dandeliondog

CUTE BLOG AWARD!!

2012-01-29T10:42:00.001-06:00

I've been tagged in a Cute Blog Award! Thanks to the lovely Heidi for loving my cuteness :3

For this award you:

1. Link back to the person who awarded you.

2. Answer the award questions.

3. Tell something about yourself that you haven't told anyone on your blog yet.

4. Award as many blogs as you think are worthy of this award.

5. Make sure to let those you gave this award to know that you awarded them.

The Award Questions:

1. What is your go to makeup product?

Mascara and gold eyeshadow. The gold, shimmery eyeshadow goes well with any outfit and I have somewhat light lashes, so mascara is definitely my friend :)

2. What was your favorite fashion trend of 2011?

FEATHERS! I love feathers and I love seeing them EVERYWHERE.

3. What is your favorite dessert?

Tiramisu, but only if it's made really well.

4. Favourite color?

That's a hard one. I love so many colors I don't think I have a favorite... But I do really love grey, mustard yellow and turquoise.

5. What is your middle name?

LeAnne

6. What was the last song that you listened to?

LMFAO "Sexy And I Know It". And the video makes me laugh every single time I see it.

7. Cats or dogs?

Both. But I think my dog is definitely more fun than the two cats...

Something about myself that you don't know:

I rearranged and changed my whole lifestyle in about two weeks, and I feel AWESOME. None of you know what that means but I'll tell you if you ask nicely ;)

patterns

2011-11-02T19:13:00.001-05:00

New stuff! OK, so when presented as a set (which was my original intention), these aren't very well balanced color-wise or in composition, but I really enjoy them as separate pieces. Printed them on 150lb cold press watercolor paper and mounted them on wood. But they really should be laser printed instead of my crappy little inkjet, since it's not as crisp, but I ran out of time. I'll just be giving these to my nephew for his room :)

necklace love

2011-09-03T11:12:00.000-05:00

A large, Scandinavian-inspired statement necklace I'm embroidering. This is taking for-ev-er.

elsie sketch

2011-09-03T11:10:00.000-05:00

She was sitting on my bed, watching a bug fly around the lamp. Super quick 1 minute sketch.

rubber bandit

2011-08-20T20:55:00.000-05:00

A bit of an inside joke. Names have been changed to protect the innocent...

conceptual ramblings

2011-08-15T22:13:00.000-05:00

Friend needs creature designs for a graphic novel. warm up sketches.

swell

2011-08-15T21:00:00.000-05:00

Haven't done IF in a crazy long time. And I guess the drawing could be considered a stretch to fit the word, but I care not.

ugh

2011-08-15T00:27:00.000-05:00

After a busy week and an exhausting weekend, I'm not fit for doing anything today. Except maybe melting into a puddle on the floor... I need. Something.

vinyl fantastisch

2011-08-10T23:04:00.000-05:00

Lovesick Robot made my design into a sweet vinyl sticker that now resides on my laptop. Awesome sauce.

hurray for horseback riding!

2011-08-07T13:32:00.000-05:00

By the way, a lot of trotting = very sore legs.

freja and things

2011-08-07T13:28:00.000-05:00

The Norse goddess Freja, and some other random ideas for a show I'm doing in November. I'm focusing on Scandinavian myths and legends :D Yay!

delineation

2011-04-09T23:12:00.000-05:00

poor little elsie

2011-02-26T20:09:00.001-06:00

Poor little Elsie dislocated a toe after a crazy night of being chased by Miss Button, so they had to do surgery to remove it. Her pupils were entirely dilated for two days after and she was quite sad and more than a little freaked out...

paper scraps and feathers

2011-02-05T17:20:00.000-06:00

Some feathers I cut out of card stock - I had an idea in mind when I started to make them, but now I don't really know what to do with them... So I salvaged any usable scraps of paper and created this weird peacock.. bird... thing.

Sedna in the works

2011-01-28T00:20:00.000-06:00

Been working on my graphic novel for the last few days...

