LIFE

I can barely contain my excitement or sadly, my geekiness. You can now Google archives of LIFE magazine's photographs, all at high res, all shot by master photogs!

You can view all Life's images here, spanning back as far as 1860!

This might be a bit TMI but in high school I developed an obsession with theMicroFilm machine at my local college library. This series, shot by Eisenstaedt has always been one of my favorites. I've only ever seen it at 2x5 inches. Now here it is in all its B&W glory at 1280 x 420 pixels!! Kudos to Google for properly documenting the specs of each artist on every photo.

You can also access the photos from the main page of google by typing "source:life" after your search word.
Case in point:

Merry Christmas/Happy Birthday already!!!

Go forth and conquer little blog stalkers! Oh and come back and let me in on any fabulous find.

Cheesy Goodness

A simple lunch of cheese and toast inspired me to sketch this mousy feast of yum.

I wonder if mice are really instinctively predisposed to like cheese best of all or if we just force this stereotype upon their little scurrying lives.

Open a Can of Party!

Remember the days of obsessive sea horse drawing? Lately they've been replaced by worms and caterpillars. I don't know why. I adore sea horses - not so much on the multiple legged garden friends. I just put pen to paper these days and wormies and centipedes happen. Here are some new faves straight from my morning commute:

Celebrate Now and Celebrate Later!

Bad animator! Bad!

Guess whoooo just went to see Coraline? Imagine this said in the creepiest voice possible. The voice that asks you to guess is not happy, it is not gloating, it is scary and ominous.

Ok, so why am I a bad animator? Well it's this: simply put, I did not do my homework. A good animator always does their homework. I knew negligible bits about Coraline going in. Being more than familiar with Henry Selick I knew I was in for a bit of a scare fest. As I did not want to ruin the experience I chose not to do too much research. Mainly I was intoxicatingly excited by the tactile reality of it. I wanted to savor every bit of stop-motiony goodness without being distracted or knowing too much about the plot. I did not read reviews. I did not read the book. I did not watch previews. I looked at several subway posters and that was that.

*Spoiler Alert:
If I hadn't disregarded all of modern technology, I would have known what I was getting into.
This movie is friggin' scary!!!! I know I said I was prepared for a scare fest, but I thought it would be a child-sized scare fest! Granted, I am more like a five year old than most 27 year olds, but STILL!!! I'll admit I'm a little worried about going to sleep.

I watched it in 3D at the Zigfield (two of my favorite things). There were tons of kids in the audience. The clarity of terror I had made me certain I would never take my kids to watch this film. I'm sure it wouldn't be long before they'd be calling me "other mother" and throwing cats at my face. Worse, they'd be having nightmares and daymares for weeks.

Coraline was perfect Friday the 13th faire. The film itself is gorgeous. It excited the good animator in me. I was treated to ooh and ahh moments. There are several characters in the film that equal shear genius. I felt the movie's main characters were lacking that little something special, but some of the peripheral characters more than made up for a spark. I can't wait to load the musical score onto my pod. The backgrounds were so yummy I wanted to eat them. After spending the last ten minutes on IMDB I now know that I could have. Every cherry blossom was hand-painted popcorn. I like to remind you there here at 'She Sure is Sketchy,' "nerd" is the word.

In the end it was an enjoyable ride, but a terrifying walk home.

I'm sure I'll never look at buttons the same way.

I wanted to give you a sneak peek of some new surface designs I've been playing with. I hope you get to form an opinion about them before you watch Coraline ;)
Happy Friday the 13th!
I hope it scared the pants off you.

Sitting on my Shoulders

My half-hour commute on the F train births some of my most successful character development projects. These angels and devils showed up in my notebook yesterday. The running angel on the bottom left is my favorite.

OK, here's where I pimp/make your life better by sharing one of my
favorite things: Paper Blanks. I'm on my third Paper Blank notebook and don't plan on switching teams anytime soon. Here's a list of the things I love about them and why you should get one A.S.A.P.

• They close with a magnet - how cool is that? This way pages don't fly open and get bent.
• They support the arts with scholarships and grants
• They offer a perfect range of sizes. I have one that fits in a clutch. It saves me at dullsville gallery openings
• They don't scrimp on quality
• They're the perfect sketchbook/notebook because they have lines for writing, but they're light enough to completely disappear when a page is scanned.
• They open flat as a pancake.
• There's a wide selection of covers and styles. They're all so pretty!
• Ooh, they all have that great string-book-mark thingy. (I'm pretty sure that's the technical term.)
• Many of them have pockets in the back!
• They're acid free (of course)
• They're all archival quality and take a variety of mediums remarkably well
  

Come over to the cool kids table and get one soon! They're carried in Barnes and Noble, most museums and the occasional smartly stalked local bookstore. They'll get you drawing/writing/smiling more.

Count Down to V-Day

I've been pulling this together for one of my client's upcoming advertising campaigns. We're in final line work phase. I usually keep this step under wraps, but I wanted to show it to you now, in anticipation of the day of yicky love stuff. This gig reminds me of late night phone calls and stolen conversations with sweet kisses and 'no you hang-up first' banter, which is only lame when you hear about it, but never if you're the one bantering.

This Valentine's Day I hope you have someone to talk to until your face hurts from smiling and if you don't, I hope there's a cupid somewhere in your very near future. xo.

Vignettes

Yay for textbooks with pictures!

Oh Honey, Honey