Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas! I've been working on my proposal for a Costume History Graphic novel for McFarland & Company, Inc. and another project for EZ Comics. Since I can't post from either of those, I might as well post some old stuff.

These are two pages I worked on last year for the Little Mermaid adaptation I was working on. That project has been shelved for now but I'll eventually go back to it. (The first one is inspired by Hokusai's "Great Wave")

Nautical Lady

I have an art fair coming up this Saturday and I wanted to make something fresh to sell there. I have been sketching for days trying to come up with something I liked enough to paint and when I had finally given up and started sketching for funsies, I got this. Go figure. My scanner, computer, and printer strongly disagreed with me on my color choices but I found a compromise. Limited run of 100, signed and numbered and for sale on etsy.
Watercolor and ink on hot press watercolor paper.

Darfur Crisis

I can finally post this! Click the image for the published comic; if the title page isn't working there, click "Next"

This was really a great project to be a part of. Hopefully educational comics like this will make a difference.
Ruchir Shah was great to work with throughout this entire project and EZ Comics, the non-profit comic company he founded, is a wonderful idea.

On a technical note, this entire project was a 10 page comic (title page included) that took me a week to sketch, ink, paint, and add text to. Meeting that intense of a deadline was a challenge but was so worth it. The majority of the comic was done with Burnt Sienna ink, nib pen, and watercolor on Bristol board and edited in Photoshop CS5.

Eleanor and Kent

I needed something fun after my previous project. I know the lines aren't straight and it kind of tilts but I wanted it to have the same loose sketchiness that the rough draft had. Expect more, I love these characters.

Flapper

I've been on a 1920s kick lately. Colored pencil and watercolor. The original is on etsy.

In other news, I'll be switching out the framed paintings at Spiritual Haze for unframed prints in plastic sheaths.

Coney Island

This past weekend, I went to Coney Island to see the annual Mermaid Parade! :D I officially love that place and can't wait to go back when it's not so completely packed.

I saved the lineart for this before I painted it so I might paint it again digitally with different colors some day but I kinda love how this came out. I'm gonna sell these at a limited run of 100, signed and numbered individually. Either email me or check out my etsy if you are interested ^.^

Kicking my own butt

Instead of coloring the character sheets I did last year, I just started over completely and redid the design for Kara from Alex Boyle's "Lurid".

I kept the old version up but I'm so much happier with how this one came out. I'm going to create the rest of the characters in this style so I have a solid series.

Tower

I'm shamelessly obsessed with this movie. I got a new watercolor block last time I was up in Burlington VT at Black Horse and this was a fun way to get to know the texture of it. I'm not 100% thrilled with this piece but I like it for now.

Rapunzel (c) Disney.

edit: 100 posts!! FTW!!

Sailor Snarl

What started as a warmup sketch turned into a full detail painting. Go figure.

I never understood how Sailor Moon would fly through the air, slam into a boulder, then counter attack while her hair remained perfectly untangled and, well, perfect. 

Sailor Moon (c) Naoko Takeuchi

Side note, I have officially graduated. Yay me ^.^ UVM has finally given me my fancy piece of paper! :D

Ukelele

DONE! DONE DONE DONE! :D This is my submission for The Rabbit Hole June Poster Exhibit and it's fiiinaaally done ^.^ Clearly Mucha inspired ^.^;; The background is watercolor and the foreground is gouache. I used masking fluid to make the frame and the white splotchies. Phew. I'm so glad this is off of my to-do. Now I can go up to Burlington, VT and graduate in peace (yeah right XD).

Update: my pageviews are already higher than they were last month and there's still a week and a half left! ^.^

Rococo dance

Finally! I finished this thing! It's not as long as I had intended and the music version is pretty cropped but now I have working puppets in Rococo fashion.

Mermaid

I found a great site that I'm now hosting my portfolio on! Click the link under the banner to check it out ^.^

After looking at Chris Sanders work on deviantart, I really wanted to try out the pencil sketching and watercolor combo. I'll try again soon.

