tiny gasps of joy

Fashion Victim

2011-09-01T13:59:00.001-07:00

My cousin Kristie donning Forever 21's finest.

Mega Painting

2011-08-15T17:03:00.001-07:00

A month or two ago, my boyfriend Adam and I were asked if we'd like to create some artwork for his cousin Regan's wedding. She and her now-husband Tom were getting married at the Artists for Humanity EpiCenter in South Boston, and there was a 12 x 16 foot concrete wall in the courtyard that was in need of some decoration. Naturally, we were super excited to help out in any way we could!

Our original plan was to create a temporary mural on the wall the day of the wedding, but given the time restraints and the fact that Adam and I had never done anything on that scale before, we decided the best plan was to create some paintings ahead of time that we could hang on the wall. The great thing about the EpiCenter is that the entire space is already decked out with brightly-painted canvases, so we really had no restraints as far as color palette or subject matter. So after a bit of deliberation, downloading about a hundred fonts, making three million trips to Home Depot, cloaking my entire apartment in dropcloths, painstakingly picking out interior house paint samples, and Adam threatening to paint skunk stripes on my cats, here's what we came up with. We're pretty stoked about it, and the bride and groom were too!

The process:

Setting up the paintings the morning of the wedding:

And, later ... party time:

Wander Women Update

2011-05-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

Just received this photo in my inbox! The Wander Women, in all of their glory:

Nocturnal Dream Team

2011-04-18T20:27:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday red ghost <3

Wander Women

2011-04-15T21:48:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked to design a t-shirt for a group of women running a relay race between New Haven and Boston. Considering I can clock in about 15 minutes of running before I start to pass out on the treadmill, I am thoroughly impressed by this. Their team is aptly named Wander Women, and so naturally that meant that booty shorts with stars on them were going to be involved in this design. Enjoy!

Senor Pussin

2011-03-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

Mini Eggs

2011-02-08T20:19:00.000-08:00

More pysanky made for Christmas gifts ... these being, again, wooden eggs decorated with acrylic paint and paint marker. These suckers were a lot smaller than the babushka egg I posted below. I never did measure them, but I suspect they are around an inch and half tall.

Babushka Pysanka

2011-02-07T22:06:00.001-08:00

Here is one of a series of Ukrainian eggs I painted to give as Christmas gifts this winter. This style of egg decorating is called pysanky, which originated in Ukraine but it is also very popular in Poland. As soon as I was old enough to play with hot wax and fire my mom passed the tradition on to me.

Pysanky are customarily made with real eggs (chicken, goose, ostrich, cadbury), and the crazy folkloric geometric designs are created with layers of beeswax and colored dyes. The wax is melted off as a last step, magically revealing the design underneath! I went buck wild this time and used wooden eggs, acrylic paint and paint markers, not because I don't love the traditional process, but because the eggs tend to crack and break over time if not stored very carefully and I didn't want to put that fragile burden upon my gift recipients. Not until I can afford to buy a hyperbaric chamber to go with each egg.

Anyhow, this little babushka pysanka is one of my favorites. The egg measures just under 3.5" high by 2.5" wide.

The Adventures of Adamn

2011-01-16T19:33:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are unaware, I have an another blog, The Adventures of Adamn. I update it spottily, and it's mainly just an excuse for me to draw something for myself everyday. At this point it's more like every month, but I'm working on that.

In exciting news, an animated version of Adamn is in the works, starring in his first music video! Look forward to that someday soon.

The Scrambler

2011-01-15T19:29:00.001-08:00

Here are some sweet graffix I did on a guitar pedal my boyfriend built, a clone of the AMPEG Scrambler. I used hot neon paint markers, which are pretty much my new favorite thing.

Owl be back

2011-01-15T19:05:00.000-08:00

A little collage I made as a Christmas gift. Created with leftover paper, paint marker, stamps, ink, tissue paper, tape, prismacolor markers, wax pastels, mod podge, hopes, and dreams.

Map Friends

2010-10-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

My friend Erin recently commissioned me to make some artwork for her kitchen. She came up with the concept, and not only do I think it is totally awesome, I feel like everyone should have some Map Friends in their house!

