Happy Holidays Everyone!

I thought what better way to celebrate the holidays this year than with a festive woolly mammoth! Here is wishing everyone the best this holiday season. Hopefully with some down time I will finally be able to update with some more recent work. That is my goal for the new year!

Doodles for a Thursday

Here are some recent doodles from my sketchbook.

so that happened...

So these are totally not to scale. The one with the pink octopus is quite small- maybe 4 by 6 inches. While the bottom one - called Life During Wartime- is maybe 12 by 16 inches. It is one of my favorite pieces to date. Also I realize theses are far from the greatest pictures of my work. I took them at the ATC show and sold the top two before I could better document them.

And then there was this...

I did this drawing intending it to be a background for other layers. But I have yet to find something to put on top of it that feels right. So far everything just sort of sits there and I end up taking it off. Maybe this one is meant to be a piece all on its own?

Two more drawings...

Oops! These somehow missed being a part of the other posting of the work I was doing for Around the Coyote. They are about 4 x 6 inches. I was doing a whole bunch of these little drawings and then putting them in simple clip frames I got from Ikea to hold all the layers together. Most of the work I am doing now is at least two or three layers, but the big one I did that is like 9 x 12 inches, that I have yet to post has at least five or six layers I think. Once I get a good image of it I will post it.

A-Oh-Cake With Us!

The third issue of Spoke is ready for consumption! Yay!
Check it out here: http://www.spokeisneat.org -it is pretty fabulous and there are tons of goodies in this one. The theme for the next one is "in transit" which should be a lot of fun.

Plethora of new work!

So its mid October and the Around the Coyote Fall Arts Festival has come and gone. I would say it went really well this time. I sold several pieces and got really good feedback on my current body of work. People really seemed to like all the layering, and they also enjoyed all the squids, octopi and other animals as well as the standard maplike qualities of my work. Here is a bunch of work for your viewing pleasure. I had a great time working on these.


Oh... and my housemate and I are really into unicorns and pegasuses right now- and the notion of a unicorn and pegaus caught in the middle of some kind of battle royale- Highlander style. This here is a drawing I did for an invitation to a party we had this last weekend. I love how tiny and angry he is.

Cake: No longer a figment of our imaginations

I am proud to announce that the Cake issue of Spoke is finally just about finished! Whoo hoo! All the individual little bits and pieces are complete and now we just have to bundle them all up together and it is done! I know I have been saying we were almost done for a while. But this time it's the real deal! Everything has been printed, folded, stapled, stuck, sorted and stacked. It looks amazing if I do say so myself.

Also this weekend is Around the Coyote's Winter Arts Festival. I will be there with my newest work. I should post an image here of that work, but I have yet to scan or photograph any of it yet. Lots of octopi and salamanders and maps. I am on this strange kick right now where I am midly obsessed with salamanders, octopi and squids. Not sure why. Maybe the absurdity of the pairings of these animals. The strange implied narrative that comes to mind when you see them. Lots of layering and maps and little surprises.

bunny putto

Putti (or in this case putto) has to be my favorite art history term of all time and ever. It was pretty much the only thing that got me through my Baroque art history class in undergrad. (From Wikipedia: The putto (pl. putti) is a figure of a pudgy baby, almost always male, often naked and having wings, found especially in Italian Renaissance art. The figure derives from Ancient art but was "rediscovered" in the early Quattrocento. These images are frequently, and erroneously, confused with cherubs.)
From time to time I find myself doodling little bunny putto like this guy here. Not sure if it's technically a putto if it's not human. But it still makes me smile.

new characters?

So today I had this idea for a character wearing a paper bag mask. Essentially a bag head. Something about the monster-ish mask and the striped shirt really appealed to me. Maybe because I've been seeing so much Halloween stuff? Whatever the reason I took my initial sketch and worked on some more finished drawings and here they are for you to see. You can see that I tried to make them a little less creepy than my initial sketch (particularly the one in the dress). I like the weird factor, but not so much the creepy. The pair didn't scan so well for some reason. But you get the idea.

hello fall

I do believe fall is finally here. This last weekend was the autumnal equinox and today I broke out my puffy vest. Yay for fall!

Falling Slowly

So it's been a long while since I posted anything. Not to say that I have not been working, but life kind of took over for a while. Anyhoo... this is my latest commissioned piece. It's for a birthday gift for a friend of a friend who apparently loves Glen Hansard (who doesn't?) and so this is what I came up with. It's a pair of drawings that go together. I hope she likes it. I admit it's pretty silly. But I kind of like it all the more because of that.

