Carly Schonberg

Illustration West

2012-01-05T20:56:00.001-05:00

I was just informed that this still version of one of my previously posted animations got accepted into Illustration West! Good start to the year.

It's most definitely December

2011-12-13T11:18:00.002-05:00

More than usual, I've fallen victim to hectic December-ness this year. I need an extra day in every week, and an extra week on top of that, at least.

Here are some holiday pieces I did for unvelope.com:

The way things are going, I'll probably see you in 2012 :)

Drink & Draw!

2011-11-09T23:06:00.000-05:00

New blog layout! It needs a snazzy header. I'll get around to that eventually.

I was THRILLED to find a local figure drawing opportunity in my slightly-more-humble-than-NYC new town. I went to a drink and draw in Bethlehem, and got some much needed sketching in (last time I did figure drawing was at Dr. Sketchy 2 years ago... oops). Not exactly the burlesque dancing models in bombastic costumes that Dr. Sketchy can boast, but drawing is drawing, and I met some cool people!

I was sure I'd be rusty, but we only did 10 minute poses the whole night, and considering that this was the last 10 minute pose in my book (below)...

...I'm actually surprised and pleased with how confidently I attacked the ones above (though I'm certain if we'd done an hour long pose I'd have noodled it to death).

TOTORO PUMPKIN!

2011-10-27T09:03:00.000-04:00

With a little totoro:

With Andrew's Frankenpumpkin:

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

2011-10-11T21:22:00.000-04:00

I've been playing with photo collage illustrations lately. It's fun! It's especially fun when I'm able to piece together what I need from readily available items and set up the photos myself. The one below kicked off a series of Breast Cancer Awareness cards for unvelope.com. Please check them out and send some to the women in your life. All the BCA cards are free.

Here is a still from the aforementioned piece. It doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense out of context, so take a look at the full card via the link below the image (and the others in the category as well!):

View the card

Young Artists for St. Jude

2011-09-28T14:14:00.001-04:00

Earlier this month I donated a painting to Young Artists for St. Jude, an art auction benefitting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. I'm very proud to say it was accepted! The theme for the auction is "The Beauty of Life." I submitted this watercolor I did back in 2008:

I hope it wins a helpful bid for a great cause. If you're interested in attending the event, details are on the site linked above.

I'm in love

2011-09-22T10:35:00.000-04:00

Another inspiring morning courtesy of Design*Sponge (resulting in me wasting time looking at pretty things instead of being productive). I was thus introduced to the work of Lee May Foster-Wilson, creator of the adorableness pictured below:

But what REALLY has my heart fluttering is her jewelry! For someone who enjoys every aspect of shopping and dressing up, I'm terrible at accessorizing, and I have an especially difficult time finding jewelry I like. I usually end up wearing very little because nothing I own ever seems quite right, and when attempting to shop for jewelry I typically feel wishy washy at best and end up leaving it all behind. These lockets, however... how am I supposed to pick just one?!

I couldn't even decide which ones I wanted to use as samples in this post!

In other news, the humidity INSIDE my apartment was 85% this morning. As Snoopy might say, BLEAH.

More recent work

2011-08-31T13:53:00.000-04:00

Here are a few watercolors I've done for Unvelope recently:

This piece was pretty experimental, but I like the way it came out:

I thought moving would assuage my crickets-in-the-studio problem. No such luck! The old ones were huge, but at least they were quiet. The new ones won't shut up. What is it with me and crickets?!

Sketchbook

2011-08-12T12:53:00.000-04:00

From my head:

From the Sartorialist:

Some girl who was practicing a dance routine at the gym:

Some recent work

2011-08-01T14:34:00.002-04:00

It seems July has quietly slipped by. Maybe quietly is the wrong word... I've sure been swamped. Still, I can't believe it's August already! I guess moving to a new place will do that to you. Unfortunately, I really have been too swamped for sketching and personal work, but on the bright side I can share a bit of what I've been working on.

Firstly, over the past month most of my time not spent on my primary job has been put to use totally revamping this hair salon website that I made back in 2008. Visually it's largely the same, although I did improve the design in some areas, and I VASTLY improved the framework. When I made it originally I had a very minimal knowledge of html and css, and to work around that I used a program that rendered it a hot mess. This is the most complicated thing I've done since teaching myself Dreamweaver.

Additionally, over the past few months I've been able to do some fun work for my main employer, unvelope.com. Some of the things I've been exploring in my reference-less warmup sketches (when I get to do them) have made their way into select pieces, and it's been an enjoyable challenge to try to bring that freedom and spontaneity to a more polished finished state. Here are a few:

And below is probably my favorite of my unvelope pieces so far. I've gotten pretty well used to Flash over the last two and a half years, but character animation is still a big challenge for me because I never learned it. So, just the fact that the two of them are walking is pretty amazing to me... plus I had a great time working on the imagery.

This is really directly related to one of my earlier sketches:

Just as a reminder, I can't post all of the work I do for unvelope here... but if you want to see more, you're welcome to browse the site! Not all of the cards are illustrated, but I did the layouts and animations for the ones that aren't also.

Here's to a (hopefully) more blog-heavy August!

June sketching

2011-06-28T10:47:00.000-04:00

June has been a hectic month. I moved to a new state, and amidst settling in I've been pretty swamped with work. Here are a few reference-less sketches (I found an orange pen... can you tell?):

and some Sartorialist sketches:

Hopefully I'll be able to share some of my recent work soon!

A Hodgepodge

2011-06-01T00:22:00.000-04:00

This was going to be even more of a hodgepodge because I had some photos to share, but my card reader is MIA, which is very distressing because the last place I know I had it was a Fairfield Inn in North Carolina. Let's hope this resolves itself.

But the post must go on! Here are two completely random things I've liked lately:

I've been wanting to visit Montreal for quite a while now, and these fabulous new ads have exacerbated the situation. These are only two of several hybrid (hodgepodge!) monsters, all of whom have giggle-worthy things to say.

Treme has been one of my favorite TV shows lately. It's brilliant, poignant, and has fabulous music. I HIGHLY recommend it. Anyway, I was just watching the most recent episode, and it had a scene...

...that reminded me of my favorite Bernie Fuchs painting:

Also, I want to give a shout out to Dirk Hayhurst, who is a professional baseball player (!!!), author, and most importantly all around good guy. He looked at (and complimented!) my art, which made me feel very warm and fuzzy. I had an extremely appropriate picture to accompany that shout out, but alas... the card reader.

Life and sketchbook update

2011-05-03T14:04:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. I'm going to be moving this month, and in the last few weeks sketching and blogging have taken a back seat to freaking out and trying very hard not to be homeless. Here are a few sketchbook pages I managed to fill:

Number one thing I'm looking forward to about moving: turning my 3-year long distance relationship into a regular one. Number two thing: having my scanner in the same room as my computer!

April reference-less sketches, part 1

2011-04-12T17:09:00.000-04:00

Inspiration: Jun Kumaori

2011-03-29T11:16:00.000-04:00

Normally I'd like to have 6 more sketchbook drawings by now, but I've been in bed with the flu, so I've got nothing... of my own, that is.

I stumbled across Jun Kumaori's work yesterday during one of the few hours that my eyes were open. Definitely a worthwhile use of being awake.

Most of her pieces feature similar schoolgirl figures, but the backgrounds blow my mind.

