stereo girl

I did this for my friend's zine!  I remember wanting to make zines when I was in high school and college, and then never doing it.   Sometimes I would even do a bunch of drawings and be like, "This is for the the ZINE!" And then the drawings would sit there forever and ever the end.

I'm not sure where this girl came from.  I did a super rough sketch of her a few years ago and I just liked the idea that her clothes (and maybe also her body?) are like a stereo, but a cool analog stereo, that plays how she feels.

In these drawings she's in a joyful dance-y kind of mood!

What's she dancing to?  Maybe THIS?  That song always makes me feel joyfully dance-y, even though it's not necessarily super dance-able.

Or THIS?  I mean, you can't really argue with that.

In other news, I've been around old CalArts a lot this week looking at student portfolios!  I have a workshop-stype situation going on.  SO MANY PORTFOLIOS!  It's great though.  I get to meet the students and hang around in the faculty lounge.  I'll be there next week too!   Busy busy!

CHEER!

I told you I had a lot of stuff to share, and I wasn't kidding!

About a year ago I was asked if I'd be interested in illustrating a series of books about a teenage girl.  That sounds kinda cool, right?  BUT, her primary interest in life, besides boys, and clothes, was cheerleading.  I know most of you don't know me personally, but perhaps you can tell by the overall impression of moi that you get from this blog,  that I could give a care about cheerleading, or school spirit, or anything remotely involved with liking high school at all.  I didn't enjoy high school one bit, myself, and I was about as far from a cheerleader as you could get.

It sounded like such an un-ME project that I almost said no.  But then I said yes.

And now those books exist, in the world, and my name is on them!

The first two books (in a series of five) are out now, and although they're chapter books they are riddled with illustrations.  I plucked a few of my favorites out to share with yous!

The illustrations are meant to be doodles and sketches by the narrator/star of the book series, a teenage girl named Maddy.  She wants to be a cheerleader SO BAD which I SO CAN'T relate to, but she is also an artist, and I CAN relate to doing silly drawings of things!

            Like wishing your nerdy best friend would dress cuter...

...or your best friend making faces at you...

...and getting dagger eyeballs from mean girls!

  It's a trip to see my own handwriting in a book.

 Ultimately, I'm really happy that I decided to jump into this book series.  The sketches are fun I make a point of forcing them to be interesting by inking them with a brush pen.  That way I can't noodle them forever (like in photoshop) and you get little spontaneous surprises sometimes.

  Plus they are supposed to be kind of wiggly and sketchy.  It's hard for me to avoid making them all clean and nice sometimes, tho...

So that's what I've been up to.  I wish I knew more tween-age girls, cuz I love to know what the intended audience thinks of the books.  

Now, back to work!

brush pen part 2

Hey! I've been sick aaaaalll week! It sucks. I really thought I was better last night but after being in denial most of the day I finally took a Sudafed and passed out. At least I woke up breathing through my nose, which was a major improvement! I've been sucking down tea and hanging around my apartment for daaaaays and started reminiscing about last weekend when I thought I had beat my sore throat and went to brunch at Alcove, the favorite breakfast-at-noon spot in my neighborhood. It is full of characters, myself included. Here's a few that I encountered:

The lady on the right had a whole lot of look happening: a big woolly oversize sweater, a ripply tunic or dress (it's hard to tell which sometimes but this was supposed to be a dress since she wasn't wearing anything under it), giant chunky rock necklace, crazy gladiator sandals, and the ultimate accessory: a small dog. The dog was cute but ultra tiny! It looked fragile and fluffy. Her friend was tiny and had worlds largest handbag.



This girl is a cupcake. She was really working that romper. Except for the back, where the edge of her butt cheek kept peaking out...but I did you the courtesy of only drawing her from the front.



This was a tall, skinny, lanky couple. They looked like they just rolled out of bed to have a tall, skinny, lanky brunch together.




Also, I added a whoooooollle bunch of new prints to the shop this week. All stuff from my show last month. Lots of the originals are still available too, but I'm still considering whether to put them up in the store or not. I haven't had much luck selling OG's on etsy.

This will probably be my only post this week, since I've spent most of it laying around watching Grey Gardens and eating cough drops like candy.

drawings that I did from the balcony in the dark

I saw Camera Obscura last night at the Henry Fonda in Hollywood. They are sooooo great! The not great thing was that we had balcony seats. They are good for seeing the stage, but not so good for dancing around like you are supposed to do at a show. I tried to make the best of the situation by busting out my brush pen to doodle...but the only surface available to draw upon were cocktail napkins from the bar. So here are some doodles that I doodled out in the hot smelly balcony in the dark!

Anni Rossi opened. She plays the viola and sings and stomps on a suitcase wearing big boots for percussion. It took me a few minutes of watching her to realize that I went to CalArts with her! I think we had some classes together. People used to say she was awesome, but I never saw her perform until last night. Sean says I jacked her pretty hard in this drawing. Sorry Anni. You stomp out a song real good, though!



...THEN a band called Agent Ribbons played. They looked like a band of wind up dolls that played instruments! They had a great cello/violin player. She had a flower in her hair that was probably as big as her head.






I could not tell you what this bird guy was all about. He must have been over six feet tall, wearing a bright pink suit with a bird mask, and a moon shaped tambourine in one hand and a boxing glove on the other. If you are confused by these drawings, then imagine how I felt when this was actually happening in front of me.




Camera Obscura! They are a big band, and their lead singer has what I call a "cupcake" body: kinda thick, but not fat, but cute and appealing all over. Like a cupcake.






Yay!

screwing around with a brush pen

I just got a brush pen! I've never really messed around with one before, and I don't really understand how to use it. I understand that it makes whatever you draw look about 300x cooler instantly, but they are very sensitive instruments and I'm used to hammering away on paper with an unsharpened Ebony pencil, so it will take some getting used to. These are just some experiments from last week...



I saw this girl at Trader Joe's last week, when it was all weird/rainy/cold outside. It literally looked like she had just wrapped a tea towel around her shoulders and pulled on the most ridiculous, bright leg warmers she could find. I thought to myself, "Really?? Are pants really that hard to come by these days??" And flip flops, in the rain? What?



But that is why I love Trader Joe's in Silverlake. So much style, so many varieties of tortilla chips!