Mad Hatter

Well Hawllo. This weekend I took a break from my busy life to celebrate my birthday.

Friday: dinner party, including asian goodies and cake
Saturday: much needed sleep
Sunday: sushi and frozen yogurt courtesy of my wonderful boyfriend, Kei.

So now back to business. Tonight I printed out a couple of portfolio pieces for Tuesday when people working in different illustration fields come to my school to chat. This is one of the illustrations I put in my folio. It is an editorial piece to accompany a bad review for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. It is Johnny Depp as the mad hatter sitting in a coffee shop in the real world. I finished it about a week ago and it is the last traditional oil painting I plan on doing for a while.

Speaking of printing, we just bought a new printer. We named our Epson 1400 "Audrey" because we love it that much.

Business Cards

These were the business cards I designed. They actually came about a month ago but I love them so much that I wanted to post them before too much time had gone by. I bought a thousand from www.premiumcards.net. A couple people have suggested other companies to me but I used the site because they produce cards of different unusual sizes and formats. They also do postcards which I might considering ordering in time. I have been leaving these everywhere I go, coffee shops, bookstores, galleries, everywhere in Philly and NY. The one criticism that people had about the size was that it didn't fit properly in their wallets, but it did fit. I like to think of them as mini flyer/promotional pieces that double as a business card. The painting was originally done a couple months ago for a book cover about a femme fatale who steals men's eyes. The playing card idea came to me in a dream. Those are the best dreams.

Final Open House Poster

This is the final for the sketches I had been posting for the past month. It took this long because I was balancing four paintings at once. I'm pretty happy with it. This is digital painting number 2 so far and it will only get better and better.

Evolving

After much thought and talk, I've finally decided to go digital. Completely digital. Here's why:

a) I am so sick of the toxic fumes and sticking my fingers in lead paint.
b) I cannot afford a large format scanner and even when I do scan, all the dark areas becomes shiny and unreasonable. Also, taking pictures of my art takes the detail away.
c) Some of my favorite illustrators are digital. For example: Sam Weber, Zina Saunders, Brian Despain, etc. After listening to an "Escape to Illustration Island" podcast interview with Sam Weber, I was convinced that digital is a good way to work
d) It just looks better in print.

When I announced that I was going digital to my classmates, most of them were quite appalled and thought I should continue to do my oil paintings. Ridiculous. It seems that my school is a bit behind on the times and the digital world. I'm ready to leave this bird's nest...

Anyways, the picture posted is a layout and illustration I designed for a children's alphabet book. Sally saw snails slowly soaring from the sky in spring. Also, this is my first completely DIGITAL painting! I'm very excited for my new medium.

Spinning like a Carousel

In the past week I have been juggling four paintings at once, while revising four others. I sure love to keep busy. One of those paintings is the hermit crab which I posted sketches for earlier. In the meantime...

I wanted to post this painting that I did to advertise the senior thesis show called the "Ely." The horses on the carousel are budding wings and breaking free. The carousel represents the school preparing its students to be let free into the world.

I really enjoyed working on this painting. I'm pretty sure this is the most colorless carousel that has ever been conceived (on purpose, mind you).

Art of Fashion

In February, Webster Hall in NYC put on a fashion show to celebrate fashion week. Part of the event featured fashion illustrators and photographers. This is a picture of me at the exhibit with some of my work. Excuse the low quality photo, it's a cell phone pic.

Final Sketch for Open House Flyer

Of all those sketches I did, my alternative idea was the chosen one. So here is a finalized sketch of a hermit crab that found his home (which is uarts). This is the version without type. The final product will be filled with tidbits of information.