rock star

when i shave my legs, i feel like a rock star.

i hold my guitar (leg) up high and strum (shave) it like a champ.

who would have thought shaving your legs could be so cool

hot one inch action & carded!

back in november, the "hot one inch action" button show was supposed to happen, but due to some sort of shipping problemo, it was put on hold.  i'm excited to say it was finally rescheduled on june 23 in portland, or! what is hot one inch action?

"Conceived by Jim Hoehnle and Chris Bentzen in 2004, Hot One Inch Action is the original, one-night only show of art, music and social interaction. The original work of fifty different artists is presented on one inch buttons. These one inch buttons are displayed on the gallery wall and the audience is offered the opportunity to buy randomly selected buttons in mixed bags of five for $5. If the bag purchased does not have the desired button, trade with the people around you. How bad do you want that button?! That’s when the hot action starts."

it sounds like an awesomely fun and awkward night for me, and i would have loved to attend.. but i'm no where near portland. i did however get a bunch of buttons of my design! i clearly have no eye for button-making, and thanks to an extended deadline and last minute decision, i didn't have time or knowledge for my submission. my button was a drawing i did previously, and clearly does not translate well into a button. at all... but it's still my own design so i'm excited anyway. i lived and learned the harsh reality of button making, i know better for next time (hopefully.)

even more fun and exciting, was back in april was the "carded!" show in vancouver (also by the creators of "hot one inch action".) what is carded?

"The work of fifty artists is presented on trading cards and made available for art lovers to collect and trade. These 2.5"x3.5" cards are displayed on the gallery wall and the audience is offered the opportunity to buy random cards in mixed packs of five for $5. If you purchase a pack that doesn’t have your desired card, get into some fast paced trading action with the people around you. How bad do you want that card!?"

i was stoked when my design was chosen and i'm pleased with the way they came out. i love the idea of trading cards with different artwork on them, so although i couldn't make it out to vancouver for the action, i bought my own set of 5 random cards for my own amusement. love.

(back of card)

fun stuff!! if anyone is interested in a free button or trading card, let me know. they gave me a big handful of each :)

banky: an amanda visell tribute

a few months ago, we had a yard sale at my parents' house to get rid of a bunch of junk that would have never otherwise seen the light of day again.  i ended up looking through our own sale and picking out stuff to keep for myself. again.  i'm a junk collector. i found my old piggy bank that i painted when i was younger. we used to go to "jean's ceramics" near my house all the time to pick out and paint.ceramics. it used to be one of my favorite things to do and i wish it was still there so i could pretend i had nothing better to do but paint cliche cutesy ceramics. i still remember the little room of tables where they had classes/demonstrations and how nervewrecking it was to walk around with fear of knocking into and breaking every last delicate piece in the narrow aisles. i miss it.

this was the piggy bank that i painted at who knows what age. i decided to grab it from our garage sale, give him some kaotic kritter eyes, and start legitimately using him as a real bank. i painted banky orange to match our kitchen and now he sits happily on our microwave waiting for me to feed him lots of spare change (even though i rarely have any.)

before anyone thinks i'm super awesome and creative, i must confess that the belly with the coins in it isn't an original idea. banky is a complete rip off (or should i say "tribute") to my favorite toy-designer, amanda visell. much of amanda visell's artwork (mostly figures) has characters with the silhouette of a belly, as shown above, with some sort of character or object inside of it.  i thought it would be funny and cute to have a tummy full of coins on my piggy bank-- and figured my banky is for my own personal use, something i'll never redo for another so no harm done. she gets too much business from me anyway, i spend way too much on her figures.

and now that you are aware of her (if you weren't already), you can go look up and admire amanda visell's work and love her as much as i do.

papabear cake

i haven't been keeping up with photographing new work, hence the lack of art posts. i'll play catch up soon enough, but for now here are some new cakes. 

i made this of papabear for father's day. he's a real-life cartoon, so turning him into as many different forms of art as possible is beyond fun for me.  this time he's a cake.

best picture ever.