Valentine's Day: here I come

2011-01-22T23:24:00.002-06:00

Hurray for Valentines! I got a bit stuck on the whole "deer" theme, but I'm workin on some others...

strange girls

2011-01-22T20:37:00.001-06:00

Some sketchees... The big girl's nose got kinda outta hand - reminds me of Michael Jackson.

shrinky dink day

2011-01-08T20:04:00.000-06:00

Modeled after blue jay feathers. I'm actually surprised the large feathers actually worked, because they were pretty big before going into the oven. Though, I'll admit, I panicked a little when they curled up on themselves...

barnyard paper puppets ATTACK

2011-01-07T00:10:00.000-06:00

Baby horse, donkey and llama! I've been wanting to make more animal puppets lately - these are just mock-ups... It might take me a while to actually start the final puppets, since I need some heavy-weight watercolor paper, and I have no money to purchase said paper at this time... In the mean time, I plan on continuing work on Sedna.

what?

2011-01-06T20:18:00.002-06:00

I don't know...

holiday cards!

2010-11-22T22:15:00.000-06:00

New Holiday Cards! I still have to print them and get them up in the Etsy shop... before Thanksgiving... So now I NEED to speed on up to MKE and visit digicopy.

MusicExpress Cover, Take 2

2010-11-17T20:11:00.000-06:00

So, last year, the lovely people over at the Hal Leonard corporation commissioned me to do a cover for their "MusicExpress" magazine. This October, they wanted me to do another cover - HURRAY! Though I must say, I haven't worked in this style since the last cover, and this is the style they like... But I can't say that I necessarily do... On the other hand, I do think it turned out a lot better than the first cover I did - and I only had less than a week in which to do it (go me). So, there you go...

a taste

2010-09-08T00:56:00.004-05:00

Just a little taste of the work I'm doing for Paradigm this October. They are only sketches though... The second image is just a very rough idea, the first image is more the direction I'm headed in, though like the second image, there will be more ornate details. I'm working in watercolor, acrylic, fabric and wood...

clever girl

2010-07-15T15:01:00.002-05:00

I'm getting sucked back into the world of threads and fabrics! Sadly I keep shrugging off Sedna... which I NEED to work on... somebody just kick me. On the other hand, hurray for Jurassic Park quotes coupled with strange embroidery! I know, it's weird, right? Topher, I thought of you while making this :)

hart to heart

2010-06-23T12:39:00.000-05:00

Hurray for embroidery! Hand embroidered with green and fuchsia thread onto a damask print cotton fabric. The awesome frame came from Goodwill. I <3 thrift stores...

much ado about something

2010-06-17T13:41:00.000-05:00

I am up and running! A whole week full of inspiration has got me back on track for all my projects, new and old! I spent an absolutely lovely afternoon with Florence Parry Heide, a well-known children's book author, who also happens to be related to my grandma! Florence is such an amazing person! She's so vibrant and full of life despite her 91 years, and just so helpful and encouraging. I left her fantastic art-laden Kenosha home utterly saturated with inspiration, and she gave me so much hope for my future in illustration.

I also got moving on my Sedna comic after going to hang out with friends at StudioSunday! Hopefully I can tighten up my thumbnails and starting inking the first 5 pages this month! So excited to really get going on this project :)

I also got a tentative ok to do a mural for Willow Creek Ranch. I suggested brightening up the indoor riding arena by painting a large mural that would include all the horses they use in the program. They were really excited about the idea, as am I, so I'm in the process of drawing up a sketch.

I also have a show set up for October at Paradigm Coffee & Music in Sheboygan!

And, for the finale, I finally got a job!! It's only a part-time job, so I'll still be looking for a second job, but hopefully it will be a rewarding one...

inspiration for Sedna

2010-06-04T12:02:00.002-05:00

The wonderful Jackie at LovesickRobot is doing awesome work on the script for my Sedna book, which has inspired me to start working on it again! So, I was trying to work on a cover and I came up with the idea of using the dog - which more than likely will not be my cover, but I liked it so much I thought I would post it. I think I want the cover to be more simple, minimal, with lots of white space... we shall see. Also there's just some quick sketches of what her body could look like...

double exposure fun!

2010-04-15T10:54:00.001-05:00

Fun pics with my Holga! It's been awhile since I took these pictures... This roll I wanted to experiment with taking double exposures, so here are my favorites from a set of 10. The second and third pics were taken at the giant Cabela's in Richfield (it's like a frackin museum up there!) - tons of mounted animals everywhere! It was fun - I just loaded another roll to take more multiple exposures :)

volunteering!

