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.  

in the pomegranate forest

Hello out there in blogger land!  I have a painting for you!

This is for the "I believe in unicorns, too!" show at the WWA Gallery in Culver City.    They specifically told us that we didn't necessarily have to do a unicorn themed painting, but I couldn't get this image out of my brain once it was in there, so out it came!

For this painting I wanted to try breaking away from my usual palette, and I kinda succeeded.  Specifically, I noticed that when I open my website (http://brigetteb.com) there is a LOT of pink.  Pink and purple.  And I'm not surprised, cuz I love pink and purple!  But I AM surprised that I keep going back to pink over and over....and over.  And over.  Pink is my safety color.  So I tried some browns, and greens, and blues!  The pinks still snuck in there (although a kind of electric peach or coral), but I did end up using a color scheme from outside my comfort zone, so I call it a success.

As you can probably tell, I really love pomegranates.  I think their shape is so beautiful!  I didn't originally intend on putting so MANY in this painting, but as I was sketching I added them in and I'm glad I did.  Even though they are intricate suckers to paint.

See you at the gallery opening, maybe?  I love openings at the WWA Gallery, cuz it's right down the street from one of my favorite veggie restaurants, Native Foods!  I go eat a bowl of veggies and drink a gallon of watermelon agua fresca and then show up at the opening bloated from a fresca overdose.  I recommend it!

I remember you

This is my piece for a group show at Susanita's Little Gallery.  The theme is the Ramones!  It opens early next month.  Each artist got to choose a song to illustrate, and I chose "I Remember You", cuz I like that song.

Acrylic on board.  And fun.

the royal tenenbaums

This is my piece for the Spoke Art Gallery's Bad Dads show, opening this weekend in San Francisco!  Wish I could be there.  I wish it would get cold in Los Angeles already, too.  I bet it's fall in San Francisco right now, and I bet it's super nice.

The hardest part was getting likenesses for all the characters.  I do not consider myself very hand with caricature, so there were LOTS of super ugly, generic looking versions of everybody before I got to anything useful.  I think my favorite in the end is Royal.  Or Dudley.  Dudley was the only one I had no trouble drawing at all, strangely!

It's 20"x26",  acrylic on board.

I should accompany this painting with this fact: when I first saw this movie, I did not like it.  Nope.  I exited the theater thinking "What one EARTH was it that I just saw??"  I didn't understand the dryness of the tone, or what the story was supposed to mean, or anything about it really.  I understood that it looked really cool.

Post art school I gave it another try.  It IS one of my husbands favorite movies, and I usually trust his opinion when it comes to films (with the exception of his insatiable desire to watch old and obscure horror movies, which are usually indescribably, irredeemably  terrible).  

The second time around, it was like a lightbulb had been turned on in my brain.  After watching butt loads of movies and films in college, I finally had some context for the type of storytelling that Wes Anderson is going for.  Basically, I get it now!  But I also get why some people are still like "I don't like his movies".  They're the kind of movies that deserve investigation: you can watch them over and over and every time you do, you notice new things and make new connections.  They're very rich with content but they definitely don't give it up for free.  You have to spend time with them.  You probably have a buddy or two like that...at first, to a stranger, they seem unapproachable, and you find yourself saying "he's super cool once you get to know him."

(pssst I already put it on tumblr for you)

marceline vampire queen

This is my contribution to the Adventure Time Tribute at Gallery Nucleus this month!

What'd I do here?  I pretty much took Marceline (because I like her. I like female characters that are unapologetically bitchy) and made her Brigette-y.  I gave her a cute dress and a strawberry base!  And fancy red toenails and a garden of sharp pokey plants!  Why doesn't she already have one?  She loves red things. 

I had to put Tree Trunks in it too, because Tree Trunks is my favorite Adventure Time episode!  Not just because my husband and my friend boarded it together, but that doesn't hurt.  

