after the storm

We woke up somewhat hungover this morning, but went to the gym anyway. By the end, even my shins were drenched in what I imagine was a combination of diluted Miller and Bud Light. Even so, it was a strangely satisfying workout.

As soon as we got home, the weather took a drastic change for the worse. It started into a lengthy thunder storm with torrential rain and hail. I went out afterward and photographed the petal wreckage.

Note on the pictures: The state of Kentucky doesn't require you to have a license plate on the front of your car, so when we moved here from New Hampshire (which requires you to display one on the front,) we just left it on. It's starting to separate and peel into layers, but you can still make out "Live Free or Die"

Señor Citizen

Soon-to-be t-shirt design (and just one of many to come.) Señor Citizen is part of our series "Plays on words"
I'm especially pleased with his mustache and tasseled poncho. I'll probably be redoing his poncho when I set this up to be screen printed though. It doesn't really make sense in its current orientation.

stuff i've been sitting on

I got into a phase where I felt compelled to hand draw, scan, then meticulously trace over in Adobe Illustrator every single instance of typography I made. This resulted in some fun stuff (as seen below in the 2nd and 3rd pics)
I drew the first image with markers, scanned it in, then digitally colored it in Photoshop. I don't think it's done yet and it may never be. I just wasn't happy with the letterforms. So I started to trace over the whole thing in Illustrator (you can see my progress in picture #2.

The third image is something I made during a time when I was particularly fascinated with signatures.
That last one is just some Lisa Frank fever.

Broken Hearted Friends

Designed a CD cover for Pilots & Errors' new CD "Broken Hearted Friends." You can listen and download for free here. I highly recommend it.

In other news:
Kentucky is finally thawing out. Spring here is truly something surreal. It's like those street scenes from movies we watched as kids in the early 90's. Lots of sparkly rays of golden light and robin's egg blue skies. INFINITE white petals and wild violets in every forgotten patch of grass. The highway medians are a purple sea and I love it.

Off to Tin Roof to eat a $5 quesedilla and drink cheap beer. Bye guyz

an untriumphant return

It's been a really long time, guys.
But it feels like even longer.
My lack of posts is due to a decreased amount of free time and motivation. I got a new job last October. I sit at a desk and work at a computer from 8 - 5 doing design for a company in a nearby county. So when I get home, my eyes usually hurt too much to even attempt my own personal projects. Gotta go get new prescription lenses soon.

Trav has a job where he goes in to work at 5pm and gets off at 9pm. This is pretty unfortunate considering I am just leaving the office when he's going in to work. We don't see each other enough, so we stay up too late in an attempt to be together.

I'll be 24 this Tuesday.

I am not always such a sad sack. I promise.

prints/shirts

As you can see from the hands on the girls, they aren't finished yet. But they're nearing completion. The picture with the hula hoop would be a 3-color print. The one with red-headed girls is only a 2-color. I'll be adding more detail.

1 and done!

Hey, fancy friends.
I'm doing stuff. Promise. I've just been [insanely] busy.
After 1 year working there, I decided to part ways with the University of Kentucky.

I'll brb, folks.

stuff!

Hey, you guys!
I have been working on the painting!






















I have also designed the album packaging for Pilots & Errors upcoming CD release called July. I'm currently working on an accompanying website. Fun!

Screen Printing

Hey guys. Stuff is getting done 'round these parts. I'd post it now, but I want to do a slow release; 1 new design every month for 12 months. I've got 2 images done right now, but I'm working on setting up a screen print studio so I can make them available in hand-pulled print form. It might take me a couple months to source materials and do this cheaply, but i'm all kinds of excited.

strange

I had some alone time after work today. While i'm still not sure what prompted me to do it, I decided to look through my facebook messages from the last 5 years. It was uncomfortable. I skimmed through entire years of my life; Then I deleted them.

progress

Here's some of the progress i've made on my painting (and a pic for scale):

Happy Fun Time

I had a great day!! For many reasons! I hope yours was too.
Reasons why my day was great:

1) I got my hair cut for the first time in over 6 months and no longer look/feel like a complete raggamuffin urchin girl.

1.5) We have internet at our apartment now! It only took us 2 months to commit to it!

2) Trav and I took off work today (in advance) because we drove up to Newport, KY last night and saw Samantha Crain play at the Southgate House. Funnnnn

3) We ate a heart attack-inducing quantity of turkey pepperonis while standing in the kitchen talking about what we should do today.