Erin is originally from St. Louis, Missouri, and her husband LB harkens from Blantyre, Malawi. They now happily reside in Manchester, Connecticut, and Erin wanted a piece that tied all of their homes together. The feeling of "home" is one of those magical things that everyone can relate to, so I really felt inspired by this concept. Also, maps are just awesome! Erin suggested putting a heart over each respective city, and that inspired me to transform the maps into little creatures, who could then interact with each other. This whole piece was drawn in Adobe Flash with my trusty Wacom tablet.

Thanks

2010-10-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

This is a thank you card I sent to the lovely detective who helped me recover my stolen computer last winter/spring. A thrilling tale best told by a crackling fire.

Halloween costume ideas version 1.0

2010-06-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

It's never too early to start thinking about Halloween.

As you can clearly see, this sketch quite realistically depicts my cat Poppy dressed up like a brown goose, Adam as a burrito, and me as the mariachi that would accompany his burrito costume at all times.

Berfday wishes

2010-06-15T21:19:00.000-07:00

So after years of miserable failure, I am finally on the road to accepting the fact that I will never, ever, ever get a birthday card in the mail to London early enough for my friend Charlotte to receive it on or before her birthday. I always remember to do so months ahead of time, and then promptly forget about it as the date approaches. I suppose I could always go the "belated" card route, but that's not really my style.

When life hands you a bad short-term memory, make an e-card.

Also, just so you don't think I draw little girls in red wagons on all of my birthday cards, which honestly is just creepy -- Charlotte is one of my oldest best good friends. As small children, we used to barrel down huge hills in her neighborhood in a dilapidated red wagon for fun. It's a wonder I didn't knock out all my baby teeth. Actually, according to my illustration, I did.

Clocky

2010-03-31T21:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a wall clock I made for my lovely sister-in-law Kristi's birthday. Kristi is a scientist and one of the most practical gals I know. I usually try to think of something both fun and functional when giving her a gift, and I thought a clock featuring all of her pet kitties would be pretty much totally awesome.

This project started, as most projects do, with an exciting journey to the clock and woodworking aisle of A.C. Moore. I treated the wood with a walnut stain and painted the graphix on with acrylic paint, sealing the whole thing with a glossy clearcoat. Adam lent me his man-power and drilled a hole in the center for me, and after that, assembling everything was a snap.

The featured kitties are, clockwise (haa, get it?) from the top: Yoda and Beep, two sweet Cornish Rexes; Fiona, a fluffy pretty Maine Coon; Captain, a burly three-legged kitty; and the latest addition to Kristi and Mark's family, Big Black. A special shout-out to little Yoda and big ol' Captain, who both passed away recently. RIP, buddies.

Enjoy!

Updates!

2010-03-31T21:09:00.001-07:00

Hi strangers! It's been ages since I posted anything up here.

Over the past few months I have been busy with so very many things. Still happily and diligently working on WordGirl, which just announced its fifth and sixth seasons! Insanity. It's hard to believe I've been working on the show for three years, and I continue to feel so lucky to be a part of a crazily talented team of animators and designers and writers and magical wizards. In fact, I just celebrated my three-year anniversary there this month. And when I say celebrated, I specifically mean that I ate a piece of a dinosaur molded out of Rice Krispie Treats.

What else? The fall and winter had me almost all-consumed with some pretty radical freelance work, as well as various and sundry projects for fun and pleasure. Of note -- painting and constructing homemade guitar pedals with my bf/bff Adam. This is uncharted and exciting territory for me, and I love it. We are actually in the process of setting up a blog just to display said pedals, so look forward to that some ... day.

ALSO, I have been working on a million bajillion gifties and presents for my various loved ones. I usually pour at a hefty fraction of my soul into each present I give, so I'd love to display them here as well because they are really the only personal works of art I have time to make these days. There are quite a few piled up that I need to post, so those will be coming in small and probably infrequent batches. I luckily have one for you tonight. Um, I'm actually just going to put it in a new post because this one is three million miles long ...

The Paint Fairy

2009-07-24T08:55:00.001-07:00

Just in case you were wondering if the malicious paint fairy does, in fact, exist ...

