One of my favorite vegetables.

Don't be ashamed to laugh at the truth.

How it Feels

The Krampus: the puppet

I decided to turn my drawing of the krampus into a stop motion puppet. It worked out rather well considering I used things I already had! First I made a wire frame of the body (I didn't take a picture of that, so here's the frame for my next puppet, Santa).

The silvery stuff covering the wire frame is duct tape. I used furniture foam (you can get it at most craft stores that sell fabric), and taped bits of it to where the sections of muscle groups would be. Well, simplified sections.
If you look at the feet, they're loops of the wire so that when it's all done it can stand up on it's own by being tied down to the surface I'm going to animate on.

This is the Krampus all sewn up-



His head is removable, incase I wanted to make more heads for him doing different things. The pupils and tongue are also removable and held in place with quilting pins. His hands I crafted out of very thin armature wire- and super glued felt around each finger. A note on the super glue. Wear rubber gloves. They mean it when they say it's skin binding. Also, it bleaches the fabric. I fixed that with dabs of paint where it was noticable. After I was done building him I made his backpack basket, to hold the bad children. the pack straps are pinned on near his arm pits, so they can't be noticed. Popsicle sticks made a good basket, then painted with a couple different browns, and a black ribbon on the top and bottom- with specs of grey to look like nails.
Up next, Santa!

viking sketches

st.nick sketch

A young st.nick. Keep in mind- he's going to fight the Krampus.
Hmm. Fabulous fighting costume beneath the robe. Spandex? I think I may consult an american apparel ad for this bit.

The annual Christmas animation

For the past few years Justin and I have been making animations to share around christmas time (he writes the music, I do the art thing). This year's topic : the Krampus.
According to legends from the Germanic Alpine regions, the Krampus was essentially St.Nicholas' evil twin. He carried whips and chains, giving all the bad children what they had coming to them.
In our version he eats kids too.
This is an early drawing of my Krampus- note, he also has a really long tongue. But that's inside his mouth. So you can't see it.

WTD!

My friends from FV and I have new images for our word of the week, espouse!
Check out everyones art- and more- over at our blog, creative juices.

a sneak preview

I've been working on some illustrations for a book my friend Kate Cotter wrote. It's a baby book comparing things puppies do to things people do. It's very cute :)
Here are a few sketches of illustrations for it!

Music Studio : Redux

Earlier this week Justin and I swapped the living room and the music studio- and oddly, both rooms seems to have more space now! No complaints from the neighbors after our band practice last night, so I feel a lot happier :) It's nice to live somewhere that you can do the things you'd like to! Check out how our music studio is coming along!

Champ brought one of his drumsets over (this one is his 'backup'), he's leaving here too! Meaning... I get to play with it :) I miss my drumset, but it's not on the 'need' to buy list, so having him leave his here is surely the next best thing... if not better!


We need to figure out a solution to our ten guitars being piled up against each other on the wall. The two guitar- guitar stand probably isn't intended to hold that many.
There are stand you can buy that will hold more, kind of like a bike rack.

But they're too pricey for us, so I'm thinking up a way to make one out of pvc piping.

Deep Space Werewolf is doing good, we're getting ready for our first 'show' (which, ok, is in our apartment and just for friends) BUT I wanted to do that first. That way our friends can tell us if there's something we really need to work on. I don't really want to be like those kids auditioning for American Idol who- where were their friends to have a heart to heart with them?

A last note for today - I was uploading my pictures from my trip to NJ this summer, and this is a pretty awesome one to share. It's a mural done by the design group Porktomic (Porktomic.com) Check out their site when you've got a chance, there's some great stuff on there.