Imagination sketches, round 4

2011-03-23T11:30:00.000-04:00

My boyfriend was disappointed my last scottie wasn't wearing a tam, so here's a new one with a tam (and an improved silhouette!)

Imagination sketches, round 3

2011-03-09T22:45:00.000-05:00

Selections from slightly before, during, and slightly after my recent trip to Florida. I thought loopy tranquilized airplane sketches might be fun, but alas, instead of sketching I mostly closed my eyes and drifted between sleep and pretending to be asleep. On the days not spent on a plane, I was pleased to find the drawings came easier. Woo hoo!

Imagination sketches, round 2

2011-03-01T13:03:00.001-05:00

So... this is EXHAUSTING. When I look at the product, the fact that I'm exhausted makes me feel like a moron. They're just a bunch of doodles. What's the big deal? Well, just deciding what to draw every morning is a big deal... and then doing it is sometimes a bigger deal (though admittedly, when it's working, sometimes it feels great). It takes tremendous effort not to do whatever it takes just to make my sketchbook look enviable. I have to constantly remind myself that that's not the point.

I guess if it wasn't exhausting, I wouldn't need to do it so badly.

Here are a few from the past week and a half:

If you're just tuning in, I'm trying to pry my brain forcibly away from its dependence on reference with morning warm-up doodles. You can read more in my last post.

Some sketches & some thoughts

2011-02-16T13:47:00.000-05:00

Like everyone in the world, I get fed up with myself for lots of reasons all the time. Last Wednesday, this resulted in me declaring that I would wake up earlier and start each morning with a quick little drawing from memory or imagination.

I may have mentioned this before, but if I had to pick my number one weakness as an artist, it would probably be my inability to draw from my head. I can be an absolute slave to photo reference. And while many years and thousands of dollars of illustration education have taught me that photo reference is a very important thing, being shackled to it is not. It's limiting and incredibly frustrating, especially when you don't have the resources to shoot your own all the time.

Compounding this problem is my job. While I enjoy it and so appreciate having it, it definitely only exercises certain parts of my brain and leaves others to rot. It's taught me a lot about graphic design and working with type, but after a stretch of a couple of months of doing only that kind of work, that first illustration is tough to churn out.

This isn't the easiest thing for me to do, but since having a constant stream of blog material is one of my best motivators, I'm sharing selections of my morning warmups that don't totally embarrass me.

A group of kangaroos is called a mob...

You can tell that toward the end I figured out how to change the settings on my scanner. Adobe seems to have removed the scan-to-Photoshop ability from CS5, which is super annoying, mostly because I had to learn the crappy software that came with my scanner, which is supposedly the same software that Photoshop used anyway but doesn't have nearly the same number of scanning options for some reason...

ANYWAY, another reason I wanted to do this was to help with the styling of my work. I felt like I was headed in a more simplified/stylized direction two years ago, but my art director at my current job prefers my older more realistic work. With or without her influence, I'm definitely pulled in opposite directions by the things I admire. On one hand, work like this (by Steve Hanks) makes me want to pursue gorgeously rendered watercolor perfection (I mean come on, that's freaking watercolor):

...and yet "Rupert visiting family in Bavaria" (by Matte Stephens) literally made me squeal with delight this morning. Look how happy Rupert is to be visiting his family in Bavaria!

That's a big difference, to put it mildly. How do you reconcile that gap? Where is the middle ground? Is there even a middle ground? Can I end up with something personal that is neither of these but equally satisfying? Thus far I've found myself more often than not caught in limbo, far enough from realism that it's not classically impressive, but not stylized enough to have real personality. That's what I'd like to get out of, in one direction or the other. If only I could decide which...

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-13T15:45:00.000-05:00

Over a year ago, I was talking with one of the photographers who works at unvelope with me, and he had an idea for an ecard that was inspired by one of the silly Apple loops that comes with Garage Band. He suggested I make it on my own as a surprise, so I did.

Well, it got rejected. Still, it's easily my favorite of all the cards I've made, so I'm sharing it with you.

If the swf embedded above doesn't work for some reason, here's a vimeo version as well, but it's not as smooth as I'd like it to be. Flash's MOV export isn't great. If anyone has any suggestions for a better way to share animations (or improve on the methods I used), I'd greatly appreciate it!

You Stole My Heart from Carly Schonberg on Vimeo.

More quick pics

2011-02-06T16:53:00.000-05:00

Here are some more quick little illustrations I did for unvelope.com. Some ink, some digital.

Yesterday I went to see the book and editorial exhibit that just went up at the Society of Illustrators. Lots of wonderful and clever work! Congrats to any of my readers who are in the show.

And uh... go Packers!

My greatest masterpiece

2011-01-28T15:43:00.000-05:00

Note to artists: Dr. Martins crimson concentrated watercolor looks red, but when applied to snow takes on more of a permanent rose appearance :)

And then I just started drawing in Photoshop

2011-01-21T23:07:00.000-05:00

I miss my paints, but these simple photoshop doodles are fun in there own way. Here are a few more I did for unvelope.com:

In other news, I upgraded to CS5 last week (which I thought would be all kinds of awesome), but it's SO BUGGY. At least Photoshop and Flash are... I haven't used the others much yet. Anyone else having problems with it? I had no problems going from CS3 to CS4. I'd have thought Adobe would be really good at this by now.

Site revamp

2011-01-10T12:46:00.000-05:00

I used the holiday work lull to teach myself Dreamweaver (via Noble Desktop's excellent workbooks) and give my website a much needed facelift, along with an overdue addition of work. Please check it out and tell me what you think!

carlyschonberg.com

How I dealt with digital

2011-01-05T21:13:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year, readers! Incidentally, I know of a great place where you could send some New Year's ecards that I made!

Sorry for all the shameless plugging... I just can't help myself.

On that note, I'm continuing to share my unvelope.com saga. Two of the things that became apparent very quickly as my work for them started increasing in volume were a) animation in Flash is more flexible when the pieces are created digitally in the first place, and b) being the only illustrator, I had to pretend to be many illustrators... i.e. work in styles and media out of my comfort zone that I'd never tried before and probably would never have tried on my own. Most of these also involved making stuff digitally.

The problem was that I never worked much digitally. I took the one required digital illustration class in college and couldn't wait to be done with it. I was ok with making layouts in Photoshop to house our various photos because that didn't feel quite like making an illustration... but beyond the silhouetted plant life pieces I already posted (which were very heavily art directed) I was reluctant to start illustrating from scratch in Photoshop. When it became apparent that I would have to do so, I was hell bent on still making my work look at least somewhat handmade.

So I started doing fake cut paper pieces, like these two:

And grungy collages:

When I learned how to make the satin in the background of the last one (which is made up entirely of gradients put through various filters), I think I fully realized how amazingly powerful Photoshop is, and that I had only been using about 2% of its potential. Now I spend most of my days in Photoshop, and I'm very interested in unlocking that other 98%.

Holiday art

2010-12-21T15:00:00.000-05:00

Backgrounds for some holiday cards done for unvelope.com in the same technique as the leaves 2 posts ago. Sorry about the gigantic watermarks smack across the middle... I'm required either to do that, or make it so that the images can't be saved. Does anyone know if blogger can do that?

Happy holidays!

Cast drawing finale

2010-12-19T22:11:00.000-05:00

A short break from unvelope posting (but not linking!). Saturday was my final cast drawing class, sadly. I still can't quite believe I spent 6 weeks on this ear... and it's "finished," but I could easily have put two more weeks of work into it at least. I got the overall picture but I never got the hang of shading as smoothly as some of the other students.

