Landscape Studies Inspired by Iceland

Seaside Cliffs


Mountains at Dusk


Jagged Crags


Mossy Hill

I was inspired by a couple of things lately - My students are making some amazing landscape/backdrops for their final assignments in Digital Illustration, and Icelandic Space. They're doing a backdrop for a trio of scenes based on either a fairytale or a cultural event from a specific time period. I was blown away by the backgrounds they brought into class on Friday and was excited to try some painter studies myself. I did a series of four 10 minute studies based on Iceland. I'd love to go back some day... this is as close as I can get for now. Maybe I'll make some full fledged paintings based on these some day.

At least it's good practice for one of the topics I've always avoided (backgrounds).
All of these are with Painter!

Acrylic + Pug Dogs = good fun.

I did an acrylic demo for my Illustration 1 class on Thursday which was a brief intro to painting. I decided it would be fun to finish it up later that night and am really happy that I did.

It's been a long time since I worked with actual paint (it seems) - for something that was not for work. So here it is! I am hoping this summer I get to spend more than a couple hours on some paintings that are bigger than a couple inches! This guy is only about 6 x 6" - and with just a couple weird tubes of paint I had lying around.

I always wanted a pug - but then fell in love with our weird pug-rat terrier mix!
Mutts are really the best, but I'll always have a place in my heart for these guys!
Look at all those rolls!



A small detail of his face complete with textural cat-hair addition!

Olivia's Tiny Face

A funny painting of my black cat, Olivia's giant green eyes and tiny face

Today was insane. I contributed way too much money I didn't have to my retirement for 2010's stupid taxes, taught a class and then went home exhausted. I've got good company tonight as I make some 10 minute art and I am excited for the remaining two weeks of the semester to happen! My students are doing amazing things and I am psyched to see them through!

I think I'll finally have some time to relax in May - I am looking forward to it, though I am trying to hang on to my brain in the meantime!

Livestream and my Dog, Atari!

My silly dog, Atari! Closeup

This week was LONG. I finished up a million things, had some super long nights with everyone at Paper Bicycle - and a lot of teaching this week.
I feel accomplished, but worn out. It's funny though, I came home from having dinner tonight with some great friends, determined to get some personal art done and determined to relax.


Full-scale!

I made another Friday night personal art challenge thing tonight - this time of my silly dog, Atari. I ALSO learned how to use livestream!


A super closeup!

I'm super excited because it's really easy to use and I can broadcast some of my Friday night artwork times to whoever is interested in watching!
Here is a snippit of my in progress live stream before it cut out - all 37 minutes of me noodling around!(watch at bedtime for relaxing sleepy-time)

paperbicycle on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

I hope I can record these for myself when I have the chance and if anyone is interested in my process in the future, I hope to do it again!

Darklands - Relive the glory days

Back when I was in 7th Grade we got a computer.
The first huge computer game I ever bought was called Darklands.
I used to sit in front of the computer, day after day, playing this amazing, hard, epic game. This was before games gave you a "journal" to keep track of your quests. This was back when everything was on a 5.25" floppy disc, and this was when I was first becoming computer literate.

Needless to say, Darklands was a HUGE part of my childhood. I bought an old copy on CD in 2000 off of Ebay and hadn't been able to run the game until recently, when on a whim, I bought a PC, installed DOSBOX and got the darn thing to work. The sound doesn't function, but the rest of the game is amazingly intact. Bugs, copyright protection and all.

Chris, Francesca and I are doing some Friday night art tonight - all to celebrate the amazing characters from my very favorite game of all time.
I took one for the team and did a portrait of Ebhard, the fat, old priest that uses a Flail the whole game. Anyone that had ever played it might recognize the font, maybe the bandits, but most certainly the blood stain that was left after killing some dudes.

I still remember the sound it makes when someone dies.
Those were the days!




EDIT:
Here is the one CHRIS did tonight of Gunther! Studly man!!!


And one of Gretch! from Francesca HERE!

Super Strange Night.

closeup!