 as for some holiday cupcakes, i had planned on making some cool cupcakes for the family 4th of july picnic.  i shamefully admit i got a little lazy the night before and this was the result.. festive, but not so pretty. i'll get 'em next time.

i haven't been cupcaking enough this summer!

rockets, robots, and ray guns

 the autumn society's "rockets, robots, and ray guns" opened july 1 at toothless cat/jinxed gallery in northern liberties (philadelphia), my favorite area of philly. the piazza is adorable and a perfect place to view and share art, and to watch a gigantic screen of sports or movies or whatever they're playing. the show was curated by the very talented paul palcko, who i finally got the chance to meet and chat with after sharing the walls for a bunch of past shows. there were over 30 pieces of art by local and national artists, and...  "The Autumn Society will visually explore the sudden invasion of these machines into Earth culture. The Toothless Cat/ Jinxed in Philadelphia will be host the explosion event...

my piece was a 3D painting of a cyborg in space, read about it here. sure my gallery photo has a highly distracting glare, but you can just safely assume it looked awesome.

i wish i took more pictures of all the cool pieces, but here's just a few!

other art and tim roselle's cute robot sculpture

thank you paul, jinxed gallery, and the autumn society!

broken legs

(very old sketch, but post-appropriate!)

everyone wants to tell their dreams, especially after a good one. but we all know they almost never make any bit of sense and are horribly uninteresting to listen to unless it's your own.  so i apologize in advance, though i'm keeping out the details since it absolutely will not enhance the story in any way. and yes, i can walk in my dreams. sometimes i start off sitting in a wheelchair, but for no reason and always with the option of getting up and walking away.

last night i had a dream that somehow started with me in some sort of hot-air-balloon-like-contraction which failed and crashed into a pool. the other person was nearly dead after we landed, so that should tell you how "serious" the crash was.  (i don't know if they died, my dream trailed off. just incase you were concerned.)

i ended up having severe leg injuries, and the amount of pain in my legs was unbearable. it was one of those dreams that feel more intense than any reality.  i stupidly continued to wear skinny jeans, of the skinniest kind, and would pull up a pant leg to show off the massive open wounds covering my broken legs. believe me when i say the pain was indescribable.  i woke up briefly throughout the dream to realize i had real-life pains in my legs that were influencing my dream. i'm paralyzed, but i get horrible pains in my legs at times. pins and needles, on fire, numbing, aching pains that never go away.. though most of the time it is just a dull sensation that doesn't "hurt," and i'm able to ignore it. i think i can say the past year or two the pain as decreased significantly, which could either be due to a higher tolerance of pain... or the pain just magically lessened for no reason at all. last night was the first time in a while that it really disturbed my sleep.

i just find it fascinating that this "pain" i experience, pain that i'm technically not even supposed to feel, has that much of an effect on me that it flows into and fully takes over my dreams.

custom pez

pez commission! custom pez are apparently very popular and many people have come to me to get them. it's a fun thing to have, even i want one of myself, which maybe i'll get to one of these days.  someone asked me to do this one as a surprise for her co-worker's birthday. hope it made it a sPEZial day. worst pun, ever?

AAN 2011

art all night was a fun success this year.  we volunteered during busy time at 9pm-12am, and it was fully packed. it was a blast seeing and catching up with tons of people i rarely or never see, and also meeting new people. my favorites new friends were the ones who liked my art.  my piece got some good feedback, which is always a plus.  i try to act less excited about compliments than i am. i am always ecstatic.

my 3D painting of a victorian 1EG sold quickly that day, to a very nice man who i luckily got to have a chat with later in the night. ecstatic.

here's a bunch of work by random artists, except the "not a beanstalk" (the green beenstalk-looking one) that tim roselle sold. ecstatic.

some more randomies. my mommabear's daisy is in the top left corner, though she had chose not to sell it since she did such a lovely job on it that it goes so prettifully perfect in her living room.

art all night shortly past 12 am. it was far more packed shortly before this, but fun all the same. you can see how huge this wearhouse is and unless you were there, you can only imagine how many different artists submitted and imagine the contrast between that many different pieces of art. so much variety. that's what makes it fun. i'm tired so i don't know how much sense is happening beneath my fingertips.

 join us for another crazy year next year!

my greedy winnings

it's been long enough to get over it, but i'm my excitement is never going to die for my big double win from the most recent munnyworld megacontest. in fact, i has been brought back to the top of my mind when i received my unexpectedly large amount of prizes. please don't take this as my bragging-- i am genuinely really excited to share with the world, and even moreso anxious to put these prizes to good use.

