A Smelly Little Friend

I started painting this guy 5 weeks ago - how time flies! We've been working at our real business and now that there's a little breathing room I thought I'd debut, "Smell You Later"

My dad graciously made the wood plaque for him and I think it came out great.

I agonized over how the shading looked. I tend to stare at the details of my work with my nose an inch away from the plaque. Inevitably, it never looks smooth enough for me, or one paint stroke will be out of place. Then I'll hear, "Step away from the painting, Kris". Right, step away and from a fresh perspective at a resonable distance, say, six inches or so, I guess it doesn't look too bad.

I'm thinking he'll go up for sale Wednesday, March 9th, the day after the retirement sale is over. I will return with a definite time :D

And as an aside, I just wanted to thank everyone out there whose supporting me, and making me feel a little less self-conscious about my work. I have a feeling that as an artist that's just part of the package though and we may never be truly satisfied with our own work. However, it makes the day a heck of a lot brighter knowing that there are so many other people out there who do like it :D

Hurry, Hurry

I'm so happy that the sale prints (set to retire on March 8th) are selling out left and right. So far, "Minty Melt", "A Cold Day", "Pink Eye", "Greetings", "Lightning in a Jar", "Bomb Boy", "Deep", "Dandelion" and "Grabby" have sold out!

I wanted to highlight the three prints that are still available (again, they will be retired on March 8th).

"Mulligan" only 2 prints left!

"Princess Persephone" I always loved the review Synergy Magazine gave her, ""Princess Persephone" (2009) is a more complex work. In Greek Mythology Persephone is both the embodiment of fertility and the Queen of the underworld. Here she is shown as an innocent dancing child in a ballerina dress. She has one eye closed (with an X) symbolic of her underworld status and one eye wide open. Her crown is dressed with skulls. She dances on two pomegranates, one of which is cut right through." Because Hades tricked Persephone into eating pomegrante seeds, she was sentenced to live 6 months every year in the underworld...in case you didn't know :)

And "Jail Break" which also has a little backstory to it. While talking about the economic changes we all went through a couple years ago, friends of ours said that they were 'digging their way out of the prison, one spoonfull at a time'. The image of a little prisoner, out in the yard, casually disposing of his evidence, seemed right on track with how we were (and still are) feeling.

Maybe one of these will catch your eye and at $10 a piece, you shouldn't wait!

Thanks everyone :D

Super-Sale and Retirement

I put five new prints up in my shop

"Frou-Frou", "My Poor Meatball", "Le Tigre", "Slice and Dice" and "Poison Claw"

and decided that some of my older images needed a rest. After March 8th I will retire 12 of my prints and have taken $15 off each of them.

So why not treat yourself to some new artwork - you deserve it :D

Enjoy!

Spectacular Snow Monsters

Last year I posted about how I was sick of all the snow we'd gotten here in the northeastern US. Yet I would love to see the snow corridors of Japan. This year has been even worse and we are all equally snow-weary. But once again, I find another snow phenomenon in Japan that I would love to see!

"Snow monsters" or juhyou (frost-covered trees), covered in snow and hard rime, from the northern regions of Japan.

Mt. Zao, Yamagata prefecture

Mt. Moriyoshi (Moriyoshi shrine), Akita prefecture

Mt. Zao, Yamagata prefecture

Via pinktentacle.com where they have collected tons of spectacular photos about this.

Taking A Break

Ed and I have been working feverishly on putting together and trying to learn our new computers and software for our animation/ink and paint business. It's been...let's say, trying. We know that it's going to be a great help for us but we have quite the learning curve ahead of us. We decided to take brain breaks and do our own artwork.

I doodled up this little guy...

and started painting him up yesterday afternoon...

I apologize that my work is not as morbid or complex as of late, but I needed something simple to work on :) I also found a few of these custom plaques that my dad had made and completely forgot about. I think the shape is working out well with Skunky.