Commissioned Portrait Extravaganza

Thought I would share a bit of my painting process with all of you out there in blog-world. I'm planning on continuing these to give you an extra peek of the steps from start to finish. Here's an example of a commissioned work I created many moons ago. Feast your eyes on the late night glory!...yes, I'm a night owl by nature.

It all starts with a final sketch...after TONS of other reject sketches. A huge amount of time is spent working with the layout and execution of the drawing before the paint even hits the palette.

Then some prep work.

No joke, the actual cat I was referencing had David Bowie eyes.

Vawah-la, the finished piece. This was an amazing piece to work on. The subject had such hypnotic eyes.

Got any painting stories or process pieces? Feel free to share them here!

Coraline!

So I have added a new member to my shelf of friends and foes. It's Coraline of coarse (and she's caught in Gloomy Bear's evil death grip)! What an amazing character and equally amazing film. I absolutely adored every second of it.

Mr. Henry Selick has done it again; dazzling visuals, intriguing lead character, and all around magical movie. I've seen it twice on the big screen and will definitely buy it to own. Oh sweet Coraline... Check out more goodness here: Coraline.com

Meet you at the Soda Bar.

Friday evening had exceptionally clear skies and a brisk breeze. Conditions were perfect to get out of the house and cram into the Soda Bar to see friends and listen to some good tunes.

The fine folks of 

Gray Ghosts

Cuckoo Chaos

Charles Musket

supplied the music for the night.

And what a great time so introduce some of my new 1" buttons (soon to be added to my Etsy shop)! Check out these amazing models...They sure do look fancy, would you not agree?!

Fun fun fun indeed.

New Etsy Items!

I've been adding some new goodies here and there in my Etsy shop. First, there's a lovely imaginary tea party print. 

Just today, I posted a dreamy card set...it's not too early to think of your loved ones for Valentine's Day.

My Nightmare Tree

Ah decorating is so fun. This was particularly thrilling to construct. Modeled after one of the greatest films of all time, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, here is my glorious Christmas tree. 

Shadows.

A recent rooftop outing.

Bet you didn't know I could do this.

CityBeat Best of 2008

Okay, so I've neglected this blog horribly. I'll try to be more consistent with my updates.

I have been keeping quite busy lately. Producing more and more prints and, finally, cards! 

introducing, the production team.

It took lots-o late nights, redbull, and paper cuts, but eventually, we were ready to sell at the Best of San Diego 2008 CityBeat party. Here I am looking like a dork and trying to be Japanese:

My table was facing an amazing mural by the ridiculously talented Mark Mulroney. Check out his stuff here.

The event was at the Children's Museum downtown, so we did get to act our age.

It was fun! The End.

Halloween!!!!!!

It's almost here and my costume is just about ready...

Here's my inspriation