Hey there everybody!

The Emerald City Comic Con ended. What a weekend it has been. It seemed a little less energetic and bustling this year but, we met so many great people it was worth it. A BIG THANKS to everyone for coming out and showing your support! Thanks also to those of you who signed our mailing list. We'll keep you posted on the latest events. Please feel free to check our sites too, as we've been trying ever so hard to update frequently. Here are a few snapshots from the weekend (sorry, they are mostly blurry as-per-my-usual)
I'm happy to say this was Suzanne and my 3rd Con, and this year we had our good friends (and my recent-to-be husband) sitting all in a row.

Lady Suzanne! ROCK ON! She and I had spent days on end hand printing and hand binding all of our zines...we came to the conclusion that we NEED to find a printer. That, or and intern. Or Dan, can you stay in town a bit longer? HA! Suzanne's latest zine is called Knocked Up. Based on her pregnancy experience w/ Eleanor 6 months ago. It is HIGH-LARIOUS. The tight pants page is my favorite. A definite 'must see'.

MY DEV! Signing his latest, Monstertown P.I. It is a full-size comic of all 3 Frankie P.I. Stories. I think the 3rd is the best one yet. Really tight and stylish. I'm SO glad he decided to print it full-size - the only way to do it justice. I still think he should've numbered them, as they are a limited run of 150. I'd advise you to snag a copy before they're all gone.

Augie and Dev! Atomic Lead and Monstertown P.I.
Poor Augie! He's workin hard on his upcoming solo artshow @ All City Coffee2 in June, he didn't make it back to the show on Sunday. Make sure you hit his blog to check out his latest beauties. I think he really needs to make prints of some of his paintings next year. They are stunning. (Don't forget to eat & sleep Augie!)

Edwardand Paul! Ed had some killer new prints (sorry, they are a bit blurry in this pic), mini zines and funky keychains (don't forget our trade Ed!) And a big THANKS to Edward for spearheading the Atomic Lead #1. He managed to wrangle all 12 artists into one amazing book I'm so proud to be a part of. And Paul! He has a brilliant T-shirt idea. He had a blank Post-It Note type square printed in the center - if you buy one, he'll draw an original image with Sharpies. Check out their sites to see more, more more!


Bart and Gene! HURRAH! This was their first time to join the Artist Alley! They put together a fabulous collaborative sketchbook. Really cool stylish kick-ass stuff and interactive to boot. Flip it over to see one sketchbook, flip it over to see the other. FLIP FLIP FLIP FLIP! A few of Bart's pieces remind me of James Jean. And don't miss Gene's nipples. Uh, his character's, that is. Don't miss this one. Uh, make that two.

Shane and Dan! Good lord. Shane is unstoppable. Will there ever be a day he doesn't update that blog with his painfully good art pieces? Make sure to check out his book North Country. And let's all WELCOME Dan from NY. He's a good friend of Dev's and co-creator of Young Heroes in Love. ...oh and Dan, here's another 'shout out' to you for the most-awesome shrinky dink cutting job ever. I'm certain it was the reason people picked up my zine. And if any of you out there has the color version of Stumpytown Vol.1, take note of Dan's impeccable craftsmanship.

Saturday Night. Morton's Steak House. HOLY. The bill was worthy of a snapshot... I've never seen anything like it. At least we were a group of 20 people - this wasn't the outcome of just me and Dev. HA. I was tempted to step out for a smoke break... and bolt. It was worth it though. Our bellies were happlily full of steak and many-many-many-a-drink. Good food, GREAT company, a wonderful evening. (Though in the back of my mind I was also thinking.... "Come on Sunday! Somebody buy something from me pleeese! Yamagiwa has some bills to pay" )

YEAH! It's Vicky of the killer bee PlexiPixel. Suzanne and I met her at our first ComicCon and we've kept in touch ever since. Here's to you Vicky! You ROCK so hard (but you don't MattR. Hahahaha!)

Laura and her sister Lisa. We also met her at our very first ComicCon and she never fails to pay us a visit. THANK YOU! Sorry the pic is blurry, she has an amazing Aquaman shirt with KILLER SHARK!

Mia, Augie's god-daughter. OMG. What a little heartbreaker. I can't believe it - the last time I saw her she was a little football in Pat's arms.

Special guest stars Carmen (CANADA) and Matt. Love you guys as always.

A Good Hard Push...

WHEW! I had a VERY late start on my 2-page contribution for the Atomic Lead Comic but, I finally finished. And, luckily, it fits the Illustration Friday topic! YEEHA!

Links...uh...Sunday!

