Hey You Guys! Auction Piece

I am taking part in yet another benefit art auction! This one had such a great theme that I just couldn’t resist contributing something. The theme is “Movies from your youth that inspired you.” There are way too many, but Jim Henson’s Labyrinth was definitely one of the most enchanting and imaginative films I saw as a kid. It made me want to make puppets, which lead me to film and animation and my current place in life. Visit the website for more info about the auction down in LA.

Title: Worst Babysitters Ever.

Size: 6×10

Medium: Watercolor & Gouache

Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving! I’m heading out to see Fantastic Mr. Fox tonight, have heard lots of good things about it.

CTN-X Wrap Up

I just returned from an incredible 3 days down in Burbank. I had a table at the first-ever CTN-X animation expo, an event put on by the Creative Talent Network. The expo had a small exhibit floor, but was packed to the brim with incredible animation talent everywhere you looked. (I was wedged between Mark McDonnell and Kathy Zelienski...crazy!) The panels featured excellent speakers, and I am sad that I missed most of them because I was tending to my table. I did make it to Kathy Alteiri’s talk on the production design of How to Train Your Dragon, which looks really great. The environment designs I saw made me want to start painting landscapes right away. (Gonna be a must-have art book for that film I bet.) I also attended Bruce Block’s lecture on Visual Structure, which was very valuable and got my brain turning on things I hadn’t thought of in a while.

The first day of the expo was a little slow for sales, as it was mostly students and the rest of the people seemed to be waiting around to buy stuff until Sat or Sun. Business picked up later in the weekend and I did pretty well. I did a few random paintings, which I might put up on my etsy store for purchase. Check em out:

One minor complaint is that the expo went until 7:30 PM on Sunday night. (Way too late for a Sunday.) Lots of the people there had driven down from San Francisco (like myself) and needed to drive back that night. From the time I registered I had planned on taking down an hour early so that I wouldn’t be falling asleep at the wheel later that night. Then suddenly, on Sunday morning they randomly announced that exhibitors weren’t allowed to tear down early…oh well! Hopefully next year it only runs until 6 or so. I look forward to returning! It was an awesome networking, learning, and business opportunity.

I leave you with a few pics from the event:

My beautiful table. I later switched out the portfolio for stacks of prints, as I think some people thought I was just showing off my work, not selling it. (As soon as I did that I started selling prints.)

The lovely Brittney Lee and Liana Hee enjoy themselves at the CTN mixer, held both Friday and Saturday night.

I returned home from Burbank with too much stuff. But it’s all awesome – especially that (signed!) Peter de Seve book.

CTN X This Weekend!

Hi folks, just a quick reminder that you can find me this weekend at CTN-X in Burbank. I will be at Table 2 (on your right as soon as you enter the exhibit floor.) Really looking forward to meeting new folks and old friends! Oh and you can pick up some prints, books, buttons, and some other surprises while you are there.

Automatic!

Hey folks, I’ve got some art in an upcoming benefit show in San Francisco! It’s called “Automatic” and is a fundraiser for Robogames 2010.

Here’s my piece, entitled “Friends Forever…or At Least Until My Batteries Run Out”

From the Facebook Invite:

Do sentient machines dwell on the existential circuit
that leads to the spiritual 404 error?

Does being a machine mean just being a device:
literarily, artistically and literally?

Or does everything just boil down to everyone’s deep-seated need to crush all humans and plot eventual total world domination?

Find out at Automatic!
November 19, 20, 21, 2009
Exhibit Thursday: 5pm-8pm
GRAND OPENING AND CLOSING AND SUPER MAGNIFICENT BEER AND WINE RECEPTIONS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY 7-Midnite!

@ The lowerDeck Gallery – 2295 3rd Street
(below Sundance Coffee in San Francisco)

415.307.3482

Robot Paintings and Sculptures from the prodigious talents of:

Doctor Popular *Josh Ellingson * I-Wei Huang * Simon Cox * Jonathan Foote * Camp Peavy * Alice Koswara * Max
Chandler * Eliot K. Daughtry * Adam Davis * Michael And Judy/ Teach Me To Make * Patrick Lake* Phoneticontrol * Mike Hales * Bill Robinson * Liz Mamorsky and many many others!

 

If you’re in San Francisco you should check it out! I will have to miss it unfortunately…as I am headed down to CTN-X in Burbank!

