My New Little Girl

This is Georgia! My new cutie patootie little girl. I adopted her from the SPCA of CT on March 21. She's been with me a whole 24 hours and my family and friends are already in love with her. Ivy "FatCat" isn't fond of her yet, but we are hoping she will open up to being Georgia's friend before too long.

Georgia is very respectful- she sits nicely when you talk to her, doesn't excessively bark or whine (she barked for the first time at the washing machine!), loves her toys, naps in her crate without being told!, and she's just a wonderfully behaved little girl. I couldn't be happier with her. And those ears!! I love 'em!

These are some of our plans:
1) Learn her new name
2) Come, sit, stay, shake, No, etc.
3) Stay with us in the yard (She's a bit darty and curious on the leash right now... we'll see how this goes.)
4) Lots of hugs & kisses & cuddles!

Georgia has a bright future ahead... We can't wait to see how her personality develops! :)

Yellow

Added yellow on the sides.

Nice Hat

This is the hat in progress. It's fiberglass & resin. It needs some modification to fit nice and snug without any gaps between the head & hat. The top will go on last after it's attached to the dog's head.

Working in my expensive studio... Yes, I KNOW
I should have an aspirator instead of a dust mask on.

For future reference, it's not a great idea to put
partially dried resin near your hair. Ugh.

Top Hat

The top hat for Mr. Bulldog is under way and it looks so cool. Too bad it's wicked heavy, otherwise I'd wear it myself! Or maybe that's just the resin talking :) :O

I'll post a pic when the sun comes back up.

Shad-Lab Update

Here's the scoop - This is the sitting lab. It's being painted like a shad fish. Not quite in realistic fashion. One request from the sponsor was that it be emerald in color.

(The American Shad seems to have more of a green tint
to it instead of a grayish-brown like the others.)

I've stared and restarted a few times because at a certain point it just wasn't looking right. The step it's on now is something I like, so I'm going with it...

Original form with some pencil marks

A good base with brush marks all over

Close up of the marks

There was a step in the middle here, but I didn't take a picuture. >:O I know I should have b/c it took a lot of time. All scales were drawn and painted in. I started to hate the look, so this is what covers it...

You can still see the scale outlines

Here come the small sparkly kind of scales. A little different.
Close up

There will be more variations in greens... darks, lights, also nice highlights. A Yellow stripe for the sides and the dark/black spots the fish tend to have.

Thats it.

Painted Dogs

I'm taking part in something called "Paws for a Cause." It's a bunch of artists painting fiberglass dogs which will be auctioned off in a fundraiser for the Windsor Education Foundation. Two of my designs were picked, the Bulldog and Sitting Lab.

The Bulldog is titled "Grand Marshall, Shad Derby." He's gonna be SO awesome. His top hat is in the works now...


The Lab design was originally intended for the Dachshund, titled "Dachshad," so the new title is up in the air right now. Basically it's a ShadLab... or a Lab that looks like a fish. This was the original design:


I'll post more pictures of the actual fiberglass dogs soon. Be excited. :)

Missed a few years, but back now...

Oops. I lost track for a little bit. It's time to start this again. I have some things to put up here that can be regular posts. Let's go...

First String Alliance

Sweet. I'm part of the First String Alliance. 12 dolls. Each passed along artist to artist. Tweaked to the artist's liking. This is gonna get interesting. Can't wait to see how it all turns out!

Costumes!

Costumes are great. I love 'em.

This year I wanted to make something fun. Crazy ideas came and went, but one got in my head and stayed... My boyfriend Chris drinks this beer called Schlitz. Everyone laughs when he says he drinks it, so I decided that it would be funny if he WAS a Schlitz can. I bought some cheap muslin and this thick plastic table clothy material (1 inch foam was my first idea, but it's insanely expensive!), then I cut out stencils for the Schlitz logo and went at it with spraypaint that I found in the basement. My mother is a seamstress so she helped me piece it all together. To top it off I made some little silver tab hats. :)

On Saturday night Chris and I went to a restaurant/bar to meet up with friends for a costume party. There were some great costumes... but everyone loved the Schlitz cans!! The couple sitting next to us at the bar bought us a drink because they were so amused with 2 beer cans sitting at a bar (hahaha)! It was definitely the best halloween!!

10.31

happy birthday to me!
i have to renew my license...

wind

this is my first post to Illustration Friday. it's out of my sketchbook... i used it to create a wood block print, but i like the sketch better. anyway, when i think of wind, i imagine closing my eyes and taking a deep breath of new england autumn air. after living in the city for a few years, i realized that fresh air is the sweetest thing around.

24

tomorrow is my birthday.
and halloween.
i'm excited.