ozma of oz

This is my piece for an upcoming show at Gallery Nucleus, Not in Kansas Anymore: A Tribute to the Wizard of Oz.  

I chose a character from the books, ALL of which I have read.  It was a while ago (like twenty years give or take a few), so I don't super duper remember all the details, but I DO remember being really impressed with Ozma of Oz, the immortal girl ruler of the Land of Oz.  Here's my own version of her:

When I posted this on tumblr someone commented about how Ozma always has dark hair in the books.  Two things crossed my mind: do people on tumblr realize that _I_ posted this, and it's my own work, and that I can see their comments??  Helloooooo.  And also, this is MY version of Ozma, and in my version she is blonde and wears pink high tops with mismatched socks, so there.  

This is the post-it note that I sketched this painting on.  It is post-it note sized!

Here's a few instagram shots of sketches from my sketchbook:  to the left is my version of Dorothy...

Another little Ozma...


By the by, I'm missbrigette on instagram if you wanna be kept up to date on my dog pictures, cat pictures, shoe pictures, CalArts pictures, and occasional sketch pictures.

And a couple more Ozma sketches.  I really like this composition on the right, but I wanted to show more of her than just her head.  Think I'll put this idea in my pocket and use it another time.

a jenny lewis model sheet

Okay, first of all, you may not know who Jenny Lewis is.  If that is the case, here's her wikipedia page so go read that for five minutes and then come back.

Second of all, you might be asking, "Brigette, why would you make this?"

To which I can only answer, why on earth would I not?

Seriously though, this is just one of those things, those spontaneous projects that emerge out of nowhere.  It pops into your brain and you're like "I'm gonna DO THAT!" and then when it's done you feel a little sheepish about it because it's really almost totally inexplicable!  I just did it, that's all!  

That and I'm in a work lull right now, so what do I do? I make a model sheet!

I'm a fan of hers, for sure.  I have special, sentimental attachment to the first Rilo Kiley album because that is the CD my husband burned for me when he was first woo-ing me back in my CalArts days.  I would listen to that thing in my little red convertible and drive around Valencia (where CalArts is) and wonder who this lovely voice was that was.  

I'm pretty sure she plays a bunch of other instruments too.  I wish I could play something.

I actually saw Rilo Kiley play live a couple times.  First time they were opening for Elliott Smith, and this is before the CD thing so I had no idea who they were.  They were really great, and I remember Jenny playing the keyboard with a lot of passion, which is saying something since most keyboardists I've seen kinda just hide behind their instruments.  She was twisting dials and singing and doing I don't even know what!  The second time I saw Rilo Kiley was at the Elliott Smith memorial concert right after he died but man, THAT was a bummer for a couple reasons: I went to this concert with my ex-boyfriend almost IMMEDIATELY after we had broken up (do not recommend) and everybody there was mega sad (although that was to be expected).  

I also saw her at a vegan restaurant in my neighborhood once.  I was eating and my not-yet-husband said "OH MY GOD.  That's Jenny Lewis."  And I looked up and she was there, and she was very small and her hair was really pretty and long.  

I've heard that she lives in a house that belonged to a Disney animator in the 40's.  That sounds amazing.  

I also saw her when she played with Belle and Sebastian back in 2010, and she sang a part with them in one of their songs, and let me tell you that for ME that was like having a goddamn donut-hot-fudge-ice-cream-sandwich-poptart-cupcake-milkshake poured into my ears.  It was like a beautiful indie rock dream come true.  

Jenny, if you're out there, I just think you're grand, that's all. 

(Also I hope you don't find this creepy.)  

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.  

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!

mythological

I have a show at Occidental College later this month. Can you guess the theme? Did you say "mythological creatures"? If you did then you're right!


I don't usually put up rough, ugly, crazy sketches like this, but I feel guilty for not updating in forever, so you get a sneak peak at my process...whatever that may be.



Right now I'm focused on creatures of the mostly Greek in origin. Later there will be fairies! I like to delight and indulge my inner seven year old with the skills of my outer 24 year old sometimes.



There's a lot of mental static on these pages. I do a lot of thinking/drawing/scribbling when I figure stuff out for pieces. I know a lot of it probably doesn't make sense to you, but that's okay. I'm the only one who sees it most of the time anyway.



I've had a lot of these guys rattling around in my brains for a while. Like Mr. Poseidon.



Mermaids! Yes!



More soon.

sketch bits

Arrrgh I can't believe it's Sunday already! What! Here are some sketches for you. Just stuff from my sketchbook, really. Like this 18th century lady with trees for hair, and this 30's bathing beauty...



I haven't drawn from life much recently, because honestly, it bores me. How many images of people in a coffee shop do I ever want to look at? Not very many. Animals in a zoo mostly just stand around. I do love Sean to pieces though, so drawing him lying in the grass reading Walter Benjamin (a smart person book of some kind) is pretty fun.



I've been thinking about mythology a lot lately.



I tried to personify Hollywood, but I don't think she'd really be this trashy/stupid.



I'm gonna color this in and it's going to be pretty. These girls are from "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort", a very beautiful and melancholy French movie with Catherine Deneuve and her sister, whose name escapes me. The art direction is soooo cool!



Check back for it later this week!

more yuki sketches + friday already? seriously?

I'm trying not to procrastinate. So far, so good!

I think this is what my Yuki poster is going to look like, roughly of course: pink skeletons, birthday cake hat villain, lots of roses and pink because I'm a girl and I like those things. Don't look for the pink yet cause it's not there.



I know my sketches are really rough and sometimes indecipherable, but it's all I got right now! Isn't there a movie or something with a skull that has jewels in its eyes? Where am I lifting this idea from?? I couldn't figure it out, but I know I've seen it somewhere.



Little thumbnail sketches...



At a CalArts Halloween party one year I saw some guys (more than one, like three I think) dressed in suits and sunglasses with hats shaped like birthday cakes with illuminated candles. Obviously, the image stuck with me. What kind of villian wears pastries as headgear? I leave that to your imagination.



This week went by really fast. I seriously am having a hard time believing that it's Friday. What have I been doing??