Liquid Assets

Banking, savings, savings plan, retirement, retirement planning, investing, saving for a rainy day, class, middle class, upper class, unevenly distributed wealth, wealth, poor v. rich, lucky, rich, money, investment. When many different meanings can be assigned to a single image, the interest level for that picture goes up, making that illustration worth looking at over and over again. I love the reflected stars on the ground going off into the distance. I love the running, dripping money and how my shiny ladder turned out. I love how this could be about many different things.

Money money money

If we, my husband and I, had tons and tons of the above, we would buy a motor home, grab our cat, and spend the rest of our lives living "off the grid" so to speak. :) Hot dog. Here's to hoping we discover a long lost trust fund!

This was created as a general, all things financial, picture for stockillustrations.com.

"Thus quoth the Raven, Nevermore"

There is a thrill of fear, the delicious kind, that always runs through me when I read "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. Today I found an old sketch I drew of a Raven and had a grand time combining it with a stanza from "The Raven." It's the prefect way to say HAPPY HALLOWEEN to all of you.

Christy Calling My Name

I saw a picture of a beautiful girl today and had to draw her. Sometimes something catches my attention, in an artistic way, and it's just as if someone told me I won something wonderful, it's the same feeling. When I saw this girl, Christy is her name, I thought that a fantastic way to draw her would be really, really up close with LOTS and lots of white. Painted, messy lines and very sparse color. Something like Nagel but messier, and again, with lots less color. I really like the final product. I love the splatters by her shoulder and eye, I love the paint smears and the restful spaces of no color at all.

Recent Project

Image created for a tee-shirt (shown: front first and back).
I wanted to put this one up here because I love all the juicy swirls.

Playing with instruments

I created these drawings for the music department of a local university. They were exciting to draw because I usually work black lines on light colored backgrounds. I had to think a bit backward when working on these drawings, which made the whole process fun and interesting.

Flowering Apples

Drawing Morinda

I was commissioned to draw a beautiful girl named Morinda. I wanted the drawing to be very soft yet have a lot of interesting elements running through the drawing to keep things interesting. So, I first drew Morinda with lots of soft colors -- pinks and quiet browns, and then added lots of soft splotches and a bit of a checkerboard pattern to the background. Also, for something different, I took pictures of this portrait at various stages as I worked through it and made the animation below.

Scary Chick Revisited

Two posts back I put up a picture I drew called "Scary Chick." Today, I re-opened that file and turned off a lot of the layers, just to see what I had and what each one was contributing to the overall picture. After playing with the file for awhile, I decided I really really liked the much simpler version you see here. This isn't to say that I don't like the previous version, I just think there is something nice about this one too. There is just something I love about simplicity, spaces that are free to lounge about in, visually. Very relaxing. So, I share.

Scary Chick

How the girl in this picture became know as "Scary Chick."

My husband came in the room while I was working on this drawing and this is how the conversation went:

Him: Oh, scary chick.
Me (hopeful): You think she's scary?
Him: Yeah, she's scary!
Me (elated): Cool!

Now, I didn't intend to draw something scary. That wasn't why I was excited. I was just excited that she is what she is. I feel like every time I draw something, it takes on a life of it's own and I'm so excited to see what the drawing looks like in the end. So, welcome Scary Chick, excellent meeting you.

I haven't loved a drawing so much in a long time

I admit it. I really, really like this one. This drawing came about because I saw a photograph the other day that I really liked. So, over the last couple of days, between other projects I drew this using the photograph as reference, I had to, it called to me so to speak. I really like the color scheme here. It's fairly simple but vibrant at the same time. Really fun to look at. I also like all the splatters and inky smudges, the mix of really fine lines and big thick lines all mingling together.

I have to say, click on her, you can see this so much better up close. :)

Visiting the Rabbit

For a long time I've thought about drawing another rabbit. The first one I drew is on the right side of this blog, third item down. This new rabbit wasn't as kind as the first rabbit. It was really tough to draw for some reason. And then I had to go back and forth a million times - add the 2nd rabbit, delete the 2nd rabbit, and back and forth. This is what I ended up with. A rabbit and a friend for the rabbit (I'll attribute that to little Ralphie Wiggum's influence). I do like the messy paint looking splotches through out this one, it's a bit messier than the first one, I think I like that. At least right now I do.

