rapunzel heads

I was cleaning my studio last weekend (it was extremely overdue) and I found these in a box in a pile of other drawings!  They are from my Disney internship days, when I did a little bit of work on Rapunzel (it was still called Rapunzel instead of Tangled then...that's how long ago it was).  Some (ok, MANY...alright MOST) of these look kinda oofy to me now, but they are an example of what character design is all about: just messing around with shapes.  Kinda fun still!

 These, like all the work that I did at Disney, only exist on paper.  The hard drive I had saved my work on crashed forever go and I have yet to get around to getting the data recovered.  WHO KNOWS what other priceless gems are hidden away in the deep recesses of my ancient hard drive???  

insta-life

Hey guys, I have a new painting to show you REAL SOON!  

In the mean time, did you know I'm on Instagram, making stylish photos appear in my iphone that I could never manage to produce with an actual camera and film?  My username is missbrigette, if you are of the Insta-persuasion yourself. 

Most pertinent to this blog, I often Instagram my works-in-progress, like so!

That one is almost done!  Just about a bazillion flowers left to paint, is all.

Ooooh yeah, there's a Beatles thing on its way, too.

 There's a lot of kitty-doggy pictures...

I can't help it.  I hang out with these two ding dongs all day and they are stinking cute.  

She was chasing a rainbow, you guys.

It's kind of handy, actually, because having all those neat filters reminds you to take pictures of places you go and things you see, with the incentive that you can make whatever it is appear up to 900% cooler than it actually was.  

But also I kind of think I go to a lot of cool places, too.  The Hollywood sign almost always looks fantastic.

Even freeways look cool through a vintage filter!!

Sometimes I just take pictures of stuff around my dusty old apartment.

Just kidding.  I take pictures of this apartment because I love this apartment. 

Also...I love my dog.  

My cat is not too bad, either.  

And sometimes I take pictures of my own fashionable choices, so I can remember them foreverrrrrr!

That horseshoe necklace broke!  Sad! 

See, it's working.  I'm remembering stuff.

It's hard to take a picture of the top of your own head.

An occasional picture of food.  Not too big on food pictures.  If food pictures is what you want, you've come to the wrong place.

Next time more art!

dum dum girls

The Dum Dum Girls are al all-girl band.  They wear lots of black and fancy tights and red lipstick and they sound real good!  I've seen them play a couple of times before and they are one of those bands that really sounds best live, I think.  

I love how they all dress in black.  Why don't bands art direct their costumes more often??  It's so effective at making them feel like they go together. 

Look at them go in this video!

 

I think the text on this is a little wonky but hey, I'm no graphic designer.  

In other news, I'm pretty not-busy right now.  It's nice to have time to do things like fan art for bands I like, but I'm starting to get stir crazy.   I like having a BIG project to work on!  Also I like to be paid for it!  So I can buy clothes and then write about them on my other blog!  But that's how the freelance life goes, ebbs and flows, and lots of blog updates.  

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.  

a jenny lewis model sheet

Okay, first of all, you may not know who Jenny Lewis is.  If that is the case, here's her wikipedia page so go read that for five minutes and then come back.

Second of all, you might be asking, "Brigette, why would you make this?"

To which I can only answer, why on earth would I not?

Seriously though, this is just one of those things, those spontaneous projects that emerge out of nowhere.  It pops into your brain and you're like "I'm gonna DO THAT!" and then when it's done you feel a little sheepish about it because it's really almost totally inexplicable!  I just did it, that's all!  

That and I'm in a work lull right now, so what do I do? I make a model sheet!

I'm a fan of hers, for sure.  I have special, sentimental attachment to the first Rilo Kiley album because that is the CD my husband burned for me when he was first woo-ing me back in my CalArts days.  I would listen to that thing in my little red convertible and drive around Valencia (where CalArts is) and wonder who this lovely voice was that was.  

I'm pretty sure she plays a bunch of other instruments too.  I wish I could play something.

I actually saw Rilo Kiley play live a couple times.  First time they were opening for Elliott Smith, and this is before the CD thing so I had no idea who they were.  They were really great, and I remember Jenny playing the keyboard with a lot of passion, which is saying something since most keyboardists I've seen kinda just hide behind their instruments.  She was twisting dials and singing and doing I don't even know what!  The second time I saw Rilo Kiley was at the Elliott Smith memorial concert right after he died but man, THAT was a bummer for a couple reasons: I went to this concert with my ex-boyfriend almost IMMEDIATELY after we had broken up (do not recommend) and everybody there was mega sad (although that was to be expected).  

I also saw her at a vegan restaurant in my neighborhood once.  I was eating and my not-yet-husband said "OH MY GOD.  That's Jenny Lewis."  And I looked up and she was there, and she was very small and her hair was really pretty and long.  

I've heard that she lives in a house that belonged to a Disney animator in the 40's.  That sounds amazing.  

I also saw her when she played with Belle and Sebastian back in 2010, and she sang a part with them in one of their songs, and let me tell you that for ME that was like having a goddamn donut-hot-fudge-ice-cream-sandwich-poptart-cupcake-milkshake poured into my ears.  It was like a beautiful indie rock dream come true.  

Jenny, if you're out there, I just think you're grand, that's all. 

(Also I hope you don't find this creepy.)  

my fun fun fashion blog

I started a style/fashion/clothing/I'm obsessed with shoes blog with my good former classmate/hilarious friend/fellow artist ED Juan!

We really just started it for fun, and because we are both constantly and consistently preoccupied with clothes. It's been getting a pretty positive response from our friends and the like, so I thought I'd share it on my 'real' blog.

What's on it, you ask? Stuff like this:

Drawings of my outfits...

Cute pictures of my mom from the 60's...

Very poorly taken iphone photos of my clothes...

It's located right HERE!

It's been a ton of fun to update. Good times.

BIG news!

Okay, first I'll give you the small stuff and then we can work our way up to the big one. Here's a drawing I did for some freelance recently to accompany the nooz:



NEWS!

-I received a shining endorsement on the Publishers Weekly blog! Thank you, Alison!

-The paintings from my last post are for SALE on the Bear and Bird Gallery site! Buy 'em up, make my day!

-LOTS of the paintings (and some prints) from my previous show are up at Una Mae's, a really cute boutique in my neighborhood. Support a local institution and a local artista, and go peruse their stylish duds and take home a painting.

-I'm going to be at Unique L.A. this weekend! Come by and visit! Me and my tiny pink X-mas tree will be happy to see you. I've got paper dolls to peddle!

-And finally: I'm going to be both writing and illustrating two books for Chronicle. They are awesome folks. I can't give any details yet, but I'm super excited. For anyone who ever doubted that their biggest craziest wildest dream could come true, let me tell you: if you keep hammering away at it, someday it WILL. And on that day your heart will explode into stardust and sprinkle itself all over the universe, covering all those who know you in a glittering blanket of AWESOME. No seriously, that's how it works.

SO, I've been busy, to say the least. Hope all you's Thanksgivingses were grand!

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!