where does kitty go in the rain?

It's been a looooooooong summer, guys.  

It started out great with trips and anticipation, but it ended in the most bummer-est way possible.  Without getting into too, too much detail, there was a death in my husband's immediate family and any of you out there who have lost someone close to you know how that goes...it SUCKS. 

But sucky times seem to be drawing to a close now, and we're moving forward into fall!

School is starting!  It's my third year teaching at CalArts in the Character Animation department, and it is pretty fantastic. 

Me and Sean have an anniversary/birthday trip to look forward to in October!

It will no longer be one-billion-million-jillion degrees outside!  (Those of you in Los Angeles know what I mean: it's been freaking HOT.)

I have a couple big, important, awesome projects that I get to dive into head first!

It's all good stuff!

These illustrations are from a book I illustrated for Blue Apple LAST summer.  That's one of the toughest things about working in publishing.  You have to wait THIS LONG to share stuff!

It's an e-book, for the iPad and such, but I understand that it's going to be printed eventually as well.  I didn't actually know that while I was illustrating it, however, so there's a lot of things resting in the "gutter" on these pages.  Gutter is the fancy word for 'middle of the page where the crease in the book usually is'.  A good rule of thumb for all you would-be illustrators: don't put things in the gutter.  

The story is very cute and simple: a little girl wonders where her cat hangs out when it's raining outside, and she goes out to find him, and sees bugs and worms and stuff.

This is the title page.  I really like how that cloud turned out.  

I played with color a LOOOOOT on this project.  It would have been easy, but super dreary, to make every page gray and blue and rainy looking.  Instead I decided to try making the background colors different shades of desaturated, soft color, so it feels cool and rainy but not out and out sad.

And then yeah...the sun breaks out at the end and girlfriend finds her kitty!  I think this is my favorite spread, probably because I can very accurately remember squeezing my own cat in this exact fashion.  

meow meow kitties

It's that time of the year again: the time when I am in a bunch of gallery shows!  These two pretty kitties are for the Animal Kingdom show at Gallery Nucleus.  It opens this Saturday, February 16!  

It's been a while since I painted some kitties.  You want to know something weird?  I never feel like I really know how to draw a cat.  They're not super complicated, right?  Pointy triangle ears, loopy tail, whiskers.  But when I start, somehow, my drawings are just the most terrible, generic cat shaped blobs you've ever seen.  I tried to make these guys feel specific, and I think I managed it ok.  They're certainly different from any other kitties I've painted.  

They're not meant to be portraits of my actual pets (past or present), since I've never had a medium-haired-kinda-fluffy black cat before.  The gray stripy cat did come out looking like a cat I had named DC.  It stood for "Don't Cuddle me", since she really really hated everything and everyone and especially being snuggled upon.  Sort of like my present cat (who is gray but stripe-less).

The really funny thing about ever making an image with a cat in it is this: there is always someone who will say "OMG, that looks just like MY cat!"  

Is it YOU??

Also, notice how I resisted pink, yet again!

PS, in regards to the unicorn painting: it looks like there WILL BE PRINTS  of it AVAILABLE at the WWA Gallery!  Hooray!  They're not on the site, but I have it on good authority that they will be available at the opening.  

the kitty: mostly photos, a painting and some drawings

Did you know I recently acquired a cute baby cat?  I did.  Her name is Pyewacket, but we pretty much only ever call her 'kitty'.  And even then it's usually 'kitty stop that!! no biting! KITTY!'

 Look at those claws!  Fierce!  Ferocious!

Here she is in action, trying to eat the buttons off my shirt.

Button consumption causes sleepiness.

So this weekend, when I was asked last minute to do a painting demonstration at Nucleus during the It's a Small World show opening, the little squirt became my muse.  What's a painting demonstration, you ask?  It's when you paint with a bunch of people watching you.  It was actually pretty stressful.  I was sweating like crazy, but you can't tell, thank goooooodness!

There were two other artists doing demos: to my left was Israel Sanchez, who whipped up a flawless gouache sailboat, and to my right is Patrick Awa, who made this totally lovely piece appear out of nowhere.  We had about 45 minutes, I think.  

Here's what I ended up with:

Except kitty never really brings me pretty flowers.  In fact I think she hates plants (she destroyed the potted plant in our living room by shredding it, the booger).   When I finished it was raffled away to a lucky winner.  I hope they like cats!

I didn't have a sketch or anything for this, I just did it on the fly!  It was very small, only 5"x5", and you can tell from my giant paint tubes that I used acrylic.  I did, however, have a little practice drawing the kitty:

She is hard to capture.  Like most cats, she has a very serious, and often psychotic expression, yet she is also stupidly cute.  