Photoshop dripping

I've been intrigued with the idea of drawing water drops. Apparently only sort of intrigued because the idea hasn't gotten further than tumbling around in my head, until now. I liked the idea of trying to draw what water looks like as it's sitting on something, how water would magnify things, how I'd create that sort of drawing, a realistic drop. This is what I came up with finally. I think I'll draw another one. I want to come up with something, a bug or face, etc. and have the water magnify it, that could look neat.

Bite, experiments with fonts, torn paper and tape

I've been experimenting with various things on the computer lately, using Adobe Illustrator & Adobe Photoshop. For starters, there and hundreds of fonts out there just waiting to be played with. This site rocks for finding cool fonts: http://www.dafont.com. It's really fun to take fonts apart and create something new. It's also fun to create tape in Photoshop. I know, how easily amused can you be, but it's TRUE. Making realistic looking tape is exciting. I tried this the other day for a project at work. My tape turned out awesomely real looking, if I do say so myself, so of course I really liked that experiment. Also, playing with found bits of imagery, like an old map you may see here if you look closely enough and torn bits of paper is great. I thought that I'd put all of these things together. I found a great font that has skulls biting and looking scary. I took one letter apart and adjusted it and made the skull heads bite each other, added tape, a bit of a map, some ripped paper and some really enlarged type for texture, here is the result. Fun and messy, nice. I like it.

Illustration of Fox Mulder

What can I say. Fox Mulder, aka David Duchovny, rocks. That's it. So I had to draw him.

We're working out way through the series ("The X-Files") at home, we're in the middle of season 4, and it's a completely enthralling show. We often have "X-Files" mini-marathons. It's a blast.

I have been a bit slow getting this drawing done as my hands have been hurting a bit lately which sucks. What am I going to be like when I'm even older than I am now. Grrrr. Damn double damn. C'est la vie. Anyway, I like how this turned out fairly well. I debated back and forth on color in certain spots and think I'm happy with what I ended up with. I fluctuated between hardly any color and rich colors. It was so hard to choose. This drawing did show Mulder from back further than you see here but I cropped it to give a move intimate feel, which I think works. I don't know about you other X-Files fans out there, but as time goes on I feel closer and closer to the characters on the show, scary but true. Cropping this picture so Mulder feels closer, gives it that sort of feeling, like Mulder may just be a bit more real than only lights and motion on a screen.

Illustration of Ed Gorman

In the world there are some people who are just plain nice.

One of those people is Ed Gorman. He is one of my husband's favorite
authors, because of that I have read several novels by him too. He is
a fantastic writer who has been featured from time to time on the blog
my husband, Ben, runs -- gravetapping.blogspot.com. Gravetapping is
primarily a book review site; because of this, Ben has had on occasion
the opportunity to communicate with Ed and every time, I am so
impressed at how genuinely kind he seems. Besides being one of the
world's nicest people, I think Ed is also one of the most neat
looking. So, I thought I'd draw him. Sometimes I really want a picture
to turn out especially fantastic, this makes drawing difficult. This
was one of those times. I like how this turned out but it was hard won.

To Mr. Gorman, thank you for writing such wonderful books and for
being the sort of person who is kind to everyone. You are a fantastic
example of how we should all be in that regard.

If you'd like more information about Ed Gorman, click here to visit
his blog.
To read reviews of his work on Gravetapping, click here and type his
name into the search engine at the top.

Night

"Night, the beloved, Night, when words fade and things come alive, When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree." -Antoine de Saint-Exuper


~Yes, this is indeed a tree pictured here. It's a baby tree, it will grow into something wonderful. I adore this quote, I just found it today. It made me think of going home at the end of the day, how all the things you dreamed up to be anxious about throughout the day are gone when you go home and find your loved ones. How night makes the world and the soul feel soft again~

Photoshop Portrait of Anne Hathaway

I wanted to draw Anne Hathaway because she's really pretty, and sometimes, it's just fun to draw pretty people. Other times I have the desire to draw the old, strange, or big. But, not today. I love Anne's huge eyes and mouth, they offset the rest of her face, make her a bit less, (or is that more?) perfect. I don't know if this looks like her in the end. I got rid of my referrence picture part way through creating this and did my own thing; so, it may look less like her that it could have, but that doesn't matter. I like the final product I came up with. I think her hair is interesting. I like how the light from the side of the picture lights up and colors certain parts of her face. I like the smooth areas mixed with little areas of lots of color and paint dabs. I wanted to come up with a painting that looked Renaissance smooth, I love how so many portraits from that period are so smooth, they are so pretty. But no matter the actual outcome, this has been a really restful picture to work with, so that's reward and success in and unto itself.

