help me get my design printed at Threadless!!!!

collage time!

A friend and I took a mixed media collage class at Kenosha's Lemon Street Gallery. It was really fun and it was a great opportunity for me to start working with traditional media again - woohoo!! So we had to do these two exercises and then a third bigger collage of basically whatever we wanted, but I didn't have enough time to get much done so it will be posted when it's finished. And yeah, they're pretty random. I really want to start doing more work with traditional media as opposed to everything being digital.

Lorenzo the saber-toothed feline of some sort...

Everyone, meet Lorenzo. I didn't use any reference so he's kind of a mixture of smilodon and thylacosmilus (a saber-toothed marsupial); his anatomy is a little funky but I like the funkiness of it :) Another addition to my Mini Kills family. I really want to translate these "quick sculpts" I've been doing into larger sculptures, so I'm thinking of these as my "sketches" for the larger sculptures, which will be more detailed and hopefully made in such a way that I can create molds of them so I can make as many as I want! We'll see how it all works out.

old stuff i found while cleaning!!

I told myself this blog was only for posting NEW stuff but I found these and had to share. Wowzers this stuff seems so old! In reality it's only been 3 - 4 years but I haven't seem them in so long I forgot I had them! It's also interesting to see them now because I can definitely see all the problems with them (color, anatomy, media application....). I still really like the hands though even if I can see the proportion issues :) I'm gonna keep cleaning and see if I can find more!

francis the taxidermied t-rex

I made this poor guy as if he had been hunted and then mounted on someone's wall... Made out of sculpey then hardened in the oven, added pebbley skin texture, painted and mounted. The nameplate is etched copper. I love him - he's so cute! My favorite part is his short little arms :) I have some more to post - a pirate platypus named Raul, a shiny glittery unicorn named Charlie, and a rather normal looking kudu, don't remember his name....

straightened hair!!

That's me - doin the happy straight hair dance!! Got my hair cut the other day - and then she straightened it!! First time I've ever had my hair straightened (it's naturally curly and I've never had the patience to straighten it myself). Holy crap it's amazing - I keep running my hands through it - and my fingers don't get all tangled up in curls and knots.... I wish I had the patience to straighten it myself but I don't so this will probably be the last time any of my friends and family see me with straight hair!!

new blog!

I created a new blog to keep me motivated - the Daily Dog-paddle! It's focused on my attempts to train our yellow lab, Mack, to be a somewhat respectable huntin dog. I'll be posting pictures and drawings weekly. Check it out and see cute pics of my puppy!!!

new paintings and lots of pics

Woooh! sorry - picture download time... First pics are from some actual artwork that I'm doing - yay! I found these blocks of wood while working maintenance at MIAD and cleaning out drawing studios - someone left them behind. I'm starting with some photo-transfer of pics I took at the zoo.

Next we have some cute pics of Miss Button. Also threw in this random tree picture - my friend, Becca, and I were driving to Barnes and Noble and she pointed this tree out to me on the way - I had my camera along so I swung around, pulled over and took some pictures. It's interesting in that front the front it looks like a tree growing out of the middle of another tree and it's splitting, but from the profile it just looks like one tree - so it's kinda fanned out. Very interesting.

Last of all, I went to the Dinosaur Discover Museum in Kenosha and decided to take some pictures this time so people could see how awesome it is!! It's a teeny tiny room filled with only carnivorous dinosaur skeletons - and I love it because they are posed in really interesting ways compared to what I've seen in other museums - and before you go in they have this life-sized sculpture of a dilophosaurus which is pretty amazing.

random collection

Some new stuff... haven't posted in a while... haven't really done anything that I should be doing.... The bottom picture was taken while hiking in Cudahy, WI with friends Topher and Pietro (this was back in February). Next was a concept for the thousand-eyed monster in our fairy tale installation - inspired by Shadow of the Colossus game. Next is some random lady with a tiger from my sketchbook. Last is my kitty - Miss Button, taking advantage of our new sunny porch door. Ain't she cute?!