"Le Tigre"

I finished up this guy last week and he's all sealed and ready to go. I'm fairly happy with the results, as I haven't painted anything in months (and gotten my head zapped so who knew if I would remember what to do!).

He'll go up for sale tomorrow, Tuesday, January 25th at 12pm EST in the shop. Enjoy and good luck!

Something Old and Something Older

I cleaned and organized my studio/room yesterday and a couple things surfaced that I hadn't seen in quite awhile.


The two Polarity Locket™ sets that Olive Bites Studio had made with my work on them. I just love these lockets - such an original idea and Cat had been generous enough to include an extra cover with "Apple Eye" for the 'Juicy' set and "Mushi" for the 'Make Believe' set on it just for me! So I took some pics and posted them up for sale in my shop. Click on the pics above to be redirected to the listings. And if you haven't checked out Olive Bites Studio, you should, she's got tons of cute things up for sale :D

I also uncovered this little blackberry painting I did in late December 2009. I think I was just on the cusp of getting sick and he got set aside...for a year! So everyone that's been asking me if I have ANY paintings available, I apologize. He's up for sale right now :D

Sweet!

My cutest friend passed along this pic to me as she knows I am a fan of both cake and Katamari.

It was featured on Musthavecute.com which is part of the I Can Has Cheezburger? family of sites. I'm perplexed that there wasn't any further info on who the amazing baker/artist was that crafted this beauty, but glad nonetheless to have it in my brain now.

Progress

I had a theme of 'tigers' for one of this month's Flash Magazine illustrations. After doing the initial sketch...

...I was inspired to actually paint him instead of continuing on in Photoshop for the final. I roughed in the colors, shading and textures in Photoshop...

...and then transferred that to a plaque and began painting yesterday afternoon:

Just a teeny bit nervous since this is my first painting in months, but then again, I was always nervous painting ;)

I Love Heidi!

Well, I'm back from my little vacation and it seems to have securely straightened out my brain. Things feel absolutely normal again and I'm able to look to the future with genuine hope and confidence. Yay!

With that said, in the hotel they had foreign television stations and while flipping past the chinese one, we saw a clip for Heidi, Germany's latest animal sensation. I immediately wrote, 'cross eyed opossum' on a scrap of paper so I could share her with you when I got back home.

 

You have to watch the clip because she's even more adorable when you see her walking around!

More info is also available about her from the Leipzig Zoo website.

Enjoy!

This Is A Lucky Cat...

In the mail a couple days ago, we got our copy of Flash Magazine. Flipping through, I noticed this little guy:

Maneki Neko or Lucky Cat. I completely do not remember doing it, but Ed assured me that I did in fact do this particular illo. After looking around on my computer I found the reference, and bits and pieces began to filter back to me about it. Since I haven't posted anything art-wise here in a looooong time, I thought I'd give it a shot over on my Facebook page. So far it's gotten the most response of anything I've ever posted. Maybe everyone is just being nice to me but I do get the feeling that they really do genuinely like this little guy. So I went ahead and put up a pre-order page in the shop for prints of him. I'm waiting on a delivery of paper and I'm set to go away for four days (Jan 9 - 12) so it just made sense to put it up ahead of time so I can get an idea of how many of these I have to pump out when I get back from vacation.

Perhaps you've got a soft spot for Maneki Neko as well, or just want to see some close-ups of what the print will look like, so feel free to click on the pic above to go to the shop. I'm so happy that something I don't even remember doing is being so well received - thank you all :D

F*cking Cool

I wish I had thought of this. Michael Black created a time lapse video of the snow accumulating during the Eastcoast blizzard yesterday from his patio in Belmar, New Jersey. It gives you a very good idea of what it looked like outside our backdoor. Still blowing like a bandit, but the sun's out finally. Street still has yet to be plowed - don't know when we'll be able to get to our mailbox. Not that the postman will be able to get up the street ;) Enjoy! Via Laughing Squid.

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.

 

Thinking Ahead...

I hope everyone (who celebrates) had a great Christmas yesterday! I had a wonderful couple of days with my family and dogs and am now settled in with my new iPod staring out at the blizzard that's just starting to blow outside. They're predicting 40mph winds and up to 16 inches of snow! So happy we went out and bought a snow blower a couple weeks ago :)

Of course I can't just relax and watch new dvds and look at the pretty lit up Christmas tree against the snowy window. No. I have to start thinking ahead. To Valentine's Day.

I know, I know, YOU guys just want to relax and that's totally cool. But I kinda thought some of you might like to know what I've decided to do for Valentine's Day this year. Last year I released the limited edition mounted prints of "Kokoro" which sold out. And many of you have been emailing me about making more, which I can't, because a limited edition is a limited edition.

But I decided that I COULD make an open edition of an 8 x 10 giclee print of "Kokoro" and hopefully make a whole bunch of people happy in the process!  That's worth a little prep a few weeks in advance, isn't it? And I thought I'd try something else new and put them up for pre-order in my shop right now. This way you're guaranteed a copy will be ready to ship to you January 17th, you've got a jump on your Valentine's Day shopping and I get an idea of how many prints to make! Sound good?

So click on the photo below to go to the shop and have a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous New Year! I can't thank you all enough for your support and kind words over the past year -- I have the best fans!

Feeling Alive Again

The official video for the single Alive from the album Head First by Goldfrapp. Ed had shown it to me way back in May and of course, I'd forgotten all about it. He showed it to me again this morning and it was just way too appropriate NOT to post about here.

I do feel alive again. I don't remember too much, but I'm happy dammit! I've got three more treatments, once a week and the memory issues should lesson after each one. I'm really hoping to get back to painting within a month or two at the most.

Enjoy the video and thanks to everyone for sticking around. I promise I'm going to kick some major art-ass this year!