The Wading Game

Sorry I have not written for a while. There a couple of things going on right now, but I am waiting before I share them so as not to jinx myself. I am trying the "create yourself" approach with a dash of going with the flow and sprinkled with some patience.

Over the past 2 weeks I have also been implementing the separation of my website. I now have one site for my graphics work and one site for my game work. I think this is a much cleaner approach to introducing myself to companies and it will allow everyone to see just the work they are interested in. For my friends and fans, I know you would like to see it all which is why I am sharing it here. I will eventually have a fine art site as well, which will serve as my most personal work but I need to focus on my 3D work. Maybe one day it will all be implemented together. Actually, I would say it is more possible than not.

So here are my new sites!

Games
Graphics

Art For Healing

Hello internet world.
A few months ago I got hooked up with an amazing woman named Laurie who runs a non profit called Art and Creativity 4 Healing . She helps children, teens and adults work through anger, stress, grief and confusion by giving them some art tools, instruction and compassion.
My first volunteer experience was at Camp Pendleton which is a Marine Base near my home. I got to work with children whose parents are in the military and encourage them to draw. It was fantastic, because I find my time spent with children inspiring and I hope to inspire them as well. Tomorrow night is a fund raiser and I am donating a piece of art to help out. I will also be volunteering there and meeting lots of new people so I feel like tomorrow will be a great night!
Here is the piece that I did for the event. I treated it more of a commercial piece and not so much as a fine art piece because I want it to serve my intended purpose before it serves someone else. I am really enjoying working with the watercolor and ink so I am going to need to learn how to control it better.



Another thing that is coming into my life... wood. So think about that until the next update.

5th piece

This is my second good piece that I made at the academy. The last one didn't go over so well. I loved the figures, but the bg and the situation were definitely not working. If I ever fix it, I will post it, but for now it has been forgotten.

This assignment was to demonstrate the sound snap, pop or crackle. I chose snap and made a big fat bird falling out of a tree. I love this one! Plus, I worked with mediums I have never used to compose before and now I feel that I am going to do this more often. Watercolor+Ink+Pattern= Happiness. Mark English even went as far as to say that it was professional which I was actually surprised by since I used such bold color and I got some mixed feedback on Sunday from other people after everything was pretty much done. So all I must say is "Success is Mine!" (for this one at least).

I am alive

Hello my fellow darlings...
It has been a long, long week, but for every crazy week a beautiful one will follow.
I can't wait to go to the library tomorrow. I officially have a list of books I want to get.
Art School libraries are the best. They have such a variety of helpful magazines, books
for inspiration, reference and learning. I think one of the first things I am going to do
when I get back home is go to AIOC and see if they will allow me to take out books from there.
Anyway, I thought I would also post my last project up called Vanity. I know it's not that
good, but putting the bad ones up can show the growth I guess. I do like the colors though.



I know this is short, but I am off to Figure drawing. Maybe I will post some of those as well.

Long Update

Alright kids... So I went to Florida. I have been taking an extreme illustration boot camp for 2 weeks now and I have 5 more to go.... It has been really good so far. I have been meeting really inspiring people, learning new tricks and in the process of either adding or eliminating things about my artwork and where I want to be.
For anyone who was following this freaking saga, there was a lot of back and forth of me going, but I am definitely happy that in the end I decided to go. A huge part of me can not wait to go back to California with all of this knowledge and start applying it to my personal work. I do not really have time to finish personal work here, but I am working on sketches for a few different projects so that at least I will have a head start. Part of the Academy is learning to strip yourself and the importance of the process that leads you to your wonderful finished product. I am definitely going to start doing more pre planning before jumping into projects from now on.

SO! Here is my second project that I did. The assignment... Celebrity Portrait. Given by the super talented Anita Kunz I got to hold tracing paper sketches that were in Time and Rolling Stone Magazine. How crazy.


Now... here is Eminem. I drew it out on paper, then vectored it in Illustrator, printed, mounted and then covered in an acrylic/polyurethane mix.

Local Flavor Competition

I just did a quick design for tote bags. This is a competition for the Chez Panisse Foundation. They are an organization that supports teaching healthy food habits to children and growing in schoolyards.
The idea was to show a food specific to your region or country. It was quite nice to work on a design for a purpose again.
The first one is my adult one, but is being playful so that adults can go back to a more carefree time. It could also be grape juice though, eh? I also really like that Local almost reads as LoCal so it's double meaning.
I made up the saying on the avocado design after being inspired by reading the Organization's website and mission. And I love avocados. REALLY love avocados. With salt and a spoon love.

I will sleep tonight

Hello my dear internet,
It is a bit late for me right now. I stayed up quite late last night and woke up early to work on this new piece. I really wanted to finish it so it was worth it. Tomorrow starts painting 3 of the Monotone series. The first one was Jaded, the second was Aristocrat and now we move onto Birthday. I have had this idea for a while so finally getting to work on it is quite exciting. I already have the sketch done so tomorrow we go to canvas! Hooray!
I found a really great art store this past weekend called Sterlings. I had never heard of it, but it was a giant warehouse filled with everything from architectual tools to furniture to buy one get one free canvases! So of course, I left with six... If you are in the Orange County area, I would definitely check it out. They are a local business and have the human being discount(%25 off your order on anything, anytime), why would you give your money to anyone else?
Alright, so my hand is hurting and I am falling asleep. Onto the linking...
This one will enlarge when clicked on b/c I made it pretty big and I lost a lot of detail shrinking. I also have decided to start signing on everything. I can't really say anything if people want to print my work on their own. I just want them to know it came from somewhere. I am flattered that they would take the time to print and display my work actually. I feel that helps me b/c they are sharing and it they obviously loved it enough to want to look at it all the time. I am an advocate of piracy. I believe it helps the artists, but that is another discussion for when I am not so tired.