Final Purrcasso piece is done!

Here is my last piece for Purrcasso this year.

It’s a mix of 2D and 3D parts and measures 9″x16″. The characters were sculpted with Paperclay and painted with acrylic paints. The branch is a real branch I found on my way to the train one day. Then I painted paper and took a cue from Brittney with the paper cutting. Here are a couple closeups:

I’ll be heading over to the venue early on Saturday to hang the show. We’ve got so many pieces it’s gonna take quite a while. Luckily, Brittney said she’d give me a hand with it and hopefully we can get it all done in time! In case you missed it, here were my first and second donations.

Happy (belated) Halloween!

So it was a few days ago, but Halloween was a blast. Mayka and I headed to Sarah’s for a fun filled night of Disney cartoons, gorey desserts, and cute dogs dressed as sheep. For our costumes we dressed as Harry and Cho Chang from Harry Potter. (I couldn’t resist.) To spice things up, we decided to zombify ourselves before we headed out the door. Lo and behold we were met with Moaning Myrtle when we got to the party.

We will eat your braaaaains.

She didn’t find it as funny as I did.

Also, Brit and Dave had amazing handmade “Wild Things” costumes:

Also, cause I draw things, here are some witches I drew on the train the other day.

(I had to get off the train before I could add hair to that one. But I think she’s better off bald anyhow.)

In other news, Purrcasso approaches! Get ready!

Purrcasso Donation 2

Anyone who read my old blog or stopped by my APE booth has already seen these pups. I had a lot of fun making them and thought they would make a good addition to Purrcasso. All three will be custom printed and placed in a single frame, signed by me. If you can’t make it to Purrcasso you can still pick them up in my Etsy store!

In case you missed Purrcasso Donation 1…and if I’m lucky I will have Purrcasso donation 3 finished this weekend.

Purrcasso Update

For the past few months I have been hard at work on a very special event. It’s called Purrcasso, and it is a benefit art auction for the cats and dogs of the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society. I volunteered as part of last year’s committee and this year I have stepped up to co-chair with fellow volunteer, Julia Clayton.

So what goes into putting together a benefit art show? First, I decided we needed to update our name. In previous years it was actually “Purr-casso”. We lost the dash and haven’t looked back. Next, being an artist, I decided that we needed some sweet imagery that we could use to promote the show:

Then, being the blogger/web designer that I am, I decided we needed a sweet new blog /website to promote the event and connect with artists. I reserved purrcasso.org and got us set up with a blog through WordPress. (I then fell in love with WordPress and started my own blog there.)

Next came contacting artists. Once again we used the Internet to our advantage here, scouring email lists, blogs, craigslist, and Facebook to contact everyone I could think of that might be interested. I also hounded people at APE this year, which hopefully helped our cause.

Then we ’sat back’ and let the submissions pour in. Artists are generally a friendly and generous group of people and I have heard from so many folks from around the world who want to help dogs and cats with their art. (Hey artists, you’ve still got until October 31 to get your work to me or the humane society!) In the meantime I have been posting like a mad man to the Purrcasso blog, trying to show off all the incredible work that we will have for sale.

So how do you get your hands on this stuff? On Nov. 7, 2009, we will be having our auction from 7-9:30 PM. Be warned that bidding ends at 9 PM. The next day will be a craft sale in the same location, from 12 to 4 pm.

Location:

1809 4th Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(next to Bette’s Diner)

We are so excited to be on Fourth Street in Berkeley this year. If you’ve never been, it’s a perfect opportunity to come down early, do some holiday shopping, eat at one of their amazing restaurants, and have fun with me at the auction. And it’s conveniently within walking distance of my house!

Neato surprise auction piece: The artwork you see above will be produced as a giclee print and signed by me and auctioned off. I plan on inviting all participating artists who attend Purrcasso on Saturday night to draw/sign around the picture. This will be a one-of-a-kind valuable piece! Spread the word!

Wolfman.

Here’s another print that I finished for APE. Halloween is just around the corner and I had this little picture floating around in my head.

Tree Girl!

Here’s another print I finished for APE. I haven’t done too many pieces in this vertical format, so it was interesting trying to come up with a composition. I wanted a fall piece and this seemed to fit the bill. Also will be available on my etsy store.