It should be a good show.  And by a good show what I mean is, it should be a gigantic cluster f%&# of Adventure Time fandom.   The previous Adventure Time themed show at Nucleus was NUTBURGERS.  I'd never seen it so packed before!

Speaking of Nucleus, if you were hankering for a print of my Beatles piece, you can have one!!

CLICK THIS FOR BEATLES PRINT!

Meanwhile:

I'm working on illustrating a book,

teaching two classes at CalArts next year,

and my birthday is this month!

Good stuff!

flavia sabina de luce

This is my piece for the Book Show!

It's based on the Flavia de Luce novels, specifically The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.  I like the part when she melts down her sister's lipstick and infuses it with poison ivy.   Oh Flav, you vengeful little creature.

For those of you who haven't read the book (or books...there are 4 total with another one on the way and I've read em all wooooo!)  Flavia is a really interesting gal, not just because she's an 11 year old chemistry whiz/girl detective/British aristocrat/lives in the 50's, but because there are so many contradictions in her character.  Her mother died when she was a baby, so she doesn't remember her, yet she is obsessed with her.  She wonders why her sister's don't like her yet she goes out of her way to terrorize them constantly.  She's scary smart and sneaky and yet monumentally naive.  She's kinda bitchy and manipulative but supes vulnerable at the same time.  I love her and hate her alternately when I read the books...she's all complex!

She lives in a big old rotting English country house, where she has taken the Victorian-era chemistry lab as her own.  I wanted to show her in her natural habitat, among the chemicals and books.  The story takes place in the 50's, but the lab is totally old school and kinda mad-scientist-y.  At least that's how I picture it.

She talks about chemistry a lot in the book(s). I tried to take chemistry, but bounced out of the class when I realized that I had no idea what the &$%# was happening and had no hope of catching up (it was a city college class, so you could kinda do that).  Flavia certainly makes it interesting, compelling even, but I was so completely lost in that class.  Much like John Cusack in this particular movie clip!

peter pan

This is my piece for the Peter Pan themed show at Susanita's Little Gallery.  The gallery is completely online, so you only need a computer and internets to snap this one up when it goes live.  

Another cool thing about Susanita's: they donate 20% of their profit from each sale to a children's charity.  You can support me AND an adorable child in need AND you get a pretty cool painting of an androgynous elfish boy to treasure forever.

I had fun with this!  I wanted to get away from the Disney version of Peter Pan (even though I like that version...those green tights are very strange, if you think about it).   I have read the books and Peter is described as having a tunic of skeleton leaves or something, so lots fancy leaves were in order.

Composition sketches before I thought of doing it in an oval.  I like the oval format.  Sean thinks it's stupid, but I like it!

I looked at a lot of leaves.  

OH yeah and Tinkerbell!  I love that she is unapologetically bitchy. I wanted her to be topless.  Tiny little fairy boobies are funny, don't you think?  In the actual painting she's so small that you can barely see her face, so I just skipped the boobies and hiked up her dress a bit more.  I'm tempted to do a second piece with her in it, but I've got other stuffs to work on!

rose red + snow white

I'm working on a bunch of paintings at once these days.  This is the first one that got finished!  It's for a show in July, and it will have a sister piece to go with it... a diptych, if you're fancy.  

Click to see it bigger!

The show is fairy tale themed.  You know I love a good, obscure fairy tale.  You know what else I love?  Flowers, and vintage clothes, and patterns.  So all those things got wrapped up into this painting.  

It's acrylic on board, by the way, and 16"x16" square.  Haven't had it framed yet but I'm thinking something wood and vintage looking.  Usually framing is my least favorite part (who knows who will end up buying it, and what they'll like), but I can't wait to see this one all ready-to-hang.

As usual, I did a butt load of sketching before leaping into the painting.  Can you believe I really haven't done much bear drawing?  I just wanted him to be really BIG with a cute face.  And a crown.  Because if you know this fairy tale, then you know he is a prince, after all.  

