Pax East and some shoes

So Pax East happened over a month ago. I painted two pairs of shoes for the event, which was great! I'm a little jealous that these shoes got to go, and not me.  Too bad Pax Prime is sold out now too.  Well maybe a new pair of my shoes will be attending that convention also....!

The first pair was for a girl who works for the company putting out the new game Firefall. I had never heard of it before, but it was a fun challenge to interpret her ideas onto the shoes in my style. I got the chance to play the game while it's in beta, and it was really cool to see the elements I'd painted in action. I'm yelling to Lou, "Hey! There's that blue and red spider thing I painted! Hey!! It's trying to kill me!" You can see some "action shots" of the shoes here.
 

The second pair was a variation on the Mario scenes, but on a cute pair of maryjane style shoes. I'd like to find some more shoes in this style to paint. I love maryjanes.

a refresh

You may recall the infamous blue chair that I talked about in a previous post. I can't find the post, so I'll just summarize. My mom and I dragged it out of the trash, after having earlier discovered it at a yard sale. We offered a price, the sellers refused, we said forgettt that. Imagine our surprise to find it on the side of the road later! They should have taken our money while they could! Anyways, it was in awesome condition those many years ago when we got it, but has since gone downhill. I'm in the process of reupholstering it. It's a nightmare. What was I thinking.

Anyways...a few years ago when I was visiting my parents in Virginia, my mom and I went to an antique store and stumbled upon this gem. It's a GIANT print of a painting of a 70's style girl and her cats. It's titled "Harlequin with Kitten".

When we asked the worker how much it was, he looked at us like we were out of our minds and said "take it!"
Yay! More free goodies!
The other night I decided a nice coat of black paint along the frame would freshen it up. I don't know why it took me so long. The frame has always looked so stained and gross. I imagine some bozo was eating his greasy pizza over it.

And...ta-da! All better! And now it matches my other black frames.

painting Spike.

I have a special paintbrush that I keep near my other paintbrushes on my craft table. I don't use it for painting as one might assume. Instead, it's Spike's personal paintbrush that he likes for me to brush on his face. So he'll come by every now and then when I'm working and give me the "brush my face" eyes. So I do. Sometimes Ein gets jealous and wants me to brush her face too. But I only have so many special kitty paintbrushes to go around at one time. She'll have to wait her turn.

It's really hard to get my painting done because god forbid I put down his paintbrush and try to pick up my other brushes to actually do some work. Intricate detailing will have to wait no doubt.



And also at some point when I was actually painting he also managed to rub himself into my paint covered brushes.

Ok that's a lie. I poked him with my paintbrush because he was curious. And it didn't seem to phase him one bit. I'm a terrible mother.

sneaky peaky

The birds are chirping and it's raining out. Thank god for their confusion under these weather circumstances, or this would be one craptastically dreary day.

I've been furiously working all weekend on getting some more Lil Dumplins made. I'm about halfway done from where I'd like to be. And hopefully within the next handful of days I'll be able to list this rather large batch. But for now...a tease..




♥

A day late, but that's ok.

I must admit I give myself more guilt in not finishing something knowing I documented when I planned on finishing said thing. I finished the painting I said I was going to finish.....yesterday. That's pretty damn good for me. Plus I'm almost done with the cupcake painting I mentioned before. I just have to add some background goodness.

So anyways, I was thinking of naming this painting after my friend Ashley because she's all Miss Snowboarder. Not that this character has anything to do with snowboarding, but she is in snow...and that's the first step.

And also, to document another project and give myself grief in not finishing I'm going to be whipping up a big batch of candy necklaces. They seem to be selling well, and with Christmas time approaching at warp speed, it'd probably be best to list some of my favorite items while I can. I don't plan on listing these paintings in my Etsy shop until after the holidays anyways.

Click that to see what the candy necklace looks like -- Candy Necklace

Painty painty..

I finally managed to gather enough energy to start a painting! What's crazy is the sketch started on an 8x5in sized paper and I used the ol' grid technique to enlarge it to 11x9in. Fun times. But it's 12:30 at night and my eyes are shriveling up and trying to pop out of my head. That's what I get for wearing my contacts for days at a time. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to finish it and load a nice picture of the finished result.
One thing I failed to take into consideration is just how old my acrylics really are. I haven't really used them since my art classes at rowan two or so years ago. That's really bad, I know. Most of them are squeezing out of the tubes lumpy and separated. I'll have to buy some more tomorrow and see what I can salvage out of what I have now. One day I'll try oils, but I'm really a fan of acrylics. I hear that people love oils because they don't dry fast, so you can play around with the paint getting it just the way you like it. While that sounds all good and great, I actually like that acrylics dry so fast. I'm a fan of layering. Also, what's the deal with turpentine? Sounds messy and flammable. I like that my paint can come off with a bit of soap and water. Nice and simple. I don't have time for crazy.

"Sweet" Paintings

So I was thinking of adding prints/paintings to my repertoire. But it's kind've going slowly. I did manage to finish one painting and start a second. But it's been actively collecting lonliness on my desk. I'd like to finish it on Sunday but I'm not sure what to do with the background. I have a bit of obsessive love for polka dots, but I can't very well have all my paintings with polka dots...can I?

I'm also not sure how I feel about the character's eyes. They're kind of weird. Maybe they should be cuter..? Or maybe that makes it interesting. They're kind of manly eyes, in my opinion, but is that a bad thing? I have no idea.