Pretty-Pretty Pirate Playset

"Pretty-Pretty Pirate Playset" 5"x7" Gouache; 2012

 Whelp, she's finished.  Thanks to everyone on the Fan Page that voted for their fave color comps.  As I mentioned last week, I went with an unpublished color comp that happened much later on.

The framed "Pretty-Pretty Pirate Playset"

Closer look at framed "Pretty-Pretty Pirate Playset"

 This painting has been 4 years in the making.  The original idea came to mind a few years back for one of the Gallery Nucleus "Power in Numbers" shows.  I can't remember exactly why this piece didn't get made then, but I'm fairly sure it had to do with the frame.  I knew from the very beginning that I wanted an antique oval frame for it and had trouble tracking one down.  That was before I found out about Etsy, obviously.

I have to address the frame again.  I fell in love with this frame as soon as I saw it in the Little Byrd Vintage shop on Etsy.  I knew it would be perfect for this piece as I thought it would help "tell the story" of the ship wreck.  Or at least match the shipwreck, if not add to the "story".  I also knew that I HAD to get a double oval matte cut for it with a burgundy flocked/velveteen and the gold matte.  Although the frame is beat up, I thought that maybe using the velvet and gold together would subconsciously add to the story of shipwrecked treasure.

Any way.  Yeah.  4 years later she's finally out of my head.  The Creature from the Pink Lagoon has a second piece featuring her now and I must say she looks FABULOUS!

P.S. Not quite done matting and framing the piece exactly, hence why you can see tacks and some black masking tape on the wall.  I'll be finishing her off properly for the first time, which means she'll be getting stapled in place and having brown paper backing on the frame with a fancy hook.

**Update**

I finished the final framing today.  Cut a new gold matte as it had some scratches from when I expanded the opening from 4"x6" to 5"x7".  Also cleaned the glass really well and made sure there were no dust or paper flecks on the matte before I sealed them in forever with some glue and brown paper.  Very excited to have "professionally sealed" sealed the frame on my own.

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.

It's ALIVE!!

A selection of the awesomely sweet artwork from "Just Desserts"

I sincerely thought that leading up to the "Just Desserts" show opening I would have done a million blog posts, but alas, I did not.


First off let me give a big THANK YOU to Mayra over at Monkeyhouse Toys for letting me fill her walls and shop window full of delectable artwork from a bunch of exceptionally talented artists.  I was honestly amazed by the turn out opening night and I don't think I'd be exaggerating by saying I think we had close to 450 people come out to see all of the artists hard work.  I showed up half an hour early to set up the refreshment table and there was already 10 people there viewing the artwork, and the number of people only grew as the three hour opening progressed.  Granted there were lulls, but the "lull" was that there was maybe only 20 people in the shop before the next rush of 50 or so would show up.  Sincerely awesome.  Seeing the turn out, the happy faces on the guests and seeing old friends I hadn't seen in years made busting my ass for the last three months totally worth it.  (You can view more photos from the event by visiting Monkeyhouse Toys Facebook Page and the Just Desserts album.)


You know what else made busting my butt for the last week heading up to the show worth it?  These two!  Meet two new additions to my little monster universe.  Freddy (Frankenstein) and Igor.

"It's ALIVE!!" 8.5"x 10.5" Gouache 2012

After years of drawing my monster foods, I can finally say with pride, I now know where they come from.  Freddy and Igor got bored after making Hugo the Frankenstein Monster (see "Ice-Scream Social") and decided they'd rather put their skills for creating life to a more demonic use.

Freddy, as you can see in these early sketches took quite a while to get out of my head (there is actually 4 more pages of sketches, I just chose the better looking of them to show).  I really wanted to make him look a little like Peter Cushing, but cute.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to make Peter Cushing cuddly cute?  Lets just say it took over a month to figure out.  Igor was MUCH easier.  He was pretty much ready to go after the first sketch.  I tweeked some of his shapes a bit and gave him a more up to date outfit (and braces).  Tee hee, he has a cross between emo and Justin Bieber hair, but his cute piggy nose makes that okay.

Doesn't really look like a young Cushing, but I tried to bite his hair from the old Hammer Films.

What kind of sucked was that I had a working thumbnail sketch for my painting a month and a half or so before it was due. . . but because Freddy took so long to come out of my head, I only got the final sketch done one week before the painting was due.

Then. . . because it's me and I can't do anything the easy way, it took two hole days to find a color comp I was happy with.  Once it was done though, I got right to work.  Thought I'd share an in progress I posted on Facebook.

It took 4 days to get this far.

Oh, and in case you're curious.  The Monster Foods/experiments are as follows, starting on the top left hand shelf.  Orange Flavored Pop-cicle (behind coil; it is also Baron von Cicula from my shop), a couple of cantankerous chocolate bars, three Monster Cupcakes, Two slices of Monster Rainbow Cake and a Deviant Doughnut.  Second shelf, starting on the left, a batch of brownies, an Ice-Cream Sundae in a fish bowl, Experiment #01 went so horribly wrong they keep him in a shoe box, and of course, the Grape-tastic Monster Cone (which you can find in my shop as a cellphone charm).  On the work table, in front of Freddy and Igor, is their latest experiment, a fantastically ferocious fruit tart!

In it's fancy frame on the wall.  Happy accident that the mat matched the painting exactly!

 
So yeah.  To wrap up.  The gallery opening went off with out a hitch.  I managed to get my own piece done just in the nick of time, figured out the front window display, made three sets of felt cookies for the shop (two to sell and one for the window), helped Lori set up the window for her puppets, and managed to not hide in the bathroom because there was too many people around on opening night.  All in all, a success.

