art dolls

Art Doll Group

I was sorting through photos of the 60+ art dolls I have made and thought I should post a few for you to see, including a sketch that eventually materialized into a doll with a skirt made from a lampshade frame covered in buttons. enjoy! I will post more for you if you like! just let me know......

Art Doll Zelda

Art Doll Sydney

sketch.......

finished doll

illustration friday - Packed

Packed and ready to hibernate!
www.illustrationfriday.com

Holiday stuff

... just a sneak peak ...

It's 90º in Austin and i am working on designs for holiday cards.

The amazing art of APAK!

For the past year or more, I have been following the art created at APAK studio. I LOVE LOVE LOVE their creations. Delightful and fun and magical and colorful - i would love to pack up and move into one of their paintings!


Here's a bio from their website:
Aaron and Ayumi Piland are the fantastical magical duo known as APAK. They are a little husband and wife collaborative art group who live among the fury conifer giants in a little cottage on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon. They create artwork together as a way exploring the beauty, mystery, and magic of the universe as well as expressing their love for life and each other. They explore, play, learn, discover, and grow…just like children do.

Explore their blog, flickr photos and website here!

Some of my best friends are stuffed (part 1)

If you know me, then you know my love for stuffed animals. It started when i was around 4 and has not stopped. Today i am featuring portraits of those who are with me now for part 1 of this post. In part 2, I will round-up photos of those I would like to "adopt." I always see incredibly cute and creative stuffies on Etsy and thought i should share so you can see just how cute i am talking about. But first let's talk about some of the stuffed friends who live with me now. I could not write this blog without starting with Mr. Beeps. a LOT of you know (and love) him - he has been with me for many many years.....

mr beeps in Guanjuato, Mexico

Mr Beeps at At Stonehenge

In addition to Mr Beeps - I have a huge stuffed red-eyed tree frog named Manny:

Manny surfing the net

chillaxing

and then there's Gloomy Bear - who is a really good dancer - maybe i will post a video sometime - evidently, making stuffed animals dance is one of my talents.


Any one else out there have an affinity for stuffed animals? There used to be a blog about stuffed friends - www.stuffedster.blogspot.com - but it stopped in 2006. I would love to find something similar out there......

illustration friday - clique

This weeks topic for www.illustrationfriday.com is "clique."
I immediately thought of the old cliché of cliques - cheerleaders.
In my high school, it was the girly chicks who became
the cheerleaders who also made up the biggest clique at school.
If we had an art chick clique i would've have definitely been in!

painting rocks

I love rocks. Sometimes i am a little like Lucille Ball in "The Long, Long, Trailer", hauling way too many rocks in the car on road trips or weighing down my suitcase when i am flying.

I also love to paint rocks. It was something I did with my neighbor, Mrs. Gilardi, when i was little. She was an artist who enjoyed a good rock painting session. So combine my love of rocks with my love of frogs and toads and you get this:


... a series of toads in their houses. I just put the finishing touches on these today then decided to search on flickr to see what other kind of frog rocks were out there and was surprised to see there are a lot of really big rocks painted as frogs - big as in "landmarks".... here are a few. Who knew? maybe i need to plan a road trip to one of these guys.....collecting rocks along the way......

in Missouri
from flickr member localozarkian

in Pennsylvania
from flickr user faceraser.

in Arizona

from flickr user stephen clancy

in Seattle

from flickr user no one nels

in Mexico
from flicker user ezbngrn

illustration friday - island

I think they are in for a long wait.

(collage for www.illustrationfriday.com. this week's theme is "island")

graphic design - cherrywood art fair

I had so much fun designing the promo materials for the Cherrywood Art Fair! can you tell? Everyone working on the event is super cool and creative and gave me total freedom to design the collage and new logo. I will be offering a version of the collage for sale around the event - which happens in December and is one of my favorite places to sell! If you're an Austinite, you will not want to miss this show. I will post all the details in early December.

green and yellow

This weekend I made a lot of new jewelry including this GREEN and YELLOW necklace. I thought with this post, i would show you some other things i have been seeing and loving in green and yellow.........


my husband Nel gets the photo credit on this one.


I bought these candies at the asian supermarket - I thought the images and typography on the box was so freakin' cool, i couldn't pass them up - plus they're chocolate covered so i think that factored in somewhere........

I love all of the bold designs of Pata Pri - how cute are the little birds on one of her hand silkscreened kitchen towels? fabulous stuff - visit her Etsy shop here.


and in my favorite FLICKR photos, an amazing frog photo by soulsister. lovely (you know how i feel about frogs.) this could be one of my all-time fav photos......

Clutter - Illustration Friday 9.8.08

The theme for this week over at Illustrationfriday.com is "clutter"
I immediately thought of T.V. It's been way hot in Texas this summer and sometimes i find myself just staying in the air conditioning, flipping through the channels, looking for a good movie. The reality is, I usually spend a lot of time going from one ridiculous show to another before i give up.
I am amazed by how much mindless clutter is on T.V. Need i mention the names of the shows I am thinking of?????? I am sure you know of a few utterly useless broadcasts.........

glitter hamsters

yesterday I got to hang with Faron,
the 7 year old daughter of a friend,
and we had a lot of fun drawing and making stuff.
My favorite is by far the glitter hamsters which she drew
and i cut out and added pink glitter.
i wish they were real!!!!!!
(I do have 2 grey dwarf hamsters btw and they are equally cute sans the sparkles)

tiny collages

Something New!
I am making tiny 2" square collages
framed under glass and ready to hang.
I will be making a ton of these for the Etsy shop,
ArtShop at Moore college of art and holiday shows.
--- Fun to collect and easy to display, start your collection today! ---

These are the first ones I made..... a series of belted dresses
on a background illustration from a 1940's food ad.
(Maybe you can make out the olives and celery.)
I guess i have been thinking about food and the old waistline lately......

earrings in the shop

Earrings are now in the Etsy Shop.........

new necklaces

These are just a few of the new necklaces i made last week after
my friend Lisa purchased the Green Buddha necklace i featured on the blog
and totally inspired me to make some more........
I think all of these are going to the ArtShop at Moore College of Art.
I have been making earrings too, which i will be listing on Etsy later today.