As skeptical as I was about it at first, the coolest thing I learned was to avoid falling for optical illusions by giving everything a pre-determined value based on what direction the plane is facing, rather than based on how the cast looks. It seems weird while you're doing it but it all comes together in the end.

It was a great and very different experience, compared to most of my drawing training (especially figure drawing) that has emphasized speed. I really wish I could fit more things like this into my life. If I had unlimited time I would definitely take their core program (once again, it's the Grand Central Academy of Art). At least, I'm hoping for a cast for Christmas so I can continue on my own, in a variety of media.

Nicholas Hiltner was my instructor, by the way. Pretty amazing work!

A whole lotta leaves

2010-12-17T21:47:00.000-05:00

This was one of my first forays into digital illustration early on in my time with unvelope.com. The first one of these sort of happened by accident while I was trying to achieve a specific look based on something that had inspired my creative director, and simultaneously trying to become better friends with Photoshop. It ended up being a hit with the rest of the team, and I've since done a whole bunch of them. It's a really simple technique, and I was pleased to find that I could crank them out really quickly.

A few people have asked me about prints. I can't distribute any prints of images watermarked "unvelope," but I have been told that prints will be made available through the unvelope site in the not too distant future. I would, however, be DELIGHTED to do custom commissions of any subject in any style you see that you like. Email me if you would like more info about that. In the meantime, you can send these unvelope images to all of your friends in the form of e-cards!

Unvelope watercolors, part 2

2010-12-15T11:58:00.000-05:00

A few more watercolors I did for new e-card site unvelope.com (go there!)

Watercolors, part 1

2010-12-12T22:04:00.000-05:00

Here are a few watercolors I did over the past year and a half for unvelope.com (which is a totally awesome brand new e-card website that you should definitely check out.)

Leaving room for text smack in the middle of my paintings (like in the one above) took some getting used to, especially because what I initially thought was enough room often wasn't.

More to come!

What I've been doing for the past year and a half

2010-12-09T20:56:00.000-05:00

Looking through this thing, it's pretty evident that I've had a depressing lack of blog-worthy work in my life since my 2008 Christmas card. Well, with great relief, I can finally discuss the reason for that.

Two years ago, I was hired to do illustration work for startup ecard company unvelope.com. Since then, what I initially suspected might be a short freelance gig became an all-consuming project (or, as one might call it, an actual job). They put me through Flash training, and after taking some time to acquaint myself with working as a designer/animator as opposed to just an illustrator, I started making cards somewhere around March/April 2009. And I haven't stopped. If someone asked me after I got home from the Illustration Academy what I saw myself doing, this wouldn't have been my answer... but I'm glad it worked out this way. Overall, it has been a really good experience, and I'm working with some truly wonderful people.

It's been a tremendous challenge in a lot of ways. I think the hardest thing was I basically had to re-train my brain to work completely differently than I ever had before, and the hardest part of that was probably having to think in terms of movement and the flow of time in addition to composition. Also, I've been the only illustrator working for the company thus far, so I've had to bounce between lots of different styles, and get more comfortable working digitally. While all that was frustrating at times, I found that I liked a lot of the new things I had to do, and I'm eager to try some different things in my personal work (if I ever have time to do any again).

I'm going to have to break this up, or it would be the longest post ever. I guess a good place to start would be the site design:

Anyway, please check it out! We're a very small team and we worked very hard to get it up and running. All the illustration is done by me, and I also had a hand in everything visual. Tell all your friends and relatives who like ecards. The site is still brand new (just launched this week), so if you run into any bugs or have any suggestions, please let us know!

Lots more to come. Thanks for looking!

Cast drawing part 2

2010-11-20T22:26:00.000-05:00

So, I vastly underestimated how long it takes to do a proper cast drawing. I just finished week 3 and I don't think I'm even half done with my ear... and despite my maddeningly slow pace, my shading is still speckled, while most of the other students have somehow gotten theirs smooth as glass. That's what I'm taking the class for, I guess!

We start with totally flat darks, then model and pull highlights. Interestingly, though I've always been taught to draw what I see and not what I think is there, I'm now being taught to relate each plane to a place on a sphere (depending on how it's facing) and assign it the appropriate value on a predetermined scale, regardless of how I think it actually looks.

Hey RIT, this should have been freshman drawing. For serious.

Onward and upward!

Cast drawing

2010-11-12T20:32:00.000-05:00

I'm taking a cast drawing course at the Grand Central Academy of Art in NYC. It's in this GORGEOUS old building and the studio is basically my romantic dream vision of what an art studio should be. The student work is mind blowing. Last saturday was the first class, and I undertook this ear.

Hopefully at the end of tomorrow it will look exactly like the cast.

I've had to take a lot of shortcuts in my job to get the work done faster, and it's made me lazy. It's refreshing to be in an environment where someone is forcing me to get the drawing exactly perfect.

Sometimes I sew

2010-10-26T19:52:00.000-04:00

That's art, right?

I made an Alice in Wonderland costume for Halloween. I used to sew stuff all the time in high school and haven't much lately. I missed it! Except for the mess of thread snippets it makes... I didn't miss that.

Wednesday morning inspiration

2010-10-20T11:07:00.000-04:00

I discovered Clare Owen via Design*Sponge this morning. I loooove the whimsical, delicate, girly, decorative quality of her work.

I've had such a long break from personal work outside of my sketchbook since I started my job about a year and a half ago, but in that time I've continued to find so many different things that are inspiring to me. Many of them are so different from the way I was working, and definitely different from the way my boss prefers me to work. I'm not sure how to incorporate the things I like into my own work in a way that's still distinctly me. What I do know is that I'm itching to churn things out and completely revamp my portfolio. Can't wait till I have time again!

Inspiration roundup

2010-09-21T10:52:00.000-04:00

Apologies for the lack of blogging! I've been extremely busy with work that I'm not allowed to show anyone, but the end of that is finally on the horizon. I'm very excited to talk about and show off what I've been working on for the past year and a half.

In the meantime, here is some stuff that I think is awesome. I discovered yesterday that this blog is fantastic for having, in addition to all kinds of great Disney art stuff, a really big gallery dedicated to one of my all time favorite illustrators, Mary Blair. I had already developed an all-day computer headache by the time I saw it last night and still couldn't tear my eyes away. You're missing out if you don't look through the whole thing, but here are some highlights:

Also, a few months ago I posted a whole mess of inspiration that included an uncredited image I had pulled from ffffound! Well, today I stumbled across the artist in an ad on Design*Sponge! He's Matte Stephens and I'm so happy I found more of his work. Flickr, Etsy

I'm hoping to go to sketch night at the Society of Illustrators this week. Hopefully I'll have something to show for myself when that's over.

sketchbook

2010-08-10T16:27:00.000-04:00

I actually LEFT MY HOUSE.

Sketchbook

2010-07-19T16:35:00.000-04:00

More Sartorialist sketching

Odds and ends

2010-07-14T11:40:00.002-04:00

So... I never made it to Richmond, sadly. I got bombarded with work the week I meant to go and it just didn't happen. I don't know what the plans are for the TAD pod there, but maybe next time. We'll see.