2010-03-23T23:09:00.002-05:00

I started my volunteer work today! It's at a therapeutic riding center for children and adults with special needs and I've been super excited to start. Each session is about 1 hour long which I spend walking next to the rider around an indoor arena, so it's great exercise. It's been sooo long since I've worked around horses and absolutely I love it :D I've never worked around individuals with special needs though, so it's a bit of a learning process - but it's a great experience for me (not to mention it can go on my resume).

sedna character design

2010-03-13T23:43:00.001-06:00

I started some character design for my graphic novel! Well, I started with some drawings of her face a while ago, but I really need to think about her body... I know this may look weird but I like the idea - just have to figure out how to make it look a bit more... hmmmm... not sure if I can find a good word for what I'm trying to explain. A bit more something... Gotta work on it.

kitty helper

2010-02-15T12:22:00.004-06:00

So, I turned on my computer, opened up Photoshop and sat there, forcing myself to be inspired to do something... when, wouldn't ya know, a little black and orange kitty hopped up into my lap (her favorite spot it seems whenever I'm on the computer), and made it nearly impossible for me do anything with my right arm except let it lay there as her pillow. And she is so cuddly and cute that I can't bring myself to put her down... So inspiration hopped into my lap today. Hurray for kitty helpers!

adrift

2010-02-12T16:08:00.001-06:00

Sometimes Beatrice was tired of seeing the same old trees day after day. On the abandoned boat she found in a stand of birches, sometimes she would pretend she was adrift on Lake Superior - bravely crossing the billowing waves to new lands for exploring and new creatures for finding...

Haven't done IF in a loooong long time. Word of the week: "adrift."

puppy ornaments!!

2009-12-22T00:38:00.002-06:00

I made ornaments for my family this Christmas with the silhouettes of each of our four dogs (including four that are no longer with us). Each is printed (via inkjet awesomeness!) on muslin then stretched and framed in a wood embroidery hoop.

secrets

2009-12-19T23:17:00.001-06:00

Dik-dik and thylacine have lots of secrets... ssshhhhh...

cornered...

2009-11-30T16:06:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I wonder what they say to each other during a confrontation....

Camille loved her tea on cold wintry days

2009-11-23T18:45:00.001-06:00

This is the final illustration (sans text) that was done for a client who sells rooibos tea. It was a quick, fun illo and I really ended up liking it quite a lot.

goodbye my sargy boy

2009-11-17T22:38:00.003-06:00

My Sargent gave us over 13 good years, now he's gone to the big dog park in the sky.... He was such a sweetheart, he was my puppy; even as he grew older, he was still my puppy. It's really hard to not see him here laying on the floor by me, I'm going miss him dearly....

I'M IN COUNTRY LIVING MAGAZINE!!!

2009-10-21T13:37:00.002-05:00

My green and blue plaid yo-yo necklace has been featured in Country Living Magazine!!! It is in the November issue article called "Mad About Plaid." It's kinda strange opening up a magazine and seeing something that you've made... right there. In a magazine. So now I'm selling a whole bunch of yo-yo necklaces and spending my days creating new ones. If you're interested, check out my Etsy store!

new work for Caggio show

2009-10-16T01:35:00.001-05:00

New work alongside The She-Bear (below) for my show at Caggio. Some of the work I'm not entirely happy with but working on these definitely got me back into the swing of traditional media! Hurray for watercolor!!! From top to bottom: Meeting the Black Dog, White Fox Wedding, Sedna, The Nightingale, and The Golden Stag.

The She-Bear

2009-09-29T12:20:00.002-05:00

The She-Bear. First of 6 of my larger illos for Caggio. Watercolor and colored pencil.

aerating the green

2009-08-17T16:20:00.008-05:00

I golfed this weekend.... sort of. First time I've ever been to a golf course - first time I've ever swung a golf club. I probably shouldn't have started on an actual course - but maybe the field.... or a driving range.... oh well. AND, flip flops are not an ideal golfing shoe... flip flops + golf = dirty slippery feet!

I whacked a few good ones but the majority of my time was spent aerating the green... (also known as missing the ball and gouging divots out of the turf) hehe :) It was really fun though - I like the challenge it presents, so I've decided the driving range is my next step (my dad's a great golfer so he's gonna show me how it's done).

MusicExpress Cover!

2009-08-13T18:43:00.004-05:00

I was contacted to create an illustration for the December issue of MusicExpress, a music magazine for students. Hooray! I was so happy to get this job and very excited about having the opportunity to get an illustration in print! The one on the right is what the actual cover will look like. (Images are property of the Hal Leonard Corporation)

sedna sketches

2009-08-10T15:06:00.010-05:00

Sketches for the main character in a possible comic I'd like to create based on an Inuit myth about Sedna. I did the illustration on the bottom a while ago and never finished it. The sketches on the top are brand-spanking new.

