Art Love Japan

The recent disasters in Japan have touched all of us; As humans we can only feel an overwhelming feeling of sympathy and heartbreak for all the people who have lost loved ones, homes, livelihoods...everything they had and knew. Yet, as a single being on the other side of the world there's also a sense of helplessness about what we can really do to make a difference. But, I think every little bit counts, and I've been inspired by some friends who have responded by using their talents to create art for sale and offering up the proceeds to relief efforts.

Manjari Sharma—a dear friend and amazing photographer—just created a gorgeous limited edition print entitiled "Hope" that was sold through Wall Space Gallery and benefited 2 charities aiding the Japanese in need.  Tara Jacoby—a friend and super talented emerging illustrator—created a really beautiful piece that she's selling prints of and donating all proceeds to the Red Cross. So, when I saw the call for entries for Art Love Japan, I was super excited to have my own chance to create something for the cause.

Art Love Japan is a charity art show/event at In Rivers Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. Anyone can participate by sending in a small 5"x8" work of art inspired by the theme of love, hope and happiness. All original works will be sold for $20 and buyers will have the choice of 3 charities to donate the proceeds to. 

The exhibit opens Friday April 8 and will only show for 3 days at In Rivers Art Gallery in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Full details about the project and exhibit can be found on the website or facebook page.

Every April, my street becomes a beautiful promenade of pink petals and the air becomes filled with a sweet, delicious smell as the Japanese cherry trees lining the perimeter of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden begin to blossom. I love this time and these trees, and so I felt inspired to use such a beautiful cultural symbol to convey my sense of love and hope for Japan in my piece. As I was researching, I learned exactly what the cherry blossoms symbolize to the Japanese people: The fragility and ephemeral nature of life. That fragility has been exemplified in Japan more than ever over this last month—so it seemed the perfect subject matter to base an image off of. Here's the piece I created and am donating to the exhibit:

I really enjoyed creating this. There wasn't much time from the call for submissions to deadline for this project, so I tried to keep it simple and experimented a bit with style and medium. I found a cool paper laying around my studio—almost like an oak tag stock—and used ink and water color & liquid acrylic washes to just add minimal color. It was a fun, fresh way for me to work a bit differently from both my heavily textured paintings and my flat, digital art.

I'll be at the exhibit next Friday—if you are in the NYC area come check it out, buy some affordable art—and support a great cause!

Recent commission

I've been juggling several project recently—which has kept me from blogging the last few weeks... Definitely one of the difficult things about balancing a full-time design job in addition to freelance assignments!

But that means I've been busy which is great; I'll be updating my website soon with some of the new book cover designs I've recently worked on, and in the meantime wanted to share my latest piece.

Another friend commissioned me to paint their wedding venue; they'll be creating prints of this to give to their guests at the reception. The venue is at the Breakers hotel in Florida—the architecture of the place is really interesting and it was fun to paint something tropical in the dreary middle of NYC winter! I'm pretty happy with the final piece and it's always fun to do something special for a friend.

As great as it was to have the opportunity to do this project, I'll likely not take any more commissions of this sort for awhile. I'm trying to churn out some new personal work to build my commercial/illustration and graphic design portfolios, and these kinds of projects are hindering me from moving along with that.  I'll eventually return to being open to commissioned landscapes and portraits—but have to keep my focus on other things for a bit...

New painting

I'm getting the BEST Christmas gift this year--my boyfriend is taking me on an amazing trip—first to Colorado, then to Hawaii to ring in the new year! Either I've been REALLY good, or he's just the best boyfriend ever. (I'm pretty sure it's the latter!)
Anyway--really hard to match a gift like that--especially because his birthday is also on Christmas day! So, I decided to make him a painting. I was a little unsure if it would make a good gift for hanging in his bachelor pad since my style is so feminine...but I used the inspiration of our upcoming hawaiian adventure and created this image.

....and, he loved it!! :)

Commissioned art

A dear friend of mine got married recently, and I was honored to have the opportunity to create 2  illustrations for her. The first was a portrait of the bride and groom, used for her save-the-date card. The other is an image of the venue she had her reception; she created small prints of this give to each of her guests as the favors.

These were extra-special projects as it's wonderful to be able to create something for a good friend!
 

Illustration Friday-Spooky

Just re-posting an image I made for a gallery show awhile back, inspired by the Mexican holiday, Día de los Muertos...or Day of the Dead. I felt that it fits this week's Illustration Friday theme: Spooky.

