background sniplets

Yes I'm back from the dead! I can't show you anything that I've been working on for the past month, but I'll be sure to keep you updated when it's time for the book to come out, sometime in August. Now I can finally get back to normal (whatever that is) and start working my pieces for my show at Pehrspace next month. I've got lots of ideas piled up in my brain and I'll be busily planning and keeping the old blog updated from here on out. Yes, that means twice weekly updates again! Yay!

In the meantime, here are some snippets from the project I spent most of last summer and fall working on. I know they're not super exciting and dynamic on their own, but I swear they look really, really cool with the characters walking around in them. The project was supposed to be viewable online, but I sure as heck haven't seen it anywhere and I've been googling it like crazy. If it turns up I'll let you know.






Later this week: painting sketches. Yay!

yuki colors

I'm trying to decide what colors to go with for that Yuki poster. It's hard, cause I like colors so very much, and the feeling changes lots depending on what you pick.

I like these blues. Blue roses could be really cool.



I think I'm most attached to this one.



This one is really nice too, but it has a much girly-er feel to it.



Something appealing in this too though...



I give up. What do you think?



What's your vote? I like #2. But maybe #3... See? I need a second opinion.



Now I'm gonna go work the kinks out of the drawing. I'm enjoying the chilly, perfect-for-drinking-tea weather in LA today.

ALSO: I saw Coraline again on Monday night, and I have to say, I liked it even better the second time around. It's one of the best films I've seen in a long time. All you guys who worked on it should buy yourselves ice cream sandwiches to celebrate.

rainy day

Way back last January (which feels like just about another lifetime compared to the present) I got an idea to do a painting of a girl walking around in the rain with an umbrella. One BAZILLION years later I finally got around to doing it.



It totally changed from the originally intended version. The only similarities are the girl, the umbrella, and the vertically inclined composition. I didn't get started on this image way back when because in part it really bothered me that I couldn't figure out what was going on with the girl. I didn't know what she was all about, or what the image was supposed to be about for that matter. I had to change it around this much to make it feel right. It's kind of an intangible thing and it looks pretty hokey in writing, but oh well. Sometimes making art is a hokey business.

In other news, Unique LA is this coming weekend and I have sooooo much stuff to do still to get ready for it! So I'm gonna go do that stuff!

oh here she is!

She's all done! Yay! Now there are four circus folk paintings. I think I may want there to be six, but I'm not sure which freaks I should go for next...suggestions? Maybe I should just watch Freaks?

Now I'm going to go get myself a soy latte from my favorite coffee spot, and paint some Shangri-la's.

acrobats painting + pink or blue?? + teddy newton drawing

So here are those acrobats all colored up and ready to go...



They'll probably get a few tweaks and such before they go into the shop to join their fellow circus folk.
Speaking of which, I'm having a color conundrum with my darling bearded lady: pink makes her look a wee bit more girly than I was going to go for, but it kind of works since, you know, she has a BEARD and the pink + beard is kinda funny. BUT I think she looks so pretty in blue, and there's something nice about the caramel colored BG against a nice cool periwinkle blue.

So, I'm leaving it up to you.

Make it PINK!



Make it bloooo!



Whatta ya think?



Also, while I was attempting to become organized this past week (as I often find myself doing), I decided it was high time I sifted through the giant stack of papers that was taking up waaaaay too much space under my table. It had a little bit of everything in it, and as I got toward the bottom of the stack I hit Pixar drawings (mostly mine but a good portion are other people's caricatures of me), and mixed in there was this little guy:



It's a little rat drawing by Teddy Newton! SO appealing! Even his signature is all elegantly executed. It lives on my cork board now so I can ogle it all the time and show it off to people who come into my workspace.

OH yeah, and I went to the Felt Club this past weekend! It was really, really overwhelmed by all the cool stuff, and tragically I didn't have much cash on my person. But I found a few cool shops to share anyway: Ach Ach Leibling had really excellent delicate jewelry, Mahar Drygoods had some of the cutest toys and stuff that made me wish I had babies just so that I could have an excuse to buy them, and Ryn Rini had the most wonderful little felt hats that I pined away for for the rest of the afternoon.