Unusual Requests....

My twin sister is on a religious mission in New Jersey. The other missionary gals she works with asked for some drawings. Since Christmas is coming, I thought I'd go the extra 15min and paint em. One of the gals likes Mexican Robots and Kumquats, and the other likes birds, banans and raspberries. Its on a heavy weight butcher paper with acrylic and ink. It was a lot of fun and a no pressure assignment to get me back in the grove after going FOUR months without supplies. Sigh... its good to have my paints back again!

Pumpkin Revised

Thank you ladies, for your suggestions. I've made a few changes. If you have any more tweaks, please let me know. I'm working on building a portfolio and a website, so I think I want this to be sharp!

October: And the Winner issss.........

Autumn is my favorite time of year. My favorite colors come out to play. Hollie Hibbert and I were talking and we both thought it'd be fun to do a October themed illustration! Ps. Thanks for all the tips on photoshop brushes! 

Friendly Giant

So my dear friends have been encouraging me to explore craigslist illustrations gigs, in fact Adam Taylor sends me links! (thanks!) Anyway, one called for this description, and I had such a good time doing the sketch, that I finished it. I didn't get the job, but I got a fun illustration out it!

Quick Fix

The poor mirror had fallen off before, so Mike had taped it together, but the hot texas sun is relentless!

Taking Notes

My Darling Husband is always finding cool and interesting things on the internet and then sends me links to 'em. One in  particular inspired me to change the way I take notes.  Its http://sketchnotearmy.com/. The basic principle is to take notes visual rather than a list of bullet points. Since I'm not going to seminars most of my notes are from reading the bible and going to church. Occasionally I'll take 

notes from an inspiring Ted Talk. (If you haven't heard of it, you should its awesome!! ted.com.) The cool thing is that it makes my notes more interesting and more memorable.... aaaaaand it keeps me awake at church. I wish I had done this in college.  

This Octopus is Disguised as my Dinner!!

Thumbnail Thursdays!!

This a new cool thing to do you know! I'm using Illustration Friday's theme words to create Thumbnail Thursdays. Your welcome to join me. It could be our "cool thing".

Cleopatra in SpAAAAAAAAce!!!

I was doodling in my sketchbook, periodically looking over some of my favorite websites. One is a webcomic called... you guessed it! Cleopatra in Space by Mike Miahack. It took a good part of the day to do, but it was a great test drive for me.

Fan Art for Cleopatra in Space

I love seeing other people's process, so I thought I'd share mine!

Inside Job

Mike asked me to whip a twitter bird up for him, and in exchange I get a few books off my Amazon wish list. Gotta love nepotism.

Work in Progress

There was once two moons. And one of these moons happened to shine right in Luna's eyes every night. She couldn't sleep, so one night Luna waded out into the pond behind her home. In the water, she scooped out the moon from the water and ate it like a cookie. The crumbs that fell from her lips, became the night stars that sprinkle sky.

TEXAS!!!

Well, folks. It looks like we're moving to Texas. We are hoping for the official job offer by the end of the week. Then its a three day drive on down to Austin! I think it'll be awesome once we get there, but the packing up and moving part kinda sucks. But as Rendi always says, "As long as its temporary...." I'll do my best to post as soon as we get there and my computer is no longer in its box.

Date Night Adventures

I dressed up for a sweet date with Mike at a local Japanese Steakhouse. We only did sushi, but that was plenty to fill us up. Mike also ordered a bunch of uncooked slabs of fish. Well... that included Tako. Which is a slice of uncooked octopus tentacle. Needless to say.... It didn't quite tickle the palate. My darling sweetheart captured the experience all on video....

Yummy Yummy Books

As some of you know, I bind books and I call my little brand "The Paper Sandwich". (That blog will come back eventually...) Anywho. My trusty little calendar is running low on months and weeks, so its time for a new one. I figured that if I'm going to put a lot of work into it, I might as well make enough for a few other people as well, if they want to buy em. So here is the mock-up. I'd like to have 6- 12 different monsters for the Months and 3-5 for the weeks. I figure the blank pages in that back can be for new monster doodles and maybe even robots!

And just in case you needed a little COLOR in your life: A Flying Slug.

Monsters are so FUN!!!