XXXXXL Hoodie

2009-05-15T07:28:00.001-07:00

The other evening I came up with what I consider to be one of the most genius ideas of my life. I was asking my boyfriend Adam, for what felt like the three millionth time, if I could borrow his sweatshirt when suddenly a light bulb exploded in my head. How about we buy ONE HUGE sweatshirt, like a quadruple X or larger, and just wear it together. It'd be like a three-legged race, except warmer.

BEHOLD:

UNICEF

2009-05-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

I was recently lucky enough to collaborate with my friend Dave on some backgrounds for a UNICEF animated spot, which will be used to inform donors and governments about UNICEF's Education in Emergencies initiatives. Here's the final version for your viewing pleasure:

(backgrounds by Jen Blicharz and Dave Schlafman, animation by Dan Flynn and Mike Annear, music by Daniel Koren)

This project was a whole lot of fun to work on, not only because of the talent I was amongst but ALSO because I got to do the backgrounds the old-fashioned way, by hand! This was a refreshing change from the Flash-based backgrounds I work on for WordGirl all the live-long day. I used various patterned papers, plain paper, gift wrap, origami paper, paper grocery bags, tissue paper, napkins, etc; ripped them, glued them, layered them with paint, crayons, colored pencils, ink, basically anything I could draw with; and then I would hand them off to Dave, who collaged them digitally. Here are some of the images in progress, in various states of done-ness, as we were working on them:

Enjoy!

Character Designz

2009-03-30T10:20:00.001-07:00

Here are a few unused character designs I did for a project a while back. It was for a paper and office supplies company, hence the legal-pad yellow skin tone on a few of these little guys. All done in Flash. Enjoy!

Skateboarding On The World's Longest Skateboard

2009-03-27T10:41:00.000-07:00

Pretty self-explanatory, I think.

Pint of Delight

2009-03-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

Here we have a custom beer label I designed for my brother's wedding. He and his wife wanted to give their guests something a little more special than the standard wedding favor, so they asked me to design an old-timey looking beer label that they could get custom printed on pint glasses to give each guest. It features their names and the date of the wedding, and the idea of "Hoppily Ever After Ale" actually came to me in a dream, as silly as that sounds. For you readers who are not well versed in beery terms, hops are used primarily as a flavoring agent in beer, and "hoppiness" refers to the flavor and aroma the hops give it. Anyhow, in my dream version of this label, there were also carrots crossing the back of the design like a skull and crossbones, complete with a little bunny hopping away underneath the text. While I appreciated my brain working overtime and after hours on design work for me, I opted to leave those details out and keep it simple.

Anyhow, the glasses ended up coming out awesome! I, for one, have enjoyed a frothy pint of fine ale out of mine since the wedding a few weeks ago. Congrats again to Mark and Kristi!

The final design:

... and a pint glass in action at the wedding reception:

Breakfast Sangwiches

2009-02-20T11:37:00.001-08:00

Here we have my friendy-friend Adam choosing between a jelly donut and a b-fast sandwich. If only all the decisions in life were this complicated.

Squiddart

2009-02-11T09:21:00.000-08:00

This is a collage I made a while back for my friends Adam and Cheryl. They moved into a new house not too long ago, so this served as a housewarming present of sorts. Actually it was kind of just an excuse to get my squid on. I feel everyone needs a picture of a giant cephalopod lethargically attacking people on their wall.

Pretty much just ripped up Chinese food menus, miscellaneous bits of paper, mod podge, stamps, string, etc. etc. The added bonus is that I drew them up WordGirl style, so they are also going to be extras in the show. Sweet!

Cellies

2009-02-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

This is a hot graphic I did for my friend Erin. She's throwing a work shower for my soon-to-be sister-in-law Kristi (whoa, hyphens), and since they're all scientist-types, what better than a little drawing of two cells getting marriaged for the invitation?

Enjoy.

Dream Seller

2009-01-30T09:28:00.001-08:00

This is a portrait of my favorite cashier from the Walgreens in Central Square.

Although I've long since moved from the area, sometimes I make a special point of popping in there just to see if he's working. He's usually jamming real hard to classic rock behind the counter (I suspect he's fiddled with the radio station in there, because I've never experienced a ten minute long Bad Company jam sesh in any other Walgreens, ever). He sometimes makes comments on the items I'm buying, such as "Whoa."

Here's to you, Billy.

