hey where can I get a print of that???

I get a lot of e-mails asking me exactly this, and I end up sending back identical replies, so I thought I'd save us all some time and effort and just give it to you straight, all at once!

I think I've been getting more and more of these emails lately because people are quickly getting into holiday gift-giving mode.  I have to admit, the idea of someone giving another someone some of my art as a present is preeeeeeettttttttyyyy awesome.  If you are one of those people, then let me just say: thank you ever so!!!

Places you can buy prints of my work:

WWA Gallery has prints of Rose Red and Snow White 1 & 2, and In the Pomegranate Forest.

These are limited edition prints, so if you want one then you'd best hop on it!

Gallery Nucleus has a prints of my Beatles piece, Fab Four. 

Nucleus also has several pieces of original artwork of mine from past shows that are still available, if you're a big spender and you feel like making my day.  

If you are searching for my princess goodies, you can get those either on AMAZON or from the CHRONICLE BOOKS website. 

I know my Chronicle Books goodies are available at lots of other places as well, but I don't honestly know where!  They don't tell me that stuff.  It's sorta fun, because I'll see my book or matching game pop up randomly at a gift store  or something from time to time (I found it in the gift store at the Getty Center!).  But it's also a little annoying because I feel like I should have known it was there already.  In any case: it makes little to no difference to me personally WHERE you choose to buy them, and I usually tell people to just go to Amazon because it's always a couple bucks cheaper.  

I know there are lots you reading this right now saying 

"HEY, I WANTED A PRINT OF THAT OTHER THING THAT'S NOT HERE!"

Well, sorry dudes!

I don't make or sell prints of my work anymore.  I used to have an etsy shop, but I simply became waaaay too busy to run an online store all by myself, and be a children's book illustrator, and teach at CalArts, and have an actual life with a husband and dog and cat and friends and all that.  As prints become available here and there, I will surely let you all know about it!  

In the meantime, happy shopping!

happy holidays

I know it's kinda early...but is it?

This is the holiday card I designed for 826LA, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center in Echo Park, Los Angeles!  They are super great and awesome.  

I never ever ever work for free (if you ask I'll say no) but when they inquired as to whether I'd be willing to donate some time + energy to illustrate a holiday card for them I said yes.   I just really believe that what they do is fantastic.  

If you live in the area, you can visit their Time Travel Mart store front (the front of the space is a little store, and the back of the space is a big giant room where they tutor the kiddies).  The store is very silly, and very very fun.  If you live in San Francisco you might be familiar with the Pirate Store, it's founded by the same folks.  

Read your kid a book!!!  And happy holidays.

prep and landing

Well, this is a couple years late but better late than never, right?  Right.  It's starting to get a little Christmas-y, so this seems an appropriate time to post this schnazz!

A few years ago I was working at Disney as an intern or apprentice or disciple or fellow or whatever thing they call it now.  I'm pretty sure I spent most of my time there working on Prep and Landing, and I have a big fat pile of elf drawings to back up that assumption.  I dug them up, dusted them off, and here they are!

One of the first cracks I took at designing for the project was this line-up of elves.  I was really shooting to be a character designer back then, and when I look at these I remember why: that s#!% is FUN!

Unfortunately for me, I only have the print outs of these guys and not the actual files.  Way to not plan ahead, me.  I had to scan them and past them back together in p-shop, which is why their background is all funky.  Ah well.  

I have it on good authority that this line up is also in THIS book.  I haven't yet seen it with my own eyes!

I took a crack at designing some of the main characters too.  I think these little doodles of Magee are my favorite out of all of this work.  Her design in the final was pretty close to this, except less angry, and they didn't use my idea to have her coffee cup say "SHUT UP", but it still makes me laugh anyway.  

Typical of me, I got tea on one of my Magees.  Oerps.  

When this project started the things we were looking at for inspiration were old school stop-motion Christmas specials, you know the ones, Rudolph and such!  Paul Coker Jr.!  Which made me really excited because I LOVE that stuff!  So my ideas leaned towards simplicity and cuteness, even when the project began to sway in a direction that was, to my mind, fairly bland.  

The two main dudes were going to be very different.  You know: a tall goof and a short serious.  

The directors liked my little brown-haired elf girl from the line-up, and they thought she might make a good secretary for Santa.  So did a few drawings of her looking secretarial:

I still think she's cute.

I don't honestly completely remember what the deal was with these guys.  They are supposed to be mechanics or something.   Mechanic elves.  

This was my friend Erik's character styling suggestion:

Which I very much appreciated.  

Also, I had to draw reindeer.  As someone who has attempted animal drawing and found it to be excessively dull, this was a hard thing for me to tackle.  

When I found these in my drawing pile, I wasn't even sure that these drawings were MINE.  I had to look for telltale clues, like sloppy use of marker as underdrawing, to prove to myself that I ever drew this.  I've gone in such a different direction since then that these feel totally alien.  