This image can be purchase as a print through Charmingwall Gallery: http://www.charmingwall.com/
 

Final gallery piece

This is the final piece I've submitted to MacWorthington Gallery for their September show. It's titled "American Girl". I had alot of fun creating this piece—I love making work that is directly influenced by my personal life and interests!

The opening for the exhibit is September 18th, from 6-9pm. The gallery is located at 749 North High Street in the Short North arts district of Columbus, OH. Please stop by if you are in the area!

www.macworthington.com

Gallery piece

A few months ago, I signed on with MacWorthington Gallery in Columbus Ohio. I'll periodically show paintings there, and my work can also be seen and purchased through their online gallery. The first show that I'll have work included in there will be in September, so I wanted to share the in-progress painting I'm working on.

The gallery is open to any subject matter and medium, so it's a great opportunity for me to explore themes I'm personally excited about and also experiment with medium a bit. I had so many images in my head that I would just love to create--but thought a lot also about something that might sell to the kind of clientele a gallery like that might get. I decided to tap into a recent inspiration--the Coney Island Mermaid Parade.

The Mermaid Parade stems from Coney Island's Mardi Gras celebration that was celebrated every autumn in NYC from 1903-1954.  It was re-born in the early 1980s as a celebration of summer, held each June on the Saturday closest to the summer solstice. 3 years ago, some friends and I decided to participate, because with our love of costume-making, it just seemed natural! We've marched in it each year since, and it's one of my absolute favorite events of the year! This most recent parade was our favorite to date--we played off the Coney Island sideshow/freakshow and created marine representations of old-time sideshow performers, "The Spectacular Seashow". (I was an Octupus-woman..."Suzi Squid"!) Here's a few photos of our get-ups!:

There's a "Freak Bar" at Coney island--adjacent to the Freak Show performance space, and we found ourselves hanging out there for a good portion of the day after the parade ended. There were quite a few people who wanted our pictures--and the American flag hanging outside was a perfect backdrop for us to vogue a few pin-up style poses. We were also handed a "golden bird" by another participant, who informed us it's a Mermaid Parade tradition and good luck to hold this bird on Mermaid Parade day. Not sure how much truth is in that--but we had alot of fun posing, and these are the photos I've derived my inspiration and reference from:

And this is my sketch for the piece I will be submitting to MacWorthington Gallery. I am super  excited to get going in color with this!

Tilbury Publishing Exhibit

I was recently invited to submit a piece for an exhibit organized by Tilbury Publishing. Their newest children's book, One of Us, is being released in late May in conjunction with Powered by Girl, a campaign from Hardy Girls Healthy Women (www.hghw.org) designed to educate teen girls about the impact of media on their lives and empower them use their creativity, wit, and individuality to make a difference.

On May 24 in New York City, (the night before Book Expo) Tilbury will host a launch party for their book, and this exhibit will be part of the event. All the pieces will be on sale to benefit Powered by Girl.

The only guidelines for the piece were that it was to be a small 4x6 size, and somehow a representation of yourself. This opportunity was super exciting to me--I think it's a great cause, and "girl power" is totally up my alley! Plus, I really had fun dipping into a self-portrait.

Here's my piece:

It's no secret to anyone that knows me that I LOVE to dance! (I'm not claiming to be any good at it though!) And, I've recently returned from a visit to my favorite place in the world-New Orleans, where I spent 5 days of what felt like dancing around the clock! The music has had me moving non-stop these last few weeks since I've been back, and I've been feeling super inspired and creative since, too. So, this just felt fitting. I also felt that the phrase "Dance Your Own Dance" really kind of sums up the way I live my life, and sends a message that I'd love to share with young girls.

The show will hang at Book Culture (536 West 112th Street, NYC) through May 28th, and the launch party is on Monday May 24th at 6pm. Works will be exhibited together in large box frames, and will be sold individually in protective sleeves for $25 with 100% of sales benefiting the Powered by Girl campaign!
All contributions made to Hardy Girls Healthy Women for the Powered by Girl campaign are tax-deductible.

It's Carnival time!

Just wrapped up both of my Mardi-Gras inspired pieces for Six by Six Gallery's February show. I'm pretty excited about these, and still plan to revisit the themes in the future with the Spring and Autumn seasons. I adjusted the Winter piece a bit from the sketch stage to better tie in with the Summer piece and work together as a series.






Speaking of Six By Six Gallery, there's some exciting news--they've combined the gallery with their sister gallery-Charmingwall. http://www.charmingwall.com/
It's a bit of a more trafficked location (west village) and the monthly show openings will now be held here. They have also asked to sell framed prints of some of the pieces I've previously submitted! If you're interested, please contact the gallery about purchase!

