface available to draw upon were cocktail napkins from the bar. So here are some doodles that I doodled out in the hot smelly balcony in the dark!

Anni Rossi opened. She plays the viola and sings and stomps on a suitcase wearing big boots for percussion. It took me a few minutes of watching her to realize that I went to CalArts with her! I think we had some classes together. People used to say she was awesome, but I never saw her perform until last night. Sean says I jacked her pretty hard in this drawing. Sorry Anni. You stomp out a song real good, though!



...THEN a band called Agent Ribbons played. They looked like a band of wind up dolls that played instruments! They had a great cello/violin player. She had a flower in her hair that was probably as big as her head.






I could not tell you what this bird guy was all about. He must have been over six feet tall, wearing a bright pink suit with a bird mask, and a moon shaped tambourine in one hand and a boxing glove on the other. If you are confused by these drawings, then imagine how I felt when this was actually happening in front of me.




Camera Obscura! They are a big band, and their lead singer has what I call a "cupcake" body: kinda thick, but not fat, but cute and appealing all over. Like a cupcake.






Yay!

screwing around with a brush pen

I just got a brush pen! I've never really messed around with one before, and I don't really understand how to use it. I understand that it makes whatever you draw look about 300x cooler instantly, but they are very sensitive instruments and I'm used to hammering away on paper with an unsharpened Ebony pencil, so it will take some getting used to. These are just some experiments from last week...



I saw this girl at Trader Joe's last week, when it was all weird/rainy/cold outside. It literally looked like she had just wrapped a tea towel around her shoulders and pulled on the most ridiculous, bright leg warmers she could find. I thought to myself, "Really?? Are pants really that hard to come by these days??" And flip flops, in the rain? What?



But that is why I love Trader Joe's in Silverlake. So much style, so many varieties of tortilla chips!

sketch bits

Arrrgh I can't believe it's Sunday already! What! Here are some sketches for you. Just stuff from my sketchbook, really. Like this 18th century lady with trees for hair, and this 30's bathing beauty...



I haven't drawn from life much recently, because honestly, it bores me. How many images of people in a coffee shop do I ever want to look at? Not very many. Animals in a zoo mostly just stand around. I do love Sean to pieces though, so drawing him lying in the grass reading Walter Benjamin (a smart person book of some kind) is pretty fun.



I've been thinking about mythology a lot lately.



I tried to personify Hollywood, but I don't think she'd really be this trashy/stupid.



I'm gonna color this in and it's going to be pretty. These girls are from "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort", a very beautiful and melancholy French movie with Catherine Deneuve and her sister, whose name escapes me. The art direction is soooo cool!



Check back for it later this week!

squirrels + magpies + owls

I did these drawings last winter when I was in a certain European country for a couple weeks. They didn't actually use any of what I worked on while I was there, but they seemed pretty happy with it at the time. I did these with marker on this totally bizarre round paper that they had. I could've used photoshop, but they only had old crusty PC's (which I hate) and the keyboards are different in Europe (like the z and c keys are switched I think?? or something?) and all the keyboard short cuts were different too, and photoshop is just no good without shortcuts. So I went for markers and paper. Also, I don't really know how to use markers! Obviously!





Sometimes you do a drawing and look back on it later and think "oh yuck", and I don't quite feel "oh yuck" about these...they're slightly above yuck. I may decide that they are yuck later but I'm strapped for blog content right now. I fear that I will soon be posting pictures of my feet or something.




Anyway, they were fun to do. It was really liberating to just hang out and drink free cappuccinos from the fancy espresso machine in the office (Alpenmilch! Yum!) and mess around with markers, and then go eat a pizza and watch Pippi Longstocking on TV.





I promise not to lame out with only one post like I did last week. I had been doing so good posting twice weekly!

And last post was my 100th! I forgot to mention it at the time, but it kind of fills you with a feeling of accomplishment...even if it took over two years to make it to 100 and most posts are just a bunch of my gobbledy gook writing anyway.

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??

doodles + unique pics

I don't have any pretty pictures for you today, AND on top of that I DB'd last week and only posted once. Bad show, very bad show. But I did manage to get in some doodle time while sitting behind tables the last couple weekends!

Hip girl rocking the shorts/tights/Tom's shoes combo. Her hair reminded me of when my hair was really short, and her big Ray Bans reminded me of how I almost spent a grip of cash on awesome limited edition Ray Bans like six months ago.



Doodles...I still have a really hard time drawing roses. Whenever I feel discouraged I like to write "note to self: I am a genius" on a post it note and stick it to my desk. Strangely, it forces you to be both confident and not take yourself very seriously at the same time.



This guy was lurping around the GOOD local world's fair...



Sketches of cats with many legs and booties and knitted hats. Mom has a cat that had to have his leg amputated a few months back and I guess I was thinking about cats with odd numbers of appendages...he's fine, by the way. I don't think he even misses his leg.



...the BIRDS!



A girl I saw last Saturday with amazing hair (the amazing part doesn't really come across well in the sketch), some unfortunate looking girls, and Brigitte Bardot (I copied you Jo! Sorry.)



And now here's some pics of the Unique LA show!

Setting up on Friday...

I made that "brigette b" sign, and those wood panel dealies with the paintings hanging off them. I wanted to make a really elaborate table cloth by sewing together like a hundred doilies but I ran out of time.

...waiting oh so patiently.


INTENSE!


It really was a good weekend. I sold lots of prints and buttons, and some framed stuff too. I met some super duper nice folks too, and some blog readers, and even some people who recognized my work from etsy! I discovered lots of cool people/art/stuff too, but I'm saving them for another post. This one's long enough already.

Oh yeah, and I'm having a little special in my shop right now: buy something and I'll throw in a 4x6" 'baby' print to go with it, your choice. It's a little X-mas bonus for you!