Sketches in the Sand

Three Paintings at Cactus!

2010-10-09T15:43:00.000-07:00

I've got three new paintings in a group show in Los Angeles! It's at the Cactus Gallery in Eagle Rock and it's their 6th annual "Day of the Dead" show. Below is some info about the gallery and my three new works. I couldn't help but put a little tiki twist on the idea :)

The opening is this Saturday, Oct. 9th, 7-10pm. Music, food, and great art- what's not to love! Show runs through November 7th.

make ole wahine, 5"x5", acrylic on canvas

make ole kane, 5"x5", acrylic on canvas

make hula, 6"x12", acrylic on canvas

Moai Moon at Elroy Artspace!

2010-07-19T17:08:00.000-07:00

I recently became FB friends with Elroy Artspace, a gallery up in Portland that showcases mid-century inspired work. When they announced a call to artists for their upcoming show "Atomic Tiki" I couldn't help but get inspired to paint! I sent them my submission and just found out I got in- yay! The fact that I'm in a gallery show with the likes of Derek Yaniger (one of my favorite tiki artists) is just awesome to me.

So here's my piece:
"Moai Moon"
6"x12"
acrylic on canvas

If you're in the Portland area, the show will be running the month of August. Here's a link for more info. If anyone's going to be there, and you can swing by and take pics I'd be forever grateful!!

~Jess

Cal Arts Gallery Girls Workshop

2010-07-14T14:52:00.000-07:00

Trying to catch up on old posts...
Back in May, I sketched these at a fabulous Gallery Girls workshop held at CalArts. They're on hiatus for summer, but will return in the fall. 20 bucks for an all day figure drawing workshop can't be beat!

Girly Drinks: Post 2!

2010-05-26T23:10:00.000-07:00

This was the first design I created for the series...I just took a little longer getting it colored. But here she is, in all her rough color study glory! "Miss Hawaii Kai"

New "Girly Drink" series!

2010-04-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

Last year, I received a tiki cocktail book as a gift. Giddy with excitement to try some of the recipes, I ended up pouring through the pages laughing over the ridiculous drink names. Part of tiki drink culture is coming up with exotic, sometimes dangerous and often forbidden-sounding names. The Missonary's Downfall, Squirrel of Paradise, Shark Tooth, the Zombie... All make for some great characters and I got to thinking how FUN it would be to paint some of these vixens in my head as a series!

So here's my first "Girly Drink": Pirate Grog. Although I've been sketching roughs for awhile, this is the first lady I brought into Photoshop to do a quick color study. She's a lusty pirate wench with a thirst for grog! More to come!

Nursery Paintings!

2010-02-14T21:46:00.000-08:00

I've been busy on a little side project lately. My brother and his wife are going to have a baby (insert squeals here!) and I thought it would be neat to do a couple of pieces for their nursery. They decided to paint a Panda/Bamboo theme for the baby's room. Since they both have such a love for the beach and surfing, I painted surfer pandas!
Here's the intial sketches I did for the paintings:

Then I did a quick color study in Photoshop:

And the final pieces! I haven't worked in acrylic in a million years so I was pretty rusty. Felt good to get back into it and mess around. I'll definitely be more adventurous next time, but was pretty happy with how these turned out. I hope Baby Kreig likes them!!

11"x14" Acrylic on canvas.
UPDATE: Paintings were a BIG hit at the baby shower. Yayy!!!!

Retro Me

2010-02-08T14:48:00.000-08:00

Doing some more portfolio development and wanted to work in Illustrator a bit more. I like the way the pen tool brush turned out in this one. I love making fun curvy shapes!

Venice Canals Girly Day

2010-01-20T22:30:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, Danielle, Amanda, and I got together to have a fun girly day of sketching, chatting, and dining. We ended up at the Venice Canals enjoying a gorgeous day. I decided to break out my caran d'ache which I haven't used in ages. Here's my attempt at some quick watercolor sketching:

IF- Confined

2010-01-17T18:26:00.000-08:00

Decided to try out an Illustration Friday idea- "Confined." Here's my take on it. Mike also did a collage on the theme- you can see it here.

Ginger Studies

2010-01-09T11:10:00.000-08:00

Mike's getting on my case for not uploading a bunch of stuff I've been working on lately. So here's some sketchbook work from late last year. These are quick thumbnails I did for studying my character "Ginger: The Disney-lovin' Stripper with a Heart of Gold". It's amazing what you can find on youtube...

Dr. Sketchy's Salon

2009-12-02T18:45:00.000-08:00

Amanda, Mike and I checked out Dr. Sketchy's recently when their traveling road show came to Burbank. It was lots of fun to draw sexy ladies all dolled up in steam punk/goth/pirate styles. Here's a few sketches I was happy with. These are ranging from 5-20 minutes each.

