Aperitivo

I am in love with the Italian concept of Aperitivo. These are acrylic on wood board 10"x10"
Attempt #1. Eh.

Attempt #2. Eh, but getting there? Maybe 3rd time will be the charm? We'll see.

And here is #3. I'm happy with the way it came out. I hope I can find the time after the holidays to do more.

Some Print Design, YO!

Wow, so these are already 2 to 3 years old. I was making a conscious effort to only post my freelance and personal projects here, but since I have no immediate plans of updating my portfolio website at this time, I might as well dust these bad boys off and share them.
These are some of the posters, ads, and graphic novel cover layouts I was lucky enough to create, under the incredible supervision of Mr.  Zachary Pennington, Designer and Art Director extraordinaire. The company was small, and the creative division before I arrived consisted only of Zach. We became a department of two and he led the creative direction of everything from print to web to merchandise,  so needless to say I was lucky to get my hands on all type of projects I normally wouldn't have had the opportunity to.  Zach was incredibly talented, knowledgeable, patient, and probably the hands-down best design director I've ever had the pleasure of working with. I learned a heck of a lot. Thank you Zach!

Ads for:  “Dylan Dog” 2007 & 2008, “The Adventures of Tymm: Alien Circus,”  DrunkDuck.com, 2007 & 2008, “Atlantis Rising"
Poster for “Gravity” 2007 (Title Design by Zachary Pennington)
Cover and Back Cover design for “I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space” Graphic Novel, 2008
Cover and Back Cover design for “The Weapon” Graphic Novel 2008, and cover coloring

Old Branding

This is a logo and branding imagery I did a ways back for a project that never went anywhere. The 2 images above are a tiny morsel that represent months of work - logo thumbnails, sketches, designs taken to near final, direction changing to other new designs taken to near final, and rinse and repeat until I came to this. I was going for a galactic theme with a modernized retro feel (does that make sense?). It might not seem like much but this particular project entailed not only creating the logo, but the style guide, site design mock-ups, advertising pitches, and mascot designs and animations. My role was essentially a one-woman advertising firm, which was fun to have creative 'control,' I knew what I was getting myself into, but when a project fails to move it's always disheartening after putting so much work into it.
Maybe if I get around to it, I'll show the many evolutions the logo went through (I know I love seeing other people's process).
This project re-taught me some valuable lessons that every designer and artist will encounter at least once in their career.
1 - Know when you've done your duty, and when you start spinning your wheels, stop.
2 - Know when to put your foot down, and stick to your gut.
3 - Communicate that development doesn't just magically happen, it does take time, and show and explain your process to the client.
4 - Last but not least - "Show me the money!!" You need to be paid for your work, for your efforts. Otherwise, you end up with months worth of work to show for something that never took off, you never got paid for, but have a nice little blog post that reflects the always hysterical  "hey, you get a great portfolio piece out of it."

This little robot dude was to be the company's mascot. He's mocked up from photos I found online, but my plan was to find the actual (similar) electronic pieces that comprise him, take photos of them from different angles, and animate him. It would have been a lot of work, but I know the outcome would've been worth it.

Here is the simplified stylized version.

The one good thing about this project not taking off, is that I at least get to keep the rights to my designs. So maybe one day if I ever feel like it, I'll use him in a story or for something else? Eh, we'll see....

Skater dude

Trying to capture people I see in quick simple shapes.

Lingerie

I love lingerie books and I was inspired to do some lingerie/pinup sketches (here is one I liked) as I browsed Taschen's "1000 Dessous - A History of Lingerie". It visually depicts the evolution of corsets, leggings, bras, girdles, etc throughout the ages to modern day. It contains "erotic" photography of women in the early 1900's that is just stunning.

Mermaid 1

Going through a strange must-draw-mermaids phase since last week. Here is one I decided to color in photoshop. More to come.
Oh yeah, boobie alert.

Toast in Shoes!

This is a birthday plush I made for my friend Phil. The backstory is one night a few of us were at a restaurant doodling and I somehow came up with this ridiculous character of a toast in shoes. For some reason Phil instantly loved it and it became an ongoing character. So I had to attempt to make the plush.
I saved the placemat we all drew on from a separate occasion, just last week, with the many silly variations of "toast." I don't know how long we spent drawing toast and cracking up about it like the little nerds we are. I need to scan it in and post it, maybe later today or this weekend.
Toast in Shoes!!!!!! :)
 Update: Here are the doodles and variations of "Toast in Shoes," drawn on placemats by Ale Carloni, Rad Sechrist, and Phil Craven. Such gems here include Toast in Boots, FrankenToast, French Toast, Toast with Booze, Toast in Luge, Toast singing Blues, Toast with a Bruise, Toast Douche, etc etc.