Now I'm off to send samples of my monster paintings to Halloween Town in Burbank to see if they'll FINALLY let me show some of my work there.  I'm not holding my breath.

Felt Play Food

 Well, it's not what I'm supposed to be doing (once again), but this is what I've been tinkering with for the last week or so.


The art show is only a little over two weeks away now and I'm frantically trying to make sure I've got all my angles covered.  Mayra, Lori, and I are working on a window display for the front of the shop to help draw people in to the shop.  We decided to make Lori's SUPER AWESOME puppets have a tea party in the front window, but what's a tea party with out treats?  Especially in a show devoted to sweets?!

So yeah.  Felt play food cookies.  They were relatively simple, the hardest one being the ones that look like little Keebler Fudge stripe cookies.

 I'm FINALLY going to finish coming up with the design of the new "monster" for my piece this weekend (hint, it involves Peter Cushing).  So if you follow me on Facebook, keep a look out for in progress photos.  If you don't, you'll see a whole blog post devoted to the new painting once it's complete.

Let me just add, my coffee table is pretty awesome.  For the first time since we bought it we switched out the art under the glass.  I must say adding the larger images has tidied up the overall look of it and getting to look at Charles Addams comics, a page from a vintage bird guide and Bettie Paige by Olivia is more reminiscent of what goes on in my brain on a daily basis.  You know. . . all over the place.

"Just Desserts" is Coming

Facebook Event invite HERE

*** Update 05/04/2010**

It has been brought to my attention in the comments that there is a Reality TV Competition Show that goes by the SAME NAME.  This arts and crafts show is in NO WAY affiliated with the TOP CHEF spin off by the same title.  It is only a ONE MONTH, non-reoccurring arts and crafts exhibit that happens to have the same title.  This show was titled "JUST DESSERTS" for two reasons, the first being because it's primarily about DESSERTS and secondly because of the slightly twisted connotation the phrase "You'll get your just desserts" implies.

Ahhh. . . I never thought the day would come where I'd be grateful for having worked on the Millsberry.com website when I was working over at Neopets, but I am!  Thankfully when I was working over there I had to do some graphic design type stuff and had I not, this flyer would probably be pretty boring.

What's this flyer for you say?  Well a few weeks back I alluded to the fact that I had been working with Mayra over at Monkeyhouse Toys on organizing a group art show.  Well this is the show's flyer.

An entire show devoted to desserts.  Pies.  Cakes.  Ice cream. Cookies.  Candies.  Everything.

Opening Night will be Saturday, May 19th, 2012 from 6-9pm.  If you're in the area come check it out.  More updates on both my piece for the show and show details in the weeks leading up to opening night!

Frida Sugar Skull Redux

 Greetings all!

I found myself a bit overwhelmed and down in the dumps this week.  As a result my brain is more scattered than usual and I find myself procrastinating on the things I'm supposed to be doing.  What you see above is what I chose to do instead of starting my "Just Desserts" show piece.  I have a solid monster concept, but I just couldn't bring myself to sketch it out this last week.

So while I was frantically hitting refresh on my e-mail browser, I decided to listen to a friend of mine who suggested that my first Frida Khalo inspired sugar skull wasn't as cute as my previous ones.  Not only did I discover she was correct, but I also discovered that as I drew more of the sugar skulls, they started to become more detailed.  I had high lights on high lights!  So I took this one back to basics.  I used the first as inspiration, but simplified both the design and the rendering of it.

Now that I've gotten the re do out of my system, hopefully I'll be able to focus on what I need  to work on now.

Cats and Beginner's Yoga Don't Mix

So, because I've been doing a lot of sitting at the computer, I recently decided to start trying to do some exercise for at least half an hour a day.  Some days I get out this beginning yoga morning and evening instructional DVD.  The cats don't really like the idea of me being in the same room with them and not paying any attention to them.  So as you can see, they try to find ways to disturb my exercise time.

These two are self explanatory.  Loki bites too much so I bit him back. . . and I've been staying up til 4am and actually got to bed at a decent hour.

I'm in the process of curating an art show over at Monkeyhouse Toys for the month of May.  It's been a while since I've curated a show (6 years now, I think) and I forgot how fun and nerve wracking it can be.  So stay tuned for quite a few posts about that in the next couple of months!

Clue Part 2: Mr. Green

So finally, after what feels like forever, I was able to get back to working on my "Clue" pieces.  I think I must be working in order of favorite characters from the movie, because the next on the list is Mrs. White.

Anyway, I had to take two different attempts at Mr. Green.  The first time I tried using a kelly green strait out of the tube and it looked HORRIBLE.  Mr. Green's pose was really bad and his navy blue suit got lost in the background.  Although this isn't the BEST, it's definitely better than the first. ;)

"Hi George" @ the Dragon Tales Show

 Greetings all!  Once again it's been a while since my last post.  I've been pretty busy with freelance lately, almost too busy to finish my piece for the upcoming Dragon Tales Show over at Monkeyhouse Toys in Silverlake, CA.  But as you can see, I finished it just in time!

This show's painting is pretty simple.  I was in such a hurry to start it I skipped the color comp step in my process again.  Although I'm happy with how it turned out, I know it could have been better if I'd just taken the time to do that step.  Poor little George the Goldfish doesn't quite "pop" as much as I wanted him to.  But that's life!

So, if you're in the area, the Dragon Tales opening is from 6pm to 9pm Saturday, March 17th, 2012.  Yup, on good 'ol Saint Patrick's Day.  So while you're on your way to your favorite hip club or pub for a pint of green ale, consider stopping by Monkeyhouse!