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.

acrobats + bearded lady + some circus pictures

I finally got a chance to sit down and figure these guys out...

Acrobatics and contortions by the spectacular twins and their feline accompaniment!



It took me a long time to figure out a pose for these two that was both spectacular and not too complex to understand at a glance. I think the cat really brought it all together.

The bearded lady! Make no mistake, she is truly a lady in every sense of the word.



I can just picture the contents of her dressing room table: mascara, rouge, perfume, mustache wax...

Also, while I was looking around for cool circus images for reference I ran across some real gems on Corbis. Check 'em out!

This girl is playing the piano!!



These gals make me happy. It's a combination of their gleeful expressions and their cute thick thighs.



When did this happen??



Once upon a time, all it took to lure people to the circus was the promise of floppy, floating women.



Check back soon, cause I'm going to color those girls and make them real pretty. Have a lovely weekend!

the lovely couple + there's buttons!

I finished the dog face man too, so it only seemed fair to put him and her in the same post together so you can see them side by side.







Also, I had some buttons made! Here they are sitting in their little button box. They have to wait until APE to be set free into the world. I'm planning on giving one away to anybody who stops by my little table to say "Hey, I've seen your blog before" or "Don't you have an etsy store or something?" So if you're going to APE, come by and claim your button!




Here's a closer look at the actual designs on the buttons...some are little tid bits of paintings, and some I just made up cause I thought they'd look cool on a button. Sean is a fan of the close-up coyote face from the coyote car painting, but my favorite is the little baby coyote on the pink ground. I love how it says "hello coyote", like you're saying hi to the little guy every time you read it. He looks so smug hanging out there, sniffing the flowers. Do you have a favorite?




I've got to give myself a little pat on the back, cause I've totally been updating twice a week for like, six weeks! That's lots of weeks, in blog time. ALSO! I put a little counter at the bottom of my page about a week and half ago...I think it was Monday? Just out of curiosity, to see how many folks clicked past the old blog. I was pretty sure it was a ghost town, since I don't get like a bazillion comments on each post, but man, was I ever surprised! In a little under two weeks I've got almost 2000 views! That's a LOT more than I thought! So thanks to all you silent blog viewers who pass through and look but keep your two cents to yourself...it's nice to know that you're there, and that I'm not just typing away like a moron into the ether.


Halloween is sooo close! If you're in LA, you should go watch Carrie in the Cemetery!

Tattooed Lady

Drawings for a couple of new pieces:




The tattooed lady...




...and the Dog Face Man.

These drawings aren't entirely accurate to their subjects. The tatted lady is kinda 40's pin up styled, and as far as I know the "dog face men" never bared it all the way mine is doing. They usually wore suits, I suppose in a dignified contrast to their very hairy faces. But they were fun to draw and so far everybody who I've shown them to has a kind of mad giggling reaction to Mr. Dog Face...I guess cause he looks so smug, like "Yes I have long hair completely covering my face, and yes I'm a side show attraction...but I'm rockin' it."

While I was searching for images of bearded ladies and the like, I found The Human Marvels, which is awesome! Lots of pics of sideshow folks and little biographies about the performers. It's worth spending some time with if you're fascinated by anomalies and weirdness (which I am).

As far as Miss Librarian is concerned, it would seem that green won the vote after all! I'm about half way through her painting right now so you'll see her soon. Thanks everybody who put their two cents in!

I'm going to go pick apples this weekend and hang out in Northern California, with my dad, where it is actually FALL, and the leaves have changed color. I'm going to wear a sweater and drink tea and make apple crisp, and in commemoration of that I give you Mr. Fox:



Have a loverly weekend!