I was also recently inspired after reading the lovely Mike Mignola's Hellboy comics, and a comic I picked up while in Ireland a few years ago called An Tain - which tells of the epic tale from Ireland. I also took a look at my friend's ZvR - featuring amazing artwork by Mr. Ashley Wood! And I loooove the art in Hellboy and An Tain (which is colored using watercolor - beautiful) and it made me want to create a graphic novel telling Sedna's story.

floating island sketch

2009-08-09T21:50:00.001-05:00

Quick sketch of the floating island - one environment that will appear in our gallery show.

impatient

2009-08-07T15:07:00.003-05:00

Franklin was always impatient when it came to making new friends.

Today I felt that I needed some obnoxiously bright and arbitrary color in my life, and this satisfies me for the moment... Done for IF's word of the week, "impatient".

miss button, mouse hunter

2009-08-05T22:56:00.005-05:00

In the last week Miss Button has caught two mice in my house.... Good kitty. But, unfortunately, she doesn't actually kill them - she brings them into the bathroom and chases them around. Both times I heard this funny chirping sound and I turn the light on in the bathroom to see her staring at me with the mouse in her mouth. She has this look on her face that seems to say, "Um, excuse me, can't you see I'm busy here?" Then I have to pick them up and toss them outside, so I'm sure they've found a way back into the house anyways. *sigh* now I have to set traps... or get another cat...

armadillo says...

2009-08-03T22:55:00.002-05:00

har har har. ain't he cute? hurray for randomness :D

barn owl pillow

2009-07-27T15:15:00.004-05:00

This started off as just an experiment in freehand machine embroidery, but then ended up as a pretty pillow that I really enjoy! I drew out the owl on muslin and machine stitched it using several thread colors (though the eyes and beak are hand-embroidered). Then I added two strips of pink lace and added a pink patterned fabric as the back.

idea for Paradigm show

2009-07-12T12:05:00.003-05:00

New idea for my upcoming show at Paradigm Coffee & Music in October. I want to do these Victorian-type silhouettes with more of a stylized twist, and they will all be focused on elements of nature and each contain a different girl's silhouette and animal. Keep in mind this is just a loose rendering and will be more detailed. I'm thinking of making them more 3-dimensional and doing some embroidery on fabric as well as painting. We'll see how it goes....

in progress work for gallery show

2009-07-10T16:49:00.009-05:00

In progress work for a final piece that will be in the gallery show. Done in watercolor and pencil. After doing all the painting I plan to go back into it with pencil to add texture. It depicts the transformation of the animals on the island from real creatures into mechanical shadows of themselves...

craft fair success!!

2009-06-29T21:42:00.006-05:00

The Dandeliondog was a success at the craft fair! HURRAY!! We weren't sure how well we would do since this was our very first craft fair - but I think we did awesome for first-timers! We made just over $500 :D We sold mostly our totebags (great for the go-green grocery shopper), and purses - including my yellow whale purse and the green striped bird purse I posted earlier (you can see them if you scroll down). Didn't sell many stuffed animals (two squirrels and my blue armadillo) but I would have been happy to just sell one. It was actually a lot of fun to see what everyone else had to sell - our stuff was a lot different than everyone else's - in a good way :) We are planning on doing the winter craft fair at Parkside as well in December (if we get in - they have limited spaces so it is a juried application process). Wish us luck!

stuffed animals and shrinky dinks

2009-06-21T13:44:00.002-05:00

More stuffed animals for the craft fair!! An army of armadillos, several squirrels, and a lonely beaver, bunny and skunk. I gotta get sewing - the craft fair is this coming Saturday! I'm running out of time... Also a few shrinky dink charms I'll be making into necklaces for myself :)

mural sketch

2009-06-15T20:49:00.001-05:00

sketches for a large 10 x 8 mural that will be in the gallery show... oh man, large-scale work scares me...

fairy tale sketches - finally I'm up and running!

2009-06-12T15:46:00.005-05:00

Some character studies of the main character and the wolf. The top one is the tight sketch - it depicts the animals of the forest transforming from real creatures to mechanical ones - becoming twisted shadows of themselves... mhuwahaha!

LOOKIT DA BABY!!