So - today was insane. Besides teaching my students patterns, talking about hand-type and trend boards I had a ton of work to do... AND I went out to dinner tonight with Gary Baseman.

He's in town for a lecture tomorrow at MCAD, which is awesome! He's super nice and is really passionate about his work. It was really nice talking with him!

Besides all that, I got a call from Atom tonight asking if I wanted to go shoot guns with him tomorrow for his birthday (Which is awesome) - and I snuck a little painter-painting in tonight for the sake of brushing up before class tomorrow.
I have to tell you, I've been so swamped with everything lately that it's SO nice just to put my headphones on for a second, put the jams on and paint something for 2 hours.

So here you have it - late night practice for the sake of personal art. ;)
No, it's not me - it's some other girl with headphones on.
Maybe I'll go back and fix a couple things in here some day ( probably not ) - I'm not thrilled with her headphones because you can tell I didn't use any reference because I was too lazy to take mine off my head to look, and It's getting too late for me to continue tonight. Maybe some other day!

Also I've had the same three songs on repeat all night. That's how I do. - time to dream the new Britney album all night.

ARM HAIR FTW!

Dance Central Birthday Time!

Oh man, today was awesome!
Besides having a birthday, I got to decorate cakes, hang out with my very best friends, eat Chris & Robs hotdogs, AAAANNNNDDD play Dance Central!

Chris bought me a kinect for my birthday AND dance central and he and I and a bunch of great friends danced around like crazies all night! I am super surprised at how challenging it is! It was awesome! At a couple points during the night, we had three people dancing away for each song. SO FUN.

So, I felt like making another post and why not - I had an awesome time thanks to all of my amazing friends tonight. Party time! Excellent!

Friday Night Challenge - Another Sleeping Girl

It's now technically Saturday. Also, my birthday!
I got home from teaching my last class before spring break tonight and had quite a few things to catch up on. I made some calls, did a little bit of editing of the ARTCRANK poster image that we're working on for the show in April, and then ran some errands.

It felt like some personal art was in order, so I busted out some quick painter action (Again) and made some sleepy art.

I am not sure what my deal is (possibly living vicariously through my subject matter?) with the sleeping girls lately, but it seems comforting.
I am looking forward to a slower paced spring break and a nap or two.

My Dogs

Here is a sketch of my two weird dogs.
They both really look like that.

Gouache painting - Friday Night Challenge

Friday night was a great night. I got done with class a little bit early and headed to Moto-i with Francesca and Chris. It's the first weekend in a long while that I wasn't swamped with work, and Francesca and I sat down for a 2 hour challenge. Originally, we had planned to finish a piece of art in two hours, but as things started going, I changed my idea from inking a drawing of this sleeping girl - to painting her in gouache.


detail of her face

As the night wore on, I went over the 2 hour limit and painted for almost three hours on her skin. Gouache is one of those mediums that if you don't mix enough, you're screwed. I had to paint over her skin a second time, since I hadn't done it right to begin with. Also - once you start, you can't stop.

Eventually I called it a night around 11pm and headed home with Chris to play some Marvel vs. Capcom for a sec. :) I am excited to pick this back up and finish this painting once I get another couple hours of free time!

Drawing in Class

My Illustration one class on Thursday was a ton of fun. For about 20 minutes we sat in a circle and sketched each other for a character development project. I was up late last night taking pictures of some of the stuff we did and thought I'd throw this one on the blog!

Everyone had some really fun sketches and we then took turns trying to do one minute captures of some weird faces we were making. I was laughing the whole time - seeing them try and make faces and draw each other at the same time was awesome.
I should do that more. :)

Since I was part of the circle for the first group, I figured I'd pick up my pencil and sketch them, too!

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day!
May your Monday be filled with kittens and things! :)

Guess Who? Blue Man Painting

You'll never guess who this painting started out as...
I am HORRIBLE at making likenesses of celebrities! There was a point tonight when I was referencing picture after picture and I ended up with a painting of a man that is WAY different (in many ways) than the blue man you see here.



