Just because.

These are the slighty better drawings

I've been to two figure drawing sessions in the past 3 days. They're my first in two years and I'm all rusty, and still antsy about the performance aspect of drawing in a group. But there are no teachers to call me out and I like the freedom of drawing, not to get better at rendering but as an integrated part of my life. But what am I looking for now if not accuracy or a new revolutionary way of seeing? I want them to be truthful, natural and kind of frightening. Not imagery wise, but scary in that they happened and can't ever happen again. But that's it. I just like the motion of drawing descriptively, and as far as these kinds of drawings go, they inhabit a very seperate space than my other work you know? It feels a lot more like writing or dragging a stick across a picket fence.

I'm late, I'm late!

Thinking a lot about complex fabrics and unconventional profiles?

           The past week-ish or so I've been wandering around Nyc, getting accustomed to stuff. Am being drawn in more to digital work, partly because of the speed/ freedom I mentioned earlier but also out of convenience since I'm between places right now and don't really have a personal workspace. That's ok! It allows me to work and become more proficient with color choice and design? I do miss painting and water color IRL, but I'll get back to it soon ;)
           Ever since doing that Sailor Moon piece I realized how much I love doing close up compositions of people. Just focusing on large shapes, working with cut outs and placing in more carefully drawn elements. Allowing the image to evolve organically, not worrying about making a believable space. Ideas over space! People over space!
           I heard someone denigrate an artist recently because "they looked like they didn't know how to make an environment". As artist's we're all preoccupied with different things. Some of us like to sit up on hills and see things from very far away, and some of us want to lean in so close that we brush against a person's lapel and some just close their eyes and listen. It's all good you know? It's better to be obsessed with hills than be obsessed with how to push people off of them.

The heat here is pretty stifling and watching how people dress for it is really entertaining. These are a few characters/ clothing choices. Everyone is sweaty beautiful.

Sailor Moon Zine Submission!

My friend Laura recently told me about this Sailor Moon Zine (“In the name of the moon!”) that the cartoonist Vreni was putting together. She’d already put the first zine together and was putting out the call for submissions for the second. Wanted to submit immediately, but was unsure of how to go about properly paying homage to a cartoon that had influenced me so early on, and in such a lasting way. Especially since its significance had gone so beyond the original plot and characters. It’s snotty, but I didn’t want to make “fan-art”.

The peak of my Sailor Moon obsession was at the fat, androgynous and strangely quiet age of eleven. The characters of Sailor Moon were more real to me than a lot of real world things that were happening at the time. I would vehemently defend my intergalactic friends against slander when my family playfully mocked the reverence I had for my worn and slowly disintegrating collection of manga and books, even being hurt that they could be so skeptical of something that was obviously brilliant and life affirming. Any attack on Sailor Moon, was an attack on me. Or so I perceived it to be haha I’m sure the sailor soldiers symbolized a future where I would grow up to be a long-legged space warrior, find love and ride motorcycles. It was a feverish, escapist Delirium I was in that I distinctly remember in shades of blue rain and bleached summer sun.

If it weren’t Sailor moon it would have been something else. So I’m thankful that I spent my days fighting evil scientists and crafting magical things in my backyard instead of getting lost so early on. So in a way, Sailor Moon was the Bully that was on my side, keeping me safe on the schoolyard.

Thanks Sailor Moon!

SAGA CAMP T-Shirts

The final.  Just keep it simple!

       Another simple T-Shirt Design for the Seattle Area German American School’s summer camp series. I’d done a lot of mock ups because they wanted a detective themed image. Obviously I was like “WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING REFERENCING FILM NOIR”, but the kids wouldn’t have gotten it haha, so we just made something cute. Which was more appropriate because the camp was more about investigating an environment (Urban, Garden, Zoo, Ocean) than crime. BUT DANG, I had such a great burgler planned... 

He's burgling the garden!

What a Twit(pic)!

The beginning of the summer was spent trying to make a 5 year old understand the nuances of space travel and "the force" and the third pic I think is a sketch of the boyfriend from the show GIRLS. Or just someone with a mustache? I don't think I was looking at anyone so who knows.

Travel Blues

Something I drew the night before flying to New York. Also the debut of the blue twins!

Frida

 A portrait of Frida Kahlo. I love her work as well as the myth-like way her story is told. 

Trying to utilize what all my print making classes have taught me and combining it with the infinite possibilities of working digitally. A long time ago I had a huge prejudice against digital work because most of what I saw looked very cheap, but the more I work with it the more I appreciate what it can do.  There's something very invigorating about a medium that responds almost instantaneously to your thought process, it feels almost like writing in a journal. Plus because it doesn't require the same temporal linear nature of sketch-refine-color done it bypasses some of the beaurocracy of what it means to make a "finished work". I can have everything going on at once and change any part of the process to my hearts content. 

playing with the colors, really loving the effect of the glowing blue in the middle blossom

It's time travel.