Girl in the Green Shirtdress

Tourist Couple in Venice

Ladies at a Cafe

I can't decide if I like this or not. It was an exercise to be as quick and loose possible, with watercolor and pen.

Girl in Red Tights

Thank you to everyone who came out Saturday to the Peligro Event! Saw good friends, met new sweet people, drank free margaritas, listened to good live music, a nice time. And special thanks to Chris Vigil for organizing the entire thing and letting me be a part of it. I'll scan & post my other pieces sometime this week.

Peligro!

Hey guys, I'm happy to announce that I'm part of a ONE NIGHT ONLY gallery and music event this coming Saturday, July 23rd. The event is called Peligro <--click for website, and it starts at 8pm, ends whenever we want. I'll have some watercolors for sale and sharing a wall with this crazy talented artist, Arthur Fong. Please come and hang out if not for the art, for the music, but hopefully for the art too.

A Chicken

Rock Eater, Ludo & Slimer

Seo Kim posted an adorable Ludo drawing and it reminded me of this - How did I forget about these little guys? They were tiny 2x3" stitched pieces I created a couple years ago for a charity art show. LUUUDDDDDDOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Man, woman, and pimp

My sketchbook is filling up fast.

Fashionistas

A couple more.

People

From my sketchbook. These are drawn from the Sartorialist, Rumi Neely, and other various fashion blogs.

Objects

From my sketchbook. Getting crazy and trying something new. Lots more to come, as soon as I can scan. Thanks for looking!

Per Bimba Beatrice

This is a hanging mobile (I think that's what they're called?) I made last year in Italy as a present for my boyfriend's niece, Beatrice. They are hand stitched little birds perched on & hanging from branches I found in Urbino on one of our walks. (They sort of resemble fish, but shut up, they're birds!)
Beatrice's mom tells me that she runs in the room, yells "Pio, pio, pio!" and she has to run and hold her so that she can play with them.

Here they hang in her room, by a magically sturdy hanging device my boyfriend's father made and it turned out perfectly!

Here's the little cutie! I'm glad you like it, Beatrice!!

 (PS: It's 2011?)

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. :)