The Serious Stuff...

Today I made a coloring book on Lulu.com! It has 11 pages! Woot!

Independent

Another fashion card design. I'm exploring (read: trying like crazy to figure out) how to get more texture and "aging" into my work. I love some of the digital scrapbook papers, patterns, and borders that I've found online, but I want more, or to figure out hey they make it look so sweet. I may start buying scrapbook papers from Michaels and scanning them, or I could try to develop some methods in Painter.

You can buy this card HERE, in a day or so :-). July 4th is such a big card-giving holiday!

Back to Fashion

People tell me they like my fashion stuff, so I'm coming back to it. I've been a bit at a crossroads lately, fearing the worst for the popularity (or lack thereof) of my "fine art" painterly stuff, and perhaps thinking I ought to refocus on design illustration, and try for editorial, book, and greeting card applications again.

I learned A LOT at Bear Basics, working in Illustrator every day, and I think it shows in this piece. This isn't 100% Illustrator, since I love going back and forth between Illustrator and Photoshop to get effects I like. I might toss some Corel Painter in when I get a little more comfortable with it.

This one's a greeting card, available here. I've also been kicking around at RedBubble, a place you can upload and share your art, and also sell prints. It's a pretty cool site, with excellent networking opportunities with other artists, so check it out!

Locomotive UnderPainting

Here's a work-in-prog. It's a pretty detailed subject, and the painting will likely take some time to perfect, but I wanted to post up the stages of it, so here you go.

I'm shifting focuses in the next bit of time, so look for more horsey stuff!

Hippogryph Card

Here she is, the hippogryph card I've been slaving over! I decided to do an a-typical color scheme, inspired by the coloration of peregrine falcons. This card isn't really a match with the other "medieval beasts" I've done...it doesn't take its styling cues from old manuscripts, art, or frescoes. It's just straight out of my head, and was actually much more of a challenge. Hopefully this one'll win its way into The Gargoyle Store, too, or at least people's mailboxes and gift packages :-).

The first Campbell Art Walk for me is May 16th, and I will be showing in The Stone Griffin. I can't wait! I'm setting up the particulars right now, and will be ordering some more art in the next day or two. I can almost hardly believe it!

I also signed on with Avenue-1, an art academy in downtown SJ, to teach classes this summer, and hopefully longer. I'm terribly excited about this as well. I will have more on both these events later.

Cain's Crossing Renaissance Faire is this weekend, in Auburn, CA, so for anyone in the area, drop by and have your portrait drawn :-)

CattleProd...

I'm very excited to announce that my gryphon greeting cards are now being sold at The Gargoyle Store, online, and there will also be posters available from them as well! Woot! The same gentleman who runs the online shop also has gallery space at Stone Griffin Gallery, in Campbell, and is interested in showing and selling my gryphon art from there, too!

In celebration of this event, I've been inspired/motivated to make more artwork in the same vein, so here's a preview of the next card I'm working on:

On the advice of Keath, Mike, and others, I invested in a new digital camera, a "KODAK EASYSHARE Z812 ." It doesn't sound nearly as cool as it looks, or I hope it'll be. It's not a super-awesome/super-expensive digital SLR, but kindof the next level down, and I'm hoping it'll a) take pretty good pictures that I can reference, and b) not break itself at the first opportunity.

K, that's all for now!