What belongs to you? What can you use, be inspired by?

At any given moment in a day, somewhere in the world, you can find people discussing art, the creation process, ownership, inspiration, and on and on. Some ideas as simple as what IS art? That is an old topic and a question that will never be answered. It will be discussed as long as there is art and people with air in their lungs to wonder and talk about it.

Today on NPR the artist Shepard Fairey discussed art, inspiration, creating with Terry Gross and photographer Mannie Garcia. Their discussion can be narrowed down to this: what can a person be inspired by and who owns what when it comes to photography, art and the creation process. Garcia took a picture and Fairey used it as reference in an art piece. The photograph was taken by Garcia as a freelance photographer so he feels he owns the photo. The AP, who he was hired by, seems to feel that the photo is theirs as they approached Fairey and wanted him to pay them royalty for using Garcia's photo as reference. Fairey is now suing the AP. In an article on npr.org regarding this issue it says, "Shepard Fairey says his work is protected under the principle of "Fair Use," which exempts artists and others from some copyright restrictions, under certain circumstances." (CLICK HERE to read this article.)

This issue upsets me because I am an artist. I see inspiration all around me every day. I often draw people that I will never meet. The only way for me to draw them is to find reference either in books, magazines or on the internet. Here is my process. I see something that I want to draw, or I want to draw some thing and find reference. I take that image in to Photoshop so I will have it handy. I look at the image as I create my own drawing. I reference how a person looks, I draw this person or thing and then about half way through the process, I get rid of the original image as I don't need it anymore. I then continue my drawing with my own set of elements, my own colors, my own touch. I accentuate what I want the viewer to see first, I add, subtract and rework the entire picture until it says what I want it to say.

Since art came into existence, people have used the world around them to be inspired by and use as reference. There is a difference between copying, stealing, and referencing. Fairey has every right to create his artwork and use reference where he needs it. He's not stealing. This is ridiculous and an artist myself, really frightening. I hope Fairey wins his case. If not, many artists, myself included, are going to spend more time writing for permission than actually creating anything. Like this drawing for example, I used Kate Winslet for my model, no I don't know her, I used a photo I found; but I only used it as reference. I drew every bit of it with my own hands, my own mind.

Lance Henriksen Illustration Revisited

I received an email from Mark Hayden who runs a website called "BacktoFrankBlack.com" dedicated to the 1996 - 1999 Fox tv series Millennium. Mark asked if they could use an illustration I drew a year or so ago of Lance Henriksen who plays Frank Black, the main character in the series, on their website. I said sure and that I thought that was a fun idea. CLICK THIS to see it in all it's glory on their website. Mark, thanks for your interest in my illustration. To the creators of the show, Chris Carter especially, great work, thanks for many hours of fun. To the stars of the show, Lance Henriksen, Terry O'Quinn, Megan Gallagher (loved you in Nowhere Man), Bill Smithrovich (what a shame your character was killed off so soon) and all the rest -- you all did an outstanding job. What a fun series Millennium is; if you have the opportunity, it's well worth checking out.

Happy Valentines Day

I hope all of you have an excellent valentines day. To my friends and family, you have all now received at least one valentine this year! I hope you like it!

To B, you are amazing, thanks for being my valentine every day.
I love you, K.

