Sunken Treasure-y Type Stuff

Well, finally got a little motivation towards the end of this last week.  I've been sorely lacking any since finishing the last painting.  (As I probably mentioned in the last post.)

Although I can't show you one of the two paintings I'm currently working on, I can show you stuff from my new pirate treasure themed painting.

Early pose concept.  Her legs got a little long.

Early color comps.  Actually chose the unseen #8.

Last but not least, time for a new mini painting!  I love little scarab beetles.  As you can see in the photo up top, the little beetle below was put in a very tiny 1.25" by 1.75" frame I bought quite a few years ago at an antique store.  Even though I tried to make him small enough to fit in the opening, his little legs and tips of his antenna are bumping into the edges of the frame.  As a side note, the June Bugs are out a little late this year here in Burbank (usually see them early May), so I've had fun seeing large, brown beetles with no antenna on the patio.

Speaking of the patio. . . I've managed to not kill my little garden yet this year AND I brought my hydrangea back to life.  I think I'll be calling the hydrangea Zombie Plant 2.0.  The first zombie plant was a desk plant I had back when I was at Neopets that I would forget to water for a while then once I remembered it would come back to life.

The elusive Nico and her Cat Grass.

Zombie Hydrangea and Garden

That's it for this week.  Next post, hopefully the Treasure Painting will be finished and titled!

Another Year Wiser

Whelp, it's my birthday.  What do I have to show for it?  A couple more gray hairs have been added to the streak at my temple. Although I normally try to hide this patch with some completely unnatural hair color, every two years or so I let my hair grow out so that I can get back it's natural moisture and strength. On the plus side, to the gray hair con side, I'm now 15 pounds lighter which means I can fit back into some of my older jeans!  (Translation:  I don't have to go buy new ones!)

The last month has been relatively uneventful.  With no hard deadlines looming on anything I've gotten a little lazy.  Not sure if that's a good thing, since I was nearly pulling my hair out while I ran all over the place getting the "Just Desserts" show ready and some would argue I could use the break, or if it's a bad thing. (Speaking of, Monkeyhouse just asked me if they could extend the show til July.  You can see the show online by clicking here.)

Most of the things I have been working on I can't post online yet.  Some of them have to wait until after Halloween.  But be sure I'll be doing a HUGE post after Halloween chock full of Voodoo Doll goodness.

I've started my first personal Monster Kid painting (translation: not created for a group show of some sort).  I still have no idea what to call that series of paintings, but as it grows I think I might have to figure something out soon.  Monster Kids just sounds lame.  I digress.  This painting goes back to one of the first monsters in the series, the Creature from the Pink Lagoon and I've been dying to do this painting for a couple of years now.  Found the perfect frame on Etsy about a year ago, so I've kind of been working backwards on it.  Got the frame, then got it matted, and now I'm doing the sketch so that I can size it to fit in my mat since I knew exactly how I wanted to present it

Then, when I wasn't procrastinating on my voodoo doll project, or my Creature painting, I had my first sugar skull commission thru Etsy.  I don't normally do commission work due to my work load from my day job, but since it was sugar skulls representing the client's kids, I thought I'd give it a shot.  Got to try a couple ideas I'd been tossing around in my head for future skulls, namely trying to make a boy skull, incorporating a diamond into a skull, and of course, fire.  The client was gracious enough to let me post the finished skulls here on the blog and on my Facebook Fan Page.