Harvard Museum of Natural History

I'm trying to get some practice in with the brush pen so my brush-and-ink work in my illustration can improve. I did just that when Matt and I went to the Harvard Museum of Natural History to sketch some taxidermy! Here are a few of my favorites:

Jay Ryan at Million Year Picnic!

Last night, Matt and I were in Cambridge--an unusual occurrence--so we decided to visit the best comic shop in the Boston area, Million Year Picnic. Completely by accident, we wandered into an artist lecture by none other than the awesomely-awesome poster artist, Jay Ryan! We had planned on putting his latest book, Animals and Objects In and Out of Water, on our Christmas list anyway, so it was a delightful surprise to have the opportunity to see him speak and have a copy of his book signed!

To make us love him even more, Jay turned out to be a really nice and funny guy (unlike another artist we've met...) and he taught us an important lesson about tubdumping. The lesson being that someone in Australia does it, and it's gross.

But a squirrel happily humping on a hunk of cake? That's a-okay!

Inbound #4

Image by Shelli Paroline

At long last, Inbound #4 is being printed! You can pre-order your very own copy here at the Boston Comics Roundtable's website. It ships December 7th and, for real, I can't wait. It's going to be a killer book; 38 stories about Boston, from Boston locals. Show your New England pride and pre-order a copy today!

To tide you over until the book ships, starting this Sunday there's going to be a showing of original artwork from Inbound #4 at the Atomic Bean Cafe in Cambridge. Two pages from each story will hang, with a book release party in early December (date to be determined).

Happy Friday, everyone!

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Hello, hello! As you can plainly tell, I've been updating somewhat infrequently lately. No excuses, I know I need to try harder.

Above are some sketches with the brush pen of actors from Sleep No More, the kickass theater production based on Shakespeare's Macbeth and Hitchcock's Rebecca. I saw it a week ago tonight with my husband and his coworkers, and I've done nothing but geek out about it since I got home from the theater. I could go into details, but I think it can be described more clearly here, or here, or even here. I've been so inspired by the performance that I've read Macbeth for the first time (don't be so shocked, we read Hamlet in high school) and I've decided to do a series of illustrations focusing on the devil herself, Lady Macbeth, and the witches who tempted her husband and, in turn, tempted her. The play creates these self-inflicted gender boundaries, especially by Lady Macbeth, who at one point asks God to "unsex" her so she may have the courage to commit murder, and who later chides her husband for being unmanly when he expresses remorse for his crimes.

Anyway. Until tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow!

Iron Giant Project

Golly wollerson, I've fallen behind! The hubs borrowed Brutal Legend from his work and, needless to say, I've been a bit...distracted.

But good news: new project! I thought I'd missed the deadline, but they've extended it, so at the moment I'm working on a piece for the Iron Giant Project. It's an homage to that great animated movie nobody went to see, The Iron Giant. Really an awesome film that never received the success it deserved.

The scene I want to illustrate is the part where Hogarth has coffee for the first time at Dean's place. I love their interaction, how chill Dean is with the kid, how insane Hogarth gets when he gets his first dose of coffee-level caffeine.

First, I'm trying to nail down my interpretation of the characters. It's funny how Hogarth came to me immediately, but I'm having a lot more trouble with Dean. Still haven't nailed him, but I think I'm on the right track.

More to come!

Twoofus

Jeepers, sorry I haven't updated in a while! (That goes out to all three of my readers.) I promised wedding designs and I'm here to deliver. I had planned on taking fancy photos of everything all neatly packaged up with the fancy envelope and whatnot, but I haven't gotten around to it. Because I'm lazy. Er, I mean, because I'm...busy?

Anyway, without further ado, I give you the designs that I and/or the hubs designed for our wedding:

Save-the-date.

The bridal shower invitation.

The wedding invitation.

The directions card.

RSVP card, front and back.

Wedding programs.

Favor. (Rather than a traditional favor, we donated the money we would have spent on such things to the foundation that most helped Matt's grandmother during her last days. Inside these cards, Matt and I wrote personal notes to our guests to thank them for sharing our wedding with us.)

So, there it is. Matt and I worked together on the key pieces (the STD, the wedding invitation) and I composed the rest using my drawings and Matt's font choices (except the bridal shower invite, that was all me). It was a lot of fun and well worth it to design our own paper goods. We printed our designs at CatPrint, GotPrint, and the church's photocopier.

Until next week!

Etsy Store!

Dearest readers, as of today I now have an Etsy store!

Commence shopping.

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p.s. I'm married now. I'm looking forward to posting some designs that the hubs and I created together. (Coming soon!)