Here are some things I've found inspiring lately:

Grzegorz Wrobel. I love painting in watercolor, and for some reason rarely find watercolor painters who inspire me (I'd be grateful for suggestions!). I think these are exquisite. Images are from his deviantArt via lines and colors.

Lorraine Fox. She worked in the 50's, but these look so current to me. Via Leif Peng's set.

Lastly, I have a twitter now. http://twitter.com/carlyschon

Richmond visit?

2010-06-10T14:50:00.000-04:00

Quick image-free post: I'm currently in Arlington VA staying with my boyfriend for about a week and a half. I know that's still about 2 hours from Richmond, but it's as close to Richmond as I'm ever likely to get... so I would like to take a day trip to visit the Academy, and any lovely friends living in Richmond who would like to see me. I'm thinking one day next week (has to be a weekday). Who's there right now? What's a good day?

Sketchbook

2010-05-27T12:28:00.000-04:00

I decided the crease in my sketchbook binding is too pronounced. Did this on bristol...

...then reluctantly dug out my very old (high school era) moleskine. I don't know why I have such an aversion to using it. Probably the prospect of filling it up and having to buy another one someday. It sure does lay nice and flat.

Old one I found in there from over a year ago

Sketchbook

2010-05-11T22:02:00.000-04:00

More stuff I like

2010-05-05T09:29:00.000-04:00

Two posts less than 12 hours apart? Really?

Found more work I enjoy: Becca Stadtlander.

Simplicity is IN! Thanks again, Design*Sponge.

Avalon commercials

2010-05-04T22:44:00.002-04:00

Maybe it's just because they make me think of Mad Men, but I love the new Toyota Avalon commercials.

Art departments really do all the important work :)

Inspiration of the moment

2010-04-26T10:29:00.000-04:00

Things are still crazy, in a way that doesn't provide much blogging material (unless you're interested in New Rochelle High School varsity softball box scores. Doubt it!). I've been doing tons of work that I'm very eager to share, but alas, it's still not time yet.

In the meantime, here are two things I've come across lately that made me stop and go "wow:"

Cynthia Warren, another illustrator/designer pointed out to me by the wonderful Design*Sponge blog. I find myself gaining increasing admiration for artists who tackle the whole process from the images to the layout to the drawing of the typography.

I had trouble deciding which of Cynthia's images to choose, but I love the presentation of this one. Her designs are beautiful on their own, but it's really cool to see them in their intended setting.

I don't remember how I came across this blog, but Faceout Books is a really interesting resource for anyone interested in book cover design (or really, just interesting to look at for anyone). For each title they have a wealth of images showcasing all the elements: front and back covers, flaps, title pages, etc. The series that really struck me was this one by Jim Tierney. Definitely check out all the images, it's awesome. And he's still a student! Really talented.

A sewing project + a new art crush

2010-04-14T11:00:00.000-04:00

Been a little while! I was pretty proud of myself for updating roughly once a week (or at least 4 times a month) at the beginning of the year, but then softball season happened, and it's still happening. It's been pretty crazy for the past several weeks.

This weekend I'm going to my first baby shower. I have to say that freaks me out, both because one of my best friends is going to be a father, and because I'm apparently of an age where my friends are becoming parents. I don't know how much awwww-ing I'm going to be able to do when the day comes... But nonetheless, I wanted to make something special. It was a bit of a challenge coming up with an idea, because most of the baby gifts I could think of were decorative, and they're not going to have a baby room right away.

I settled on a stuffed toy. A few years ago my boyfriend gave me this book for valentine's day after I swooned at its adorableness in Borders, and he also made one of the animals in it, which was about the greatest thing ever:

I used the same pattern because it's one of the largest ones in the book, but I modified it into a bunny:

I also looked up the artist of the pattern, and she's just FANTASTIC! Here are two of my favorites:

If you're into that sort of thing, she has a blog and an etsy shop, and definitely check out her Flickr sets, where all the little guys have adorable names that make them even better.

No more tree

2010-03-16T13:40:00.000-04:00

I painted this tree during college after noticing that it looked like it had a face:

Sunday morning, it was on my house:

Thankfully, it just kind of rested there and didn't do any damage outside of a bent gutter. I'll miss looking at the face when I'm out giving pitching lessons, though.

Ink tests

2010-03-06T23:11:00.000-05:00

So I have to ink my next job... but I've never been much of an inker. I don't really know how to go about it, especially concerning what kind of paper to use. So I did some tests, and here they are. I tried to be loose. It's rare (like never) that I put any sort of wet media or marker down unless it's on top of an over-noodled pencil drawing.

On sketch paper...

On bristol...

On parchment...

Conclusions:

India ink that's been sitting around since freshman year of college (that's 2004) is a little thick.
I still have no freaking clue which paper to use. Parchment makes some interesting washes but I guess I have to rule it out because it curls and wrinkles so much. Maybe bristol is the winner because I have 3 full pads of it and never ever ever use it ever?
I need to do this more often.
Nibs and I are still not friends. I wanted to do a brush test and a pen test on each paper, but abandoned that plan after NOTHING CAME OUT of my dip pen. I'm guessing the ink was too thick, but this is not the first time this has happened to me; I've tried it many times with different inks and papers in the course of my art education, and I've only had success once. I just used the same nib (with brown Higgins ink on parchment) to write a lengthy valentine and it came out shockingly well. But every time I try to draw a picture, I get nothing. Nib users, I would really appreciate some advice.

Reference from two of my daily reads, Lace & Tea and The Sartorialist.

New studio

2010-02-28T15:49:00.000-05:00

I was waiting for it to be completely finished before taking pictures, but I don't think that's ever going to happen... and it's close enough. There isn't really much else to be done, and it doesn't affect me that much; the draining system they put in place isn't working so they need to re-do it, and I can't get some of the larger furniture I wanted until that's done.

For those of you who missed the story, I've been working in the basement of my parents' house since I graduated from college. The space was a pink and yellow misery that I shared with old toys, mattresses, random junk, dirt, and, most unpleasantly, CRICKETS. I'm not convinced the crickets are gone forever, but I haven't seen one since the renovation at least... Anyway, despite my complaints about a moldy smell when I came home from school, my father decided to bring in an environmental testing company a year and a half later and, surprise, everything was full of mold. It was a pretty terrible inconvenience and I would have lost my artwork if I hadn't made a tremendous fuss about it. But, I have to say, it was an awful space and now it's a pretty good one. It's still a basement, and I don't have the natural light I'd like, but it's spacious and it has the essential things I need and I can make a mess.

That's my desk, in a corner where bins and mattresses used to be. The best thing I did was have them cover the walls with homasote. It's so nice to be able to pin into them.

Even though it had nothing to do with the renovation, my artograph stand is one of my favorite additions. I guess it was so miserable down there before that it seemed like it would make no difference in my happiness to spend $100 on that thing or keep using the stacked cardboard boxes I was using before. Well yeah, it makes a big difference. Eventually there will be a cutting table where the drawers and trash can are.

That says G. KELLEY :)

This really looks like a picture of nothing, but it's another extremely helpful addition: a blank homasote wall that I can pin and project on. There used to be an air hockey table covered with baskets, boxes, wine glasses, and other garbage along that wall.

Next to that is my paper closet. They threw away most of my paper, so it's not very full. That was one of the most frustrating parts of the renovation... having a non-english-speaking guy come up to me with his arms full of less than half used pads of newsprint and drawing paper covered in charcoal smudges, pointing to the black stuff, and saying, "See? Mold! No good!"