A got a couple good Lila drawings in there, too!

In case you were wondering if my household was turned upside down by the arrival of kitty, let the following photos assure you that she is fitting in quite nicely with Lila the dog.  

She's much bigger in this second photo...Lila likes to look out the window into the courtyard and then bark like a crazed banshee when anyone gets close.  

Yay for pets!  Furry little muses.  

small cats

These are going to the small stuff show at bear and bird gallery in Florida. They're small! Only 5"x5" each.

I'm trying to get bolder with my colors, and a little looser with my paintings. I tend to paint really, really, really anal-retentively, leaning over the painting and holding my breath and stuff. I think things come out a little stiff sometimes because of that though! These were small and simple enough that I could just kinda do them without over thinking.

The first one is based on my cat Milo. He was orange and crazy! Now he is a ghost cat.



The siamese is based on nothing, because I never had a siamese myself. Or maybe its based on my awesome vintage TV lamp that Sean got for me... (that is not a photo of MY lamp, but mine is seriously identical)



They're off to Florida! By by kitties!

after 100 years...

...the project that I worked on for Swarovski is FINALLY online!

I don't know why it took them so long to put it up on their site, but it's THERE, and you can watch it now!

RIGHT HERE!

Up to 2:53 is the part I worked on.



And now to answer any questions you might have, I've written a little FAQ:

You: "Wait, what did you do on this??"

Me: I designed the characters based on the crystial figures (which already existed...I had nothing to do with how they look) and did model sheets, and I also painted the backgrounds.


Y: "Wait, what is this for?"

M: It's basically a commercial for crystal figures. They don't have much personality on their own, so they needed a little help from good old animation know-how.


Y: "Did you do that whole thing???"

M: Nope. I just designed the characters and painted the backgrounds. Courtland Lomax directed/produced the whole shebang, Sean Jimenez drew the layouts and did story boards, Ethan Metzger after-effects-ted it (with help from lots of others!), and just about every animator I know animated a few seconds here and there. Unfortunately a whole lot of the folks who worked on it don't have a blog or website or any other kind of presence on the inter-webs, or else I'd link to them right now. Get with it, guys!


Y: "What did you do the backgrounds in? Is it paint?"

M: They're digital, 100%. I have like a hundred photoshop brushes.


Y: "What's Swarovski?"

M: They make crystals. Or, more appropriately, I should say that they manufacture crystals. They don't dig them out of the earth, they melt quartz and sand and colors together and then grind them down to make them amazingly shiny and pretty. They are very expensive. I've been to Austria twice and visited Swarovski HQ and stolen their markers and abused their espresso machines, and I love them for giving me the opportunity to do so.


Y: "Are you going to work with them again?"

M: Yep! I'm working on the designs for the next round of figures right now. It's fun.


Y: "Which one is your favorite?"

M: I really love how Emily turned out. Animation wise, Jen Hager hit the nail on the head with Marie and Pierre...they are PERFECT: they're on model, they move beautifully, and their acting is spot on. Camille is pretty cute too...I'm impressed with how she spins around on the lazy susan. Props to P.Vose for painting that slice of cake over and over again.

Y: "Where is this playing? On TV?"

M: No, it won't be on TV. It'll be on the website and probably in some Swarovski stores. Notice how there's no dialogue/talking/writing except for the cats' names. Swarovski is way international, so this could be playing in a store in Japan or Italy or somewhere right now for all we know.


Y: "Who did the music?? It's so charming."

M: My friend Brian! Check him out!


Okay guys, I know that the lack of images on this blog lately is way lame. I promise that NEXT TIME I post, there will be images aplenty!

acrobats + bearded lady + some circus pictures

I finally got a chance to sit down and figure these guys out...

Acrobatics and contortions by the spectacular twins and their feline accompaniment!



It took me a long time to figure out a pose for these two that was both spectacular and not too complex to understand at a glance. I think the cat really brought it all together.

The bearded lady! Make no mistake, she is truly a lady in every sense of the word.



I can just picture the contents of her dressing room table: mascara, rouge, perfume, mustache wax...

Also, while I was looking around for cool circus images for reference I ran across some real gems on Corbis. Check 'em out!

This girl is playing the piano!!



These gals make me happy. It's a combination of their gleeful expressions and their cute thick thighs.



When did this happen??



Once upon a time, all it took to lure people to the circus was the promise of floppy, floating women.



Check back soon, cause I'm going to color those girls and make them real pretty. Have a lovely weekend!