Music inspired art

This new piece was inspired by my recent trip to Nashville, Tennesee, and all the great music I heard in the honky-tonk bars down there. Specifically, an up-and-coming band called Jypsi (check them out here: http://www.jypsi.net/)

This band was just so fascinating to watch--it's a group of 4 young and extremely talented siblings who play traditional-style bluegrass and country music. But, they have this kind of funky-retro-high fashion look that creates this amazing juxtaposition in these small, dingy honky tonk bars of lower Broadway. They are like these wild and free spirits with the soul of old-timey country, and I kind of feel like they represented what I loved most about Nashville--that though it's best known for being a center of country music, it's more an intersection of so many types of Americana roots music that spans through history and is still very much alive and still effecting contemporary music today.

I'm also really interested in music in general--so really was inspired and had alot of fun creating this piece. I'm very interested in exploring more subjects related to the music I love. Was super excited to see "Music" happened to be Illustration Friday's theme this week, too!

I'm submitting this piece to Six By Six Gallery for their December show. The exhibit opens Friday December 4 at 531 East 13th Street (btwn Ave. A and B) in the East Village. http://www.6x6gallery.com/

Dia de los Muertos

I'm very excited to be entering a piece in an upcoming group exhibition!

There's a new gallery opening in the East Village (opened by the gallery owners of Charmingwall, a GREAT little gallery in the West Village that specializes in showing & selling illustrative fine artists' limited-edition prints)

This new gallery is called Six by Six, and the concept behind the whole gallery is to show small pieces of original art....any theme, any medium--the only guideline is for each piece to be created on a 6"x 6" canvas.

So, I got super excited about this as an outlet for a new personal piece.
I've recently come across some really amazing artist's websites who have explored the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos (or "Day of the Dead"), portraying female figures in the traditional makeup and costume of the cultural celebration. I had done a Day of the Dead piece in college, as I've always been interested in the theme, but decided I wanted to revisit it and explore, in my own way, a more feminine and beautiful perspective.

This is the piece I am entering--I had SO much fun creating this!


The show opening will be on Friday, October 2nd from 6-8pm at Six by Six Gallery, 531 E. 13th Street
www.6x6gallery.com

Please come by and check it out if you can!

New portrait

Just finished another commissioned wedding portrait--this one included the couple's baby, which was a fun challenge for me.

Just another day on the Jersey Shore.....

Here's the final painting of the monkey & pug--I'm pretty happy with how this came out--it's such a strange image, I had a really good time painting it! I haven't done animals in my work too often, so it was fun to tackle that in my style, and at the same time try to capture some human characteristics and capture some personality. Hopefully the friend who commissioned it will like it too!

N'Awlins

This is a small personal piece I did, inspired by my first trip to New Orleans last year. I based this off a photo I took-I loved how iconic the beads hanging over the lamp post are!


Here's the photo:

finished!

So, I've finished the painting and ready to ship it down to Florida. Hoping that my friend's wife will like it! I had alot of fun working on this one, and tried to focus on some areas I often feel need more attention in my work. I also found that I really liked working on a Clayboard surface--first time I tried it and found it easy and versatile!

In Progress....

The Big One

My most recent work was a large painting commissioned by a friend's husband to surprise her. This was super-exciting to me, as I'd never really painted very large scale but always had wanted to try. Also, I was flattered that he liked the work on my website so much he wanted an original, and that it was something I could do for a friend.

He wanted it based on a photo from their Florida-beach wedding. But, I don't do much portrait work, so likenesses are a bit challenging for me, and I didn't want it to come off cheesy. But I had alot of fun working out the composition-I worked full size. This is how it started:

But I wasn't happy with the shapes and layout, so I did a second sketch:



And basically combined elements I liked in both.


I played with the texture/swirly design in the background as a way to tie it together and add something to the empty space, but it made everything look much too busy once I got into adding color, so I took them out.

And, this is the final outcome:

It's interesting to me how much things changed in the course of the painting.

And, there were some challenges overall being the first time I worked this large scale. The logistics of getting the materials, rearranging my small space to work, and packing/shipping such a large box down to Florida--they were definitely all learning experiences!

BUT- my friend totally really loves how it came out. So, he's a happy client! :)
I actually have another commission from the same friend--but I am keeping it a little smaller (24 x 24) and am going to take a more graphic approach, as all he told me he wanted was some kind of "heart-theme). So, I am starting to get some sketches going for that one and hope to be able to finish that one up much more quickly than this one.