Shopwithnicole.com Logo

Just finished this logo for my friend Nicole's site Shopwithnicole.com where you can get great discounts on all your needs from booking a vacation, to buying gifts, concert tickets, sports gear, clothes, pet products, gift cards … whatever you buy and purchase can be met on-line.

go check her out!

http://www.nicolelamus.com

or like her shop on Facebook!

 http://www.facebook.com/ShopWithNicole

The Seven Pericos

Just a lil thank you card I did of my six traveling compadres and me ... More painterly version to follow

Dia a la playa a Puerta Vallarta!

Saying my Spanish is hideous is an understatement . . . but amazingly enough it got me by quite good while I was in Mexico!  With my traveling past only including Jamaica and the Cayman Islands for a day on a cruise, along with the acquiring of my first passport 3 months ago, going to Mexico was a BIG deal to me.

Thankfully my blissfully calming days on the beach weren't a total loss . . . with all the sites and people to see I couldn't help but draw up some characters

Now just to get back in the swing of painting . . .

Might have to give me a few days, I'm still on vacation mode, but I have to say I'm honestly excited to flesh out this vacation's characters.

For Rumpelstiltskin Is My Name!!!

Hide your fine jewelry and first born ...

I had forgotten how creepy Rumpelstiltskin can be!  I had a VHS when I was little that had this fairytale on it and he was a gangly little man, but in this version he wanted to cook the Queen's baby . . . apparently baby was his sandwich meat of choice.  So I present to you the enigmatic carnivorous Rumpelstiltskin. 

Mother Goose Fever

So I've had a brain storming week . . . and it was storming fairy tales and nursery rhymes.  So my first addition to my nursery rhyme extravaganza is Goldilocks and the Three Bears . . . I think I'm going to enjoy this.

Up next . . . the infamous, enigmatic, manipulative Rumpelstiltskin 

Introducing Mr. Jay Gatsby

So Jay Gatsby is fleshed out .  . . now to just draw up more poses and expressions.

The Great Gatsby . . . Makes an appearance

I may have been up til 2 a.m. but here comes Gatsby!
Here is the character line up . . . minus Mr. Gatsby.  He's still in the works.

Nick Carraway-

Daisy Buchanan--

Tom Buchanan---

Jordan Baker----

Photoshop Epiphany

Guess you suddenly had a break through with Photoshop!  Months and months of work have finally paid off.  I don't know what snapped but I had a look at Priscilla Wong's blog ( http://etelois.blogspot.com/ ) and got completely inspired to crack the watercolor code.  So thank you Priscilla for having a blog!

So I decided to render Levi and Lola.  Since then I've started drawing up the characters from The Great Gatsby.  High School wasn't good for many things, but one thing it was good for was introducing me to so many amazing books . . . Very tempted to design all the characters from my favorite "High School" novels.  I think Ender's Game will be next . . .

Some More Rabbit Season Stuff

Cruisin'

So I was looking through my portfolio the other day and had a little "Oh" moment.  I obviously have a, shall we say, plethora of animal characters.  I needed to start drawing humans, but what?

Well thank you downtown traffic!  I was attempting to get across town through our newly renovated downtown, listening to music, completely zoning out when I realized the truck in front of me.  Well, being the strange artist that I am I didn't necessarily notice the truck, more the shape of the young man's head driving the truck.  Sounds strange I know, but he had the classic Norman Rockwell shaped head in my opinion . . . so I attempted to sneak a picture

Attempt is the perfect word cause I completely failed.  It was blurry and he turned his head.  BUT I still had his adorable shaped head imprinted in my brain . . . So today I decided to get to work and draw some characters.

So low and behold . . . Levi.  I figured to go for a more classic 50's look, possibly because I have Rockwell on the mind, and just because I feel the 50's was visual epitome of juvenile innocence on the cusp of rebellion.  But what young 50's generation teenager is complete for his evening downtown cruise without a date.

So hello Lola!  Honestly if I was behind a couple and their silhouettes looked like theirs I would definitely take a successful photo cause I think this is adorable.  But that could just be me

The Joys of Jury Duty

It's my civil duty...
It's times like these that I'm so happy that I can entertain myself for hours drawing. As I sat there in my small uncomfortable little chair of doom, with a crowd of 100 smashed into our waiting cell (cleverly named Juror Room) I couldn't help but watch my fellow cell mates. Poor individuals left to their own devices; re-reading the sports section for the third time, endlessly fiddling with their coats, jewelry, even indulging in the supplied stash of ages puzzles. I know this feeling, a restlessness to find something to preoccupy my sense to avoid awkward sleep. It's called "damn I forgot my sketch book", or "shoot how did I forget a pen!" Thankfully I have this ability to fall into a little story with just a stroke of a pencil. An ability that occupied my childhood brain for hours on end.
So I want to thank you Jury Duty for the two characters you are responsible for producing for my Rabbit Season story.
Meet Beau. A "well fed" ex house pet floppy eared bunny. Being new to this whole "freedom" thing he's a lil disheveled and has yet to get the hang of things, but he means well.

