granny gear

an illustration for bicycle times magazine about using your granny gear on steep hills. it’s out now — i saw one at our local whole foods in the checkout line. it’s always a thrill to see work i’ve done out in the wild!

a preliminary sketch of the grocery-laden wife:

it’s hard matchmaking for drawings, so i asked around on the internet: who was her husband? the consensus was: beardy. and that’s how mr. shaggy suspendersman up there came to be.

black birds

a series of animal collectors.

crows love shiny things. there are seven here, for a secret.

a magpie collects things for its nest.

bowerbirds love the color blue.

bike basket pies for bicycle times

For Bicycle Times issue #11 (out on June 1st), I made a painting of Bike Basket Pies’ baker and biker, Natalie. (Some friends pointed out that I have a nifty start to a food delivery bike oeuvre, what with having illustrated the Soup Peddler a few years ago as well.) I was just gonna draw Natalie and her bike, but I know she delivers in the Mission district and thought it would be fun to make up a little storefront. I love papel picado, so I made up some bicycle ones, and a San Francisco bike rack really needs a guerilla knit cozy (knitta please!!).

here’s where I started:

You’ll notice I got a hold of one of her pies, a yummy but important step in my research.

here’s step two, with a photoshopped actual storefront temporarily standing in:

fruit corset giclee prints

new to my etsy shop, lovely giclees of my Fruit Corsets in History painting.

historical fruit corsets

^^click for biggerer!

new painting!! this was so much fun to research. the antique corset gallery and bridges on the body were especially helpful. while i was working on it, i liked imagining who would be wearing these undergarments. elizabeth bennett reading impassioned letters from mr. darcy in her blueberry underpinnings… laura ingalls walking on the prairie in her apple corset… mary poppins in that sassy s-curve banana… ladies on the titanic sinking in that skinny boob-to-hip constriction… me own nan in a postwar pear girdle.

i painted this for jessica ayre, who made me the strawberry corset which was the original inspiration!

tikis

these little dudes were a commission. i’m especially fond of the squatty one on the upper right, the standing easter island-headed guy, and the sassy ones in the skirts.

wee penelly

for penelope’s 2nd birthday. i started it when she was six months old! she used to have far less hair with far more lift.

renegade 2010

my notes on this year’s renegade craft fair in san francisco (a little late due to comatose computer!):

^^^click through for biggerer!

sunday morning bowerbird

good morning! i finished painting a bowerbird on a panel last night. i’d like to make it the first in a series of animal collectors. next: a magpie with a nest full of string and shiny silver things. then: a long, sinuous ferret with a bunch of toys and knickknacks. i’d like to do four, but the only other creature i could think of was a pack rat. i’m not even sure if it’s a real animal.

this panel is so pretty and shiny in person! i used some gold acrylic paint for accents and felt naughty about it. do real illustrators give in to the lure of gold acrylic paint?? it doesn’t reproduce very well. i should have just used ochre and made it look like gold instead, but oh! so sparkly. i will probably be selling this, i’ll post again when i come up with a listing.

march was hard! either the young man or i have been sick since the last week of february, except for a brief respite over a dear friend’s wonderful wedding. april has been sunnier and i’ve been listening to happier kate bush this week to lift my wheezy spirits. cloudbusting: “i know that something good is gonna happen / i don’t know when / but just saying it could even make it happen!” also, morning fog, because it sounds so wake up and enjoy.

i have been remembering a conversation i overheard while i was sitting outside the academy of sciences in the sunshine. it took place between a 7 year old goth-in-training and his little sister:
brother: Somebody DIES every day! there is a funeral EVERY DAY.
sister: Somebody buys an ice cream every day!

they were both irish and so actually it sounded more like “soombody buys an ice-crrreem every deyy!”

gentleman fox knickknack wall

more fotoshoppe coloring practice. click. click. click. click. hunch. i like painting so much better!