Ginger, Part Deux

2009-11-09T09:04:00.000-08:00

Working on some quick expressions for "Ginger" (a stripper with a heart of gold character) and trying to get a feel for her character. Pitched this to the WIA group this past month, and people seemed most excited about her when she had that "Bettie Page innocence" to her actions/expressions and felt a little more cartoony. Darn, now I have to do more research watching old Bettie Page films....

Collage Day

2009-08-30T20:49:00.000-07:00

Spent a lovely afternoon at Karen's learning some interesting collage techniques. I haven't collaged in awhile so it was fun to destroy all these little things I've kept and create something new! I worked on this piece for about 20 minutes. Techniques include masking with tissue, netting, soaking, and frottage.

Ginger

2009-08-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

This is a character I'm working on for my workshop Women in Animation's Pitch Night. I asked the workshop group to come up with a character and provide three sketches of them in different scenes.

This is Ginger, the stripper with a heart of gold. When she's not tantalizing men in alluring outfits, Ginger loves to annoy her cats by making them wear silly shirts. She's also a lover of ALL things Disney, and must IMMEDIATELY go out and see any new Disney movie, no matter how horrible it might be.

Toddlers and Tantrums

2009-08-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

A couple of nights ago I was channel surfing and came across a reality show called "Toddlers & Tiaras". The show delves into the world of children's beauty pageants, showing the good, the bad, and most certainly the ugly. To me, there's nothing positive about these terrifying taffeta fests. Families spend too much money, the girls are taught that fake beauty is valued, and tempter tantrums run rampant. I've seen pictures prior to this show of girls spray tanned, in heavy makeup that must have been applied with a trowel, the ridiculously expensive dresses, but some things still shocked me.

For example, all the girls wear something called a "flipper", a mouth cover of plastic pearly white teeth so that judges won't see a seven year old's normal smile with a missing tooth or one growing in. Because that would be too ugly for words, right?

My FAVORITE part (and I mean that sarcastically) of the show was the INFANT TALENT COMPETITION. Yes, you heard me right. INFANTS. What kind of talents does an infant have you might ask? Well, the winner of the competition is in my sketch for today. She was no more than six months old, dressed in a golden fluffy dress and sitting in a cauldron with a four leaf clover strapped to her head. Apparently, infants are VERY good at sitting in CAULDRONS. At least this one was. Sigh...

I also drew "The Diva", the girl on the right was six years old, and had as many diva tantrums as Whitney Houston. She strutted the stage with her arm on her hip, pursing her lips while batting her eyes. When she didn't win the big crown, but was crowned a runner-up, she threw an absolute fit. The girl in the orange dress in the middle was probably no more than three....terrified to be onstage, near tears as she followed her mom's antics in the crowd of putting her arms out and twirling around. And finally, Morgan, the girl on the bottom left. Yes sir, she was the big winner. The spray-tanned, bleach blond fake haired, skimpy outfit and flipper wearing Salt Lake City girl won the judges hearts. This was her pose to the camera when she won, throwin' up a gang sign as she said "I GOT THE BLING!"

Thank You Mad Men & Playboy!

2009-08-10T23:10:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting with bated breath for Mad Men to come back to AMC this Sunday. While dreaming of its return, I noticed a little announcement up on Mad Men's Facebook fan page that Playboy's entire website was going to be dedicated to all things of the 1960s and Mad Men for one day only...today! Fashion, cocktail recipes, interviews with the likes of Sammy Davis Jr., and all those lovely bunnies. So I got out my trusty sketchbook, and started perusing the covergirls from that era. Here's Miss May, March and November:

I Heart Tikis

2009-08-07T12:00:00.001-07:00

I love my tikis! I've been steadily going through my collection and sketching each one. Each time I do so I find little amusing things I never noticed about them when they were just up on display. Each of them has such a personality, and I think when I pair them together it really shows. Might do a painting series with these in some way. Need to think it out...

True Blood

2009-08-05T16:28:00.000-07:00

One of my guilty pleasures these days is watching HBO's True Blood. These were my first quick passes at Vampire Bill, Sam and my new favorite character (duh) Vampire Jessica in her naughty phase.

Devil Girl

2009-07-30T23:34:00.001-07:00

Quick sketch of a little girl devil I had floating around in my head today.

Comic-Con Part Deux

2009-07-29T22:19:00.001-07:00

A couple more sketches of random costumes I saw while at Comic-con. Did anybody else see King Lollipop? Is that a real character?? Like the King of Candyland or something??

Comic-Con 2009

2009-07-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I had a blast at SDCC! Did a bit of quick sketching this year...I just HAD to remember some of the weirder incomprehensible costumes. These are just a taste...more to come!

More feesh!

