Sugar Frosted Goodness and a Traveling Sketchbook

I had the sublime opportunity and the heavy obligation of participating in the SFG blank book project a week or so ago. For those of you not in the know, the SFG Blank Book Project is a traveling sketchbook created collaboratively by Jeff Andrews and Steph Doyle .For approximately 500 days, the sketchbook is on the move! The blank sketchbook got its start in Washington D.C. and will slowly meander hither and thither to 50 illustrators around the world. Once the book arrives, each illustrator has 7 days to complete a sketch and send the book on to the next illustrator. The book will reach its final destination approximately mid-December, 2008. What a cool thing, huh?

It was a very hip and happening thing to do, but it was also a stressful pressure cooker. Luckily for artists following me I've eased up their experience by my complete lack of sketch planning. The book is beautiful and while I was only the tenth artist to touch pen to it, it was freaky knowing that every page had been slaved over by such talented people. I pity the artists who get it when it's 3/4 of the way through, talk about a psyche-out. I loved having it but I wasn't sorry to see it go! go! go! go sketchbook go! I cannot wait to see where the next forty artists take it from here. Check out what artists are doing with it and stalk its journey around the world here, at

http://sfgblankbook.blogspot.com/

Below you'll find an honest salute to life in Brooklyn. The sketchbook's theme is "Where I live."

At the top of one of my sketch pages you find a quick rendering outside the Brooklyn Museum of Art as seen in the torrential rain. If you look beneath the museum sketch and to your left you'll see one of my sneakiest and silliest habits. Sometimes I like drawing people the way I imagine they'd look in their underwear while on my daily commute to 23rd street on the F train. Word to the wise, make sure no one catches you cartooning them in their panties, otherwise you'll have a lot to explain. . . On your right, turned kinda topsy is the view from my lovely Brooklyn bedroom. Awww... Brooklyn, I'll love you forever.

Something Cute

Dear lovely blog stalkers, I'm off to London for a week of shopping and museum haunting! Before I go, I wanted to give you this little sneak peek. . . of a new and very exciting project that I'm in development on right now. Above you'll find one of our little ladies. She's a cutie, but this is just a taste of more to come. I'll be sketching up a storm this week to be sure. xo.

Hanna Stamps! Tis the Season Set hits the Market!

I'm loving my freelance work lately. Above you'll find the new Hanna Stamps! 'Tis the Season' set. I loved creating the artwork for this Hanna Stamps! set. I actually like this more than the 'But I need it' shopping set artwork, although at the time I thought that the shopping set was tops. This set goes public today, October 26th, and you can buy it at Kristi Ferro's blog, www.KreationsbyKrissy.com

I'm thrilled to be the Hanna Stamps! artist because it's allowed me to bring two of my talents together. As a character developer and a product designer I couldn't be happier.

Kristi is the greatest client to work for because not only are we friends but she allows me almost complete creative freedom. Very early on she sent me about a million rubber stamps to try to bridge the gap in my knowledge of the medium. That package of stamps influenced my creative process in one very important way. I realised that all I personally wanted to do with stamps was make infinite repeating patterns. I loved stamping an entire sheet of paper by twisting and turning the stamps to make full pages of a repeat. It became really important to me for every set to have one stamp that really lent itself to that process. We call the repeat pattern stamp a 'cluster stamp' and every set has one. In this set the cluster is a smattering of stars and swirls under the mistletoe. Does it make you want to kiss it ?!

It seems like me and Hanna Stamps! are a perfect fit. I can't wait to see what those fab stamping ladies come up with for this set. I was blown away by the cards made with the last set and I simply cannot wait to see where they take the artwork this time around!

P.S. If you love this set. . . . you're going to go nuts for the next one! It's my favorite! Haha.