Luke, portrait with crazy Photoshop elements

My friend Natalie recently found me on facebook.com, it was great seeing her and catching up on what's been going on in her world over the last few years. She's got a nephew that looks so neat. He looks like a little elf child and I really wanted to draw him, I'm hoping that she'll not mind. This is what I came up with. I wanted to have his shirt and the background a really vibrant red and sort of run into each other, then have lots of interesting elements running all over the picture. I had an idea laying in bed when I couldn't sleep of a way to differentiate between the shirt and background, add a circle pattern to each but vary the size. That way they would be separate but interestingly the same, hopefully. I really really like how that turned out. I wanted to keep the little boy's face really smooth and white, I love the idea of having something simple and clean next to something messy and vibrant, the juxtaposition is interesting. And I think that's all I'll write for now. I've got a cat sleeping on my hand and he looks so comfy that I'll stop jiggling him.

Telephone Wires

These are images that I've always found appealing, really simple and in their simplicity beautiful: Birds sitting on telephone wires. The sky when it's a solid pale color. A flock of resting birds suddenly taking flight. Telephone poles, wires strung across the sky. I combined all of these images into this picture. I love the stark feeling, the thin wires, the shape of the birds, abstract and literal mixed together. This feels a bit lonely, a bit cold, like January. January is simple in a lot of ways -- cold, stark colors, quiet, thoughtful, appealing in it's own way.

Photoshop illustration of Chuong

A few weeks ago, month? I forget. I drew my sister, it's several posts back, lots of pink if you'd like to see it. Well, it turns out that her boyfriend really liked it and asked if I could draw him too. I said sure. So, my sis sent me a photo that he really likes and I drew this image. I really like it and it was really fun to create. A lot of why it was fun to draw is this: my sisters pic was really soft and completely pink - not a hint of any other dark color, and there were butterflies in her hair. How do I apply that to a man? Clearly a different approach was in order, but, it had to have the same sort of feel. In the end, I just went with different colors, rust, black, yellow. Used the same florishes, swirls, specks, etc. that I used in my sisters picture. I kept it a bit more grainy too, less blurring and smudging. I think it turned out pretty cool. And they both really like it, at least so they say, and I guess that's all that matters.

Adobe Photoshop line drawing of a girl with lots of inky spots and swirls

I seem to spend longer these days on pictures than I used to. In the past, the idea of working on something for more than one session was abhorrent. The idea of getting in the groove, and then stopping midstream and picking up again later was completely unfathomable to me. But, more and more, my drawings are completed in several shorter sessions over a period of several days. It turns out that this is really fun to do. It makes it so that I think about the drawing I'm currently on while I'm not working on it. When I am anticipating the next phase I feel like I'm reading a really great book. I just walk around feeling like I'm 9 and tomorrow is Christmas morning. It's really fun. And for an added bonus, I get to look at each picture with new ideas and fresh eyes, see what isn't working and implement all the ideas I came up with between drawing sessions.

Anyway, I added a ton to the background in this picture, swirls, indications of wings, splats, and the baseboard. I love the watercolor look of this picture, the dark areas, the look of the subject's face, the line and sway of her body, the movement of her hair, and how smeared bits melt into others. This one was really fun to draw.

If you click on the complete full body picture, you can see details better. It's a bit sad that I can't put up pictures any bigger, so many details are lost when they are small like this, grr. But, hey, it's free to be here on blogspot, so I won't whine any further and just say thanks instead.

Boots, not made for walkin'

The other day we were doing on a project for Skechers at work. I was doing some really fun illustrations (fun to me, they didn't end up picking them. They did pick others of mine but not my funky line drawings, oh well, win some lose some as they say) of shoes and feet and I got thinking that it would be REALLY fun to draw some books in in this style. I found a great pair of boots and started the illo, then realized that Skechers doesn't make boots like these. Doh! BUT I loved this pic so finished it over the last couple days here and there. I think they are really fun, but not as the old song goes "made for walkin." They are made for standing and looking pretty. I created a new pattern for the background and I think it's fun and adds a new dimension. It's fun to think of ways to fill empty space sometimes. In a way that doesn't detract from the subject that is. So, anyway, happy January 18 everyone. Take care and I'm off to breakfast.

Andrew Wyeth dies at 91

Andrew Wyeth, of the greatest American painters of all time, has died at the age of 91. As reported by The Boston Globe, he died in his sleep in his home in Chadds Ford, PA after a brief illness. In an article on their website, The Boston Globe has this to say about My. Wyeth: "Perhaps no American painter has ever had as strong a hold on the popular imagination as Mr. Wyeth did over the course of his seven-decade career. As the critic Brian O'Doherty once noted, "Wyeth communicates with his audience, numbered in millions, with an ease and fluency that amounts to a kind of genius." Go here to read more about Mr Wyeth.