I sold a print yesterday, or rather I sold the right to print one personalized digital version of the Enjoy Hookah poster to a photographer in the UK. It was a pretty unorthodox way to sell a print but why would anyone want to pay $20 shipping on a $15 print?

On that note, please let me know if you are interested in buying a print or original of any piece, we'll figure it out.

Lemonhead

I was on such a roll yesterday, I got a second painting done between cleaning the house and making muffins. (yes, I'm a 50s housewife at heart, this is known.) I've been wanting to play with masked out hair and splatters for awhile and this turned out better than I expected.

The drawing, inking, and painting all just sort of clicked as I was working. Even the masking, which is normally wicked nerve wracking for me, went exactly as I wanted it to. It helps that I practically poured on the masking fluid to make sure it came up cleanly once I was done painting. I'm also going to sell prints of this at Spiritual Haze, framed, signed, and numbered.

hookah poster

Because I recently sold a painting at Spiritual Haze, I wanted to make another! ^.^ I was working on a Hookah-themed art nouveau style poster.

 While I really enjoy the idea of selling the originals, prints would be much more affordable to the mostly-student clientele. Therefore, I'm selling limited-edition hand-signed and numbered prints of this piece. The ones at Haze will all be framed as well. I had a lot of fun playing with monochrome with the Rococo puppets so I did the same with this piece.

I'm sorry in advance if any of my viewers disapprove of the smoking theme in this piece but art wouldn't be very diverse if everyone only drew bunnies and flowers. I can assure you that hookah, when used with shisha (flavored tobacco), is perfectly legal for the 18+ folks out there.

production shot

Here's a working image from the Rococo animation I'm working on. I didn't want to rush the animation but the characters in parts were well received on deviantArt so I wanted to show what progress I could.

Rococo paper dolls

I made these to put together as a puppet animation and they are, pretty much, paper dolls. I'm going to edit them further in Photoshop before bringing them into After Effects. I really wanted to combine costume design and animation for this assignment.

 

I sketched, inked, and painted these entirely by hand. As much as I love digital painting and it's capabilities, I have been neglecting traditional artwork way too much for my tastes lately. My art has been kinda stale for the past few years and I'm going to make more of a point of challenging myself.

In other news, I've started hearing back from internships but no real progress yet. I also sold a painting at Spiritual Haze! :D

Masquerade

This took me a lot longer than I expected and I keep changing my mind on how I feel about it but overall, I'm please enough with it to show it here.

This one isn't signed because I'm selling 25 prints, each individually signed and numbered, on Etsy. Once I find the right frame, I'll sell the currently signed original too. As stated in the previous post, this is a costume design based on Georgian fashion (think Moliere to Marie Antoinette, also referred to as Rococo. It's what Europe was doing when the U.S. was in it's Colonial period). I took some artistic license and simplified the style some. This is 5" x 7" on watercolor paper.

Dancey Pants

This is the last of the three pictures I did for Spiritual Haze. I wanted to do something fun and peppy to balance out the other two. This is a 5x7" ink and watercolor painting in a 1" white matte frame. The framed original is $40.

Ocean Goddess

Of the three, this is the piece I'm most proud of. It took forever to get a design I was happy with and I begrudgingly erased elements that I really liked but didn't work overall. Hopefully it's fairly obvious that she's sort of turning into water. Anyway, this is ink and watercolor. I used masking fluid to get the water right and to create the sky, which has masked out hibiscus flowers in it. This is 5x7" on textured watercolor paper and it's framed in a 1" matte frame the same color as the leaves. The framed piece is for sale at Spiritual Haze for $50.
In other news, I am currently posting from my brand spankin' new computer! It's a refurbished Dell Latitude E6510 and so far I love it! There are some elements that I might have changed had I thought of them but given my living setup at the moment, it's pretty much perfect.


Oh! I have a blanket question out there. If you are skilled at website design and code and can help me execute my ideas, would you be willing to barter artwork for your skills? Please email me if you are interested.

Seer

This is one of the three pieces I'm bringing over to Spiritual Haze today. This 4x6" original watercolor painting will be available there, framed, for $30. I'll post the others tomorrow.