I like post-its for compositions.  If you hate your drawing then you can just peel them off and throw them away.  

Yeah, flowers.  I had a moment where I thought I might do teenage versions of the sisters, and make them more contemporary, but the littler versions won.  As soon as I had the idea to put them in little mod dresses it was over with.  I might, however, still put those heart-shaped sunglasses on Snow White...

More comin'!

lock, shock + barrel

This is my Nightmare Before Christmas themed piece for a tribute show at Arludik Gallery month.  The gallery is in Paris, France.  That's right, I'm all international and stuff!  (And no I'm not going...I WISH I could just jet off to Paris for a gallery opening.)  Here are your favorite trick-or-treaters, Lock, Shock and Barrel, effing around in the moonlight!

When it comes to tribute shows of any kind, I like to do pieces with more peripheral characters.  I have a special love for Nightmare, as I saw it when I was  about eight and thought it was perhaps the BEST THING EVER.  I had friends whose mother's forbade them to see it, because it was 'scary'.  Whaaaat?  What a bunch of weenies.  This movie was also the subject of argument between me and my eight-year-old friends, since they insisted it was claymation, and when I tried to explain stop motion to them they plainly disregarded me and my amateur animation knowledge.  

My other favorite movies when I was eight:  The Dark Crystal, The Princess Bride, Alice in Wonderland, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  All the ones that scared the other children.  

Oh yes, and one more thing:  I've erased my old portfolio blog and replaced it with a new, shiny tumblr portfolio blog.  To see it, you can either click the 'portfolio' button or just CLICK HERE!

And one last thing:  I've started a twitter.  Admittedly, I'm not a very good twitter-er.  I'm kind of lame in that I don't totally 'get' twitter (if indeed there is anything to get).  Maybe I will get better if you start following me.  I'm gonna try harder!  HERE I AM!

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.  

there is just one moon, and one golden sun

....and a smile means friendship to everyone!

This is my piece for the Gallery Nucleus It's a Small World show that opens this Saturday, September 17.  I made a diptych, which is fancy speak for "two paintings that are supposed to go together".  They're both about 10"x20" and acrylic on board.

I wanted it to capture the happy, peaceful, slightly psychedelic feeling that you get from the ride.  I have been on that ride (at Disneyland, and once at Tokyo Disneyland!) a lot of times.  Once, we got stuck inside in the same spot for about 15 minutes, which could easily be obnoxious, but there's so much amazing design to look at that it was actually nice.  Slightly hypnotic, but nice.

Messing with the colors was a lot of fun, and I actually indulged and bought new, non-bargain price paint for this project!  Well, I say "indulged" but most of my paint was pretty much dried up crust in a bottle and not usable.  Plus I've got more gallery shows coming up and I like to be prepared!...or try to be.

Classes at CalArts started today!  I'm teaching a class about making awesome portfolios (a class I wish had existed when I was there).  I'm slightly nervous, more because it's hard to get up in front of people and talk than anything else.  My first class is Friday, so I still have to time to prepare!  I'm going to practice my lecture on my dog.  We'll see how that goes.

Work work 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!

bring your record player

Another painting for the Norman Rockwell show in July!  It is the horizontal sister to the other painting of teenagers.  I took these pictures really quickly and sloppily immediately after I finished it, and then I packed it up and sent it on its way.  

This is my favorite part.  

A portable record player is a good thing to have.  I've got one.  It's not pink though, unfortunately.  

A big gross mess!  I used that brown paper (actually cut up Trader Joe's bags) to wrap up the two paintings.  Recycle and stuff!

I kind of went with a different process for this painting than I did for the other.  I didn't really make an initial sketch, instead I did some little studies and then drew the sketch directly onto the primed board.  Then I scanned it (in pieces...I hate doing that) and did a digital color key.  I always like the way the sloppy color pass looks better than the finished painting.  It has more something.  I'm not sure what.  

