December 16, 2009

Three Snowbirds


This is the almost finished version of a painting I submitted to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for their Christmas Day cover contest. In the final version the contrast is upped a bit more and I smoothed some of the more awkward creases in the collaged newspaper strips. Wish me luck!

December 13, 2009

Terrestrial Critters

By far my most favorite creation of this semester. Three tiny self promotional pieces. :)

December 10, 2009

Five Spreads

Five final spreads for my book illustration class. SO glad to be done.



December 8, 2009

Oh, Bollocks

Did I get your attention yet? Apparently there's a good chance Harry and Hermione are going to bare it in the Deathly Hallows (you know, in that bit where Ron's getting tortured, they want to have the audience empathize so they're torturing us, too). Read a tid bit more here, and be scandalized with me. (Fyi, I was two clicks away from posting a picture of Radcliff's magical willy.)

December 6, 2009

Sam Neilson

Sam Neilson plays with shapes in my most favoritist way. He also has pieces he's redrawn based off the art of his young kids, which is something I adore. ("What are those four circles?" "Ears." "He has four ears?" "Yes.") More at his blog, here. (Also, the puuuuuuggggggg!)

December 5, 2009

November 30, 2009

Evolution of a Scary Baby

The scary baby of my dummy book has finally evolved into what it was supposed to be- a human. Oddly enough, the better looking one was drawn at two in the morning when I had a beer in one hand and an energy drink in the other. Irony, thou make me too tired to finish this sentence cleverly.

November 27, 2009

Skirty Goodness

Some people get up at the crack of dawn to do their Black Friday shopping- I waited until the last ten minutes. Tulle is having a kick ass sale- I saved about sixty dollars (not including what I would have paid for shipping had it not been free). Heard about it here. Now everyone just bow down and pray to the hip gods (that is, the gods of hips, not the hipster deities) that these babies fit!

November 21, 2009

Souther Salazar

One of my all time favorite artists- everything he makes just reminds me about everything that I ever loved about childhood and why I like revisiting that feeling in my own work. He's also one of the few artists where I feel his sculptures coincide with his paintings seamlessly (as well as one of the few artists where I actually like his sculptures). More here.

November 18, 2009

Seventeen Kick Ass Cat Facts

I don't know if I've ever been this entertained by a list of facts. See all of them here.

November 17, 2009

The Letter


So today my beloved key that is after M but before O i the alphabet died, meaig I am ow datig a cute boy amed Bejami (souds Frech, oui?). Poor kid has had to traslate all my messages because although my woderful father did maage to dig up a old keyboard (ever before have I bee so glad he works i computers) it's still kid of a pai to use. So, ow, I basically just have this perpetual cold that I type with, because it turs out a lack of that lovely letter makes for a great stuffy ose accet.

Shroom God



I have no idea where I originally found these gems- they were stuck in a random file in the midst of my pictures- but I love them to death. If anyone happens to have been along for the ride when I discovered these adorable shroom butts, do you remember who made them? Because they deserve some sweet, sweet lovin'. I only wish I had drawn sunbathing fungi first.

November 15, 2009

A Christmas Story x10

I'm making Christmas cards, so here are some bunny children for you.Side note: I've had "Layla" stuck in my head since 7 am this morning. It has finally been replaced at midnight by none other than the Carpet Town USA theme song. -.-

November 13, 2009

A Flashcard Do Over

Whenever I do ink and watercolor I make sure to scan in my line work before I start painting, because I am a pro at royally making things go from awesome to down right disgusting. Take my music flashcards that we had to make for Illustration III- the before (ugh) and afters (aaaahhh). (That's "aaaahhh" like a soothing sigh, not "aaaaahhhh" like omg monster is chasing me.)



Improvement much?

November 7, 2009

Knitta Please

I can't knit. I desperately wish I had the time/patience/I swear to god natural born talent some of these knitters have, but for right now, I don't. If I could knit, this might just possibly be the only form of public art I would ever be interested in helping along.
Granny-style graffiti? Sign me up. (Okay, so I'm fairly certain this bus was commissioned but there are some definite graffiti examples in their gallery.) More here.

November 5, 2009

Richard Scarry

I had another presentation to do, and this time I picked one of my all time favorite illustrators: Richard Scarry. I prefer his earlier work from the '50s and '60s, personally.





