Sunshine Farts
When I saw this page in the recent Urban Outfitters catalog, I knew exactly what I was going to do with it. I imagine the photographer shouting directions at this young impressionable model…”Pretend like you’re eating the sunglasses and farting sunshine!”. We’ll probably never know what really happened, so let’s go with it.
Recycled Raindrops
In addition to some paper ponies, I also submitted some recycled raindrops to the community contribution show Portland Paper City. What possessed me to spend hours with a gluestick (well, six gluesticks) and a DEX/YellowPages, I do not know. But the result was nine 3D raindrops that float on a wall.
Continue reading “Recycled Raindrops”
Paper Ponies
Recently I submitted some 3D paper ponies to Portland Paper City, a collaborative art show. All around Portland there are old hitching rings in the sidewalks from days gone by. Tied to some of the hitching rings are toy horses and ponies, thanks to The Horse Project. Whenever I see them they make me smile, so when I was asked to contribute something “Portland” to the show it didn’t take me long to decide on these little curbside ponies. It didn’t hurt that between ages 6 and 16 I spent 98% of my waking hours drawing horses, thinking about horses, and riding horses. Yep, I’m a horse girl.
(click on the images to zoom)
Being a horse girl, you can bet that I researched this thoroughly. There is a great Flickr set called “All The Tiny Horses” from which I picked my charges. I hope to draw some more of the horses later, because frankly, I spent wayyyyy too many hours as a child developing my equine drawing skills to let it go to waste. Yes, and after that I’ll re-read all of Walter Farley’s books!
The process of putting my pony drawings into 3D was a challenge. After some prototypes and a short stint of being sidetracked by origami, I decided to put the ponies on display using an open-air type diorama with a built in stand. Below are the dioramas without the stand.
Here is a shot of Charging Steed mounted to the wall at the show.
Eat Eat Eat
Whether I’m stuffing myself silly, drawing food while thinking about my next meal, or planning my next smorgasbord, food is always at the top of my mind. So, below I have outlined the major events that will be taking place today, involving Blenheim’s Ginger Ale, some frikadeller and homemade chocolate-chip-walnut-oatmeal cookies.
For all you font people, the top font is hand-traced from a sample called Marbleheart, the middle font is from my food-addled mind, and the bottom font is Phosphate.
Outfit No. 39
Me and My Pioneer Rabbit, Pulling Off A Heist
Me and My Pioneer Rabbit, Completing Feats of Tightrope Drama
Sketchbook Project 2011: Things That Stick
Late last year I signed up for The Sketchbook Project so that I would have a fun extra-curricular activity to fill my spare hours with. The project is organized by Art House Co-Op, and the basic premise is as follows:
- • you buy a blank sketchbook (anybody can participate)
• fill up your sketchbook according to the theme you chose when purchasing
• send the sketchbook back to Art House Co-Op
• all the sketchbooks that are sent in are taken on a national tour, after which…
• sketchbooks are placed in the Brooklyn Art Library where they can be checked out
As these things usually go, my spare hours dwindled and I was soon left with a looming deadline to fill an entire sketchbook in 2 weeks. From the 20 or so pre-set themes, I had chosen “adhere to me”. So I titled my sketchbook “Things That Stick” and got to work.
After working so ardently on my sketchbook I was a little sad to see it go, but it was also a bit of a relief. I showed it to a few people who I thought would enjoy it before putting it in the mail, never to be seen again. It was a good exercise in doing something for the experience rather than the results.
Behind The Scenes & Making Of
Since I had procrastinated, the first order of business was to halve the number of pages in my Moleskin from 80 to 40 by doing a fake french-fold by double stick taping every other page together. After getting some basic pagination down, I had figured out that each left facing page would be found images from catalogs, stockbooks, etc., and the right facing pages would be accompanying text.
Since I only had one sketchbook and therefore zero room for error, I sketched out most things before drawing or tracing it directly into the sketchbook. Some of the pages I like best (Grandma’s Gun, Boys & Girls, Dreams, A Good Book) were created on the fly with maybe just an outline of something that I then filled in without a plan. The sticky shadow page was inspired by a stint I spent filing at a previous job. After about 3 weeks, I felt like my own head had turned into the very same label maker I was using so diligently to organize an entire room’s worth of documents. I started drawing this poster in memory of what I called File-a-palooza, but never finished it. Here are few more in-progress sketches:
Most of the stock books I had were from Veer or House Industries circa 2003. I used my Whale of a Punch to punch out circles from various pages. The cover circles are from a hand holding a diamond ring, and the back side of the sheet gave me the little pink house on the Dreams page.
If you’re interested in checking out the sketchbook project, the tour dates are listed on their website.
A Sticky Shadow
This page from my sketchbook is a long time coming. The character was inspired from a stint I spent filing at a previous job. After about 3 weeks, I felt like my own head had turned into the very same label maker I was using so diligently to organize an entire room’s worth of documents. I started drawing this poster in memory of what I called File-a-palooza, but never finished it. I probably had some banner ads to design, or something.
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Update: the finished sketchbook is filed under my side projects at Sketchbook Project 2011: Things That Stick.