Mexico Rocks

This is some new fun stuff from my latest project at my job-job. I really love the way this film turned out. Below are some of my favorite frame grabs from the whole movie. This one took forever, but it sure was fun. These aren't sketchy in the least, but it's been a long time since I've been able to get anything up, mainly because my life is consumed by freelance as of late, a nice and warm feeling :)

I'm slightly suspicious of this particular assignment, could it be that once again I'm being judged for my non-mexican-i-ness? I think perhaps it could! Why did I recieve this project over the other people in my department? Perhaps is it because they want me to connect to my roots? You will be happy to know that I learned a ton of stuff about Mexico this time around. For instance, do you know that Mexico is under the United States?! Get out! I'm actually joking about that one. However, I was disgusted by the responses I got when polling a group of third graders this past week. I kind of felt that we didn't need this shot above and that it would be more than ok to cut it. I mean, who doesn't know where Mexico is, right? My boss argued the fact that most kids DO not know where America is in the grand scheme of things, let alone where Mexico is in relation to the nation. I called her bluff and asked a posse of third graders on their way to a field trip on my morning commute. Out of the twenty-eight kids I polled on the subway platform only six knew that Mexico was beneath the United States, four of those kids were actually FROM Mexico. The most popular answers were "In Africa" and the winning, "In Spain." Needless to say, the shot stayed put. Sick, sick, sick. . .

Below we have a close up so that we can explain the compass rose to the kids and get them to start thinking about direction. This is our first movie where we really start to explain the concept of a map.

Do you know that Mexico has thirty-one states? I did not. I REALLY did not, not jokingly did not. I'm embarrassed to admit, I didn't even know that Mexico had states, I was under the loose impression that Mexico was made up of territories, herein lies one of the many gaps in the knowledge of my cultural heritage. . . .

Mexico is also made up of many different types of land mass, namely mountains, deserts, rainforests and beaches. Hum. . . yeah didn't know that either. It was my belief that Mexico was manly dirt, dirt and hot water. This stems from the root of most of my Mexican knowledge, oddly enough passed down from my mother, the gringo, and centering on the movie "The Three Amigos."

Yes, there are also Mexican volcanos. Unfortunately, (or fortunately for Mexico's sake) they are not the dramatic, fiery and spectacular volcanos like those you would find in Hawaii. I was very enthusiastic about including the volcanos as I read about them in the script. I did a complete storybord illustrating the dramatic scene with hot fiery lava and red blood firework like explosions. I was berated for my lack of Mexican knowledge and then forced to research them, upon which I found something akin to the illustration below. Now I am fully knowledgable of volcanos, dormant and otherwise in Mexico.

Below you'll find some shots of Tenochitilan, the ancient Aztec civilization that existed where modern day Mexico City now rests. Aha! Something I know about! I wasn't aware of the actual name of the city but I knew all about it, thanks to one crazy summer in middle school where my mom took it upon herself to continue our education by building her own little Aztec city in our livingroom. We learned all about Aztecs that summer, about their forms of government, their bartering system, their war rituals and their beliefs. Go mom! We even earned beans that summer in lieu of an allowence which, come to think of it, might have been the real reason for the Aztec summer school. . . .

Most people know me know about my sun worshipping tendancies. They know that my company logo on my website is actually the scientific shorthand for the sun and that I wear a gold sun around my neck more often than not. My obsession is part of what made my rendition of an ancient Aztec sun dial so fun, that and the fact that Aztecs knew how to make one wicked set of scuptures. This is my favorite thing I've ever had to do for my job and I've included a few close-ups. I like the women facing eachother best, but my coworkers like the monsters around the center.

We talk all about turquoise, which made for some fun research and a bit of retail therapy (oops.)

This illustrates a basketball-like Aztec sport with a horizontal ring and the same relative rules as soccer, except if you lost you were sacrificed in a bath of blood. We left that last fact out for the kiddies.

These final illustrations are all about Dios De Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. My coworker did the background for a different project about migration and I stole it to put my dancing dead skeletons on. It's beautiful isn't it? The dancing skeletons were a blast to animate. My next movie is about Reading Maps in honor of National Geography day, so it looks like the memory of this fantastically fun movie that actually taught me a bit about my origins will have to last me a while. National Geography Day, sheesh, how many national days do we need?! Boo.

You Know You Want It.

Today's the day! Last night at 12am EST. the project I've been working on for the last few months went public! So I can FINALLY share what's been going on! Man, this secret has been hard to keep. I am the exclusive artist for Hanna Stamps! My new creations can now be bought at www.HannaStamps.com !!! Kristi Ferro and I have been working together to create Kristi's new rubber stamp company. She's done a dream at promoting and pimping and now they're out there for all the world to see. There has been such a frenzy for their actual release, I was afraid people were going to start banging down doors.