A big closet converted into book and supply shelves. I want to put flat files in the space underneath.

I've lived in this house for almost 24 years and played in this basement when I was a child, and I NEVER knew that window was there. Our Christmas tree used to be on that shelf. I'm going to put in an exhaust fan.

Overall, I'm pleased with it, and there were fewer casualties than I expected. There was a stretch of about a month when I just had no clue where my work was and no one seemed to be able to tell me, which was scary, but it all survived. They threw away most of my papers, including my collection of fancy papers and textures that I used a lot, which is really annoying, and they threw away my rulers, which doesn't make much sense because they were metal, and my golden moll stick, which is sad because it was my golden moll stick! Is that even how you spell "moll?" I've never had to write it before...

On a totally unrelated topic that I don't think deserves its own post, I went to Borders today because I had expiring Borders Bucks, and I accidentally knocked over this book and while picking it up to put it back fell so in love with it that I bought it:

Infused water recipes?! That's soooooo... something. Something that appeals to me tremendously. Good food photography is amazing. I'll eat anything that looks pretty, and even more so, I'll desperately want to drink anything that looks cold and delicious.

Lemon blueberry water? Yes, please.

Inspiration of the moment

2010-02-20T16:30:00.000-05:00

I'm going to start calling these inspirations of the moment rather than of the week, since I pretty much have no intention of keeping a regular schedule and instead would rather just post whenever I feel like it. Anyway, this week I've been reacquainting myself with a lot of Golden Age illustration as research for a piece I'm doing in a sort of 50's women's magazine style. In doing so, I came across Andy Virgil, who was not mentioned much (maybe not at all?) in my education. I REALLY like his work. His compositions are simplified into excellent flat shapes, and each shape is wonderfully textured.

This one instantly reminded me of the first assignment at the Illustration Academy:

He also sometimes has a mixed media feel that you don't see that often in that type of illustration. And I do love mixed media...

All images are from Leif Peng's Flickr sets.

Also, my friend Shalini posted this on her blog today and I thought it was approximately the coolest thing ever: a photo project by Yeondoo Jung called "Wonderland." The photographs are inspired by children's art. How cool is that?!

Random thought: shopping

2010-02-09T17:08:00.003-05:00

Went to the art store today. One thing I miss about being a student is definitely the art store situation. I guess that really doesn't have as much to do with being a student as it does with where I live... I go to A.I. Friedman, which is about a 20 minute drive away and HUGE. It has a perfectly good selection of supplies, but that part is surrounded by an even larger selection of scrapbooking materials and photo albums and pre-framed paintings of flowers for your kitchen or bathroom. I guess it really makes no difference, but I used to feel like a kid in a candy store when I went supply shopping, and now I feel more like a bored mom or something.

ANYWAY, I had to get some new watercolor brushes and Princeton now makes Velvetouch handles. HAS ANYONE EVER TOUCHED A VELVETOUCH HANDLE?! I'm pretty sure it's the most superfluous thing ever, especially because I'd probably do something like drop it in my gesso 5 minutes after taking it home, but it feels like petting a chinchilla. I wouldn't get anything done; I'd just sit there listening to music and stroking my brush handle. Didn't buy one. Just thought I'd mention it. That's what blogs are for, right?

Inspiration of the week

2010-02-08T10:40:00.004-05:00

Maybe this will become a thing? Who knows. Anyway, this morning Design*Sponge had a post about Jon Klassen and I fell in love. The site is kind of annoying to navigate, but I don't suppose there is a much better way to present very long horizontal images. Worth checking out-- I can't really re-post them because of the format.

I remember asking Doug Chayka after his presentation at the Illustration Academy in '08 if he ever missed painting in detail, because I couldn't imagine letting go of it to an extent. Now, almost everything I'm attracted to is simplified somehow. I definitely get the appeal!

Tadahiro Uesugi

2010-01-21T10:41:00.001-05:00

I am OBSESSED right now.

Link

Sketch post

2010-01-15T19:09:00.003-05:00

My urge to ramble is so great that I've considered making a second blog for rambling (no one would read it, of course). Instead, I've decided to try briefly sketching what I want to ramble about so I can keep it all here. I've also been wanting to work a bit on my portraiture, since my likenesses need work.

That's Joe Flacco, the Ravens' quarterback. I've spent almost my whole life hating football, but last year fellow New Rochelle High School alum and friend-of-friend Ray Rice became a Raven, and I decided to attempt to follow his progress. This was pretty easy because my boyfriend happens to be a big Ravens fan. Now I guess I'm a pretty big Ravens fan. I've found I rather enjoy watching football. Plus, incidentally, Ray Ray is TEARING IT UP.

Anyway, back to Flacco. I find him very endearing, with his quiet demeanor and his unibrow and his underwhelming passer rating and his silly local Pizza Hut commercials. I think I'm on the brink of likeness. My lines are probably fractions of millimeters off but I missed his essence. This is why good caricaturists blow my mind. How do you draw essence?

Some inspiring things

2010-01-10T20:47:00.019-05:00

I've noticed my inspiration changing a lot lately. I had a pretty solid group of artists that I looked at in school, but now I'm finding myself inspired by a wider range of illustration styles, graphic design, and a lot of completely random images and things. A big reason for that is probably that I've been exposed to a lot of things in my job that a year ago I thought I'd never be doing. Anyway, here are some things I find inspiring nowadays:

Poly Bernatene. My children's book aspirations are on hold right now, but it's still something I'd like to try in the future. I adore this man's work. It's so whimsical and the textures are delicious.

Mary Blair. She speaks for herself.

Matthew Lyons. Love the simple color schemes, retro style, and integration of type. I've been super interested in integrating more type into my work, especially hand-drawn type. That's why I'm also crazy about this stuff right now:

Grady McFerrin, who I met sort of recently at the AI-AP party. Love love love love letterpress-inspired things.

Louise Fili Ltd and Jessica Hische. Completely in love with their design styles.

Wayne Brezinka. More appealing type integration with a hand-drawn look.

Stuff made out of type. This one is by e. emoo.

Vintage poster art

... by Toulouse-Lautrec in particular

Fashion photography. I've been pulling a lot of my color schemes from fashion photography lately. These are from the wonderful Lace & Tea blog.

Heavily textured web layouts. I've always worked traditionally, and since the outlet for my work has switched to entirely web-based media for the time being, I've been looking for ways to bring traditional to the web. I really admire web designs that remain clean and easy to use but look like you could hold them in your hand and play with the stuff. In addition to having a really cool layout, Design Sponge has really cool stuff on it too.

Stuff that looks like it's been cut out. I know that's a really weird and specific category of things to be inspired by, but I've had to do a lot of Flash animation lately and I've been trying to add a traditional-looking element to that too. The cutout look gives me a little flexibility for animating. Also, owls. I still have a thing for owls. My boss once asked me "what's with young designers and owls these days?" And even though I have a thing for owls, I was completely at a loss. Above: something I pulled off ffffound and put in my inspiration folder (sorry, I don't know the artist... that's really terrible of me), Jessica Hische again, and a blog divider thingy from Shabby Blogs.

Finally, this animation I saw on Drawn! It's so simple and beautiful and I love it.

I also rarely make it through a day without listening to Pink Martini and A Fine Frenzy.