2009-05-30T17:03:00.004-05:00

Sooooooo cute!!! This made my year :) So last Wednesday my brother called my mom with a problem.... He works for a landscaping company and a crew was out replacing some bushes in a unfinished Kenosha suburb and one of the workers found this little guy curled up under a bush... So instead of leaving it there, he picked it up. He brought it back and showed it to my brother who called us to come and get it. We called a wildlife rehab center and they said that no one in southeast Wisconsin will take it and the DNR will just take it and euthanize it. So the best chance we had was trying to find the area where the guy picked it up. So we drove him back into Kenosha, bleating and kicking half the way, and luckily found the site and dropped him off in the grass. Hopefully his mom found him!

makin purses!

2009-05-30T16:58:00.003-05:00

I know I haven't posted in a while - been very busy. So I guess I'll start from the beginning. I've been making lots of purses and more stuffed animals among other things in preparation for a craft fair I will be a part of on June 27 at UW-Parkside in Kenosha, WI. So if anyone's gonna be out and about that Saturday you should swing by! These are just two of my favorite purses I've made so far. I'll post more as take pics of them all. If anyone wants one made just drop me a line! :)

collage time!

2009-04-26T22:45:00.004-05:00

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.

old stuff i found while cleaning!!

2009-04-20T15:06:00.006-05:00

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

2009-04-20T00:35:00.004-05:00

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!!

2009-04-16T11:32:00.002-05:00

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!!

flight of the conchords poster #2

2009-02-12T16:36:00.003-06:00

While I was reading last night I had this great idea for another FotC poster! I really like how this one turned out - and aesthetically it's geared more towards the artwork that they are already working with. I didn't really want to use the images that they provide for you (you don't have to use them) - but they seem to work well enough with the illustration, sooo...... yeah. And somehow that kitty slipped in....

le poissons morning

2009-02-11T21:31:00.005-06:00

So yeah. Weird. How that song came to be in my head when I woke up is beyond me! I haven't even watched The Little Mermaid in, like, 2 years. It was bizarre... So I had to do a quick comic about it - and took a cue from my friend Mie's dedication to the daily comic. I should really try and do more..

flight of the conchords poster

2009-02-11T17:15:00.004-06:00

Flight of the Conchords poster for HBO's poster contest... Totally not something HBO would really pick but at least I can be proud of it and the fact that it's not totally lame... I like it - it's not exactly finished yet I don't think, but very close.

flawed

2009-02-02T22:11:00.001-06:00

Totally random... Was doin some sketches for the fairy tale project and somehow this cute lil guy snuck in there... For IF's prompt of "flawed."

ring of blue

2009-01-31T09:42:00.002-06:00

Hooray for personal illustrations!! This is the tight sketch/color study for an illustration I am starting based off of this poem:

I sing to you, I bring to you, a ring of blue, my love.
Through swollen sky no bird could fly, but I alone would come.
This gale may claim my feathered frame, though my heart belongs to you.
For it cannot be, my love, you see - no bird may love a man.

I'm thinking mixed media - mostly acrylic and digital, but I may print it out on a nice high quality textured paper and embellish it with embroidery.... Or I was thinking I might just go ahead and embroider the whole bird (as in my North American Review illustration) and do the hand and background acrylic and then put it all together digitally... We'll see.

final pezzettino posters

2009-01-31T09:30:00.003-06:00

Final poster designs for the lovely Margaret Stutt.

September

2009-01-24T13:05:00.002-06:00

My last calendar illustration for the month of September. It has nothing to do with the month but I liked the idea so I ran with it.

character concepts

2009-01-23T15:48:00.003-06:00

Studio Sunday is writing a fairy tale of sorts - that will possibly translate into an installation at a local art gallery. Woohoo for keeping busy!! These are studies for a protagonist... She's a young girl, wears the head/skin of the wolf. Still doin studies for what her clothes would actually look like...

rikki tikki tavi

2009-01-23T15:43:00.003-06:00

Rikki Tikki Tavi is a short story in The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (one of my favorite authors). I did this about two years ago in a "painting for illustration" class. It's done in watercolor and colored pencil and it's actually cut out of a piece of paper and kinda just hangin out by itself because the background I did sucked... I brought it out to see what I could do with it because I still really like it - so that's another project I'm working on at the moment.