...come on everybody! Here we go!
[1]Dave Cooper. God, I love his stuff.
Here's a really cool step-by-step guide to one of his paintings.
[2] Etsy. Sell & buy all things handmade!
Checkout the "Newest" (BUY section) very cool interactive menu design.
[3] CartoonSaloon. Don't miss this!
[4] Sacks10. Oh my god. A Fat Albert art competition.
[5] Keiichi Ohta. Creepy-cool!

Kitty update: Still on the run...

LOST : PT2

LOST

...nearly done coloring ye old Stumpytown Vol.1. and sadly... this panel is so fitting. Our kitty is lost. I CRY! We haven't seen her since Saturday night. I called the local shelters and vet clinic. No luck. I'm pretty durn sure she's in heat, so hopefully she's just out there gettin sum...

Not so S-M-R-T

So, I thought I had the bright idea of painting a full color version of my Stumpytown Comic #1 for the Con. It is taking a VERY long time and I don't know if I'll be able to finish on time... we have 3 weeks until the Emerald City ComicCon and 1 week for the Atomic Lead comic deadline (which I haven't started yet) ACK. Hairball!

Links Sunday!

...i'm a couple days late...but that's ok

[1] House of Cool. Crazy cool art.
[2] Iam8bit. Just plain awesome.
[3] Automata. Love this stuff. Someday I'll make one stumpytown style...

Stumpytown

Dev took these pics while I was working on the last pieces for the 50\50 show... As you can see it is a complete disaster... but at least I can FINALLY say my studio is set up! YEEHA!

Power of the JUJI

So, other than 'spaz cat' and 'freak cat' we've been calling her Juji.
As in the Fruit. HA.

Thanks fer yer support!

Hey y'all!
A 'BIG thanks' for coming to the show! We had a good turn-out! 50\50 will be up for the rest of the month, so those of you who didn't make it out (and you know who you are) can drop by when you get a chance. I forgot to take pics that night, so I have only a few to post...and they are all blurry too. HA! Oh well, here you go...

Don't forget to drop by tonight!

The show is called 50 / 50. Fifty paintings in fifty days, 5x5.
Suzanne and I will be showing at All City Coffee in Georgetown for the month of March. Please stop by for the opening 7 - 9pm! Yeeha!

Links FRIDAY. YIPEE

...it's that time!
[1] MaryBlair. Love her love her love her. Dev found this for me!
[2] BeerMats. Very cool gallery show of beermats.
[3] Genepool. Gene's gallery show of beermats!
[4] BlueBunny. I'll list it again! Kim's blog!
[5] Yun Bai. 'Porn flower' collages from mag snips.
[6] Moleskin. A sketchbook exhibition in Japan...
[7] Fallen Rappers. Custom PEZ
[8] JessHutch. Cute crochet (do ya recognize DoubleFine's baby?!)
[9] RoseyGrier. Pam Grier's cousin...needlepoint for men.
[10] HerbRitts. I'd forgotten about him...but loved his work...
[11] Capsula. ECO burial capsule. Lovely.

Blue Bunny!

Hey Everybody!
My sister Kim joined the blogtrain!
Check out her uber-kickass site at BlueBunny. Yeeha!

100% Chance of Rain...

So, this weekend I was stumped. (ha! stump). I needed to bust out some paintings for the AllCity show and my mind was a blank... the rain wouldn't let up and I swear to god, I was ready to kill.
But then... KRACKA-POW!
The rain doodles came as heavy as the rain...

I still need to buy a chair for my studio area, so my makeshift workspace for the time being is...the counter next too the kitchen stove. At least my vodka OJ is close at hand...

The rain. How to paint rain...
I took a cheat route. I flooded the background with a dark green/black and carved out the rainy bits with a carving tool.

Illustration Friday

Illustration Friday: Glamour. HA HA HA!

Breakfast Tacos ala R.Rodriguez

I can't help it, I love the "10-min. cooking with Robert Rodriguez"
(as found on the kick-ass Sin City DVD)
...he starts off by tossing out the store bought tillas in the trash and proceeds to bust them out from scratch. I decided to give it a shot this morning. They didn't turn out half bad for my first try. But, I'll keep practicing.



2 c flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t bpowder
1/4 c lard
3/4 c warm water

Well Hello Everybody!

...it's tough enough to keep up the posts on ONE blog...
so, why not....why not add ONE MORE! Yeah, not so S-M-R-T.
BUT... while I was searching for some tips on the Gocco (when I should've been painting) I came across this nifty craftblog. I couldn't resist.
Click HERE to go to my Stumpytown craftblog!
I'll add a link button, but I'm too tired now.

Art Night #2

Edward suggested submitting this for Illustration Friday...
so, I'll give it a shot!

