tumblewords

hooray, tumblewords is available in the itunes store! this means i’m a video game illustrator!

tumblewords is a word game for apple-type devices from minicore studios in austin. i illustrated two of the themes, “mushroom forest” and “painted desert.” it’s actually pretty addictive, i spent several hours on it last weekend and managed, with considerable joy, to wrest 150 points out of it by finding “philistine.”

so, do step into my world and find some juicy words. i painted all that woodgrain for you!!

click here to download tumblewords at the itunes store

all of my tumblewords bits and pieces:

twiggy, buggy wedding invitations

i submitted a couple designs for judgement to the minted wedding design challenge:

TWIGS

a stark, twiggy invitation perfect for an outdoor wedding in a wooded setting, featuring hand-lettered initials and a pair of flirty birds. there’s a john lennon quote at the very bottom from “grow old with me,” a song that makes me straight up bawl.

the rest of the alphabet

…and an rsvp and accommodations card.

DAMASK MEADOW

a springtime meadow-themed storybook wedding invitation featuring your favorite creepy crawly outdoor denizens in a Victorian damask pattern. heh, everything my young man hates about hanging out in nature!

PS:

minted.com

two for mirth

for two mirthful ladies, melissa and jill, on their wedding day. i liked this one so much i made one for myself!
based on a very old rhyme i love to bits:

chuck your car

finished this one a few days ago for bicycle times magazine, for an article about getting rid of modern conveniences whose contributions to our quality of life are questionable:

i’m feeling triumphant, cars are wicked hard to draw! (it’s a 1968 volkswagen squareback, by the way — it was my high school self’s dream car)

san franciscans will notice that he’s stuffing the squareback into one of our blue recycling bins. my friend richard says, “Oh no!!! Reuse *before* recycle…. [sigh]”

this article also featured a demonic microwave (hah!):

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!

holiday cards

my birds came in!

^^click for listing!

i think they turned out really well. they’re an interesting size but fit in a business size envelope so you don’t have to worry about weird postage.

sunset

sometimes i have to remind myself of things. like, skies don’t have to be blue. it’s a hard habit to break! also, people can be green or purple. meg hunt is very good at remembering those things. take a look at her work if you haven’t seen it already! delightful patterns and colors.

i might have to sit on this picture awhile, it’s a bit late in the season to make postcards (fall on the wane!) maybe next summer in time for september-october-november, i’ll print up some promos and a few to sell.

there used to be words on the ribbon, but i decided i liked it without. what do you think?

winter approacheth

these birdies are letting each other know that it’s time to get outta dodge. i loved painting that ribbon! it’s not actually red, it’s brown madder. i’ll holiday cardify them in the next week or so — 4×9″ flat cards with envelopes! neat, eh??

we went to the fair

my notes on the renegade craft fair, which took place over the weekend:

finally, GICLEES

i got some giclee prints made! i’ve already popped them in the shop, CLICK CLICK.

they’re the first ones i’ve ever ordered of my work. i guess i’ve always been nervous about quality and having to package everything up myself (this is why i like thumbtackpress for my alice prints!). they turned out really well — they’re printed on kind of a rough stock that looks watercolorpapery, and the colors are accurate so far as i can tell.

oh yeah, if there’s something you’re interested in getting a print of that’s not listed, let me know and i’ll see what i can do.

lauren & alexa woodward at the velo rouge

we have had traveling musicians, their Danes, and their vanagon around the last couple days. our old pal lauren a.k.a. linky (a gentle giant) has come through town on tour with alexa woodward. lauren plays the washboard, and alexa plays the banjo and they sing together. it is beautiful!