Flappers? Cool. Octopus? Cool. I love the colors too!

good days vs. bad days

Seemingly, I've fallen into the rut of- "Oh yeah, I have a blog..." Dot dot dot. Yet- not maintaining it. It feels as if I can only juggle so many things in my head at once. If I'm feeling artistic, I have a very hard time finding time to, well, not gain weight. If I'm feeling ambitiously athletic, I loose the ambition to make art after I've gone running. It's not so much a separation of the art/sports worlds in my head, it's more a matter of focus of energy.
The need to put 100% in whatever hobby A I'm pursuing drains me of any percentage of energy to pursue hobby B. Maybe I'm supposed to be putting in less effort? Or, maybe I just need to be ingesting more caffeine.
I'm aware I'm not the only person who deals with being devoid of physical energy often... but there must be a better solution than drinking more coffee. There also must be a better solution than feeling bitter towards ones self for not being more productive.
Recently I've been in a body over mind battle. A cloud of ideas and thoughts are feeling trapped in my head because when I go to put them down on paper I get a gust of exhaustion and self doubt. It's the old "Does this really matter anyways? Will anyone besides me care?" feeling.
I wonder if this is the feeling kids who start feeling embarrassed to share their artwork feel- but I'm picking up on it later in life.
My guess is the only way to shake it off is to keep trudging on, and eventually the confidence will come back. Somehow.

Little old me

razor!

The Fablevision Creative Juices word this week was RAZOR. Here's my image :)
Check out the others!
They'll be up later today.

My buddy Bob drew a picture of what he was going to look like at 100 and it inspired me to draw myself old. (Here's a link to Bob's!)

Here's my first two sketches, one a little less senial... You can probaly guess which one I decided to go with and color.

WTD

What the doodle word of the week- Justification. Check out my buddies artwork for the word at Creative Juices!

Hay is For Horses

These are a few illustrations for a book I've made with a friend (Kate Crohn-Cotter). She wrote it, I illustrated. You can check out a digital version at my webpage in the books section.

Eyenail

I bet this is what it would look like if we had nails in place of eyelashes. eyenails. We'd have to clip them or else they'd curl into our eyes. Gross. I'm glad we have eyelashes.

Art for friends

My friends Matt and Naomi are getting married in a few weeks, and asked a few other friends and myself to make them some art for their party tables. Pretty awesome idea, and a sweet way to involve some of their friends in on their special day!

Adapt

vinyl character fun!

Check out my buddies at works art for the word vinyl over at our work blog (creative juices).

Back to flash

It's true. I don't like making up my mind. I went back to illustrating in Flash. As much as I had fun using illustrator, not having it on my mac makes it displeasing enough to forget it (for now). Just makes sense, plus I have more control.

illustrator

I really like illustrator, here's a picture I'm currently working on. I have a super old version at home (8)- but at work I have cs4. Why adobe products so expensive for people to use as home versions?? It's not like I'm making money doing this. And my work paid for my cs4 suite, so I feel like I should be able to use that same serial number at home. Bah to you Adobe. Bah.

i like hot chocolate

Geodesic Dome 1

I made a mock up with straws of what the dome will look like.
It will be a half sphere, so I can hang it on the wall like a sconce.
Also, a sketch of a city to put inside of the dome...

Bucky Ball

I've been researching geodesic domes for a set design of a cloud city. One of the scenes of the rock opera Justin and I have been working on takes place in a city in the clouds. I'm currently working on a sculpture of my version of a 'cloud 9' city - largely inspired by a proposed plan for a tensegrity sphere city dreamed up by Buckminster Fuller.
These are some of the images I've used for inspiration, my own pictures will follow soon as I'm still working out my materials and blue prints.

Todays doodles

Doodle Doodly Do.

Time

Today I learned how to use illustrator.
The IF word of the week is Time... so this is what I thought of.
I don't miss having to take tests.

Swapbot coasters

I recently found an awesome website called swap-bot where you sign up to send gifts youve made (based on the swap you sign up for). Granted, I'm not a middle aged stay at home mom with a ton of time on her hands... but dag nabbit. I still like arts and crafts like when I was 7, so I'm going to make the time for it.
This swap was a coaster swap. The lady I got to make coasters for dubbed herself the 'casserole queen'. Which is pretty darn funny- so I figured she must have a good sense of humor. I printed out images and quotes from one of the books in the J-meisters and my collection, called "The Amazing Mackeral Pudding Plan". So so funny- it's a bunch of 70s weight watchers recipes with grotesque pictures.
Here's a few pictures of the coasters I made!

Mustachio comic 2, in progress

The word of the word at illustration friday this week is flawed, so... I made a comic based off that! It's still in progress, this is my 'sketch'.