I've learned a lot about stampers in the last couple of months, they're a whole breed unto themselves. My mom says it's like Nascar for women. Ha. She's just about right. These women are so talented. It's such a strange experience to see artwork created with rubber stamps I've designed. They're using my art to create new art. It's like collaborating with dozens of artists and wow, is it fun to see what they come up with! More than anything I'm amazed at the versatility. These stamping ladies are doing things with Hanna Stamps! that I would never even think to do, and they're doing them beautifully. It's such fun to see what they'll come up with next! The links below will take you to their frantically fantastic cards. You'll be shocked at their sublime talent. I know I was :)
http://splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?si=hanna+stamps&limit=&x=10&y=7

You can read all about Hanna Stamps! at Kristi Ferro's Kreations, right here:
http://www.kreationsbykrissy.com/

I'm so excited! Go Hanna Stamps! Go!

Surtex or bust!

For the last few weeks I've been afraid my life might be on a turn down to 'a slightly better life than the average 25 year old' phase. In a very exciting turn of events - my life has just become more fabulous then it already was!

It's official, I'll be showing at Surtex 2008 at Manhattan's Javitz center!!

I'll be in booth 405** and the design frenzy starts today. . .

It's my goal to have 5 designs a week to add to my portfolio while I'm redesigning my website. I've decided to keep a Surtex folder on my desktop to upload five new designs to every Thursday night. I've promised myself I won't sleep on Thursdays until there's a new batch in there. Most of the designs have to have a 'top secret' air to them, but I think it will be fun to document my journey by posting at least one inspirational object or sketch that's fueling my week's stockpile.

As some of you know, I get fan mail from kids ages 5-10 at my job. As an artist the personal letters we get from the babes really help to fuel the projects I work on. My favorite is tacked next to my lightbox in my studio and it simply reads:

Hay people,

You better Draw mor pictchers in 3. . . 2. . . 1. . . NOWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!S

Your friend,

Alex P.

I feel like it was written especially for this grand occasion.

**Hi Everyone! There's been a change of plans. This year I'll be calling Surtex Booth #2518 "Home." Booth 2518 is in Hall 1E. Stop by for a temporary tattoo and a smile :)**

SpinPin - Spin Away

I designed this pattern for one of my new favorite clients to licence . It's entitled 'SpinPin.' It has been growing on me in a very steady way for the last few days. Now I am ready to marry it. I thought the bunch of you would get a kick out of it. If you don't love it now, wait a couple of days.

Behold, My inspiration! I found this picture online and it fueled me.

This photo helped me pull back a bit. At first strike my color story for this was too dark, but it's always hard to realize that's the problem. I just new it wasn't working. When I found this I knew that I really liked the way the blue interacted with the purplish. I thought it'd be nice to post a bit of my thought process, since this 'SpinPin' pattern actually had a thought process :)

Most times it's hard to track the thought process for my work and explain it to other people. Most often it's just me in Gus-Gus mode. There's a lot of that "Ooooh . . . Beads!! Pretty beads! Pretty beads for Cinderelly," in me. That's the stuff that's better thrown into my art and not into my writing. *wink.

Tomorrow I'm going to the Beach!

Happy Labor Day!

Girls With Pens Development Drawings

I've never posted nude sketches on my blog because very early on I received a few choice emails from parents who told me that my blog was big with their 5-10 year olds. Those letters greatly influence my decision to never post any of my life drawing work here for your innocent peeps.

These little nudie cuties are just too sweet an innocent to offend anyone. After a lot of thought I've decided to show them off. This is a big day, a day for a little skin ;)

The Alchemist

Jenny and I spent the day at Coney Island. It was a lovely day for hot dogs and sand and good times. We copped a squat next to a little girl who made me giggle with glee. She' is immortalised in my Moleskin in two dozen little sketches, the ones above are my choice pics. These were done with a ball point pen and a carefully rationed prismacolor marker. I love a prisma when it gets down to its last days of glory, somehow that's always when it does its best work.