ireland panorama

2009-01-21T14:52:00.004-06:00

I found this while cleaning up some files on my computer... forgot I had it! This is a picture from the 4 weeks I spent in the town of Ballyvaughan, in County Clare, Ireland. It is located in the Burren and right on Galway Bay on the west coast of Ireland. This was taken from the back road that eventually lead to the school, which can actually be seen in the image if it was bigger. And a few of us climbed that huge bluff in the picture and it was the single most inspiring thing I've ever done in my life. Utterly amazing and I'm still speechless! That was about 4 years ago now I believe... It was such an amazing experience. It was through a school program and we each had to create artwork by the end of the 4 weeks that was inspired by our time there - you can check out my work here if anyone's interested.

calendar stuff

2009-01-21T14:44:00.005-06:00

So two calendar images completed for Studio Sunday!! I have one more on the way but I left the file at someone's house so I haven't been working on it.... woopsies. Anyways, the bottom one isn't going to be in the calendar - it's just a joke - just for you Jackie! The top two are January (very top) and May. The May illustration was inspired by this German tradition that I read about - on the night before May 1 a guy will plant a birch tree in the yard of his beloved and adorn it with ribbons and such. I thought it sounded cute so that's that...

non-existent band poster

2008-12-31T12:12:00.002-06:00

So... My friend Mie and I came up with these fake band names when we were at MIAD - don't ask me why because I don't rightly know. Anyways her band name was "Moderate Day" and mine was "Mediochre Red" - as in ochre, or specifically red ochre - an earth-derived pigment and one of my favorite paint colors.... Yeah, I'm an art school dork.

fashion illustration

2008-12-27T19:34:00.001-06:00

Another quick fashion illustration thing...

new cute things!

2008-12-27T14:59:00.005-06:00

Some new stuffed critters - though I gave two away as gifts this Christmas and the pictures are on another camera with no USB or card reader.... so those guys will have to wait... The squirrel and the armadillo are hands down my favorite ones yet. And they're way faster and easier to make than the biggety ones, so I have plans to make more little guys.

I also have some random sketchbook critters there for your viewing pleasure and a quick 30 min sassy girl illustration.

sargent the super dog

2008-12-14T14:52:00.003-06:00

Pretty self-explanatory... Sargent loves the couch. I actually did this a couple months ago but never posted it... whoopsies. :)

more stuffies!!

2008-11-30T16:18:00.004-06:00

More stuffed animals!! Reilly the Red Panda and Kipley the Okapi. The okapi is my favorite so far - I love his long legs! The red panda didn't come out as nice as I would have liked but oh well. I also have a crocodile and some monsters that I'm working on that should be posted soon.

work.... ugh.

2008-11-20T19:22:00.002-06:00

this is what work does to me....

new stuffs

2008-10-25T14:08:00.007-05:00

So I actually didn't fall off the face of the Earth... I've been doing more 3-d stuff lately and I no longer have a camera. So I borrowed my sis-in-laws and bummed some photos off Jackie and Brent (which I haven't posted yet). These are some stuffed animals I did - Rikki the Raccoon and his friend (and unfortunately his dinner) Cray-Cray, and Malabar the Muskox. I was just playin around seeing if they would actually work - so they're kind of like prototypes.... But I want to try and get them sold on Etsy.

I've also been working on some sculptures that will hopefully be posted soon. They're going to be dubbed "mini kills" and basically they're miniature mounts of animals molded from sculpey and baked then mounted onto wooden oval plaques with copper nameplates. So far I have a T-rex, kudu, unicorn, and platypus with an eye patch.... They aren't as detailed as I would have liked but I did them fairly quickly - I'd say about 30 min per piece sounds about right, maybe less for the platypus. And I did them all (except the platypus) without photo reference so there are some things that are a bit off. Oh well. Anyways those will be posted soon hopefully.

new idear

2008-09-17T22:29:00.005-05:00

Loose character studies for a new project. I'm working on illustrations for a story I'm making up about a greyhound. Not sure if I want her more realistic or heavily stylized - these are just a few thoughts, I'm still working on some stylizations. I just really need to build my portfolio... That's why I'm doing this... And it's fun.

island

2008-09-15T18:18:00.003-05:00

Entry for IF's prompt of "island." I was looking at pictures of gaur from India and water buffalo and thought that they could look like an island when in the water, and the little birds are the island's inhabitants. I used watercolor for the gaur and the water, the birds are digital. I don't think I like them orange but that's easily fixable.

greyhound waiting for a greyhound

2008-09-15T18:14:00.005-05:00

Well, the writing at the bottom is barely visible so I should probably fix that... It says:

"Sandy was tired of living life in the fast lane, bored of running in circles chasing white rabbits, so she got on a bus out of town and headed for Egypt."

sketchies

2008-09-15T18:06:00.004-05:00

Another productive Sunday evening spent at Jackie and Brent's. Just some critters - Gordon the triceratops, and some mammoths.

obscure holidays

2008-09-08T16:33:00.004-05:00

These are for a project Jackie and I were working on for some obscure holidays in September. I only finished 2 out of my 4.... whoopsies. And looking at it now, it seems I have forgotten the teeth on my crocodile babies....