Fun at the MCA

New pictures of projects from our fall season of classes at the MCA! Shrinky dinks! Yay for shrinky dinks! My sister and I used to have so much fun with Shrinky dinks. So many possibilities! And Perler beads. I never knew what these were called, but they definitely bring back memories. After doing these samples I am filled with ideas of how to use these old school arts and crafts to make some really cool stuff.

And who doesn't love a tote bag? Come screen print your own at the MCA this fall (Ok so this is a little bit of shameless self promotion, but I am really excited about all the classes we have this fall- check out the full listings here: http://mcachicago.org/)

CAKE!!!!

We are finally working on Spoke this weekend! Yay for cake! Fingers crossed we will have it done in a couple weeks. It is going to be so awesome there are going to be few words to describe the amazingness. Also I am working on setting up an Etsy account so I can sell my work online.

Does that make me crazy?

I can usually tell when I am stressed because the characters in my sketchbook and notes from meetings all start to look a little crazy:





This little crazy guy is the result of me trying to draw a monkey for a friend. Apparently I have a really hard time drawing monkeys, because this looks more like a bush baby or maybe a kinkajou. Or a weird bear with a tale. I'm not sure, but I kind of like how he turned out- even if he doesn't really look like a monkey. I realize in my last post there was a drawing of the king of the spider monkeys. I guess he looks vaguely more like a monkey- but I am convinced that doodle was a fluke.

things with crowns

It seems that I have an affinity for drawing things with hats and crowns. Not sure why, but my doodles definitely reflect this trend. Also this is a new character Hambrosia. She came out of a conversation we were having at work about ham and how the idea of ham salad seems to evoke images of nursing homes- much like ambrosia. So then we thought why not hambrosia? And then it was decided we needed to have a little pig called Hambrosia. One of the my friends has recently written the story of Hambrosia soon to be a book published by Turning Panda Pres. Someday. But in the meantime here is a drawing of the lady in question. Somehow it seems fitting that she would be wearing a crown.



And these little guys are more top hat men dancing with a bear. Don't ask me why they are dancing with a bear... I guess a better question is why not dance with a bear? As long as it is a nice bear. But often there really is no rhyme or reason to my doodles. (Though of course looking at him now I kind of think he needs a hat of some kind. Or maybe a crown?)

Royce the Kitty

Here are updated pictures of Royce (aka Royce-a-roni). They were taken at the last WaPAA meeting. I was visiting family in Michigan this last weekend and apparently he drove my housemate crazy with his meowing. She said he pined for me all weekend. Which was really endearing to hear, and yet I felt guilty for leaving her with a crazy cat for four days. But he was glad to have me back because yesterday he was super cuddly and didn't let me get very far from his sight.

Ready for the Weekend

I made this several months ago after finding these dinosaur stickers that I totally forgot that I had. I love the juxtaposition of the dinosaur with the lyrics to definitely one of the worst songs ever written. But it makes for a funny image. Who knew velociraptors were so hip? This is without question a postmodern dinosaur.

Some new and some old stuff

Here is a load of images. Some new and some older. Its always interesting to go back and look at older sketchbooks. Sometimes I rediscover a note, a doodle, a quote or even a simple line that I really like. Other times I cringe at the really bad stuff.

This last image (also...) is the newest. It's still a work in progress. Not sure if I think it's done or if I am happy with the composition. But I do love the salamander and octopus.

Wax On, Wax Off

So I was going through some of my recent sketchbooks for images to post- proof that even though I am infrequent in my posts, that I am in fact still working. Or at least always doodling and sketching. Sometimes a doodle just makes me really happy- unplanned it just happens and then anytime I look at it I smile. This is one of those doodles.

The Many Faces of Royce the Spaceman

So it came to my attention a while back that I had yet to post any images of one of my characters that I actually draw most often - Royce the Spaceman. I can't quite recall when I first drew him, it was definitely a few years ago. I think he made his first appearance on a mixed cd that I made for my sister. But since then he has evolved. Here is a look at some of the earliest drawings I have saved and some that are more recent. Basically he looks the same now- boots and gloves, utility belt and helmet complete with antenna. Oh and some random buttons on his space suit. I also included for fun the drawing I did of mod Royce, skinny tie and all.

New work

Fun with maps and map-like images continues.