This last guy wasn't done by Scarry, but I still adore it. I couldn't find anyone to credit, so just accept it's cuteness and know it's not mine. (Though the lettering certainly looks as if I could have doodled it.)

November 1, 2009

Teaching Harry Potter

Benjamin: Where did the scar on his head come from?
Me: From that attack when he was 1.
Benjamin: All it did was scratch his head?

October 22, 2009

Brook Slane Interview

The only worthwhile assignment in my writing and research was to interview someone in our profession, so I met up for coffee with my best friend's older brother, Brook Slane. A lot of his answers were rather enlightening for us illustration juniors who were still under the bubble of teachers and school, and because I keep saying I would post this, here are some of the highlights of the interview:

AS (moi): Did you get a job from [your senior thesis]?
BS (him): Oh, well, sure. It actually helped me get a rep, which is good. It gave me a good body of work to show to a rep and it helped me in that way.AS: Do you think MIAD prepared you for the real world?
BS: I think it was mainly focused on editorial stuff and I guess like thinking heavily about your illustrations and making it the most conceptual thing ever. It just depends on what you want to do, but for me, like, er, I’m not a very conceptual person, like, and this is awful to say, but I like to make pretty things…Yeah, and I mean, I do fine art, too, so it helped me in that, but in general I think it just helped me to prepare the kind of work situation I’d have, in terms of juggling a lot of projects, and trying to get the stuff done, and deadlines. It did not prepare me for working with people, which is probably the hardest for thing. Because a lot of the stuff that I do it completely collaborative, I mean most of the stuff in my job right now, and that’s probably the biggest thing that we didn’t even, like, touch on. And it’s really difficult, especially if you’re working with a lot of people… a lot of people who are extremely difficult to work with, who aren’t artists, who don’t get it at all…AS: So, do you think it’s necessary to have a nine to five job in addition to commissions and everybody else?
BS: I think for me it has been, but, I mean, I don’t know, it’s been good that I’ve been able to do something that’s been able to contribute to my portfolio, too, and also stay in art and things of that nature, but I don’t know, even with having a rep and I’ve been doing that for about three years or so, it’s not consistent work. You can have like one job that is a quarter of your income for a year, but you don’t know if you’re going to get that job that year, you know?... So it’s completely a little bit random. And art shows, starting out, you can be with the best gallery in town and everyone likes your stuff but you don’t make a lot of money at it, especially at first.AS: How do you price your work? Especially right when you’re coming out of school, versus now?
BS: Oh, okay. Like, for illustration or fine art or both?
AS: Both.
BS: Okay, well for illustration, at first they basically tell you what they’re going to pay you for it and you either take it or leave it. The other thing is you can put in bids, and that’s for like bigger jobs, and I don’t deal with that at all, that’s something that a rep deals with, which is nice, but they take 25% and they take advertising money every year and then they do random advertising things you have to pay for and don’t tell you about it until they’re done with it, so, yeah. But anyway, so they price it, and as far as galleries, you can work with them and they’ll just be like, ‘You know, people don’t know your work’ or like, I dunno…
AS: Do they give you like guidelines? Like, this is what we think…
BS: Yeah, and like ‘This is what’s selling’ and it really depends because like fine art and illustration are so different like fine art is like building up a following and building up a career slowly, raising your prices slowly; illustration, it doesn’t matter. They don’t care if you’re two years out of college or twenty years out of college, just as long as the art that you make looks great they’re still going to pay you the same amount.
AS: Any bits of advice for me or my peers?
BS: Hrm, I don’t know. I guess I would say don’t feel bad about doing a certain style or whatever you’re doing, just make it the best you can and there’s going to be an audience for it. It doesn’t matter, like, I think people get caught up in- I think people get caught up in a lot of things, but like in the whole style issue like people get caught up in ‘what is my style?’... I think the big thing is what are your strengths and weaknesses and using them to your advantage, like if you draw really poor figures, make them really disgustingly poor and just make them look like folk art and you know, that’s what you do. And don’t feel bad about it. Don’t feel like you have to draw like- I’m not going to name names- but don’t feel like you have to draw like certain people perfectly or perfect proportions. Just do what works for you and do what you do really well and if it’s something that’s bad you do well, like drawing faces, if they’re so disgusting, it might be something people like.

More of Brook's work here.

October 20, 2009

James Jean

I'm doing a tiny presentation on James Jean tomorrow so I thought I'd just post a few of my favorites.More here.