an album cover

My super talented musician friend Brian asked my husband and I if we would make a cover for his album, and of course we said yes, and even though it took me a while to get around to it it's finally (mostly) done (except we haven't figured out the text quite yet).  

So it's really a collaboration between the three of us: it's Brian's concept -- that it should feel like his old apartment where he wrote most of the songs, Sean's layout/grayscale pass, and my color and painting.  

This is how it turned out!

I still really don't understand light, or lighting, or how to make something look all pretty and luminous with colors.  It seems that whenever I ask someone to explain it to me, they're all "Oh it's just a bunch of photoshop filters!  You just screw around with it until it looks right!"  WHAT.  

Since I have no idea what to make of that advice, I just googled a bunch of images with nice afternoon-ish lighting and then made little color keys based on those.  

The last one, which is the warmest, and really feels like Brian's old place to me, is the one we went with.  

Here's husband's drawing!  Sean doesn't get himself out there on the internet much (I know because I googled him and there's really barely anything of his out there besides some Adventure Time stuff: he story boarded Tree Trunks!), so I thought I'd post this.  He's the Background Supervisor on Gravity Falls now, so expect to hear a lot about that when it comes out in a few months!

He kind of slap-dashed the organ together because he couldn't remember what it looked like.  It is based on a real instrument though. Look!

Aren't those colorful keys enticing?  It looks like a big toy.  

doodle explosion

I've been doodling a lot lately.  I'm in this Norman Rockwell tribute show in July, and I'm doing a couple paintings for it.  I'm using one of my favorite (and one of Rockwell's, too) subject matters:  teenagers.  They are pretty wonderful.  This is my very sloppy color sketch for one of said paintings.  

Here are some sketches that I coughed up in preparation for this piece.  I decided not to edit them or make them pretty, so, what you see is how they were drawn on the page. 

Doodles!

Some of these were done from photos.  It is hard to find good photos of teenagers.  The best way to observe them is in their natural habitat: walking home from school.  In photos they either look like children dressed as adults or they are trying very hard to appear attractive.  In person they can't hide all their appealing imperfections though.  

Most of these are not even whole ideas.  I just needed to warm up.  I tend to give up on a drawing half way through if I think it's not going where I want it to.  That's probably not a good habit.  But I keep doing it anyway.  

Even though this was drawn on a huge slice of 16 field animation paper, somehow my favorite drawings are squashed up against, and cut off by, the bottom of the page.  Mer.

This girl is a prototype of the one from the color sketch.  I think I  did a bazillion drawings of her before I found one that I really liked.  My thought process was something like "This girl will have cute short hair.  What kind of shirt would a short-haired girl wear?  She will wear a skirt because she's afraid people might think she's a boy if she doesn't, because she doesn't know how cute and girly she is.  She wears a lot of necklaces for the same reason..." etc. etc.  Yes it's fun to invent people.  

That head right in the the middle is my favorite thing that I've drawn in a long time.  I like that shoe too.  I considered giving her motorcycle boots, but I like cowboy boots better.  Plus it fits the 'Americana' theme of the show.  

I like that girl on the left a lot.  I wish I hadn't drawn that creepy man head so close to her.  It looks like he's trying to smell her hair or something.  Gross!

I hope you still like me now that you know I do lots of ugly and awkward drawings before I get to a good one.  

(Whoooooaaa blogger is all different now!  I like it.) 

Till next time, when I will have a lovely finished painting to show off!

Color, color, who's got the color?

I'm gonna paint these guys. I pulled these awesome color schemes from some cool vintage fabrics I found. If you're gonna bite, bite from something totally awesome, right?

I am leaning towards pink (#4), but because I am interested in your opinion, and also because I've got nobody around to bounce it off of, I'm having one of my ol' fashioned votes.

#1: Turquoise and yellow...pretty but kinda plain. My first impulse. This is the color scheme I first imagined it in.


#2: Green and orange-red together, like something you'd find in a thrift store.


#3: More muted pink and blue and warm grey...gives it a whole different feeling, doesn't it?


#4: Think pink! My favorite so far...but I like the others too...maybe it's too pink? A little too saccharine?


I'm painting it tomorrow, so don't think about it too long!

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.

hello coyote car!

Do I really need to explain this?




It's a coyote driving a car. Two important things to know: One, I love coyotes, I think they're super cool and if I could I would have one for a pet, and two, I also really love fantastic, slightly boxy but still futuristic classic cars. I nearly flip out every time I see a Dodge Dart drive by, or a Ford Fairlane with its giant tail lights like a pair of glowing pie pans. I earnestly tried to get my dad to buy me one, as my first car, but to no avail. So here's a combo of two of my great loves: amazing old cars and indigenous animals.

I painted it with real paint! Gouache, acrylic, and a little colored pencil.

Here are the color tests that I did before I began the actual painting, which as you can see, look awful. There is a lot to be said for execution.



So there, Ed! Ask and you shall receive! One colored coyote driving a car. Cheers!