Holiday haul

2010-01-03T12:47:00.003-05:00

Taken with my new digital camera that actually TAKES PICTURES INDOORS! And on the default snapshot setting, too. This is a major improvement. I got a Rockwell book as well (it's about time), but it's all the way downstairs. I'm very excited about the typography books; my job has gotten me much more interested in type and design. I wish I had a little bit of training in it.

Happy new year! I'm going to try to start sneaking personal work into my daily schedule to help my stagnating portfolio, even if it takes me a month or more to finish one thing. We'll see how that goes.

Christmas ornaments

2009-12-14T17:33:00.003-05:00

I had a free day so I made these ornaments as gifts. Fun and relaxing, except for the berries. I seem to be the world's worst photographer; in reality these are glossy and textured and colorful and have silver and gold on them.

I'm hoping to do another Christmas card, though it will be a Christmas miracle if that actually happens. We'll see!

Dr. Sketchy's

2009-11-22T20:43:00.004-05:00

Apparently I've been SO holed up in my bedroom (uh, office) that it took me until last week to realize that Dr. Sketchy's isn't unique to Baltimore, but rather exists all over the place and ORIGINATED in NYC (in retrospect, duh).

So yesterday I went and it was so much fun. I just wish a session there didn't cost me entry plus train fare. The wonderful and gorgeous model was dressed as a sea witch.

I really enjoyed this pose but I'm just so damn slow. Maybe I'll go back to it. I'll add it to my only growing, never shrinking list of things to work on if I ever have free time again.

A sketchbook post in which I ramble a great deal more than I sketch

2009-11-14T17:42:00.010-05:00

Welcome to another chapter in my continuing quest to psychoanalyze my aversion to keeping a sketchbook. My last sketchbook post, which occurred after the familiar declaration "I'm going to force myself to draw something every day," was in May. So clearly that didn't work, not even with the help of my pretty and musky-smelling Italian leather sketchbook. I felt guilty for about 3 days and then gave up easily.

On Labor Day I went to the renaissance faire for the first time in my life. I walked into Under the Mango Tree and, in spite of all the evidence I've collected that the sketchbook itself, no matter how awesome, does NOT in fact make me want to sketch, I purchased an obnoxiously expensive little (like maybe 4") journal with cotton paper in it. The rationale was it could probably take watercolor, and maybe the thumbnail size of it would be less intimidating. So not only was I ignoring all former evidence, I was also assuming that this little book was not only going to make me draw stuff in it, but also GO BACK to it later and hit it with watercolor. What was I thinking? Of course it's been sitting empty in my bedroom since Labor Day.

Last weekend I went up to visit Rochester. While I was walking from my car back to my boyfriend's apartment, I had a Moment (Moment, with a capital M, is the term I use to define a stupid ordinary occurrence that for some reason sparks an emotion followed by a long rambling train of thought in my head. I have lots of them). It was twilight and the sky was blue and lavender and everything against it was almost black, and right as I was approaching this rickety old telephone pole I happened to look up just as a flock of crows flew by the open space between the top of the pole and some bare trees. It was cool. And I stood there for a second just kind of thinking about how cool it was and trying to burn it in my memory. And I thought about how I wished I had a photo of it, except a photo totally would have made it look cheesy. Then I realized what I really wished was that I had my sketchbook and a pocket set of watercolors so I could paint it quickly.

That was the beginning of my long train of thought. At the end of it I realized that I've had this really twisted backward outlook on keeping a sketchbook. It sounds weird, even to me, but I never thought of it as a means to capture these little moments in the world, like a more permanent version of a mental snapshot. And that's like a huge DUH. I think if you asked any random person on the street, artist or not, to define sketching, that would more or less be the gist of their definition. I think I always tried to capture the sketchbook page rather than whatever it was I was sketching. I've seen so many wonderful sketchbooks, and I've just wanted so badly to HAVE one of them, that I've been obsessed with the end and completely ignored the means. Of course, my lack of means has produced me no end, which I suppose is why I keep giving up.

Yesterday my eyes needed a few minutes' break from Flash, and this new thought, which has been sort of nagging me for the past few days, actually made me want to sketch. I'd say it was the first time, except I think the same thing happened when I went to go draw that barn in the woods a couple of months ago; I just hadn't realized it yet. I went to my bedroom window and just drew the light in my backyard:

So, as it turns out, the paper in this lovely little journal I bought does not AT ALL take watercolor. Now I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I really like the size...

Then, returning to my old friend smelly Italian sketchbook, I did something I NEVER do: I tried to sketch the crow scene from memory. Drawing from memory, just barely squeaking by caricature, is my biggest artistic weakness. I'm upset I can't do the scene justice, but nonetheless I felt it ought to be in my sketchbook. I had a little help from a different telephone pole...

That sketchbook doesn't take watercolor much better. It just kind of sits on the surface and doesn't get dark. Maybe I need a watercolor sketchbook.

Bernie Fuchs

2009-09-19T10:16:00.003-04:00

What kind of student of Bob Dorsey would I be if I didn't acknowledge Bernie Fuchs? Bernie was a tremendous influence on Bob, and Bob was certainly a tremendous influence on me. I've seen his slideshow entitled "Why I think Bernie Fuchs is the best ever, even better than Norman Rockwell (or something like that)" multiple times, and I'm glad, because it opened my eyes to some extraordinary artwork.

It's so difficult to pick a favorite of Bernie's pieces, but this one has left a lasting impression on me since the first time I saw it:

We lost a legend. Made me a little miffed that the front page story on Yahoo last night was that Drew Barrymore dyed the tips of her hair black...

Website the second

2009-09-15T18:02:00.003-04:00

Many of you probably know that my (not so) secret identity is a softball coach. My dad and I actually have a business together, and we travel to different communities running skills camps, and we also host pitching clinics in my home town. After 10 years of business, we finally have a website!

Sound Shore Sports

This is the second website I've designed and made on my own, and my first Flash website. There were a lot of things I liked and a lot of things I reeeeeally didn't like about using Flash, but I'm glad I've come far enough with the program to at least be able to function in it. Anyway, since this is my first try with it, I'd appreciate any feedback from those who know more about web design in Flash!

sketch-in-the-woods day

2009-09-05T22:10:00.003-04:00

I haven't posted art in a while! I hope everyone else has been blessed with the same weather we've had here in the NYC area for the past week or so. A couple of days ago it was just too heartbreaking to sit in front of my computer, so I blew off my work and went to draw in the woods, something I've been meaning to do since I thought of it back in June.

There is a pretty sweet giant dilapidated old barn up on a hill in the woods that they used to use for a haunted house at Halloween when I was a kid. Now it's just kind of sitting there. So I sketched that:

I like sketching with vine charcoal on gessoed paper when I'm observing from life. It's practically like a whiteboard, it erases to nothing. So you can sort of mold it as you go instead of layering slowly, which I like. Only drawback is it also smudges to practically nothing if you rub it by accident.

I got a visit from a giant schnauzer in the middle of it. He put his face right on my paper. But he was so adorable I forgave him. He ran away before I could draw him though.

Sterling's solo show

2009-08-15T10:07:00.003-04:00

"Emergent", The debut solo show of painter Sterling Clinton Hundley opens september 4th at Ghostprint Gallery in Richmond, VA. from 7pm- 10pm. The artist will be in attendance.
220 West Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23220
(804)344.1557
http://sterlingclintonhundley.blogspot.com/

Sterling made a difference in my life, and since I can't go support him in person I'll do what I can on the internet!