MY THESIS FINALLY POSTED!!!

2008-09-08T15:40:00.012-05:00

Phenacodus matthewi
Thylacosmilus atrox

Arctodus simus

Synthetoceras tricornatus

Deinotherium giganteum

Hyaenodon horridus

It took me a while to actually get pictures of my thesis since my camera ist kaputt. So I had another doodle session at the lovely home of Lovesick Robot creators Jackie Steffen and Brent Bublitz, and Brent was kind enough to take some wonderful pictures of my work. It was months of work to create all of these and hours of painstaking work in the printing lab. All the animals are extinct mammals - their names are above each image.

These pieces were all created using intaglio printmaking techniques. The patterns were all hand-carved onto Sintra plates and then printed onto 140 lb (if I remember correctly) Arches cold press watercolor paper. For the backgrounds, the patterned papers were then cut into various shapes and each mounted to a heavy backing board kind of like illustration board but more rigid. Then the individual background pieces are layered upon each other to create a more spacial background rather than just flat.

For the animals, I cut the body part shapes out of 300 lb cold press watercolor paper before printing them and on the Sintra I created patterns specific to each body part. After printing they were cut out and touched up with acrylic paint, then assembled with brads to make sort of animal puppets - they are all articulated and fully posable. They are attached to the backgrounds with velcro making them removable as well.

barn owl love

2008-08-31T20:36:00.001-05:00

I did this the other day but didn't have time to post. A happy little lovey-dovey barn owl - I just love their heart-shaped faces.

miss button

2008-08-27T14:02:00.005-05:00

My cat - Miss Button. She's just your run-of-the-mill domestic shorthair with the "tuxedo" markings. Found her on the streets of Milwaukee all skin and bones and adorable. Couldn't bring myself to take her to the Humane Society - if she was uglier maybe... or mean, but she was just so sweet!

Just messin around in photoshop. Started out as a blind contour drawing...then a blind contour + still kind of looking.... then line and shape.... then just shape.

weekend with my family!

2008-08-26T10:26:00.005-05:00

Funny story. My family went up to my grandpa's old house this weekend and we all just sort of hung out and played with the dogs and did some tree-cutting. My brother's girlfriend wanted to go see the new deer hunting blind they built for my dad. So we took her new 2006 Ford Escape across the field and up to the woods to check it out. I got out and went to set my beer on top of the car - saying "Don't drive away with my beer!" Well I didn't realize her sun roof was open and just as the word "beer" came out of my mouth I let go and the can fell inside the vehicle upside down and into the cup holder - spraying beer everywhere... oops. I felt so bad but still laughed and so did they. So this is my quick little comic depicting the scene.

panda poster

2008-08-20T13:02:00.004-05:00

Poster concept for a festival that does not exist... I repeat, does not exist. Just me havin fun with shapes and color and text. It started out as an illustration of a raccoon but I went to the zoo the other day and the red panda was out for once and he was soooooo cute so I changed the raccoon to a red panda. Then I thought it looked like graphics for a poster so I went with it...

new sketchies!

2008-08-18T11:29:00.006-05:00

Quick illustration created from sketch below...

Another productive day at Jackie & Brent's house! (If you go to their website you'll see new pics of the robot plush their making - so cute!) Thanks for keeping me motivated guys! And watermelon, coffee, and Jimmy John's always help - though not all at the same time, eww. Anyways These are some of the better sketches from the hours I spent there (except for the little blue dog who was done on my computer at home). So here we have a few somewhat angry macho sheep who resent their white fluffy coats which solicite the cry of "oh, how cute!" Then we have a little bicolor pupper who represents one of my dogs - Sargent (who's name is forever misspelled from the real word "sergeant" and who isn't bicolor at all but totally black). Lastly we have Mr. Smilodon fatalis, looking very smug indeed.

It's amazing how much cleaning up has to be done on these sketches too - I have this habit of drawing on top of drawings - sometimes unconsciously... So I end up with page after page of overlapped drawings and scribbles.

poor lizard...