(although i do enjoy bragging to tim and watch his dreams crushed. someone's got to keep him on his toes.)

my foomi win was especially exciting, as chosen by MAD (popular toy designer/artist). i have much respect for him and his work, and he's one of tim's favorites, so we have a nice big(ish) collection of his work in our place.

i believe i mentioned previously that my raffy was chosen by erykah badu, a famous or popular singer of sorts? which is cool.
 so much! huge boxes, full of goodies, all for me. 2 megamunnys which are 20" each.

plus 17 mini figures ready for customizing 

 one of my baby 20" MEGAMUNNY standing lone, tall and proud on our pantry. yesssss

as part of the win, i was also informed i'd be hearing more about a custom show possibly involving a 18" dunny, so keep an eye out for that. sounds unbelievable and amazing. i am like a giddy little school girl.

basically, if anyone notices i have been slacking off and not whipping out at least some new customs each month, just send me over to this post as a kick in the ass to remind myself of how lucky i am to have been given such a wonderful opportunity to get my customs flowing on a more constant basis. no excuses when there's so many blank toys just dying to come to life!

tym nutcracker

this is how far behind i am... i am just now posting this nutcracker i made back in december for a christmas present.

i've made far too many pieces of tim, for tim, but he loves himself more than i do so i think he's okay with it.  i had the idea to make a custom nutcracker for him and figured it would be amusing and appropriate for the holiday.  i really wanted to have a photo of him side by side with his little nutcracker self for fun comparison, but he's a pain. just a side note, he wears this robot shirt (constantly), shorts (constantly), and the black hat with 3 buttons (constantly).

my quick (lazy) rendition of his donatello and brain slug tattoos

my choice of buttons: 3e love (i have to remind him that he loves me, by forcing disability awareness onto him), laughing boy comics (hilarious strips), and big d (one of his favorite bands and common button choice)

if you're wondering what that blotch is in his hair, tim has a white spot. i guess it's a birthmark, but that one circular spot is and always has been white in his hair. people think he does it on purpose, like some weirdo cool, hip statement or something.

the infamous robot shirt and tattoos

whether or not you know tim, it's still a fun little thing to share. i probably shouldn't admit this, but the night i finished painting him, he was just standing alone on my desk, at probably 3 or 4 in the morning. i don't know why (i assume i was watching some horrible b-movie horror flicks that scare me when they shouldn't) but i was staring at him in my dead silent art room, with his creepy nutcracker face. i have irrational childish fears, and i legitimately feared him coming to life and murdering me. i don't know why, he just creeped me out beyond explanation. when i laid my eyes on his crazy little face the next day, i had no idea what i was thinking. so i'm crazy, but it was late and i was tired and watch too many horror movies. you'll be happy to know i no longer fear him.

custom shoes

it took me quite a while, but i finally finished the custom shoes i was asked to make.  they are something new i attempted for the first time. i was asked to paint some shoes with a cartoon holding the comedy/tragedy masks. it was my first attempt at this type of project, where i had a few issues that i luckily was able to solve successfully, but it's a fun project i hope to have more of in the future. i actually bought a pair of blank white vans years ago to customize for myself, but never took the time to make. maybe this will encourage me to finally paint them into some fun little design to wear around the town..

kuma, kahula, and kirby

finally an update! i've been too distracted lately, but i have lots of new stuff in progress and some ready for sharing.  here's a comission i did of a fat cat "distinguished" cat who acts like he's better than the other cats, an up to no good who loves to steal bread, and a playful snuggly kitty.

i can't help but love the fatty catty squeezed into the smoking jacket.