Figure drawing?

2009-07-31T13:01:00.003-04:00

I got the biggest urge to do jazz & sketch at the Society this week only to find out it's closed. Anyone know another place in the city I can feed my figure drawing craving?

Something I've never seen before

2009-06-21T13:29:00.003-04:00

It's rained a lot here recently. I believe the official count is 17 of the last 19 days, or something just as ridiculous. My studio flooded 3 days ago and the water still has not gone down because the ground outside has had no opportunity to dry (thankfully my family remembered to get everything up off the floor while I was out, so no damage... just annoyance).

Anyway, unusual situations often make for unusual visual occurrences. Due to the weather, my mom's garden has become a small wild veggie jungle. This is what I saw today when I went out to pick some arugula for my sandwich:

The broccoli bloomed! I learned only very recently that broccoli is actually a bunch of flower buds, and now I've seen the flowers. Well, I thought it was cool.

Sketchbook highlights

2009-05-31T20:00:00.003-04:00

I'm trying!

In-game sketching

My closet

Sketch from Mad Men (great show, everyone should watch it!)

Flowers at my grandma's house

I wish luck and a lot of fun to my friends repeating the Academy. I'm jealous!!

Printer?

2009-05-27T17:08:00.002-04:00

It seems like I use this thing for questions almost as often as actual posts.

So the question of the day to the tiny little art community that actually reads my blog (especially those who sell prints) is where do you get your stuff printed?

There was a lab at my school of course, and it was pretty great because we have a print media major there. But alas, I no longer go to school. I'm spoiled because the portfolio prints I got there were pretty great, and I've only had bad experiences outside of that. Now I have someone who wants to buy an approx. 18x24 poster of one of my pieces, and I'd like to give her a nice print, obviously.

So where do you all go? Schools? Local printers? Kinkos? If anyone has had SUCCESS at Kinkos, I'd appreciate your secret. The only prints I've every gotten from there were awful. I'd print it myself if I didn't need wide format.

My sketching woes

2009-05-09T14:07:00.006-04:00

I know I'm not the only one who lit up at the illustration academy when Scott Anderson talked about sketchbook envy. It's certainly an affliction I have. I thought I'd write a bit about my own personal brand of sketchbook dysfunction.

For me, keeping a sketchbook is a lot like speaking Japanese. I studied it in college, I got straight A's, and I do pretty well for myself if I'm writing a letter or something with the assistance of a dictionary (or in the case of illustration, photo reference). BUT, if I have to be spontaneous, I'm in major trouble. I don't know enough words to hold a nice conversation, and even when I do I can't get them out because my brain freezes. I feel the same lack of fluency when I try to sketch, and as a result I never do it because it makes me feel so uncomfortable. It's also not a relaxing activity to me, in part because it's such a struggle, but also because I'm fortunate enough to be getting illustration work, and when I do have free time I feel like I need a break FROM drawing.

I also have this insatiable desire to write in my sketchbooks instead. Analogy again: I've got no problem writing in English! I love it. Here's the stack of writing journals at the top of my closet that I've kept running nonstop since 7th grade:

...plus one on my nightstand. Sketching is just like another language to me. I often write all over my sketches, especially when I'm not happy with them.

Doug Chayka just made a nice post over at the academy blog that was worded in just the right way to make me want to actually do something about my sketching problem, despite the fact that I've known forever that I should. So maybe, if I'm better at this than I am at resolving to exercise more, I'll be able to manage a semi-regular documenting-my-life post.

Here's the desk in my bedroom, where lately I've been spending half my life since the proportions of my work shifted in favor of Flash (I spend the other half on a softball field). I'm not even sure if I like sketching with a pen or pencil better.

For me, a cool sketchbook is a must. I just can't draw in a spiral one with a paper cover, unless I'm doing thumbnails for a project. My current sketchbook is a souvenir from Gayle's trip to Italy:

It kinda smells like anchovies :)

Anthropologie

2009-05-08T22:58:00.006-04:00

Anyone who has had the misfortune of hearing me talk about clothes (or worse, actually gone shopping with me) knows that Anthropologie is my favorite store. I love it for its beautiful clothes, but also for the creative handmade touches they put into mundane little things.

My grandmother sent me a gift card and this is the slip it came in:

The little egg comes out. I also got a birthday coupon that came in a fabric envelope:

This stuff (actually, their Christmas wrapping) inspired a last-minute mini portfolio I threw together the night before Comic Con in February:

I'm going to try to at least post more fun inspirational things in place of the work I'm not allowed to show. Maybe gross pictures of all the crickets my new glue traps are catching in my studio...

Robert Ryan

2009-05-02T23:42:00.003-04:00

I had a nice meet-up with Jamie and Annika in NYC this evening. We went to Earnest Sewn, which has a little gallery thing in the back, and saw the work of Robert Ryan, who illustrates with cut paper. His style really struck a chord with me, so I thought it was worth posting. Check it out!

ryantownshop.blogspot.com

Visual Literacy Program

2009-04-17T13:36:00.002-04:00

For all of my blog readers who I do not know from the Illustration Academy (and I suppose for any stray academy folks who haven't seen it yet), the Illustration Academy website has been expertly revamped, and now includes a sweet section on the new and developing Visual Literacy Program:

VLP Site

It sounds amazing, and if I understand correctly, anyone can (or will soon be able to) take advantage of its features at free or paid levels. The Academy was hardcore, and the site now has videos, podcasts, demos, etc. from the awesome (and famous) staff. DEFINITELY check it out!

It's nice to see yourself in print

2009-04-04T11:38:00.003-04:00

Ok... so it's just the RIT university magazine, and they gave me a lot of restrictions so it's not my favorite thing I've ever done, but it's still fun to flip through something you got in the mail and see your own work! It's sort of a first for me. I did some black and white spots for a workbook once and they sent me a sample months after the fact, but this is the first time I've been in a magazine that I would have received and flipped through anyway.

They'll probably never read my blog, but I want to thank the people at RIT I worked with for being generally fabulous, increasing my pay when they wanted a major change after the completion of the illustration that they could have easily caught in the sketch phase, and hiring alumni!

It bothers me that I haven't done much posting recently. I'm working on a major job that I'm not supposed to share yet, but I surely will when it's time (3-6 months from now... ugh).

2009-03-19T00:34:00.000-04:00

That makes me smile :D

Fight!

2009-03-09T13:59:00.003-04:00

Well that took about half of forever... If you're in Rochester, go see the show! I'm told it will be hilarious.

I did this piece very strangely. It was kind of like a puzzle; every segment is a different medium and there isn't much meshing or overlapping. I wanted to use my usual mixed media approach, but I knew I wouldn't be able to render the arms the way I envisioned them. So they're oil. And I did them first, which I know is a major faux pas. The background is at least 4 layers of acrylic, which made a comeback after I swore it off about 2 years ago.

I really like fighting with my materials. I very rarely have a clear picture in my head of how I want something to turn out (beyond the drawing and the value structure) so I usually just make a big mess and do my best to rescue it. I like the possibility of losing battles. Sometimes the materials deserve to win!

Poster progress

2009-02-22T18:46:00.004-05:00

I'm currently working on a poster for a play my boyfriend is doing. I've always wanted to do some theater poster work, so I was pretty excited when he asked me. The play is Sam Shepard's True West. Here is the charcoal under drawing:

There will be some other elements that I haven't accounted for in the drawing. Except on my watercolors, I have become incapable of resisting the urge to collage. So there will be some collage elements, and I try not to plan those too hard; I like the spontaneity of it. There's also a whole bunch of text info that needs to go on there.

