musical robots

Lesson 1. when it comes to doing commission work: get paid up front. At least a portion of the price. Like a fool I jumped at the opportunity when a web dealer selling art for kids asked me to design some work for them. I would get paid a certain amount per print sold. Awesome! Except that after I had drawn all the designs, they backed out, saying they were under new direction and now selling work only by artists who have gallery representation. Lame.

But anyway, here are the music-themed robots they requested. I'll make prints of them myself eventually.


I did actually get paid to do this drummerbot, but thought it fit in with the theme and should be included.

crossword art

I mentioned my first attempts at crossword art poems a while back, but have since realized that individual pieces are more coherent. The first step is combining trendy nouns (pirate, t-rex, zombie) with appropriate pairings (arrgh, rawr, brains). Then I digitally design a crossword to fit and finish each one with a small sketch to keep them unique. To stay hip, my next series is going to have to include vampires, narwhals, and maybe bacon...

what terrible yellow eyes you have

Fans of Where the Wild Things Are can enjoy dozens of works of art inspired by Maurice Sendak's book at Terrible Yellow Eyes.

The variety in both style and mediums of contributed work is incredible, ranging from simple sketches to elaborately detailed woodcuts or paintings.

From creator and contributor Corey Godbey:
I have been taken in by Maurice Sendak’s terrible and wonderful monsters.
I love the anger, and the frightfulness, and the joy I find there.
I hope you will find something here as well.

ffffound

FFFFOUND is my new obsession, a website for image sharing. The catch: you have to be invited. Designers and artsy folk post their favorite images, so the quality is top-notch. I don't really care about posting images, I simply want to be able to save them to put in my "inspiration" file, which is why I'd like to figure out exactly who I need to harass to become a member.

Here are some things I've ffffound:
Collages by Eleanor Wood

Take Me With You, a Polaroid photo exchange. Graphics by James Joyce at One Fine Day.


Other random goodies:

i can read

I'm just discovering tumblr blogs, where you can repost images on your own blog, assuming it's also a tumblr. It's an easy way of keeping track of things you like and sharing them; I may have to tumbl.

One such blog, i can read, features images with text. Some images are great, others not so much. They tend to lean a little to the overly romantic/mushy side, or even akin to inspirational posters you might find in a guidance councelor's office. Nevertheless, I submitted my Say Anything robot with text and it's getting loads of comments and re-posts. There are enough interesting images to keep me checking, anyway.

dancing robots & spoonbridge cherry

new work. available @ the july 19th Uptown Market.

ceramic decals

I've been working on ways to combine my illustrations with pottery, and it seems decals are the obvious answer. Though there are many methods of making decals for ceramics, from screen printing glazes to ordering online, the easiest method is simply using a laser printer and special decal paper. The iron oxide in the ink fuses with the glaze during an additional firing at a low temperature, essentially making every piece a blank canvas. Oh, the possibilities.

comic art-eth!

I've been working on digital collages of comics, both classics and webcomics, and then using them as a background for word bubbles, painting a light coat over all but the text. Classic comics include words like Kapow! Zing! and Thwip! while the webcomic pieces include Gah! OMG! and Blurg! I'm on a continual hunt for interesting words to turn into painted, action-bubble art. Jeff G. found a link showing all the action words on the original Batman television series, my favorites are the ones with "eth" as a suffix. Ouch-eth. Whack-eth.