Still life with jerkface

2009-01-27T20:49:00.000-08:00

A quick doodle using Prismacolors and crayons. Holler.

Desktop Miscellany

2009-01-23T12:44:00.000-08:00

Here I will showcase the various doodles and drawings I have on my desktop at work. Some of them, and by that I mean all of them, make little to no sense and have no purpose whatsoever. They are often inspired by ridiculous statements my coworkers make, ridiculous statements I make, odd email chains, sheer exhaustion, lack of coffee, too much coffee, debilitating sugar highs from eating too many jelly beans, crashing from said sugar highs, and the simple fact that I'm often teetering on the brink of insanity. Enjoy.

An Ode to Yoda

2009-01-10T11:38:00.001-08:00

This past Monday, my brother and his fiancee's little kitty Yoda passed away. He was a Cornish Rex, which is a breed of cat that's virtually hairless except for a very curious layer of curly peach fuzz all over.

Yoda enjoyed leaning precariously over his favorite radiator in the kitchen, eating large amounts of cat treats, wearing bright red sweaters and snuggling up inside my brother's sweatshirt while he played video games. Yoda also probably would have enjoyed long walks on the beach, but Mark and Kristi felt like taking him to the beach would be a bad idea, mainly for the sunburning. Yoda was a sweetheart, a huge part of the family, and we're all going to miss him very much. Love you Litty Buddy!

The Mythical Gnarnicorn

2008-12-17T09:39:00.001-08:00

My friend Mike requested a drawing of the extremely mystical and rarely-spotted Gnarnicorn. It is seen here in its natural habitat, trying to clean itself.

Festive Poppies

2008-12-07T18:22:00.000-08:00

Happy December!

Yikes, it's been a while since I've posted anything on here. In my absence, aside from eating a lot of cookies and putting up my Christmas tree, I have also been a little productive, which I'm pleasantly surprised about. You see, every year around Christmastime I get this hilarious idea that I'm going to hand-make presents for everyone I know, only to have December sneak up on me like a ninja wearing silent jingle bells. And then I don't have time to do anything and just end up buying everything and feeling slightly disappointed in myself.

Anyhow, here are some paintings I just made for my mom. Take that, ninja! I can safely post these up here seeing as my parents don't believe in the internet, so there is little chance that she will stumble upon these before December 25th. Anyhow, my mom loves poppies, not only because they are a striking shade of red but also because they are the national flower of Poland, where she grew up. In fact, she and I went on a trip to the homeland this past spring and saw some amazing fields filled with poppies. It's almost like Mother Nature has a surplus of red coloring and is like, "Eff it, I'm just going to dump the rest into these flowers because I'm lazy." In fact, here is my mom frolicking in one of the fields:

and me!

... and finally, the actual paintings. I did these with watercolors on some scraps of collaged paper. I think I'm going to buy four fancy frames to pop them in. Enjoy!

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T13:01:00.000-07:00

The Soup2Nuts sketch blog has been hibernating a little since it's been getting cold out. However, it is back with a vengeance and a new layer of winter lard to keep warm! Kind of! Words this week were "Androgynous Mrs. Botsford". For people who are unfamiliar with WordGirl, Mrs. Sally Botsford is Becky's mother. Becky being WordGirl's alter-ego. Yep, so there you go.

Anyhow, HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Eat lots of candy, but be sure to watch out for the tooth fairy!

Melty Sarah Palin

2008-10-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

A little shout out to my fellow Indiana Jones fans ...

Stupid Stupidity

2008-10-07T14:05:00.001-07:00

So my friend Adam had a rather enthralling conversation with an AT&T Collections agent while on a bike ride yesterday. So enthralling, in fact, that it inspired me to make a fake Dinosaur Comic in its honor. Except for the last line, the entire thing is word-for-word.

Obviously all copyrights and other rights and firstborn children and what have you blah blah blah are attributed to Ryan North, who is the ACTUAL creator of the glorious Dinosaur Comics. They can be seen here!

Anxious Cracker

2008-10-03T10:29:00.001-07:00

Another Soupy sketch. Keepin it real errrry week.

Sexy Platypus

2008-09-25T21:25:00.000-07:00

... need I say more?

Ornery Chameleon

2008-09-22T12:40:00.001-07:00

Hey kids! Here is another Soup2Nuts sketch of the week. Enjoy.