Oakland Art Murmur

I'm writing this post on my phone so i have no Idea how this is going To look ...but
Finally attended First Fridays in Oakland! I've heard about these art walks for years but always missed the bus by a week or two, NOT THIS YEAR!


There's something so energetic and inspiring about being amongst so many people with so much artistic energy. Seeing everyone from different religions, races, classes, etc come together to explore and appreciate the work of others made me so proud of what I do. Hopefully I'll be able to participate next time around.

Character Makin Machine

    Well I've been busy!  I can actually say that I finally wrapped my head around what a blog is for . . . 2 years later.  I still don't understand why it was so hard for me to comprehend, but hopefully it sticks this time.

   So I've been focusing mainly on photoshop these past few months and the past couple weeks I've been a character making machine, and I love it!

   This was just a little idea I built off of my typical childhood fantasies.  I always saw hollowed out trees and knotted roots as potential homes for little animals, equipped with miniature doors, windows, door knobs, the works.  It would have definitely made my backyard more colorful at night with all of their little candle lit windows.

   While trying to come up with some story concepts I raided my animation collection.  I started to play with the Looney Tunes idea of rabbit season and how Bugs would always out smart his hunter.  So I started building off of this and came up with a Hillbilly bunny Everette who after years of hiding and maneuvering escape every season decides to fight back this year . . . more poetically said then done.

  I am actually kind of falling in love with this little story and hope I can find enough time to flesh it out before things get to crazy!

So I officially have photoshop fever~  It finally somewhat clicked last week . . . any thoughts?

I'm trying to figure out how to size them correctly for my website.  I was told 72 resolution but I'm not sure if that is correct. 

HWell hello blog . . . its been a year, an epic fail on my part!  So hopefully I got a little more tech savy during this year, but I really doubt it.

So lets have a little recap shall we!  I have officially graduated in December 2011.  I am part of an 11 member art group called Outliers, our website is outliersart.com.  We had our first official show in mid December at 2 and 101 Henry Adams Street in San Francisco -

 

I wanted to try something a little out of my comfort zone for this show.  For the past 4 years I had become so accustomed to painting pieces for assignments that it was strange to be left to my own devices.  When I'm left to explore like this my ideas become pretty fluid and I constantly make changes to my concept.  

Well this was quickly the issue with this series.  

I wanted to explore the idea that energy is never destroyed, but in fact transforms from object to object.  I have always loved painting portraits and wanted to present the portraits in a energetic manner.  I split the canvases into multiple pieces and connected them with copper piping. 

The concept wasn't as solid as I had hoped it would be by the end of the semester and wasn't received very well by the art critics that saw the show.  I wasn't surprised by their reviews of my pieces because I felt they weren't as thought out as they could have been.  They're criticism has given me the push I needed to round out my concept  . . . so vandalized train cars had to be found!

 

 Good bye for now portraits . .. hello industrial composition!

So moving on with the update!-  I finally made Christmas paintings, all thanks to not having to worry about other painting projects.  A nice perk to graduating!

So after the new year I began to focus on getting ready to get a job as a Conceptual Artist.  I was told by someone who works in the field that a degree in fine art would be the best move for getting into the industry.  Sadly for me, this meant that I got little to no training in Photoshop or any type of digital painting.  As well as the skills I would need to present my concept work to a potential client.  Fine art gave me the necessary training that I need, but failed to give me the modern/business punch necessary to succeed.  

So I basically had to scrap my portfolio and start from scratch teaching myself how to digitally paint and familiarize myself with the more business side of this field.  Its frustrating but a little liberating to be forcing myself to stick to Photoshop and make my own working agenda. 

And that is where I'm at now!  So lets move on to the things that I have found inspiring!

I have been hell bent on fine tuning my drawing/painting style.  I have always had a strange attraction to old school mug shots.  They are so raw and vulnerable, especially compared to the touched up glamorous versions of people we are used to being presented with today-

I've also been drawn to ink washed paintings/drawings lately.  I've always loved working with ink, and have recently discovered how to make the paintings I do in photoshop have and ink/watercolor look to them which I'm super excited about :D

And of course you can't go wrong with a little street art and classic Steve Mcqueen-