It Is What It Is Series: The Mandrill Baboon

Baboons aren't obscure or anything but they certainly are weird, so they belong in my new series. Sometimes I think we forget that there are beings out there that resemble us in some way, but then when you get a look at a creature like the Mandrill baboon, you realize that you don't have blue and red ridged noses and the whites of your eyes not black. That is the creepiest bit about them to me. All you see in their eyes is the red iris staring you down. I am pretty sure they are mean, mean. Alma and I say one at a weird little zoo in San Antonio that specialized in reptiles. Through the cage, the male made direct eye contact with me and grunted angrily. It was surreal.

The Madrill Baboon

New at FranklinCovey

I realized that it's March, which means it's spring, which means that maybe some work I've done has been released! Yay! (I realized this after doing some spring clothes shopping. Now I'll just have to wait two more months to even wear these clothes. Maybe we should do another trip to LA right this minute.)

You may remember the pattern that I developed for the FranklinCovey Jean Chatzky bags. In fact, at Alt, I was even photographed by the famous Maggie Mason, showing off my bag. (And my ruffles. I can't get enough ruffles.)

 

(Photo via Mighty Girl.)

Well, I helped to develop new colorways for the spring line this year, and I'm happy to see the bag shape changed up, as well as the pattern size! Looks lovely! Now to choose which one I want to bring with me to BlogHer '10... Any preferences?

 

(The mini tote is on the right, but I'm not sure of the actual size difference, so I'm just guessing here.)

 

I am in love with the yellow interior for this bag. Win!

 

This matches a plum shirt that I bought today.

I'm currently finishing up two exciting projects for FranklinCovey... but you'll have to wait till probably October before you see them. Start getting excited now.

It Is What It Is Series: The Gerenuk

I am doing a new series in preparation for the next Beehive Bazaar, which we have just been informed that we will be a part of again.  I want to have a lot of art for people to choose from us then, a good mix of original and printed works.

   The idea for this series has to do with the fact that I have become fascinated lately with weird animals that are not part of the core group of animals we always see portrayed.  I know, because I portrayed most of them myself in my Animals on White series seen here:

I never thought too much about animals in general until I met Alma.  She really gets a kick out of them, so we take any opportunity we can to go to zoos, or natural history museums.  She inspired the first series, an now she has suggested I do this new series based on a conversation we had recently.  

      So the way I remember it was that I brought up the fact that someday in the future people will likely be asking God: "So what's up with the Platypus? What were you thinking there?"  and then I imagined he would just say: "It is what it is."

     We got a good laugh over that and I said: "You know, that would make a good series for me to do, all the weird, but fascinating creatures."  She loved the idea and the more we talked about it, the more it sounded like a legitimately good idea. The bigger difference with this series is that like the animals themselves, there won't be any style or medium tying them together.  It will be whatever strikes my fancy.  So here is the first one:

The Gerenuk

We just saw these at the L.A. Zoo a couple weeks ago.  The are like a cross between a giraffe and a deer.

I dig it.

You are the Frida to my Diego

This is a piece I did as part of a Valentines Day gift for Alma this year. I have always loved that I get to spend my life with a fellow artist, and I always looked for that quality, much to the chagrin of my family. They thought it was unnecessary and limiting. I saw their point, and I wasn't set on it or anything, but if it happened to work out that way, then all the better. Over the years, I have had a healthy envy of a particular couple of married artists, Cass and Dan Barney. I grew up next door to Cassie, and saw her turn into a great artist herself, being a Christensen and all. Dan is a very talented multi-faceted artist, whom I really respect.

Now that I am in a situation like that, I wanted to celebrate that, so I thought of the most famous artist couple I could: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. They were both very talented and seemed to love each other, despite their problems. I told Alma when I gave her the painting that we are really only like them because we are both artists, and not because I beat her or cheat on her like Diego apparently frequently did. I stand by my belief that you should never judge an artist based on his or her personal life. If you do, 9 times out of 10, you won't like them anymore. So for example, I can still love Gaugin's paintings, but separate his work from the fact that he left his wife and children to become a painter, eventually moving Tahiti, only to spread disease among the locals. Nice.

Anyway, Alma, I love you. I am so lucky to be married to my muse.

{Mike}

Oliver is a Star!

The Mini Art Weekend in LA was a big success. We loved meeting everyone and loved teaching our classes. I have to say again that Making a Pattern is my favorite class to teach, so I'm always just so so happy when I get to teach it!!