The antlers were kinda fun.

Reindeers are like buff cows with big horns and skinny legs.  You guys, I drew so many reindeers.  This is really only the tip of the reindeer iceberg.  But that iceberg is kinda boring.  I got tired of scanning them.  

Long story short: I bailed out of Disney loooooooooong before Prep and Landing was finished (bout a year and half or so?).  I watched it, and I can still kinda see some how some of my design work had an effect on the final product, but I didn't get a credit or anything for it.  Near the end my heart was so totally NOT in being there that I was just happy to not ever have to draw another elf or reindeer ever again for the rest of my life.  And just not to have anyone tell me what, or how to draw at all.  

I managed to have some fun though.

The only thing I miss about working in a studio environment is having my buddies around me all day long.  It's pretty awesome when all your friends are super talented, and they like to come into your cube and interrupt your work flow by drawing you barfing into your own purse:

(I had very short hair back in the day!)

...or you as a child sitting on a giant dog and holding an avocado.  I don't get any caricature drawings anymore.  That makes me kinda sad.  I have a whole chunk of my life that is undocumented by other people's drawings of me!  I found LOTS of weirdy-weird drawings of me in that old Disney-drawing pile.  Those are probably the best things I saved.  

grampa's christmas cards + winter break

I don't think I've ever mentioned this before, but my grandfather on my dad's side was an artist. He worked for a company called Josten's that made class rings and diplomas and such in Owatanna, Minnesota, for several years. Like any good artist, he made a new Christmas card every year (a tradition that I have yet to catch on to...maybe when I have some dogs or babies to show off I'll get into it). Last November when I was in San Francisco for APE my uncle handed me a big, fat stack of those Christmas cards. It seems that the responsibility of cataloging and sorting through and sharing-with-the-rest-of-the-world of grampa's work has come to rest on my shoulders, so here's a few cards that I liked the best. It's their internet premiere, and probably the first time anyone besides family has seen them in many, many years...



There's more of these guys on my flickr. I finally broke down and got myself a flickr pro (200 images is really not that many). Merry X-mas to me!


I never knew grampa that well as he died when I was only seven, and he wasn't around much before that. I do remember him sleeping on the couch in our living room with the TV on and wondering if he would wake up if I changed the channel to cartoons...


What do you think? Did I inherit any of my skillz from this guy?



Also, I'm taking a Winter Break from my blogging responsibilities. Don't be sad, I'll be back after Christmas! I've just got so much seasonal stuff to do: bake vegan goodies, watch like 1000 hours of TV, and go to Bahooka for my yearly Hawaiian Christmas fix. I know Christmas + Hawaii probably doesn't make sense to you, but if you go to Bahooka and check it out this time of year you won't regret it. Me and Sean have made it a holiday tradition. We're going to take our dogs or babies there with us when we have some! I'm spending Christmas by the seaside this year in my hometown, and although it is without fail a green Christmas every year, we may actually have rain, which sounds just utterly cozy to me. Hopefully when I return from my break I'll be recharged and fat and rested and ready to take on some smashing New Year's parties.

Here's wishing you a Merry Christmas! See you later!

the new buttons + christmas cartoons

Print versions of the Shangri-la paintings have been added to the shop! Later this week I'm planning on adding the remaining ornaments that I made for Unique, and the new buttons, too. Here's your button sneak peak:



Half are the same, but the other half are new. The tattooed lady and the coyote with his cup of tea seem to be the most popular...I know because they were at Unique with me last weekend too.

Okay! It's almost Christmas! I really want you to watch some seasonal entertainment! I'm an American, and I live in Southern California where there is almost no weather, and so I cannot really tell what time of year it is unless the TV is telling me. And that's nothing to be ashamed of, cause as a result I get all warm and fuzzy over YouTube, and that's a pleasant feeling. So here's my top picks, hand selected for your nostalgic viewing pleasure!

It actually doesn't really feel like Christmas if I don't watch this one. Something about watching all the toys march around, and the way the cozy house actually feels cozier than any house I have every been in... I really like this maniacally giggling version of Santa. So jolly!


You know how I feel about Donald. He's my favorite, and there's sooooo many good cartoony moments in this one. I especially like how the snow makes a raspberry sound when it lands on him at 3:32-ish. Yay!


I think they got EVERY Muppet and Sesame Street character into this special. Seriously.


I watch this every single year. My mom taped it off of TV when I was a kid, and until the VHS just plain wouldn't play anymore we watched it. Some of the clay puppets are pretty creepy, like the pigs, for instance. They're weird man/pig things. But the majority of it is pretty magical and Christmassy! I think my favorite bit is the California Raisins singing Rudolph. Yeah.


Of course, you should also watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special, and all the Rankin/Bass stuff you can get your hands on, but I just figured that goes without saying. Happy Holidays guys!