The Day After

Yesterday (which was my birthday) was such a fantastic day!! If you go to Six Flags, (I went to magic mountain) I definitely reccommend going on a weekday. I had the whole park to myself, yet I still couldn't make every ride. I love amusement parks and the more extreme the coasters the better. I went on my first standing and laying flat roller coaster. They will do anything now to change it up. One case of a trying too hard is X2 though. They wanted a 5th dimension experience so they added fire, sound and rotating seats. While this SOUNDS amazing, it really wasn't. It was too rough on numerous occasions where I just got a headache and the "sound" was just about every clip that WB has the rights to mashed into an intro with a badly syned Metallica song. Besides that, every other coaster was a thrill and it all ended with strawberry topped funnel cake.

My mom was in this past weekend, so I didn't get to do the finishing touches on the latest painting, but now ... HERE IT IS!!!
I don't know what to call it, but I have decided that this will be the last painting of a series that I will now be starting tomorrow. I have a better idea of how much time I need to paint each one so I am going to make it a 6 painting series not including this one. I do not like talking about work before it is done, so the subject matter and discussion will need to wait, but as always I am excited.

Another little girl

So I finished another girl for the home. Do you like the asian theme or do you think it should be mixed cultures? I'm in between. I am enjoying doing the facial masks.


I am currently waiting for my jumbo veggie protein link to be done. I am addicted to relish. Mix that with a giant bun for carbs and that's how a vegetarian eats a hot dog. I was looking at old photos of myself and for as much as I love my natural red, I am thinking of a choppier cut with a more extreme color. I will probably get over it within the next few days. Everytime I get bored I just want to cut all my hair off, so before I do something drastic I will eat and work on the next illustration. This one will be from something I felt when I first moved to California. It will be a more high detail illustration, so it will be another week or so before it is done.

excitment!

So this week has been quite productive so far! On Monday I finally got the chance to read through my notebooks and gather all my ideas and thoughts and make an agenda. I work much better with a schedule. Especially if I make it a tight one. I am going to be balancing painting during the day and illustration at night. And whatever free time I have either watching a movie or learning Flash or both. Do you think I am a work-a-holic much? There is really just NOT enough time in the day...

The thing that I am had the most trouble with was trying to figure out the timing for the schedule. Right now everything is a guessing game and I need to adjust according to how fast I work. I have thus far given myself 2 weeks to complete a painting from beginning to end. I do not know where this stands as of yet. I have put 6 hours into compositing, sketching and starting to layout some paint. This is definitely a good place so far to me. I was thinking of posting "in progress" shots, but I don't want people to have their own perception while I am working b/c I feel then it might fall short of what someone imagined. When I have the final piece done, I will then probably add in progress shots after the final image so I can share my process with you. This is going to be a great trip!

As for now, here is a little illustration that I finished this morning.

Bedroom art

Here is the art that I made to be put up in the bedroom. It was kind of made before I thought of doing it as a series, so I will probably do another to match the asian girls. I love this though. It's so peaceful.

new life

so it was quite the adventure moving out to california. I am now residing in Laguna Niguel which is right by the beach! Hooray! I got some good gestures done there. Plus! I saw a seal in the water right on shore!!
This past month has been chaotic with a lot of love and support coming my way, so thank you to all the people that have helped me through this transition. It means a lot. I will be putting pictures of my new place up tomorrow so you can all share the love I have of my new place with me.

Now with that said, I have a painting to put up that I finished in the beginning of March. If you remember, I was working on a piece featuring Derek and his baby. I created a painting that I felt really touched upon the aristocratic side of him. Let me know what you think. It was the first time I was using Pumice and it was awesome and disastorous at the same time. I used it as a main element with I think next time I should paint and then apply it as a detail pass. Putting it on first kept me from fixing problems throughout since all the texture was there. AH, well you live and learn.

Home Designs

So since I will be moving into a new place, it is time for new decorations!!
I started out just wanting to draw to kill time and wound up with a new set idea. I want 2X3 frames with cute characters with a statement for each room. This one will be for the bathroom. What do you think?


I will post more as I make them throughout the week.

Another start perhaps

Hmmm.... June 08. A lot has happened since then. I am writing to you as a different person.
There have been so many things I wanted to share and unfortunately the more time that passes, the more reclused I become. Therefore I am back here wanting to vent and share. Then just maybe I will feel better and maybe just hopefully maybe you will get a good story out of this in the end. Maybe someone will even read this.

Things I learned this past week. It seems standard in California to not come with a refridgerator in apartments. I would love a really old teal one. Ones with the silver lines on it like a cadillac.

When I get to Laguna Niguel I will start yet another new life. I am going to try and take the fullest advatage of it. Once I am settled in, I am going to have the next 4 months to paint. I will be able to time myself and see if I can produce in that manner. It will be an interesting test because I want to be able to create a large enough body of work to go to a gallery with by Sept.

For now here is a happy girl. I just finished playing command and conquer.