A doodle for my friend Bridget

2008-09-13T13:23:00.000-07:00

Still not completely unpacked, but the other night was the first in a long time that I actually zoned out at my kitchen table, listened to music, and doodled my little heart out. It's funny how you don't realize when you are in a funk sometimes, until you are out of it. Don't know if that makes any sense ... I have just come to realize that living in a basement apartment was not my cup of tea, as tough of a cookie as I thought I was. I think I will always have a gooey, fresh-baked, melty-chocolatey center, no matter how hard I try.

Quizzical Snot

2008-09-12T09:09:00.001-07:00

Another Soup2Nuts sketch of the week! As luck would have it, I have a nasty cold so I was able to do extensive research on the subject.

Holy blast from the past!

2008-09-07T19:03:00.000-07:00

My friend Adam, who used to host my old website (which went the way of the dinosaur a while back, due to, I'll admit it, sheer laziness) just sent me a cd of all the STUFF I used to have on there. So I thought some, or maybe none of you would enjoy looking at the things I used to make with my hands.

My feeble attempt at printmaking!

Enthralling! Now here are some doodles! I was on a kick where I was doodling full movie plots. Sort of. The Shawshank Redemption and Blade Runner are old favorites, but why I chose The Matrix Reloaded of all movies is beyond me. In odd synchronicity news, I found a free copy of it on the side of the road just the other day.

And lastly, a little collage I made for my brother's birthday, many moons ago:

I'm going to dig up some old animations shortly ... whee!

Sloppy Burrito

2008-09-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

Another Soup2Nuts sketch of the week. Mmmm ... sloppy.

Got to keep on moving

2008-09-02T19:44:00.001-07:00

Sitting alone in my old apartment and waiting to move the next day, I realized that amidst the stacks of boxes and dusty old memories and empty white walls, a sweet kitty curled up next to you is really all you need to feel at home.

Peevish Pygmy

2008-08-31T09:26:00.000-07:00

So our resident top-secret-ninja-guitar-shredding-rockstar at Soup2Nuts, Mike Annear, has organized a weekly sketch-a-thon for us artsy types at work. This week, the words to base our sketches on were peevish and pygmy.

Behold, my humble effort:

Doodlesaurus Rex

2008-08-18T20:34:00.000-07:00

Ice Cube, rice pudding, and more Prismacolor fun.

Basil

2008-07-22T20:35:00.001-07:00

More new stuff! Behold a collage I made for my friend Emily's wedding gift.

Why did I choose to illustrate a potted basil plant, you ask? Because I felt like it! That is completely true, but I actually have a sort of nostalgic reason behind it as well. A few years ago, Emily and I had unknowingly both made plans to visit our mutual childhood friend Charlotte in London at the same time, her flying in from Iraq and myself from Boston. So this meant we got to spend unexpected quality time together, and on one memorable evening before some pub revelry (and a pint or eight) we decided to make dinner, specifically pesto. This involved a trip to the neighborhood grocery store, where Charlotte revealed to us that the basil was sold exclusively in potted plant form, which for some reason I found completely charming. Thus, a potted basil plant.

Enjoy!

Prismacolor fun!

2008-05-22T21:15:00.001-07:00

Just doodling around.

Newish work

2008-04-28T12:04:00.000-07:00

This is an actual piece of art I made about a month ago. My friend asked me to make a portrait of her dad so she could give it to her mom for her 60th birthday. Exciting!

It's made mostly of ripped up paper and good old-fashioned glue. I stamped on it, doodled on it, collaged over it with more paper, attached bits of string, and embellished the heck out of it. Then I sealed it up nice and tight with Mod Podge. It ended up being about 15 x 20 inches large.

Enjoy!

What the hell ...

2008-04-17T15:47:00.000-07:00

... let's post some old drawings.

I created these in a little program I like to call MS Paint.

Hello and welcome

2008-04-17T13:23:00.001-07:00

For those of you who are unaware, I am known amongst my friends and family as one of those most valuable resources on this planet, aside from water and sliced bread. So just sit back, get a bowl of popcorn, and wait for my next post. Maybe I'll even draw a picture. Not sure yet. Either way, you should probably go and microwave that popcorn.