4) The ever-talented illustrator, Sam Bosma, pointed out to me that I was featured on a fancy blog called We Love You So. Sam's work is also on display there! Checkitout, folks. And thanks, WLYS! It's a little disturbing how well the blog post describes me, but it's also really flattering.

And to those of you who wish I was posting some new work, JUST YOU HOLD YOUR BEAUTIFUL HORSES please. I've been coming up with designs involving wordplay and silly animals. I'm still in the sketching stage, but i'll post them as they become finished. There's a good chance they will end up on t-shirts. ...and maybe those t-shirts will end up on your bodies?

G'night, everyone!
It's time to listen to Mumford & Sons and drink some gin & tonics (cheers to ampersands).

the days are just packed

Hello all.
I've moved into an apartment! And I've been painting again! Large paintings! Scantily clad women with light seafoam skin and strange striped jumpers doing unfathomable acrobatics. If that sounds familiar, it is because it's the second painting like this i've done (the first was in 2008). I plan on painting lots of these in different compositions, color variations, and canvas sizes. No more painting on paper. I'm steppin' up my game, people. Since I work full time and don't consider myself a total shut-in, progress is rather slow. I'm hoping to use the next 2 years to build a small collection of my spare time paintings. Then, there will be a show. Hopefully, people will purchase these paintings and put them in their homes.

Since we don't have internet at the apt yet, pics will have to wait for now. In addition to that problem, I also have to send my computer in for repairs. The optical drive needs replaced.... sigh.

These are progress images from the first painting I mentioned earlier from back in '08:

it's good to be back

Hey, guys. It's been a while.

News:
1) After 4 good years with the ole Sony Ericsson phone, I "upgraded" to a Motorola Karma. Stupid name, okay phone. I still like my old phone way better, but It was fallin' apart and that just wasn't alright.

2) Lots of people have been asking me to make websites and logos from them lately. It's great and good and fun! I've been working on Travis' site today. Here's Travis Wilburn's site if you want to take a look at the progress.

I've been working on some logos as well. Will post those eventually.

Travis Wilburn doodlins

When I went to Barnes and Noble last week and whipped out the ole sketchbook, I was surprised to discover that I still vaguely remembered how to hold a pencil. I drew some customers, then felt like a creeper and decided to draw from my imagination instead.

My boyfriend, Travis, is a pretty talented dude. I guess I had his music on my mind, because this is what happened:


Expect a digitally colored revision in ink. Also, less crappy type on the word "travis"

Day Job

Hey guys. I'm sorry for being so scarce of late. I work a lot. I also cut people's hair, drive places, drink gin and tonic like it's going out of fashion, and try to exercise. These days, drawing comes last.

However, it's not as though I haven't been making things. I just haven't been making things that I can legally post online. It's all copyrighted to the University of Kentucky.

Here's my office:
This is the stadium I work inside. I see this when I walk 10 paces outside my office door. Pretty neat.










I love being able to wear comfy clothes to work.












This is my desk. No, that isn't my name. That wooden structure beside the desk is an engraver and we like to stick the nameplates with errors on 'em around the office.

6 rubber bands

Hey, Everyone!

So a lot has happened since my last post.
I got a job in retail, worked there full time for a little while, then got offered a job in my field. I start working for the University of Kentucky as assistant to the graphic designer of the athletics dept. on Tuesday. I have a parking pass and everything! It's glorious.

I will update more soon. I owe someone a drawing of a coal mining newborn puppy, so expect that. but... for now, i'm going to go enjoy my weekend outside! :D

shaky legs

Sorry to disappoint, but I haven't been making much art lately, guys. Instead, I've been gardening, riding my bike a lot, and getting absolutely filthy every day. It's been great. My mum and I dug a hole from the terrible clay "soil" in the front yard and turned it into an herb garden. The plants are small and pretty upset about being transplanted and promptly monsooned upon, but I think they'll be okay.

horseshoe pits

I weeded a lot today,
carried ridiculously heavy bags of sand,
finished a book,
got accidentally tipsy on some pina coladas my dad concocted,
bought 6 boxes of strawberries,
watched a really amazing movie called Once

Southland pool and quesadillas

I was going through some of my older pieces, when I happened upon one I still liked. It's in pretty rough shape, so I decided to scan it in and use it as the foundation for a new vector piece (started last night). Here's a small section in progress! Once I get the linework done, I plan on going back in and realistically coloring in certain portions. We'll see how that goes.

When it's done, I think I'll be selling digital prints online.












Here's some of the progress I've made today. I'm trying out a new technique that consists of making the line art in Illustrator, then moving it over to Photoshop for coloring. Experimentation abound (some of it bad). Which color combinations do you guys prefer?