Best Little Art Show In Burbank @ ELEU Salon

Greetings all!  First let me say, Happy Halloween and second, let me show off my new painting.  Although the show it's for isn't until the 9th of November, a severed head somehow felt fitting.

"Marie Antoinette's Severed Head"
4"x8" Gouache; 2013

That's right. . . "Marie Antoinette's Severed Head".  I wanted to have a whittier name for it, but everything I could think of was too long.  "Was the Cake REALLY Worth It?" somehow seems like a veiled political statement and "How Am I Supposed To Reach It Now" just doesn't seem right either.  So I'm just going to call it what it is.

The painting will be part of the ELEU Salon's Winter Art Show on November 9th, 2013.  The show is  called "The Best Little Art Show In Burbank".  Everything is smaller than 8"x10" and is less than $100.  Marie here will be $100.  When I receive a flyer for the show I'll edit this post and add it.  In the mean time check out the Facebook Event and the Salon's Facebook Page for details as they become available.

Once again, hope you all have a wonderful Halloween.  I know I will.  I'll be celebrating my First Wedding Anniversary by going to see Danny Elfman.  My inner Synchronized Swimming nerd is totally dorking out.  (Believe it or not, I was NOT introduced to Danny Elfman via Oingo Boingo.  When I was 12 my Synchronized Swimming coaches had purchased "Music from the Darkened Theater" and every routine we had that year was from the scores of Danny Elfman.  I then bought the CD and started collecting his scored works.  5 years later I learned about Oingo Boingo and became addicted to them.  I know, TMI, but I felt like sharing.)

An Autumn Harvest Painting WIP and the Wedding Thank You Card

Well, as promised, I saved my blog followers from the obnoxious "Wedding Thank You Card" in progress work (If you're curious, you can check them out on Instagram or the Fan Page).  And I'm still going to save you because I'm going to start this post with the Autumn fun!

This weekend is the due date for paintings for a new art show at ELEU Salon here in Burbank, CA.  The theme is the Autumn Harvest or Day of the Dead.  I'm cutting it close but I thought I'm keeping my fingers crossed I finish this painting in time.  I got a little ambitious.  This painting is going to measure about 7 inches wide and 13 inches tall.  With only 3 days to finish, I'm on crack, but I'm going to try.  Above is the Color Comp and it's been quite a pain in my rear.  It's taken  a good 4 days get thru the struggle of the color comp.  I really wanted to use "autumn colors", the deep Jewel tones commonly associated with the season:  burgundies, rusts, golds, browns and plums.  Unfortunately it didn't go so well.  So although this comp is closer to what I had in mind, it's still not quite there. . . but it's got potential.  More importantly. . . it'd due Saturday and I don't have time to dink around anymore.

Just because I thought it might be fun to see, I've also thrown in the initial thumbnail and sketch for the piece.  I have some strange addiction to drawing vertically. . .

And finally, the damn Wedding Thank You card.  I'm really happy with how it turned out.  I've sent it to the printer and hope to have it back in a few days.  My goal is to have them out before the end of the month. . . that way it will have only taken 11 months to get them out and not 12.  :P

As I'm sure you've probably noticed, I like to stick my cats in just about everything, but for once it makes sense.  My whole "family" is grateful for the gifts we've received from our loved one's and friends, so of course I'm going to include our "kids" in the card.  There are two Disney references in the Card.  Can you find them?

Just Buried: A Boogervampire Wedding

Our Halloween/Voodoo themed Save the Date card.

I had a much longer, rambley post composed but I decided to save you all the pain of my long windedness and just get to the good stuff.

Front and Back of our Voodoo/Halloween Themed Invites. Painted by me of course.

Front and Back of our Voodoo/Halloween Themed RSVP Cards, also painted by me.

I got married to my long-time boyfriend on Halloween this year.  That was the extremely vague thing I was hinting at over the last few months.  It became an all consuming beast of a thing as I was doing most of the planning by myself.  I do want to say thank you to my friends Lori, Natasha and Valerie for their input and help, just having you three made my life so much easier.

Photo collage by our friend Kristin.  I put the original paintings for the invites on display with the guest book.

My ADORABLE flower girl Sabine.

I don't want to say my wedding was completely handmade, because it wasn't, but a very good part of it was and a lot of wonderful sellers over on Etsy helped make my special day have a unique flair that I couldn't have accomplished entirely on my own.

Closer shot of the bunting.  Letters cut by The Sticker Chick, my friend Nicole.

The totally awesome tree we got married in front of with the homemade bunting.

First up my bunting.  Don't have the best pics yet, but I couldn't have pulled it off with out the help of my dear friend Nicole over at the Sticker Chick.  Although Nicole primarily does vinyl decals, I coaxed her into cutting me 22 letters an blank glitter pages so I could glue them to colored piece of balsa wood so I could make a custom bunting that spelled out "I put a spell on you".

I make color comps of everything now.  This was the third color comp of the bunting.

Next up was my gorgeous bouquet and Carlos' boutonniere.  Both were made by Candace at Flowers from the Garden.  I have horrendous allergies so I thought that if I got a paper bouquet not only could I avoid and allergy attack on my big day, but I could also keep my bouquet for a very long time.

Tissue Paper flowers from Flowers From The Garden.

Also acquired thru an awesome Etsy Seller was my mini top hat veil.  Stephanie over at La Coco Rouge made the most gorgeous mini top hat.  Although I was apprehensive to go the mini top hat route (mainly because they are so popular and I wanted to avoid jumping on a band wagon) I'm so glad that I did.  It was PERFECT.

Top hat courtesy of  LaCocoRouge and photo by Ambitious Misfit.

And finally, my amazingly wonderful photographer Collette over at Ambitious Misfit Photography knocked the ball out of the park. . . well at least from what we can see from the one picture she's posted online as a teaser.

The ultimate thank you goes out to my Mom.  I'd like to think I satisfied a dream of her's by letting her make my wedding dress.  If I didn't then at least she satisfied one of mine by letting me design my own wedding dress.  Thanks Mom.  All three trips to Joann's, in two days, after traveling 1100 miles to make sure it turned out right were, totally worth it.