Oliver happened to show up at the right moment for Nicole's studio lighting class, so he did a little modeling. I have to say, he did a great job. If you are interested in using Oliver as a model, please contact me. His daily rate is $10K, and the looks he's perfected go way beyond Blue Steel.

If you're interested in participating in the Art Weekend, then you're in luck because we'll be doing a HUGE one in Salt Lake this summer. And it's going to be awesome. Every time Nicole calls me to tell me about a new class we'll be offering, I get more and MORE excited. Details to come soon. And if you're interested in taking one of our classes but you're not in the area, consider our online classes, which are also awesome! Currently, Nicole is teaching Photo 101, Mike is teaching Photoshop 101, and I'm teaching Illustrator 101.

UPDATE:

This Mike writing now. Here is my tribute to Oliver's version of blue steel. I call it......Oliver's Blue Steel. I realize now that I took a photo taken by Nicole Hill Gerulat and turned it into, so NOT her style, but I enjoyed monkeying around with it. So here it is:

Covered Comic Series: Pocket Full of Rain

So, this is my third covered comic cover, you can see it in context here, along with the two others I have done. A while ago, I stumbled upon a Norwegian graphic novelist that just simply goes by the name Jason. I like that, it's like, he is confident enough to go by one name, but it's not even a Norwegian name, so I think that's pretty cool.

Here are his works available through Amazon. I want to read them all. Alma knows this about me, but I love graphic novels, but I don't actually want them to be about anything fantastic meaning fantasy themed, and I don't want them to be about anything heroic. I just want stories about whatever, real life, or cleverness. Random cleverness. I think this is what I could expect from a title like: I Killed Adolf Hitler. I instantly want to read that story. Anyway this is a tribute to him and I haven't read a word he has written. I am sure I will love it. I will order one soon. Maybe someone that I am married to will get me one as a birthday gift coming up soon, who knows?

Anyway, I am going to do work for other sites in the near future. I am also illustrating my memoir in graphic novel style. I am starting way back to the formation of my family name in Surrey, England in the mid 1400s. I will have to share some of it at one point.

Feng Shui?

Okay, Internets. Please help me out here. I'm trying to plan out our office space. Here is how people who use Illustrator do space planning: By measuring everything precisely, and recreating it in Illustrator. It causes less back pain, but also burns fewer calories.

Here are some things to keep in mind as you're helping me out:
--The "inset" door goes into the building. The other door goes outside. The long rectangle on the left is the window.
--Sometimes the fridge and Mike's drawers aren't marked. The fridge is the small square. The drawers are the small rectangle.
--The chair is never marked. It's the trapezoid with a line at the back.
--The "counter" is made up of two folding tables that can get up to counter height. When we're completely settled, I'll be getting a large sheet of plywood cut to the exact dimensions of the counter top. That will create a large work space for Mike and I to work on. Things to consider: I would rather them be side-to-side than end-to-end because this creates an enormous space that we can use that would never be available to us anywhere else. It means that no paper will be too large, no fabric will be too large... basically, it's ideal. But for this to work, 3 of the 4 sides MUST be free. The other option is to do end-to-end, which makes a very LONG counter, but we may encounter problems where we have paper or fabric that is larger than the depth of our work surface.

Options 1 and 2:

Okay. These are pretty much mirror image. For some reason, the image on the right looks better to me than the image on the left. (But right now, the only way I can get internet is by having my desk right where it is in the left image... this may change when I stop stealing internet and pay for my own.)

Options 3 and 4:

I don't think I'm liking option 3... In option 4, I do like how the counter top is what you see first when you come in the office... it almost creates a reception counter? Or not?

Options 5 and 6:

My favorite space by far is 6 (above, right). I would bring another matching chair from home, and buy a low circle coffee table. This creates a nice space to meet with clients. (Which would probably happen rarely.) The "counter" is able to span the entire width of the room (in fact, it's so snug that it's bordering on TOO snug), which I think is really cool, except for the problem mentioned above that this doesn't necessarily create the best work counter since we might work on projects that are deeper than the depth of the counter. However, those situations would probably be as rare as meeting with clients. And I suppose we could always just move the chairs and table and work on the floor in such a situation...

THOUGHTS?? What rules am I breaking here? Am I being bad at flow or balance or whatever?