Cracked

For Illustration Friday's theme "Cracked"

The show is less than a month away!  Now is the time for Andy + I to start helping the gallery promote the show, which is both an exciting and shaky process for me.  Personally, I have to get over any doubt in my abilities in order to push my illustration work.  Freelancing is a great lifestyle but tough; it takes discipline + self-confidence.  

→Andy's webcomic launched this weekend! 

  This is going to be the busiest June of my life

Process

Currently work on ...

NYOKA: Girl Adventurer
It's kind of a reworking of the 1930's serial

Within the next couple weeks I'll be blogging more process shots of my artwork. {And how we are making our brain toys!} Sometimes I get overwhelmed while doing piece, I think I have everything worked out at the sketching stage, then as I'm working I think "OH! No no, wait, I'll do this" Photoshop has allowed me to create about 238,504 different versions of the same idea - it's a curse and a blessing!

Lately I've been having lots of fun experimenting with paint pens and masking fluid; spraying some areas of the painting with iridescent enamel. You can see the gold shine better here:

Had a lot of fun going overboard with the thrift shopping this week; 3 separate trips with myself, + Andy, + Noelle & Maddy // Found some cool stuff ...

Anchor pin. Bought brass chain separately + sprayed white


Found at Saver's for $3.50
I've always wanted a pair of Chucks!
Now I finally have them, just half a size too big.

The Mad Dr. Grood

Dr. Grood  // acrylic on paper // photoshop enhancements

This image is being made into a series of prints as well as a t-shirt;

In other news ....
Happy Graduation to all my friends at MassArt! We went to Bamcat's grad party, which was awesome. Not only was the food amazing, but her family's house is a magical wonderland out of Kiki's Delivery Service. I was fascinated with it. {and the sangria}

Alex enjoying delicious Sangria

Feeling really good about the show progress ~

Did a test run of the clear resin for our limited edition toys, and they are looking great! Images soon ...

Wallpaper // Love is Contagious

3.

For Illustration Friday's theme of "Contagious." This piece has kind of an interesting story. {Interesting, I'm sure only to me or other graphic design geeks }

1. Initially, the pink line at the bottom "contagiously" starts to kind of colorfully infect the other lines, and it bleeds into ordered chaos.
2. But it was fun to see what the image looked like mirrored, which turned out to be a stronger piece.
3. After turning it upside-down, the concept of "contagious" goes a step further, turning into a heart, and there's the final result.

1. 2.

The drawing was done on a small piece of clay board about 6"x9", then scanned and digitally colored.

Most of this is accidental, and that really pleased me, so I thought I'd share this rambling process work!

>> Oh! Almost forgot - I've also moved all my Zanzo Moxie comic strips to it's own blog <<

feeling all kinds of sunny today! Ran into this girl in Boston.
Her Rubix cube bag was custom made in Korea!

Mail Me Art 2

I sent a piece in to Darren for the Mail Me Art 2 Project. ♥ It's a bit of NES love.

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Some fantastic kid chalk drawings outside the museum last week.
I suspect the one on the right is done by an adult ...

Andy and I are coming to the homestretch of our gallery show preparation. Matting, framing, glossing, spraying fixative - I'm excited our assistant Allison is coming to help with the process.
I'll post more about the show really soon.

I'm also currently building an online store for prints of my artwork, which I should have someone else do because I can tweak coding and design endlessly. More on that soon, too!

feeling absolutely terrible that we showed up at the wrong place to meet my dad and grandmother for breakfast, then missed them so she could catch her plane back to Des Moines.

Fashion Illo Friday

For Illustration * Friday's "PARADE" theme.
* I know, I know it's Thursday, but it's like 11:45pm

Andy and I are so busy getting ready for our show, we've been out the door at 7am and back home at 11pm. Hopefully this schedule will end soon - we'll probably forget to open a window and pass out from turp and oil paint fumes.

aaaand - Congrats to Adrian on getting his Masters!

Making limited edition vinyl toys for our show!

Ray Guns + Lilacs

Julie // 17" x 11" print on cottonrag // available at SPACE 242 June 26

This piece will be offered as a limited edition print at our exhibition this June. As much as I love digital art, I'm skeptical if it's appropriate to have too many digital pieces in a gallery format. But, hopefully it'll be a compliment.

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Andy and I had a great day on Tuesday; from wrapping up teaching my teen Manga workshop at the museum complete with Japanese snacks and J-Pop playing, to MassArt's Illustration + Graphic Design Portfolio Open House, to bar hopping with friends. After going back and forth between 3 different Irish bars, we settled on TGIFridays, which turned out to be amazingly enjoyable.

One of my students gave me fresh lilacs from her backyard!

I carried them on the train to Boston and back home, not wanting to part with them.

Fashion Friday

An homage to my vintage yellow raincoat picked up at Reminiscence in NYC for $22

travelled all week, and happy to be back working in the studio - OH!

Speaking of travel, Bon Voyage to my girl Alison who is off to Paris this week!

New Work + Surviving Spring

At the Aquarium
16x20 acrylic + pencil on paper

commissioned for Heather's birthday by Patrick

There is something about March - April in which awful things happen to me. Terrible bouts with bad luck, money problems, and family tragedies all seem to occur between these two months for Andy and I.

But now it's May! We survived! Woohoo!

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Showa flowering trees + Children's Day Flags

Had a really nice time on Saturday with Yuka and Chie making tofu in shoyu broth and shogayaki and looking at some fake cherry blossoms. They had me try natto, of which I wasn't able to finish more than a spoonful.

It helped fulfill my hanami-needs since we weren't able to meet up with Misha for the Brooklyn Botanical Garden Sakura Matsuri. [sad] Next year!

liiiittle stressed

Fashion Friday + Desktop Wallpaper

Hitomi

Andy and I were watching a British movie from 1943, set in 1880s London. At one point, this elderly nobleman is shouting at his ward saying :

"Pitts! Don't bother me now!"

But the deteriorating sound quality made it sound like he was yelling :
"BITCH! Don't BOTHA ME NOW!"

Just thought I'd share - it made us laugh pretty hard.

Some photos of our day at Falmouth, Cape Cod from a few weeks back:

feeling a bit ill, watching Pee Wee's Big Adventure - because it cures all !