He was an amazing painter, very inspirational to me. As I am an artist myself, not in his league by any means mind you, I can't seem to come up with proper words to describe his wonderful paintings. So instead, here are a few of his paintings, they can speak for him, better than I ever could. I used to think that R.I.P inscribed on headstones or whispered to those who have died was a bit lacking and morbid. Now, I think it sums everything up well. After all, peace is what we all hope for. So, to Mr. Wyeth, Rest In Peace. May the grass be green, the skies blue and the wind soft where ever you are.

Portrait of my beautiful sister

Ok. So, I wanted to draw my sister like I drew myself a week or so ago. Clearly, I didn't end up going that route (see 2 posts down for the pic of me). I hope she likes this, I went a bit nuts. I think I made her look a bit younger than she is, but then again, I don't think most of us mind looking younger than we are. Not that she's old or anything. Heaven forbid. If she's old, what does that make me as her older sister? Horribly ancient. Nice. I saw some really cool illustrations about midway through this portrait and it influenced this picture. The illos that I saw had lots and LOTS of messy bits around the subject's face and I thought it looked awesome so I added lots of messiness and lines and swirls and dots to this picture (and butterflies). I did keep with the pink theme though. I love the idea of messy pink. Mostly when illustrations (at least lots that I see) are messy there is a lot of stark color, lots of black involved. So, to me, trying to achieve this affect in pink was lots of fun. To my sister, thanks for letting me draw you. I hope you like your picture. You are an awesome sister and gorgeous to boot, sweet.

Self portrait using Adobe Photoshop and old newspapers

New year, new attempt at a self portrait. I wanted to try for a "less is more" approach. The nice thing about this approach is no blemishes or wrinkles end up in the final product, nice! Instead, all details, overlapping, patterned, messy, blemished parts are part of the background, at least in the case of this drawing. I do think that I ended up looking a bit sleepy in this, but I think it turned out fun anyway. I love the range of pink in this, how colors go from soft pastels to fuschias, really cool how they can live in the same world just fine. I love the dark pink spots, I think they add a neat depth to things and are pretty. I also like the pencil looking lines, especially around my neck.

Gnarled Tree 2

I had to go to "driver awareness" class last night to have some points recently acquired on my drivers license removed. As I was fairly angry that I had to be there I took my sketchbook along and sketched this tree instead of listening wth rapt attention. Sort of like hight school; I spent many hours in school doodling trees very much like this one (along with the requisite eyes, feet, and hand drawings all high school artists spend time drawing). The accident I had to work off: someone cut me off getting onto the freeway. I slammed on my brakes. They froze due to my car not having anti lock brakes. I lost control of the car and hit a concrete barrier. I was treated like a liar and a piece of criminal garbage by the HP officer so I am feeling bitter about this experience. But, now, it's time to take a deep breath and let it go and just enjoy that out of this experience I now have a lovely new gnarled tree drawing....nice. I would have spent even more time drawing this but my pen ran out of ink. Drat!

WKRP in Cincinnati

Hello Johnny Fever. It's the first day back to work after the long holiday and I thought Johnny Fever summed up having to go back to work just right "Booger!" (If this doesn't sound familiar, Johnny Fever is a fictional dj on the radio station WKRP in the the 1970's tv series WKRP in Cincinnati. Johnny got fired from a previous job for saying "BOOGER" on the radio.)

We gave my parents season one of WKRP in Cincinnati for Christmas. We watched the first few episodes with them and I suddenly felt like I was 8 or so again, total memory lane. What a fantastic show. I'm so glad my parents watched such stellar tv shows with me when I was a kid. Thanks guys!

Guest Artist

My mom, LeeAnn, is a great artist. She has been exploring/painting with watercolor for many years now and has created some awesome images. She recently took a book binding class and for a final project had a great idea. She painted on the side of the book she bound, I think it turned out really neat; so, I wanted to put it up here. Thanks to her for letting me put up her artwork, it looks really amazing. Side note, she also made the paper, really pretty!