2008-08-17T13:24:00.004-05:00

This was done one for Illustration Friday's word of the week - detach. Just a really quick illustration - about 30-40 min. Poor lizard and his detachable tail....

sedna sketch

2008-08-15T15:29:00.008-05:00

rough sketch for an illustration I want to start soon - also could possibly be an entry for the new IF prompt - "detach." It's based off of one telling of an Inuit myth about Sedna who's kind of a goddess of sea animals. In this particular variation (apparently there are quite a few), Sedna marries a man who turns out to be a bird spirit - and not a very nice one at that. They move to a secluded island but her father comes to rescue her. As they are leaving the island in his kayak the angry bird spirit husband calls to all of his bird friends which circle around the canoe and their flapping and flying creates a terrible storm. In fear of drowning, Sedna's father throws her overboard. She surfaces and clings to the kayak with her hands but her father cuts off her fingers one by one. Each finger falls into the ocean and becomes the whales, seals, walruses, and fish.

bushed bearcat

2008-08-14T13:20:00.007-05:00

So I took a trip to the random idea generator. (I forgot about this place until I visited my good friends Jackie & Brent's website Lovesick Robot and saw Jackie's new random-idea-generated illo - thanks guys! :D)

I got this random assortment of words that actually came together suprisingly well - "crimson binturong dreaming at the diner." So I decided to go with it and this is my concept based on those words. He became The Crimson Binturong!! - a nocturnal crime-fighting viverrid with a prehensile tail keeping the forest canopies safe! And after a hard night of crime-fighting he likes to go to the local cafe for nice cup of coffee and a dream-filled rest. Yeah, that's right, I'm a big dork and make this stuff up but I love it. :D

I still need to work out his face a little better - he seems more raccoon-like to me and his paws need to be bigger and not so dainty. I have dreams of making this into an actual detailed illo but who knows how long that will take me so I'm posting this sketch for now. Comments welcome!

the S.S. HEARTBREAK

2008-08-10T17:34:00.008-05:00

Here are two illustrations I did yesterday and today and the top one is my very first submission to Illustration Friday based off the word "sail." The bottom one was the first completed then I decided to go back in and make it somewhat more detailed, though I think I like the simple one better for some reason. Plus the top one isn't exactly what I would called "finished" so I could go back and make it better...

I'm so proud of myself for actually doing a full-blown illustration! It's been so long since I dedicated this much time to illustration since school (which is sad and something I'm totally ashamed of!). So, yeah! Hooray for art!

(Oh and by the way - obviously this is not a steam-powered boat that Myles is riding in and therefore has no right to be called "S.S." as it says in the title, but I thought it was cute and it shall therefore remain the S.S. HEARTBREAK...)

gigantic herbivor

2008-08-05T10:08:00.006-05:00

I went to conceptart.com and saw a name for creature of the week that something like "gigantic herbivore." This was my one thought. He's huge. He eats trees. That's right, trees, and uses his big 'ol beaky boney jaws to break apart and crunch up trees after severing the roots with his spade-like bottom jaw... I like drawing him. I may just do some more depicting him digging up trees and eating them.

I spent the afternoon with a couple friends the other day and tried to draw some new stuff... I was kinda hard for me as you can probably tell by the above drawing... I dont' know why I think of this stuff...

Some animal character sketches.

I want to try and make some movable dinosaurs like the mammals I did for my senior thesis project. So these are some quick sketches to show how I get to the final product, though when I start cutting paper out it takes a long time to make the joints work together the way that I want them to.

sandhill

2008-07-21T20:21:00.001-05:00

I saw a sandhill crane (Grus canadensis) while walking the dog today - not 20 feet from us. She didn't fly away and she kept calling - it's this fantastic rattling sort of trumpet that really resonates. I love that sound.

lions

2008-07-21T17:46:00.001-05:00

By far my favorite animal to draw at the zoo. They are excellent sitters.

cheetah

2008-07-21T17:44:00.002-05:00

The Cheetahs are fun to draw. Very sleepy.

reindeer

2008-07-21T17:39:00.001-05:00

I drew this guy at the zoo a while back - I'm in need of some serious inspiration.

sardine, cracker, and olive

2008-07-21T17:37:00.000-05:00

Sardine, Cracker and Olive are just some random characters from a while ago...for some reason I felt they needed names...

duke

2008-07-21T17:33:00.000-05:00

Duke is a happy doberman.