I'm not quite as pleased with this one as I was with the other one, but c'est la vie.  I was also in a tremendous hurry to get this one done, and I'm sure that had something to do with it.  Working under pressure is tricky.  Sometimes it forces you to be more awesome in a smaller amount of time, and at the end you are so happy and you feel like you WON!  But other times you can't escape that gross feeling that you really just don't have enough time and what you're trying to do isn't going to happen, and you go into lazy auto-pilot mode.  

In any case, it's time for me to drink an iced coffee, so til next time!

this painting has no name

The finished painting!  I realized as I was writing this post that I haven't yet named it.  I've been trying to stay looser in my paintings, and let go of that holding-your-breath-trying-to-make-it-just-so feeling.  It's bunches more fun if you are not freaked out every time you pick your brush up.

Sorry about the quality of these images.  I don't have a real camera (these are iphone pics) and the painting is too big for my scanner.  Yes I know I could scan it in pieces and all that jazz, but who has time for that?! (I do not...as I type this I ought to be working on something else, but I get excited when I finish something!)

I know you guys like seeing the painting surrounded by the chaos of my table top...

That thing in the upper left corner is my color work book.  I had to paint what felt like a billion swatches of different color combinations, plus shades and tints for each combo, for a painting class I took at city college.  The class itself was pretty useless, but I've kept and used that color work book ever since.  It's a super helpful thing to have, if you  have the patience to make one.  

kim and jim

So, I was invited to be in this show. I watched this movie and did a bunch of sketches, and then decided that I'd feature the 'villain' of the story in my piece instead of the hero, because while Edward gets a lot of love, poor, beefy, angry Jim (Anthony Michael Hall) gets nothing.

Also, I thought it'd be fun to document my painting process. Why not? I'm not sure that you'll be able to glean any "secrets" or "techniques" or any of that stuff from these pictures, but at the very least they're interesting to look at!


I started off with a little doodle of what I wanted the painting to look like! This sketch is really only like 1 1/2" tall. It doesn't need to be much bigger than that to get its point across. You can pretty much tell what's goin on, compositionally.

I scanned it, brought it in to old photoshop, and did some color stuff! I did a bunch of different color ideas but this one (which was pretty close to what I'd imagined) was the best.

I got this big piece of very cheap board from an art store and cut it down to the size I wanted. I didn't gesso the board, I just gave it a coat of really ugly bright magenta paint. I don't have a good reason for choosing that color. I just had a really big bottle of pink paint that I wanted to use up. Anyway, once I had a layer of paint down the next few coats of paint had something to grab onto, so that's what that's all about. Please note: my paints are mostly of the cheap-o variety.

I took a big turquoise colored pencil and sketched in my dinosaur bush, Jim and Kim. For some reason I suddenly felt that I should switch Kim with Jim so they're different than they were in my first sketch. I don't know why! It just seemed right! Also I started to lay in some paint, mostly just for texture and rough shapes. It looks awful at this point, doesn't it??

Nooooow it starts looking a little more like something, although not much more...

It's slowly coming together, but only sort of. Usually somewhere in the middle of working on a picture you have a moment where you think "This is awful. This isn't going to work. What was I thinking? What IS THIS??" I was having that thought about here. If you recognize that feeling, you know it eventually goes away if you keep working...

I don't have a hierarchy of what I work on first or last or whatever. It's usually more like, "What do I feel like painting now??" I felt like getting Winona resolved. Winona Ryder is hard to catch a likeness of. She's pretty and all, but she kinda doesn't have any really defining features. Anthony was pretty easy. I just had to make him look angry and red.

Finally past that "this is garbage" feeling! It's starting to look like a painting!

OH! THAT'S what it's supposed to look like! The piece is BIG (for me at least!) and won't fit on my tiny scanner, so you will have to be content with these grainy iphone pictures of the finished product. I like how it came out.

It was missing something, so I added leaves and branches to the ground around the dino-topiary. It gives you the feeling that Edward was just there, even though he's not in the picture at all.

Grrrr!!