I finally, made a dent and got 2 paintings semi-done for the AllCity show ...the cat dudes are cut out of thin balsa wood and then painted... I've been wanting to try this for some time now, but originally to make custom clock faces.

Suzanne and I estimated that we need to finish 1 painting a night to hit our March deadline for AllCity (does this mean I can take tomorrow night off?) It took a while to get warmed up, but I think I'm close to getting what I want for this show.

The night ended with a bit of Dane Cook. DAMN that guy is funny. I'm going to have to keep a lookout to see if he's comin' to town anytime soon...
Turned out to be a great art night with the boys. They were bustin' out some cool shit... it's always a good motivator to have killer art juice surrounding you.

The Gang

...I was digging through piles of my art crap and finally found my little fimo dudes. These are geez, a little over 10yrs old too. They are 2 inches long (the eyeglass lenses are Elmer's glue, colored w/ blue food coloring.) I was telling Joanna about them the other week - make sure you check out her cool sculpture @ vava when you have a chance.

Click HERE to see the full-figures...

WireWorks

...so this afternoon I came across these old wire sculptures I made some 10yrs ago. I was really into jewelry making and got caught up in this wire weaving stuff. All of these figures are about 1.5 inches tall.

It's LINKS FRIDAY AGAIN!

...it's that time!

[1] Radke. Very cool marionettes.
[2] SamWebber. Augie pointed me this direction. VERY cool.
[3] Parpan. Nice palettes!

The Lonely Man

Up until I was about nine years old, my sister Kim and I had piano lessons every Friday. Only snipets of memories come to mind....the dusty bowl of hard ribbon candy on Mrs. Sutherland's coffee table... the game my mom and I would play during Kim's lesson (she'd write down a word, I'd draw it) ... the McDonald's hamburger my sister and I shared after the lesson...
I haven't really touched a piano since then, but oddly enough I've been hankerin' to play these past few months.

Tonight, I messed around with this online keyboard , jotted down the few notes above ...and I believe... I'm pretty durn close to getting the notes to The Incredible Hulk theme song down. OH YEA!

The Devourer of Worlds

Last week, Dev mentioned that Rob would dig a Galactus so I gave it a try. (...'don't forget the Kirby dots') I love that he must devour entire worlds to survive. I Huunnnger...

I'm also in the process of trying to find a good archival printer so, I'll have a high-res print for you soon Rob!

Skullbaby made me do it... well, sort of

For the time being, Skullbaby has managed to dodge The Turtle for a Skullbaby Challenge... Dev convinced me to do one for myself. So, here he is. You gotta love the fact that he uses his slowness as a weapon (against the Flash)

It's LINKS FRIDAY!

...it's that time again!

[1] BarryGibbTalkshow. Doode. SNL.
[2] FuggyFuggy. Bahhaaa!
[3] TheTurtle. Awesome. Come on! Skullbaby Challenge!
[3] Zenvironments. Very cool illustrations...

Femme

...something different...
I started off painting this as a monochromatic, stone-carved face but I kept noodling with it and ended up adding color etc.
ACK! I keep hearing this reminds people of a crying clown painting (makes ME want to cry.) Actually, this came about from inspiration I had in the early 80's. I dug Mel Odom.

Skullbabyland made me do it.

Trav asked me to do a Juggernaut 'Stumpytown style'...so here it is.
Hope you like it Trav...

It's Friday! Doin' Pigeon.

All I see is Green

Skullbabyland is UNSTOPPABLE.
His latest challenge is The Green Goblin.
Here's a Stumpytown try...

Midnight snack

Well, I can tell you now the cat is doing just dandy.
I went to go check up on her and she was playing with a pinecone out in the backyard (like she usually does in the morning.) Silly thing! She was flinging it up way above her head over and over and rolled around with it on the ground. She was having a ball. I watched her for a while but, then I realized... (duhn duhn dah) it was a tiny mouse! A DEAD mouse. Alright! She's a great mouser afterall. I ran to go grab my camera to try to get a snapshot but, I was too late. She was going to town - knawing and chewing every last bit of it. Oh well, at least we don't have to clean up after her.

So, sadly I don't have a pic.
I will however, share a pic my friend Susan sent me to set the mood.
Here is Ernie's catch-of-the-day (1 of 3, I might add.) Thanks Susan.

Deep Fried

Well, here is my homage to fried goodness. I'm not as keen on them as
Mixed Nuts, but they'll have to do...

Update on the stray cat: We set her FREE this morning. I'm a little sad to see her go, but she tried to escape from our bathroom 2times! (jumping onto the windowscreen) She was ready. Her wound is healing nicely and she's nearly done with her antibiotics so she should be fine.

Happy New Year!

Here's a New Year'a doodle of a sick peanut