There is no way you'll ever guess who this was at the beginning of my painting...
Anyone want to guess?

I'll buy you a tea if you figure it out.

Painted tonight in Painter 11 with about 1 hour of real painting, and 1 hour of trying to figure out how to make this look like the guy I started to draw in the first place.

I guess it ended up looking like a cross between Lawrence Fishburne and O.J. Simpson.
Love those freckles.

Ballerina

Here's a cute sketch of a ballerina. You can tell by the bun.

Strange Self Portrait

Oh man, I haven't done a self portrait in forever and I think it shows...
Here's a painter painting I did tonight for the sake of doing personal art in my free time. It's definitely not the most awesome thing I've ever done. Then again, It's better than some of my MCAD self portaits (It's probably been that long).



here's a detail of my painting


Also, I've been grilling my students left and right about making sure that when they use color that they use the "Squint" rule. Squint your eyes to see value so you know you're doing it right. Just because colors are on your art doesn't mean that it works with value. So - with this, I just wanted to check myself before I wrecked myself. (OH SNAP!)

I suppose that's pretty good! My face hurts from squinting for three hours.

Abraham - the Upright Gorilla

This weekend I saw a video of Abraham the Gorilla. I guess he learned to walk upright on his hind legs, just like we do. After being totally enthralled with the idea that all gorillas could potentially do that, I watched this 5 part documentary from the BBC on Youtube.

I had a couple hours after class tonight to do something fun - so I opened painter and made a quick-quick painting.

Man, I love science. I love animals. And I love learning about all of this stuff.
So, Abraham, I made this one for you!

Happy Holidays from Me, Chris & Francesca

I made this last night for you! We're all headed to our respective parents' houses for a visit over the holidays! This was a little neon-colored bike I painted (painter) yesterday for the festivities!

Happy holidays you guys - I'm sure I will cross post this with Paper Bicycle's Blog as soon as it's my turn to get up to bat!

:)
Hope you guys are enjoying the snow out there!

Life on the Internet with Emo Hair

I spent about 45 minutes wandering aimlessly around the internet today - and, when I was through with the obligatory searches for "awful plastic surgery," I started clicking around on hair websites/ groups.

Here's a piece I did inspired by the millions of crazy emo girl haircuts I saw tonight.
I figured since I was snowed in that I should be doing some personal art.

This one is another piece done with Painter - I am so happy I have my wacom tablet back!!

Life Update!

OK!
SO - things besides the normal things (what?) are happening in art- life.

Two things :

1. I often complain to myself about the fact that it's too bad that I work in a field where I can't post things until they're manufactured and in the stores. - so It seems like I might not do anything all day....

and

2. I even have personal projects that I can't show yet because I will jinx myself! WAAAH!


On that note, I wanted to TELL you about this thing!
Chris is in San Francisco right now preparing for a pitch to Chronicle Books (Best publisher ever). We've got a book idea and I stayed up until 3 am prepping at Kinkos for, like, EVER.

The guy at kinkos was really nice, but somehow I got into a conversation with him about this Gundam robot that they made in Japan and that he just so happened to have pics of on his phone.... What? Yes.

Anyway, So - tomorrow from 3 - 5, Chris will be standing and waiting his turn in line to pitch out concept - face to face - with an Editor of Chronicle Books.
Cross your fingers for him! I really believe in our idea and we did a bunch of work to prep for it! :)

Anyway, when it's all said and done with, I'll post some images of what we worked on!
Good luck, Chris!

Cat - Delightful!

Here it is!
The "finished" painting of Oliver!
I quick did the leaves on the bottom and got rid of that sprig floating above his head!
I owe this piece of art to John from my tools of the trade class - for a show at Cause this week. I hope that I can get it to him in time!

Francesca was super nice and helped me frame it tonight, so it's all ready!
I should really do more painter/paintings!

It was a lot of fun and I'm sure I'll probably go back and add some details when I don't have a splitting headache. But for now - I'm happy!