Happy Bday mom!

_{Photoshop CS5}

My mom spent the majority of her childhood sneaking into her neighbor's yard and hanging out in their fruit trees, snacking away. A lot of her friends would do the same, but she was the only one wily enough to never get caught. :)

Tried pushing my color palette in a different direction (read: not throwing down every dang candy-colored hue in the world) aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I like where this is going. How about that.

"Mommy, where's Timmy...?"

Timmy's goin' for a ride, y'all!

A birthday gift for one of my besties! I...owe so many friends birthday gifts, it's sad. OR awesome that I have so many friends! Too many frieeennndddssssssss!

Brush Your Teefs

The little girl, Angie, who was featured in my first blog post makes another appearance! This time in color! I'm preparing a portfolio geared towards children's publishing (picture books, educational workbooks, magazines, etc.) showing little kids doing little kid things. Like brushing your teeth! That's very important, especially when you eat as much candy as Angie. This was originally a simple color comp for a watercolor illustration that got a little carried away.



Dalmatian sketches! One or two of these may make it to the watercolor stage. It'll be fun splashing down color against the white and black spindly little bodies.

GONNA KICK YO' FACE IN

_{Kung Fu Panda © Dreamworks Animation}

I've wanted to avoid falling into the fanart pit here, but some movies are simply too awesome to not pay tribute to! Kung Fu Panda came on t.v. last night, which got a friend and me started on some KFP doodles. I got Tigress and she got Po (who is so ADORABLY fat and roly poly!).

I was seriously all in Nico Marlet's* face, studying his way of designing, figuring out what details he'd include and how everything flows together to support one idea. A lot of my characters (and drawings in general) could use some focus, so this was a great exercise.


*_{If you don't know this guy, CHECK HIM OUT AND WORSHIP HIM. He's a designer's designer's designer!}

That kid deserves a gold star

Ahhh~ Mother's Day. They deserve at least one day out of the year for putting up with our crap. And God bless my mom, she is AWESOME and I'll never be able to paint her enough gifts to show how much she means to me. This is a start. Can't go wrong with kittens.

One of These Things Does Not Belong...

Every year for my Grandma's birthday, I make her a painting. This year I imagined how her lifelong love of elephants came to be (her house is overrun with plush pachyderms and ceramic... c..c...you get the idea). As a little girl, she worked on a farm feeding the chickens, caring for cows and such. One day, perhaps a particularly exotic animal snuck out of a traveling circus and sought refuge at her farm...

Frou Frou Finished

Added a frame to that froufrou illustration! It definitely needed something to finish it off. I don't fancy myself a decorative arts person (I commend anyone who can create beautiful non-figurative designs), but gotta admit, getting lost in the swirls and petals was therapeutic. Maybe I'll dabble in it again. :D

Bed Buddies

Just when you thought it was safe to hide under the covers...

I've had this picture in my mind forever and finally got it out. Is this creature kind or cruel? Is it an inch away from nipping off a little toe or is it as frightened of the dark as the little girl is? I'm not sure where my recent fascination with monsters popped up from, but expect more monster-themed illustrations.

I wanna be 6 again

Well, not really, but I sure do miss recess.

Kiddos have invaded my brains! They're everywhere! Especially these two gals (Chloe with the bouncy-flouncy dress, and Angie the running-pouncing-grimacing one). They tell me that they want their own stories, not just content to do random things in white space. So, it shall be, my dears.

Giraffey Taffy

WOWZERS! Two posts within the same month? What sorcery is this??

Giraffe! It's chewin' and chillin'. I had a block of hot press watercolor paper lying around, untouched, because I HATE hot press paper. Cold press is my one true love, but I've seen so many artists who are amazing at using hot press that maybe it doesn't actually require black magic and baby's tears to make good art with it.

It was really tough at first, but I managed to adapt to it and have fun! It's a different, misunderstood monster from cold press. I didn't give it a chance. Anyway, had some fun with watercolor, acrylic, ink (that bled in places), and colored pencils. Next time I wanna get looser and let the colored pencils stand out a bit more. We'll see!

Red pandas go RAAAAAAA

Red panda! I need to add more animals to my portfolio and red pandas seemed like a pretty good place to start. Messin' around with simplified lines and shapes and muted colors. A part of me feels complete now that I've introduced Payne's Grey in the mix. Oh Payne's Grey where have you beeennnn all my life. Mixed with Cadmium Yellow it makes the most pleasant greens (far better than the scan implies) mmmmm~

I need to get out more, haha.