Ridiculous. :)

Hello, Summer

The weather here in Los Angeles has been perfect. It's June-gloomy grey and misty in the morning and by noon, the sun's melted the haze away. It's beach weather warm and just when it feels too hot, a cool breeze rushes past you. In other words, perfect lazy summer days. Last weekend I went to the zoo and sketched for a few hours, to mostly disappointing results (it's been too long since I've drawn animals! And the people at the zoo make me more nervous than anything. Honestly).
Here are a few from the day.
I forget the name of these guys, but they are so frail looking and elegant. Long flamingo-like necks, and their legs don't seem capable to support their weight without breaking!

There is a creature called a Golden Lion Tamarin, a tiny golden monkey, perhaps 8" tall, with a lion-like mane around his head. Oh god, a compact bundle of adorable. If he ends up missing from the zoo one day, I had nothing to do with it. Just saying.

Site promo!

I've posted about this before (in a lengthy, rather cheesy post), but if you haven't checked out Chris Sanders' website lately, you're missing out and you really should right now! Chris Sanders is an artist/writer/director extraordinaire, co-director of "Lilo & Stitch" and most recently "How to Train Your Dragon." I've been lucky enough to be his website designer, and recently did an overall design refresh. These days he is posting up a storm of his adventures, currently daily, while he travels through Japan with co-director Dean DuBois.

Ancora Italia

Are We Doomed?

Anyone else cry when they watch the news?

JN Logo & Business Card

I designed this logo for one of my best friends, Jamee Nicole. She is a very talented jewelry designer & diamond specialist with an edgy fashion sense and great eye for detail. She designs high quality fashion pieces, and also bridal sets (I think that's what they're called?). Anyway, she really knows her stuff. If you're looking for a jewelry designer, she's fantastic.

Here are some designs I mocked up for the back of her business card, but ultimately decided the simple and clean design worked best.

Here is her final business card. The front side is being printed in gold foil. I can't wait to get them and see how they turned out.

Italia

In April I had the vacation of my life: 16 days in Italy. Here are a few of my silly drawrringz from the trip...
Beautiful Urbino






A quick painting I did, sitting on the countryside one afternoon in Urbino (don't laugh, I haven't used Acrylics in ages, okay!)


and Venezia



It was quite a fairytale of a place, and the trip was fantastic, overwhelmingly. I can barely mention it without gushing, so I will stop there and go back to my daydreaming of returning one day....
More things to come!

I don't know her name.

A quick caricature, inspired from this image of supermodels wearing no make-up in bad lighting. She stood out to me and had to draw her.

Lots more soon!

Critters

Hello!!! I have a pile of things I need to post. I just returned days ago, from a wonderful vacation in Italy, where next to doing lots and lots of eating, I did a fair amount of drawing and painting. Heaven on Earth does exist, in Italy. When I can stop daydreaming for a minute and get my drawings scanned in, I'll post them up. :)
These little creatures ended up being an exercise for me to think/draw differently than I normally do using shapes. I did a bunch more that didn't make the cut, which made me realize the more I "thought" about the drawing, the less successful it became. They are pen on cardstock.

Oliver 3

This was a very special and personalized Christmas present I made this past year.
The Oliver 3 model is a beautiful, rare typewriter from the early 1900's (I believe between 1900 and 1907).
This is the first in a series of "felt paintings" I'm making, but on a very large scale. I'm particularly excited, not only about using fabrics and felt and sewing vs painting, but about experimenting with stylizing large shapes and defining details with simple lines of thread, etc. I hope to build a collection of these pieces by the end of the year. Please wish me luck!

Rainy Days

[I've been rediscovering some old(ish) sketches and things that I've never posted here and decided why not. Lots of new things to come, but in the meantime, here is a self-published mini book I made from rainy day sketches...]

Jennica and I were upstairs getting dressed for bed one night when we heard a loud "CRACK!" and saw a bright blue ball of light out the window. The electricity went out, we both screamed, and ran downstairs to discover the tall tree in Pop Pop's backyard had been struck by lightning! The following month, it became our see-saw.

On cold, rainy days, Grandma's favorite thing to do for us was to make peanut butter and banana sandwiches. And we'd dip them in hot cocoa. Sometimes, I'd hope for it to rain just so we could have that treat.


When the big hurricane hit, Grandma's roof flew off. My uncles and cousins had to go down the street to get it.

It rained so hard for maybe a week straight one summer, that Jennica and I rode on our boogie boards down the street gutters with the neighbor kids. We had so much fun! I was 11. Jennica was 7. We were so busted.

We never wanted to stop playing when it started to rain....
And always pushed our luck when we tried our best to ignore "The Whistle."


Chasing and catching lightning bugs in late spring, under a light drizzle, we promised ourselves we'd never grow older... and catch lightning bugs forever....