There is something about hanging out with my twin sister that gets my creative juices flowing. I think that having her area of expertise be in another field(interior design) is extremely helpful. We both know the basic principles of design and art, but are different enough that a lot of the competition of our childhood is gone. This was created, after a day of my twin, Sam, helped me design several quilts and make them (aka she designed and I took notes). So... Thanks SAM!

ps. I like monsters.

Stop!

This little fellow is a character idea I have for a short story done in graphic novel style. I'm still figuring out the details, but I thought it'd be fun to share a preview.

Stupid Birds

I live in a very old building (145 yrs) and birds live in ours as well as the ones surrounding it. I hate them with a passion. They leave droppings all over my stairs and porch as well as our cars! Now they've taken to eating my basil, thyme and parsley. They've even attacked my pansies! My big, manly husband has shot a few of them with his pellet gun, which works a little, but not enough to really get rid of them. We have other plans in the works however and the herbs have been moved inside. We'll see if they'll live....

I'M BACK, BABY!!!!!!!!

Its been "interesting" living without a computer. Mine died, but my darling husband gave me his Mac book Pro to use because his work had one for him to use and a giant monitor at the office. Well. He was laid off, so he had to give the work laptop back, which meant I was without a working computer. Luckily, Mike (my darling) found work less than a week later. Bad news: no loaner computer= no computer for me. I was rescued by my father in law. He upgraded to a new i-pad, so i got the first generation for my birthday. I could watch netflix, check my e-mail and use the web, but no blogging or photoshop. So, I wrestled Mike's laptop away from time to time, but since it was our income I tried not to do it too often.

Then!!!!

My angel of a husband sold his Honda Goldwing and bought me a 27 inch Mac. It's absolutely beautiful. I have so many things to work on and scan in, I almost don't know where to start! But watch out! This girl is going to be blogging her little heart out. I have so much to show you guys!

Cas

Hiatus

Okay people. I am without a computer... mostly. I can jump on my husband when he's not working(not often since its our livelihood), but otherwise I'm kinda handicapped. Good news is I'm painting traditionally and drawing lots. Yay!~ Downside is that you won't be seeing it very often until I get a computer of my own. Sad for you! I'll do my best to sneak time on Mike's and post as often as I can, but no promises. Farewell my fellow bloggers. Farewell.

Ps. This doesn't mean I won't stop stalking your blogs though. Muahahahahahaaa!!!!

Aspire Higher

Quick Poster for RS Meeting. yee ha!

New Poster

Another Relief Society Poster. I used to resent the assignment, but now I look forward to the deadline it creates. I whipped this one up in about 30 min. I started with a Mushroom Cloud, but Mike said it was toeing the line. So this is a bit more tame, but significant due to current events.

Nearly There~

I finally finished this page. Well I think so. If you have any suggestions, I'll make some tweeks. I'm pretty happy with it. I'm going to hand it off to my husband tomorrow to start adding all the buttons and sweet tech stuff.

This is the Download page. I'm not quite done with the browser symbols yet, they still need refinement and the telephone lines are still bugging me, but I'll fix it.

Seriously people I'd love suggestions or comments, because this is a bit outside of my normal work. But it's good to stretch and try new things! Right?......right?

For Mike!!

So Mike, my adorable, computer geek of a husband, wrote a browser extension (aka an app) for twitter. He loves following lots of different people, some of which have potty mouths. So his app just puts in asterisks where the nasty words are! Cool huh? Well, Mike wants to share it with the world and he has asked me to help make a wee website for it! I'm excited to have a project. I hope to continue to tweek it and update ya'll as I go.

Sketches

A little peek at my sketchbook. Enjoy!

Hmmmm....

I often try to imagine who will be reading my journals and what they might think. Then I imagine what it would be like to read my own grandmother's journals. My mom's mom died when I was four or five, so I don't really know her except the few stories I get from relitives here and there. So I hope my journal provides insight to my life for future kids. Deep no?

Well.... I often write directly to my reader... and make fun of them a little bit (As you can see in my entry to the side of the comic). I hope they don't mind.

Walking Home... well Trying Anyway

So I understand why people ask if I need a ride. They are trying to be charitable and thoughtful. I can appreciate that, but seriously. I live about a half a mile from my church building and most of the people offering me rides live closer than I do. I have a very sedentary job, so this is one of my few opportunities to walk (mostly because I don't make time for it, but still....) Any way. Its a good time to think about all the great stuff I learned and plan my week, or just enjoy the beautiful weather.