Music art

I'm very happy to be working on some new artwork for a local musician. She's a young singer/songwriter with an awesome voice, whose sound is inspired by folk and old country. I've seen her perform a few times and her music is right up my alley, so was psyched when she asked me to create some artwork for her new website and album. I've really been wanting to do some work for music packaging, since music is so important to me.

This is a banner I've created for her website:



I'll also be creating a poster for her and full album packaging, which I'll post once they are finished.

Check out her music here: http://www.myspace.com/mymymichaela

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!

Mardi Gras Inspired art for 6x6

Wanted to share some new sketches I'm working on for a submission to Six by Six Gallery's February show. Being so inspired by the rich culture of New Orleans, I've had this theme in my head for quite awhile, and now with Mardi Gras right around the corner and Six by Six Gallery still taking submissions for their monthly shows, it just seemed like the perfect time to dive into this subject matter.

I love Mardi Gras masks and all kinds of costuming-making in general, so got interested in creating a representation of each of the four seasons with a girl in a mask; these are sketches for Summer and Winter. Would love to get to Spring and Fall to submit all 4 to the show as a series, but juggling a few assignments right now so will see how far I get before the Jan 15th deadline....

Final products

I've recently gotten a glimpse a few of the projects I've worked on this year in their final context.

Made's blog is up, using the fruit art I created as part of their developing identity:

http://madedrinks.com/our-drinks/

Can't wait to see some of the product display using the art!

The "Changing Body" covers I did for Fairview Press are up on Amazon-was happy to see how the design came out



And Scones and Sensibility is now on the shelves in your local Bookstore! :)

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Scones-and-Sensibility/Lindsay-Eland/e/9781606840252/?itm=1&usri=scones+and+sensibility

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/

new in-progress

Working on a new painting to submit to Six by Six gallery's next show. I love working in this small square format, and this one is inspired by my recent trip to Nashville. Here's the sketch...

Some new inspiration

I don't typically post a lot of personal things on this blog, but it's been a wildly inspiring and creative month, so I wanted to share a few things that have gotten my creativity bursting at the seams....

Earlier this month I took a trip to Nashville Tennessee, which was just amazing! The entire city is filled with live music--day and night, and there's a lot of history everywhere about Americana/roots music (which I am a huge fan of). There's lots of really cool memorabilia, in both museums and all the honky tonk bars--from all the greats, like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline.....some really amazing stuff! Here's a few pics of some of the things I found really visually inspiring!



In addition, Nashville is home to Hatch Show Print--one of the oldest and most well-known letterpress shops still operating today. They had a big part in creating the woodblock-type look popular for concert posters, and most concert posters in Nashville are still done by them and can be seen hanging all over town. I have always been a huge fan of their designs and fascinated with letterpress & woodblock printing, so it was especially cool to stop in the shop and see them at work (and pick up several posters of course!) Here's a link to there site, and some of my favorite posters of theirs:

http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/site/experience-hatch.aspx



The other very exciting and inspiring event this month was, of course, Halloween! It's by far my favorite holiday, mostly because it gets me super creatively charged. I absolutely love making a unique costume each year and always challenge myself....this year was a creepy wood-nymph/fairy with light up wings! tons of fun making this and I was pretty happy with how it turned out!



Also, my office goes all out at Halloween time too, so I get to lend a hand in transforming our office into something spooky and spectacular in addition to my own costume. Here's some photos of how we changed our work space into "Dracula's Dinner Party". we even ended up winning 2nd place! I wish work could look like this all the time!




So, you can see I always put a ton of work into Halloween, but it's all more than worth it!

I've got some exciting projects around the bend, so October has been a fantastic and timely source of inspiration! (also, insanely BUSY!!)
More details to come on those projects-in-the-works soon!