2009-07-23T11:24:00.001-07:00

Here's a couple more paintings...I won't post anything else 'till we get back from the Con. Hope to see y'all there!

Feesh!

2009-07-22T22:43:00.001-07:00

As I'm packing up for Comic-con, I thought I'd do a quick post of a couple of digital fish paintings I made for our wedding reception. These were the table cards for each dining table (there were 10 total)-- we chose Hawaiian fish as our theme because we both love to snorkel. Enjoy!

Museum Sketch Crawl

2009-07-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

It felt SO good to get back into museum sketching this weekend. Amanda, Mike and I made the trek to LACMA to see what new and old goodies they had in store. Pretty productive day!

Auntie Sarah's Moose Chunks

2008-09-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

I was watching Keith Olberman on MSNBC a few nights ago and he made some crack about Sarah Palin and how much her family loved, "Aunt Sarah's Moose Chunk Stew." For the life of me, I couldn't get that phrase out of my head. I think I need to do another pass on the idea, but here was my first thought. Kind of anime meets Campbell's soup can...

A Post!!

2008-09-16T22:55:00.000-07:00

It's high time I resurrected the ol' drawing blog. Mike and I went to Ventura over the weekend to help clean my Grandpa's house. I drew this small scruffy sketch just before going to bed. It was going to be a sketch of a caterpillar with large eyebrows, but somehow turned into this strange old farmer man/roman bust type face.

Persian Rock Star

2007-03-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

Mike and I went to a Pet Fair over the weekend. Lots of cute dogs and cats- we didn't bring any home, though. There was one, however, that took the cake. We were admiring the kitties, and this one persian was in a cage looking ewok-like in haircut and color. It also resembled someone with a serious hangover. It kind of wobbled and kept its head hung low, it had a seriously groggy pissed off look on its face. Mike pointed out that it had a little t-shirt on which said "Rock Star". I just lost it- I knew I had to draw the "Persian Rock Star". Tagline: "I'm so messed right now, man..I think I'm gonna hurl."

This is What Happens...

2007-01-30T13:08:00.000-08:00

When I work too much and read Harry Potter before bedtime. I had this dream last week that I can't remember much of, except that I was sitting in the living room of the house I grew up in. The television was turned on, and kept jumping from these bizarre shows. One was this strange Dali-esque kids cartoon, that I watched for awhile, and just as I was about to change the channel, the TV surged and the cartoon characters came out and started hopping around me. If anyone's seen "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" and remembers the scene when the box of ACME Cartoon Shoes gets loose, that's kinda what we're talking about here. One of the creatures was a pair of legs sewn together. They were wearing these boots I've seen pictures of boxers from the thirties wearing-- rugged, tall and made of black leather. The legs were sewn at the thigh very haphazardly, and both were painted with these beautiful brushstrokes as the skin. They were a pearlescent blue and salmon pink, glistening as they tumbled and bounced around hitting the furniture. One of the other creatures I remember was this Pokemon-like Brain that was using its cortex to spring up and down. It had black button eyes and was rather pink and squishy looking. Meanwhile, as I'm telling "Legs" to get off the ottoman, these art crtics kept coming through a swinging door into the living room. They all looked the same-- bald, thick black glasses, sharp beaky nose. And they all furiously wrote in their little black books while suspiciously looking over at the ridiculous scene. I remember getting frustrated that they kept watching, and I yelled, "Happy? Are you happy now?! Did you get a good picture? Don't forget to put THAT one in your magazine!"

Anyways, here's some supah quick post-its of these strange invaders of my sleep.

Last Weekend Scribbles

2006-09-22T17:59:00.000-07:00

People are funny when they golf.

Sunday I sketched with some buds at the zoo. Here's the outcome...I'm soooo rusty.

Mall-Walkers

2006-08-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

I love watching people at the mall. There are so many fascinating variations of body type, hair, poses, and style. This couple just happened to be walking past me in Macy's I was on my way out. I couldn't resist trying to do a memory drawing later...her dress was just too hideous to forget.

The Mariachis

2006-07-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

More ideas that came out of work...The Mariachi back-up band.

Happy Independence Day!

2006-07-04T18:27:00.001-07:00

Set some fireworks off and watch this video! I made this short with my dear friends Amanda Ricketts (faboo animator) and David Fuller (stunning voice talent). Enjoy!

The Cluck of July

Monkey Fun

2006-06-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

Some work whimsy from yesterday. I love getting paid to do this...

1.

2006-05-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

Went to the Mint to see Jackie Greene last Monday. First time I've seen him live and he was awesome. He's definitely coming into his own as a blues musician. The people at the concert, however, were some of the most eclectic bunch I've ever seen at the same bar. Here's just a sampling of what I remembered and doodled the next day at lunch hour...