I also played a part in creating the section titles and creating the type treatment on the piece titled “Domain”. Click on these thumbnails to check them out!

It is now available at Amazon and through Small Press Distribution. Read the blurb to see what it’s about (my own writing skills are subpar so I won’t even attempt to describe it). Or you can watch this video of coolness:

I’ve been wanting a new tattoo for awhile and was suddenly inspired by this little furry dude. I’ve decided to start a series of tattoo illustrations because they are so much fun to do! I will repaint my “strong girl” one next and make some more.  I really love the coffee wash look.

Sketchbook doodling…

And here it is on my arm! I got it at Let It Bleed by Eric Jones…he’s the best.

Here is the original spacey kitty, Rocko, who is my muse:

I am also sick of my website so I’ll be redoing the whole thing in the near future. I just like to torture myself this way. In the meantime, read this comic! Click on each image then you can zoom in! Enjoy.

During my last trip home, we went through a couple of old family photo albums. It got us thinking about how before digital cameras, we used to take greater care about each shot, and we were pretty much stuck with the photos we took. I also came across a baby book that my mom made for my eldest sister (the oldest child always has the most memorabilia) and it was very endearing – with all these handwritten entries: one page was entitled “Animal Friends”, and my mom, strange as she was, identified each pet as well as the date and cause of death, respectively. One was a chicken, and the cause of death was, apparently, “eaten by cat”. What a hoot!

Anyway, this led me to develop the best of our honeymoon photos through Walgreens so that we would have a tangible way to commemorate our life’s events. (I plan to have a wedding album printed through Blurb as well). It took a lot of self-control not to Photoshop the pictures before having them developed… nevertheless, putting them into a scrapbook (yes, with good old rubber cement – except you can’t get high off of today’s non-toxic rubber cement… boo) helped me exercise my design sensibilities as it forced me to think of new ways to embellish each page. In fact, it actually helped me come up with new ideas!

Anyway, without further ado, here is a drawing, a comic about wedding presents, and my favorite pages of the scrapbook. I did not know how large I could make the images without sacrificing the image quality (yes, I’m a sham! I’m not really a web person) so let me know if it loads too slowly. Enjoy!

Instead of using their Flash thing to embed the book here, I am trying out this Fancy Box. Click on the first thumbnail and it will display like a slideshow…it’s so fancy indeed! I may use this for future comics.

I have not been productive in that department at all. I was too ambitious on my trip home over the holidays as usual, bringing my art materials and all, and it ended up being a non-working vacation. I can’t believe I thought I would even get my taxes done…what a putz!

And no, I did not pass by my “catholic school” to say hello—too dangerous. I am building a website business and trying to catch up with freelance work at the moment so I need to find time to draw some funnies. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this slice of life!

Here is my wedding invitation which I did illustrate and design, however. I do take commissions if you want a fun sort of invitation (no doves or lace, please!).

My dog, Otis, was our ring boy. Here he is all disheveled at the wedding:

He always looks worried. What a party pooper! Anyway, I’m planning on painting some pet portraits of him and my cat, Rocko, so here are some preliminary sketches. I decided on the worrywart one with the beanie and tie. I also thought it would be fun to sketch Brother the bulldog (not mine) but it turns out that with all his folds it was actually pretty difficult to find the proper shapes. Maybe I’m just a lousy artist.

Oh, and you need to check out Chris Ware’s new comic, “Building Stories”! It is just amazing…it comes in a gigantic box that contains several booklets of all shapes and sizes. Very conceptual and if you ask me, brilliant! These fragments of little stories are all connected—they are about the lives of different people who reside in the same apartment building. Kind of reminds me of my building, although the stories wouldn’t be as morose.

Yes, I am such a nerd, I had documented opening my copy of the “book” so you can check it out! Ignore my robin hood look…I was wearing a denim skirt but removed it to get comfy.

From the Left
I spent many hours up at night obsessing over widths, containers, typefaces, php, css and other hair-pulling components that made this property site finally look and behave the way I want it to. This one is coded from scratch for the most part, using an old property site as a base – one that I designed with a former co-worker of mine who is another code lover (thanks, Julia!).

Click on it to see the actual site! It’s really a beautiful property.

From the Right
 My “Tres Marias” painting is actually of my sisters and I. It’s supposed to be 3 panels that go side by side to form one horizontal piece. I took a “paint by numbers” approach and stuck to a 3-color palette and just flat painting. I think this is what works best for me, the frustrated painter.

We were all born with the name “Maria” as a part of our given names because it was required by the Catholic church but we pretty much dropped it when we grew up. Hence, the title.

And yes, I really did have that haircut:

ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT PAINTING
I’ve never been formally trained in painting, which is a big frustration for me. I realized that I should stick to being a flat painter for now. I made this quick piece for my Dad, who pretty much likes any art that I do (yes, my parents are my biggest fans).  I was trying acrylic on wood and used acrylic ink for the outlines…then learned that it actually bleeds into the wood. Oh well!

BLUE SWAMIS POSTER
My friend Joe asked me to design a poster for his amazing band, The Blue Swamis. They play classic rock and blues…my favorite! I had fun with this…if I had more photo options, I wouldn’t have made them all go with the crystal ball’s shape at the bottom. But I do like the cut and paste cheesiness. Anyway, come and see The Blue Swamis at Brisbane’s 23 Club! It’s an interesting bar, with cowboys and dancing girls with tequila…oh wait, that’s me!

SANDWICH BOARDS
Aaah, these were a pain in my butt. I only had these humongous, clumsy “chalk pens” to work with, in 3 colors: lime green, yellow and hot red (plus white). I cursed a lot as they kept running out of ink. I still had fun with it, although I could have done so much more if I had regular chalk to work with.

I was also busy designing my wedding invitation, but I can’t post it yet since it’s still in the mail. Thanks for stopping by!