I got this done pretty early today, around 3. I couldn't progress because it needs to be sprayed before I start with the collage and paint, and it's raining. I sure miss having access to a spray booth. I was in a pretty good zone too. So I had all this free time and leftover energy that wanted to exert itself productively, and I cleaned my studio (with a vacuum and everything!). Here's a picture of part of it:

The crickets were kind enough to hide for the picture to give the illusion that it's not so bad down there.

Question!

2009-02-18T19:43:00.004-05:00

I have a question, and this seems as good a place as any to ask it:

I'm gessoing the backside of a crappy old project on hardboard to use for a new illustration. There was nothing on the back, except my name written in what I'm pretty sure was fuchsia Prismacolor pencil. Yesterday I gessoed it and let it dry overnight. When I went to work today, my name had bled all the way through, as if I had just written it on top of the gesso.

5 or so layers of gesso later, it still insists on bleeding through to the top, though it is a bit faded. Since I collage more than half the time anyway (though I wasn't planning on it for this project) I just gave up and put a swatch of newspaper over it and gessoed that... but my question is, WHY was that damn pencil so powerful?

Old Collier's

2009-02-16T21:18:00.005-05:00

I promised myself I wouldn't buy anything at Comic Con, and I wouldn't have thought it difficult since I don't like comics much. However, there was an antique book dealer there with a 1904 Collier's and I couldn't resist. Jessie Willcox Smith was on the cover:

Remington, looking fabulous even in grayscale:

And a double page Gibson:

The guy at the table was the nicest old man, who I'm pretty sure was rather excited that I'd heard of these people. We had a nice chat. He had a ton of cool stuff, including an old copy of the N.C. Wyeth illustrated Last of the Mohicans, a bunch of other magazines, and, of course, a lot of comic stuff I'm sure would have been awesome if I knew more about comics. The place's site is omegabooks.com

I've got some stuff on the drafting table, hopefully I'll finish it sometime this century. Flash class ate up my week, but I know the program now. Not as hard as it looks if you have a good instructor, so it seems!

Illustration weekend

2009-01-31T11:20:00.003-05:00

Next weekend I'll be at NY Comic Con with a bunch of my RIT friends as well as the editorial/book opening at the Society (and why not see Coraline while we're at it?). If anyone I know is coming in from out of town for these things via something other than a car and would like to also check out the Leyendecker show at the Hudson River Museum, give me a call (914-774-7378). The museum is in Yonkers, outside of the city, so I'd be happy to drive there. I have no idea what my exact schedule will be but we can talk and work something out.

Tide-me-overs

2009-01-22T21:59:00.004-05:00

I haven't posted any actual art in a while. Lately all my energy has been devoted to (painstakingly) learning Flash for my new job. It's a slow process...
So, just to remind myself that I have actually touched a pencil to paper within the last century, here's a silly page from my sketchbook:

I kind of have a thing for owls...

And here is another silly thing I whipped up today for two of my very special pitching students who I've coached since they were 9 *sniffle*:

My alter ego is a softball instructor. Weird combination, isn't it? I don't draw silly-looking people enough, it's very liberating!

Keeping with the last theme...

2009-01-15T22:29:00.002-05:00

On the subject of Leyendecker, I just read in my local newspaper that the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers is having a Leyendecker exhibit. It opens January 31 and it's up for a loooong time, till May. So if you're in the NY area, check it out:

http://www.hrm.org/exhibits/upcoming.html

SWEET.

New Ro pride

2008-12-26T11:08:00.005-05:00

I jumped on the Leyendecker book bandwagon, got it for Christmas. It is pretty amazing, with the most amazing part being that I've been READING it. Usually when I get art books, I don't look at a word. Anyway, it reminded me that over the summer Terry Brown said his mansion is in New Rochelle, which just happens to be my hometown. Still living and working in the house I grew up in. Terry didn't remember the street, but it was in the book: Mt. Tom (which, apparently, Leyendecker NAMED himself, the whole street. Boy was I born in the wrong year. Imagine illustrators today naming streets and living in 10 acre mansions in Westchester, sleeping there and commuting to their high-ceilinged studios in Manhattan).

I googled the house, it's still there. It's a pre-school/day camp now, the same camp that literally runs into my good friend's backyard in the summer. I noticed the picture on Google Earth was taken by someone I know, fellow New Ro illustrator Tom LaPadula. I emailed him and he sent me this other one:

That's what the inside looks like today. A little sad, isn't it? Tom also said that the list of illustrators who have lived in New Rochelle "makes the 1927 Yankees look like minor leaguers." I know Rockwell and Al Parker lived here for a little while, but I'd sure like to see the rest of the list. Yet the only "Residents of Note" listed on New Rochelle's website are Thomas Paine and some guy I've never heard of. I've accepted that most people are not familiar with the history of illustration, but NORMAN ROCKWELL? Come on.

The J.C. book also says he did a Huguenot-themed painting that was donated to the New Rochelle Historical Association in the 50's. I'm trying to find out if they still have it.

All in all, I feel pretty good about my hometown. Now if only I could make myself worthy of living in it!

Christmas

2008-12-21T18:19:00.001-05:00

I finished this about a week ago and I'm waiting for my card shipment to arrive. It's my illustration for the illustrators' holiday card exchange that all the coolest RIT kids are doing:

NYC department store inspired Christmas display windows. It's mixed media. I've always done this process with red/orange as a base color and this time I tried deep purple because it's a night scene. It was definitely weird. I'm happy with the result but I had to fight with it a lot, and I think I learned I'm better off starting with more of a midtone. My Mets fan there looks rather grouchy. I guarantee he's perfectly jovial in the full-sized painting =)

Just for fun, here's an ornament I made for a friend who lives overseas:

I think I enjoy making crafty things like this even more than illustrating sometimes

A conversation, and a change of perspective

2008-12-10T13:54:00.000-05:00

I've been trying lately to get some work done for my portfolio in addition to the website stuff I started doing. I got an e-mail from Creative Quarterly a while ago urging me to submit for the next deadline, and I was rather annoyed to realize that I had done nothing new whatsoever since my last submission. Oops. So here's (a very lousy photo of) what I did to shake off the rust a little, and get back in the mindset of full illustrations as opposed to spots:

This was the assignment from Chris Payne's week at the Illustration Academy, a conversation. I never really finished it because it was so wet when it was due, so I fixed it up. I gessoed over and redid both faces, and just cleaned up and simplified the rest of it.

I haven't been feeling too positive about my work lately for a lot of reasons, but today while I was being cheap and scavenging for something I could paint over, I came across a series of early junior year paintings. THANK GOD I don't paint like this anymore:

It made me realize that instead of worrying about where I think I should be right now, I should appreciate how far I've come in 2 years.

Goodbye, creepy giant white rabbit and gummy-looking guy I obviously didn't have reference for. But thanks for saving me some money =)

First blog post! + website info

2008-12-01T19:14:00.000-05:00

Well I finally got myself a blog. To open things up, here's what I've been laboring over since August:

The Best Little Hair Salon in Rye!

I've been teaching myself some web design (with the immense help of the Sitegrinder software, which allows me to use just Photoshop) and this was my first web job. I did all the illustrations in watercolor.